My Pride, My Joy (cont 2)

Maybe if I had been accused of copying I could have bitten my pride and turned the other cheek. But "coppying"? The American rebel in me woke up.

"Madame," I said, firmly but calmly, "I did not copy from anyone."

"No, you copied from a book."

I don't know if I was furious or flattered. "English is my language," I said. "Writing is what I do for fun."

"If that is true, why did you miss so many of the comprehension questions?"

I looked at the section, and sure enough I had missed several. They were questions that asked you to replace a word with another word. My answers, I could see were rather unconventional. In Ghana, unconventional is incorrect.

"Madame," I said. "I don't care about the mark. I just want you to beleive that I didn't cheat. Accusing someone of cheating in my country is like calling them a liar and a thief."

"I believe you. I thought it was one of theirs." she looked around at my classmates.