Summary

In the first section of “It’s That It Hurts,” the Narrator has been expelled from school. He continues to say that perhaps it’s a mistake and he hasn’t really been expelled, but that he knows it’s true and he has been. He hates the idea of getting home where he’ll have to tell his parents. The boy says he arrives at school and is told to completely undress in front of the school nurse. He complies and she apparently examines him thoroughly. She then checks his hair for lice and smears something that smells of bug killer all over his head. He is then sent into the classroom where he is seated apart from the other students. He is subjected to stares and the other students are obviously disdainful of the Narrator. When he goes to...