This chapter describes some of the many struggles Torey faced when dealing with Tomaso. She basically lists all of the things he did in order to try and drive the teacher crazy. One of the things that stood out to me was the fact that he actually affected some things she did with the words he said. Tomaso would always tell Torey how bad her breath smelled, and for this reason she started brushing her teeth all the time, bringing mouthwash to school, and covering her mouth when talking to people. She finally realized much later that Tomaso said this to a lot of adults, and that she had probably been worrying for nothing.
The only person who seemed to be making some sort of connection with Tomaso was Lori. Torey attributed this to the fact that Lori had been open with Tomaso about her experiences, plus she did not show fear around him like most other children had in his past. Tomaso actually talked to Lori without using too vulgar of language, and was interested in what she had to say.
Torey eventually grew to love Tomaso and feel like she was lucky to have him. She said something at the end of the chapter that I thought was really interesting. It was, "I loved Tomaso's scandalous approach to life, his outrageous ability to hang on in a world that had been anything but kind to him, and indeed even to extract a few laughs from it....In the beginning I had thought only anger lived there, but I had grown to know fear was really the master and anger only the slave." (pg 89). It is amazing to hear how the author is able to open her arms and really accept anyone that comes into her unique little classroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment