My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie It wasn't as though she disliked thumbtacks. It was just that whenever she used them - plain ones, colored ones, strangely floral-patterned ones that she could find in large craft stores - it reminded her of her fifth grade teacher, poking at her with a spare tack from the wall. She hadn't been poked hard, and only once had the teacher drawn blood. That was when the principal was called in, and the teacher fired. Somehow, Donna always blamed herself for that happening. She seemed to remember the teacher as being a good one who made the class laugh and gave out candy right before they had to take arithmetic tests. The thumbtacks were just there as a disciplinary measure. Now, as she prepared her classroom for the next gang of third graders who were ready to ignore times tables and bully each other over who could get the four square ball first, Donna found herself using thumbtacks more than ever. And somehow, as the thin metal slipped through the cardb

Hanksmith's indecision would prove costly, as the industrial revolution would move along without him, dangling on the thread of entrepreneurship as he continued to ponder over how he could improve his automobile ideas. Soon, many others, more apt-minded and even more assertive than he could ever be, came out with plenty of horseless carriages, and he was stranded in the dust created by the tires as they screeched out a farewell.