The Miracle of the Thumbtack The bricks sit heavily atop each other. The desks form rows, with chairs set beneath. The carpet’s outspread in a smother of green- that of broccoli, over-boiled. The view’s even glummer: a quadrangle walled with unpatterned concrete. Eight twenty-five: the school year’s final headcount is called. Seated, I wait for my class to arrive. “Come inside and sit down,” I repeat, addressing the war-thinned regiment who’ve bothered coming at all today. Stern of expression, I try to defeat any mutinous notion of games or play. The class bustles in: five students; all boys. Averting my…