He stood at the edge of the desk playing with part of a broken pencil, picking at the frayed end.

He started, looked at his broken pencil in vague surprise, and traded it off for a sharp one.

He was holding the broken pencil in his hand, ready to write, when she touched his wrist lightly, tentatively.

He licked the end of a broken pencil.

The hallways are littered with notebooks, papers, broken pencils and backpacks that are too bulky to fit into the school's narrow, outdated lockers.

(The museum has moved that enormous broken pencil out into the garden, where it will harm fewer people when it topples over, modernly.)

A comb, a piece of chalk, a broken pencil, one ten-centavo piece, one five.

He was waving his arms, the broken pencil knotted up in one fist.

He picked the broken pencil off the floor and inserted it in a.pencil sharpener and started turning the handle.

Also, the first year can seem more pointless than a broken pencil.