In her letter to her sister Anita, Miss Narwin mentions Philip Molloy and his disruptive behavior in class. She starts by saying that she's convinced that there's something in his private life that's deeply troubling to him. It says a lot about Miss Narwin that she assumes that Philip's bad behavior is due to problems in his life rather than his simply being a serial trouble-maker.

Whatever the reason behind Philip's behavior, however, Miss Narwin had no choice but to send him out of class twice that week for being disruptive and disrespectful. Nonetheless, Miss Narwin still doesn't think that suspending disruptive students like Philip is the right way to handle them. As she told Joe Palleni, the assistant principal, it's something she doesn't think is productive.

Somewhat surprisingly in view of everything that's happened, Miss Narwin tells her sister that Philip is actually a nice boy. This makes her feel especially bad about the whole situation. Losing a student always make her feel bad, but if it's a "nice boy" like Philip that makes it even worse. In any case, Miss Narwin tells her sister that when Philip returns to school she's going to sit down with him and have a heart-to-heart talk.