While my special classes in Sets and Hoppy for Susan, Alven, and Mitzi were in progress, I became aware of Lizzie spying on us, but thought it would end there.

No. Lizzie brought her mother to complain that her brilliant daughter had been left out of this Special Class.

Lizzie and her brother (in a higher grade) were infamous for interrupting class with a recitation about the British Textile Industry or Aborines of Australia (passages memorized from an encyclopedia), which had nothing to do with their classwork.

To keep the peace, I brought in another workbook for Lizzie to begin.

But the work would have interrupted her talking. Cautioning, I said that all three students had completed that first workbook in four days.

"Oh, well, that's because they didn't have my Kindergarten teacher. She was awful and gave me a bad start!"

After a few more days of this, I casually mentioned that the other three had, at this point, finished the second workbook, while Lizzie was only half-way through the first workbook.

"Oh, well, that's because they didn't have my First Grade teacher. She gave me a trammal!"

But it continued. Yackety-yackety-yack! So, I tried again, only to have Lizzie complain that I was expecting too much of her.

"Lizzie, Chris did all three workbooks when he was 5." Lizzie's eyes blazed as she threw the workbook on the floor: "Oh, shut up!