High Bar

The teacher had given the directions. 

"It's simple," she assured her students. "You know that one of the five requirements for a sentence is that it starts with a capital letter, so you just need to correct the first letter of these sentences," she pointed to the worksheet, "and then write them on the line below."

After asking if there were any questions or concerns, she moved to the focus group table and called a student over to work. The rest of the class settled into their task, and it wasn't long before a little girl slipped her paper into the green basket next to where I was sitting. "Can I see that?" I asked.

She shrugged and walked away, and I plucked the worksheet out of the bin and flipped it over. It appeared to be blank, except for her name.

As she bustled about her desk, pulling out her device and preparing to do the next task, I caught her eye and waved. "C'mere," I mouthed, pointing at the paper. 

She sighed and reluctantly returned.

"You were supposed to do this!" I said in mock surprise.

She pointed to lightly scrawled pencil marks at the beginning of each sentence. 

"Are these the capital letters?" I asked.

She nodded.

"You were supposed to write the sentence, with the capital letter, on this line,"  I pointed.

She took the worksheet from my hand and put it back in the basket.

"You're probably going to have to do it again!" I whispered.

She shrugged and returned to her seat.

Meanwhile, our quiet conversation had caught the kids at the nearest table's attention.

"What the heck?!" said one to the other with a look of utter disbelief on his face.

"She said it was easy," his friend shook his head, "but it's impossible!"