On a Second-Hand Copy of Animal Farm

          -DIMITER KENAROV

Julia Malta-Weingard, a student in Ms. Knop’s 6th grade class, marked her Signet Classic copy of Animal Farm in fluorescent pink. In the margins she burst into laughter with funny and ha-ha, or diligently puckered her nose into gross and weird. When she came to the sentence, “Our labour tills the soil, our dung fertilizes it, and yet there is not one of us that owns more than his bare skin,” her script shivered: scary. How sad she thought when old Major, the boar, died in his sleep. Julia Malta-Weingard was a good student. “Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers.” And sisters, she added. Then qualified “lie” in, “It is all lies,” as cold word. She didn’t quite understand what shirk and cryptic meant, but was curious to know How did they do it? when the animals hoisted up their flag. An idea appeared on the fifth page: They are acting like humans. And she was right. Perhaps, she learned by heart the anthem of the animals, “Beasts of England,” which she lovingly underlined. “Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland, / Beasts of every land and clime.” Did she sing it under her breath on the way home? Did she take aside her golden retriever to whisper in his ear, “Bluebell, you’re not going to chase me out of my house, are you?” Why didn’t she read the whole book? What was the name of the loser who scrawled under her name looser, looser, looser, looser, looser, looser, looser? Who was Julia Malta-Weingard?