It was a moral lesson on Tuesday afternoon. Jodie hadn't really heard anything, maybe a whisper (低语), but when she turned around, the girls in the back row of the class were looking at her, trying to hide smiles. Mr Smith was talking about people's jobs. He also wanted to find out what his students wanted to do when they grew up. He called on Billy Mitzer first.
''My daddy works in a bank,'' Billy Mitzer said. ''I want to work in a bank too. There's lots of money in the bank.'' ''My parents have a grocery store,'' Emmy Disalvo said. ''But I want to be an airline pilot.''
Jodie liked it when Mr. Smith asked them questions like this. Mr. Smith was about to call on Jodie when the girls in the back row started laughing. Shirley Danes shouted, ''Jodie's daddy is a garbage man!''
Everybody in the class laughed out loud except Jodie. She felt embarrassed and her face turned bright red. She looked around the whole classroom. Everyone was laughing. Some kids were even holding their noses.
Mr Smith was angry. He seldom raised his voice, but at that time he did. ''Silence! I want everybody to be quiet,'' he shouted. The laughter stopped immediately. The sound of cars and people going by on the street came through the windows. ''You should feel sorry for yourselves,'' Mr Smith said. ''Being a garbage man is a difficult and greatly useful job. We should be grateful to Jodie's father. Where would we be without him?''
A few kids started laughing again. ''It's not funny,'' Mr Smith went on. ''Garbage is a serious matter. I think you all should say sorry to Jodie. And after that, you're all going to write Jodie's father a nice letter to tell him how much you appreciate what he does for all of us—in other words, keeping our city clean.''
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Everyone did as Mr Smith asked them to.
……
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Jodie started crying out.
……
