David James Duncan Quote

He reminded me of a kid in my first-grade class, Mikey. Mikey used to talk about his pencil at Show’n’Tell. It was a fat green pencil with the school’s name and district number stenciled on it. Every kid in the class had an identical pencil. But that didn’t stop Mikey. He would hold it up for us to see, read the stenciled name and number to us, tell us it was a gift from his grandma, or his dad, or his uncle, tell us how green it was, and how fat, tell us how we must be sure to turn the dial on the pencil sharpener to the very biggest hole before attempting to sharpen such a pencil, point out to those who’d just joined us that yes it was a pencil, and yes wasn’t it a fat one, and wasn’t it green, and he’d show it and tell it and tell it and show it till children of frailer constitution started passing out from ennui and the teacher would have to carry him by his belt, telling all the way, to his desk.