Instructions

Still, they could not hate Miss Snell because she was sometimes nice in an awkward way of her own. "Do you know," she said, "when school began this year you were all strangers to me, but I wanted very much to learn your names and remember your faces, and so I made the effort. It was confusing at first, but before long I'd made friends with all of you. Because you can't very well have fun with a stranger, can you?" She gave them a homely, shy smile. When she said something like that it was more embarrassing than anything else, but it did leave the children with a certain vague sense of responsibility towards her, and often prompted them into defending her when children from other classes demanded to know how bad she really was. "Well, not too bad," they would say uncomfortably, and try to change the subject.
John Gerhardt and Howard White usually walked home from school together, and often they were joined by two of the children from Mrs. Cleary's class who lived in their street - Freddy Taylor and his twin sister Grace.
Guess what we're gonna do next week," Freddy said in his chirping voice one afternoon. "Our whole class, I mean. Guess. Come on, guess."
But Freddy didn't wait long for an answer. "Mrs Cleary says we're gonna go to the Museum of Natural History and a whole lotta other places. Too bad you're not in Mrs. Cleary's class."
"Doesn't bother me," John Gerhardt said. "I can go to those places any day, if I feel like it, and I don't need any Mrs Cleary to take me." Then he came up with a direct quotation from his father that seemed appropriate: "Anyway. I don’t' go to school to fool around. I go to school to work. Come on, Howard."
Towards the end of autumn, the long preparations for Christmas began. Every day the halls and classrooms became more thickly decorated with Christmas trimmings, but Miss Snell's class felt anxious because her room was unchanged. They noticed there was no decoration except for the grubby red letters spelling "Merry Christmas" over the blackboard. Finally, it was the last week before the Christmas holiday and still there was no sign of a party.
"You gonna have a party in your class?" Freddy Taylor inquired one day.
"Sure, prob'ly," John Gerhardt said, though in fact he wasn't sure at all. Miss Snell had said or hinted nothing whatever about a Christmas party.
"Miss Snell tell ya you're gonna have one, or what?" Grace asked.
"Well, she didn't exactly tell us either," John Gerhardt said nervously. Howard White walked along without a word, looking at the ground and scuffing his shoes in embarrassment.
"Mrs. Cleary didn’t tell us either," Grace said, "because it's supposed to be a surprise, but we know we're gonna have one. Some of the kids who had her last year said so. They said she always has this big party on the last day, with a tree and things to eat. You gonna have all that?
"Oh, I Don't know," John Gerhardt said, trying to sound convincing. "Sure, prob'ly." But later, when the twins were gone, he got a little worried. "Hey, Howard," he said, "you think she is gonna have a party, or what?"
"Search me," Howard White said, with a careful shrug. But he was uneasy about it too, and so was the rest of the class. As the end of term drew nearer, it seemed less and less likely to them that Miss Snell was planning a party of any kind. It rained on the last day of school. The morning went by like any other morning, and after lunch, like any other rainy day, the corridors were packed with chattering children in raincoats, milling around and waiting for afternoon classes to begin. Miss Snell's class pressed self-consciously against the corridor wall, mostly silent, hands in their pockets. A second later, Miss Snell's door opened, and the first thing they saw was that on her desk lay a neat little pile of red-and-white wrapped packages. The gifts were all wrapped alike, in white tissue paper with red ribbon, and the few whose individual shapes John Gerhardt could make out looked like they might be toy soldiers. Maybe it would be toy soldiers for the boys, he thought and little miniature dolls for the girls. But that would be good enough - something to prove she was human after all, to pull out of a pocket and casually display to the Taylor twins, saying, "She gave us these little presents. Look." The little pile of gifts made everything all right. The children had only to look at them to know that there was nothing to be embarrassed about, after all. Miss Snell had turned out all right in the end.