Arithmetic she found easy, but when called upon to demonstrate toper skill verbally she could not remember how many two and two made. Reading was the entrance into a world so fascinating she couldn't get enough of it; but when Sister Agatha made her stand to read a passage out loud, she could hardly pronounce "cat," let alone "miaow." It seemed to her that she was forever quivering under Sister Agatha's sarcastic comments or flushing bright red because the rest of the class was laughing at her. For it was always her slate Sister Agatha held up to sneer at, always her laboriously written sheets of paper Sister Agatha used to demonstrate the ugliness of untidy work. Some of the richer children were lucky enough to possess erasers, but Meggie's only eraser was the tip of her finger, which she licked and rubbed over her nervous mistakes until the writing smudged and the paper came away in miniature sausages. It made holes and was strictly forbidden, but she was desperate enough to do anything to avoid Sister Agatha's strictures.

  Until her advent Stuart had been the chief target of Sister Agatha's cane and venom. However, Meggie was a much better target, for Stuart's wistful tranquility and almost saintlike aloofness were hard nuts to crack, even for Sister Agatha. On the other hand, Meggie trembled and went as red as a beet, for all she tried so manfully to adhere to the Cleary line of behavior as defined by Frank. Stuart pitied Meggie deeply and tried to make  it easier for her by deliberately sidetracking the nun's anger onto his own head. She saw through his ploys immediately, angered afresh to see the Cleary clannishness as much in evidence with the girl as it had always been among the boys. Had anyone questioned her as to exactly why she had such a down on the Clearys, she would not have been able to answer. But for an old nun as embittered by the course her life had taken as Sister Agatha, a proud and touchy family like the Clearys was not easy to swallow. Meggie's worst sin was being left-handed. When she gingerly picked up her slate pencil to embark on her first writing lesson, Sister Agatha descended on her like Caesar on the Gauls.

"Meghan Cleary, put that pencil down!" she thundered. Thus began a battle royal. Meggie was incurably and hopelessly left-handed. When Sister Agatha forcibly bent the fingers of Meggie's right hand correctly around the pencil and poised it above the slate, Meggie sat there with her head reeling