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                         THE FUN THEY HAD - 2                                
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   "School."                                                                 
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   Margie was scornful. "School? What's there to write about school? I hate  
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school." Margie always hated school, but now she hated it more than ever. The
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mechanical teacher had been giving her test after test in geography and she  
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had been doing worse and worse until her mother had shaken her head          
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sorrowfully and sent for the County Inspector.                               
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   He was a round little man with a red face and a whole box of tools with   
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dials and wires. He smiled at her and gave her an apple, then took the       
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teacher apart. Margie had hoped he wouldn't know how to put it back again,   
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but he knew how all right and, after an hour or so, there it was again, large
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and black and ugly with a big screen on which all the lessons were shown and 
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the questions were asked. That wasn't so bad. The part she hated most was the
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slot where she had to put homework and test papers. She always had to write  
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them out in a punch code they made her learn when she was six years old, and 
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the mechanical teacher calculated the mark in no time.                       
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   The inspector had smiled after he was finished and patted her head. He    
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said to her mother, "It's not the little girl's fault, Mrs. Jones. I think   
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the geography sector was geared a little too quick. Those things happen      
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sometimes."                                                                  
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