The Year of Billy Miller Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary

  • It's finally time to meet Ms. Silver. She's a blond lady who wears her hair up in a bun with red chopsticks, and she seems pretty organized since she's got nametags already out for her students to find their seats.
  • Our guy Billy doesn't even look for his nametag and just sits next to Ned. Well the owner of his seat turns out to be a bossy girl named Emma Sparks and she's not about to have her seat taken, so she makes Billy move to his assigned seat and that's that.
  • Oh—and when Emma introduces herself there's a wee bit of a misunderstanding. You see, she says that her nickname is "Emster" but Billy thinks she says "Hamster." And you can bet that causes some giggles in this second grade classroom.
  • When it's time for everyone to introduce themselves, Emma goes for a little payback. Billy tells the class his name and that he's a second-grader, and Emma thinks that factoid is just about the most uncreative thing ever. So she tells Billy that he's dumb and she doesn't let it go. The whole thing ticks Billy off so much that he mocks Emma by holding up red markers as if they're devil horns.
  • Okay, now this is when things get complicated. Remember those red chopsticks in Ms. S's hair? Well when Ms. Silver sees Billy with the markers and touches her own chopsticks, Billy realizes that he made it seem like he was making fun of his teacher. Oh no…