"It's a writing worksheet," Jason said. "You're supposed to make letters on the lines that look just like the ones they've made."
Baartock looked at the papers, then opened his box and got out his crayons.
"No, you're supposed to use your pencil," Jason said, seeing what Baartock was holding.
Baartock looked around and saw than none of them were using crayons. He had wanted to make colored marks, but they were all using long yellow sticks instead. He hadn't used one of those before. He put away his box of crayons, and got out his yellow stick. He tried to use his the way all the children were, but it wouldn't make any marks on the paper. The girl sitting across the table started giggling. She had been watching him.
"You have to sharpen it," she said. "The pencil sharpener is on Mrs. Stogbuchner's desk."
Baartock got up and walked up to the desk. He looked all over the desk, but he didn't see anything to sharpen the stick with. There wasn't a knife, or any kind of blade. Mississtog-Buchner was helping a girl at one table and Mississpangel was helping a boy in the back of the classroom. He just stood there looking at the desk and waited.
"Yes, Baartock, what do you need?" Mrs. Stogbuchner had finished with the girl and saw him just standing at her desk. Baartock wasn't sure just what to say, so he held up the pencil instead.
"Do you need some help with the pencil sharpener?" she asked. Several children in the front of the class started snickering. "All right, get back to your work," she said to them as she came over to help him.
"This is the pencil sharpener," she said, and taking the pencil from his hand, "and this is how to use it." She put the pencil in a hole in a little box and started working the little crank on the side. She pulled the pencil out of the box, and it had a point. "That's how you do it. You don't want to sharpen it too much, or you'd grind it all away. Is that all you need?"
Baartock nodded and took the pencil from her and went back to his seat. The pencil now made marks on the paper, but they weren't pretty, like the marks the crayons made. Just little black lines. He looked over at Jason. He had already done two pages and was just starting on the third. The girl across the table was still working on the second page. Baartock hurried to catch up. The marks weren't hard to make. Some of them were very like the ones his mother had shown him.