"This unit," she said, "is about doing the right thing when the right thing is difficult. We're going to read some stories about people who were in situations that required a decision — situations they didn't choose and weren't prepared for. We're going to think about what those people did and what it cost them and why they did it anyway." She looked at the class — thirty-two faces, attending. "I want to start with a question. Not for homework. Just now, just thinking. The question is this: what's the difference between being brave because you're not afraid, and being brave because you're afraid and you do the thing anyway?"
A silence. The thinking silence, the kind that was distinct from the no-answer silence. Then, from the third row:
"The second one is harder," Asha said.
"Yes," Priya said. "Why is it harder?"
"Because you have to make yourself," Asha said. "The first kind just happens. The second kind — you have to decide."
Priya looked at her. She looked at the class. She thought about the water crossing — about thirty-two decisions, one after another, each child at the edge of cold fast water on a mountain road making the choice to take the rope and go. She thought about Ritu walking straight up the slope without looking back. She thought about Vikram at the anchor point, his hand extended, not letting go.
"Yes," she said. "That's exactly it." She turned to the board and wrote, under the unit title: Courage is a decision, not a feeling. "That's where we start. Take out your notebooks."
Thirty-two notebooks opened. Thirty-two pens touched thirty-two pages. Outside the classroom window, the Kedarpur valley was in the ordinary rain of an ordinary August Thursday, the mountains doing what mountains did — being enormous and indifferent and beautiful, the river in the gorge far below running at its normal August level, the road clear and passable and going where it went.
Inside the classroom, a teacher and her class began their second day. The lesson plan said thirty minutes of discussion and then a reading. They were going to have a very good discussion before the reading. She could already tell.
