Kindergarten
By Nor of Kiamo Ko
September 3, 1951
"Just one more picture, honey, and then we'll go in, okay?"
The round, excited little girl standing in front of the door of Room Three huffed impatiently. "Mommy, you've already taken a bazillion pictures! Can we please go in?"
"Well… all right," the girl's mother sighed, tucking the unused flash cube back into her purse. "But remember, you have to be…"
"On my best behavior," the little girl recited. "That means no talking, no running, and no…" She screwed up her face, trying to remember the last requirement.
"Fidgeting."
The girl nodded. "Right." Smiling hopefully, she asked, "Now can we go in?"
Her mother opened the door, chuckling as the little girl started to run in and immediately slowed to a brisk walk.
It's even better than I thought it would be, Tracy thought in awe. She looked around, simply amazed by everything in the room: stacks of coloring books on the shelves, a little toy kitchen in the corner, with pots and pans and fake food and everything, and, best of all, a big window with a view of the hugest sandbox she'd ever seen.
Suddenly, Tracy felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up and saw a tall lady with red hair and glasses smiling down at her. "Well, hello," the lady said. "What's your name, sweetie?"
"This is Tracy." Tracy's mother patted her on the head and shook the lady's hand. "I'm Edna Turnblad, her mother."
"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Turnblad." The lady turned back to Tracy and got down on her eye level, so that they were face-to-face. "And it's nice to meet you, too, Tracy! My name is Miss Pruitt. Why don't you go put your things down in a cubby, and then I'll show you to your desk."
"Yes, ma'am." Tracy grinned and skipped off to the rows of boxes on the wall, carefully choosing a cubby that would be easy to reach at the end of the day. When her backpack was neatly arranged in the little hole, she skipped back to the front of the room, where Miss Pruitt and her mommy were still talking.
"Well, I left my iron on, so I guess I'd better be going." Mrs. Turnblad leaned down and gave Tracy a hug. "I'll see you later, honey."
"Okay!" Tracy hugged back for a second, and then let go. "Bye!"
As her mother left the classroom, Miss Pruitt smiled again and took Tracy's hand. "Okay, sweetie, this is your desk right here, next to Penny and Isaac." Tracy sat down between a pale boy with glasses and a little redheaded girl who was clutching a blanket over her nose and mouth.
Tracy turned around and beamed at the little redheaded girl. "Hi!"
The girl moved the blanket over a little. "Hi."
"I'm Tracy. What's your name?"
"Penny."
"Do you wanna go play in the sandbox with me later?"
"Okay." And, with that, Penny moved the blanket back over her mouth. Tracy shrugged and turned to look at the teacher, who was writing a bunch of letters all over the board.
"All right, class, today we're going to learn a new song…"
A couple of hours and twenty-two renditions of the alphabet song later, it was finally time for recess. Tracy skipped out with the other children, singing "A, B, C, D, E, F, G," over and over again, making up a little dance to it as she went along. When she turned around halfway to the playground and realized that Penny was walking slowly out of the classroom, she danced in place for a little bit to let her catch up.
I don't think Isaac's coming to recess at all, she thought, watching the skinny boy follow the teacher around as he bombarded her with questions.
"Can you talk if you don't have a brain?"
"Isaac, your mind is just full of little question marks, isn't it?" asked Miss Pruitt.
"Who invented the question mark?"
Miss Pruitt groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Miss Pruitt doesn't look very happy." Tracy happily noticed that Penny had caught up with her.
"I don't blame her. That's probably Isaac's fifty bajillionth question this morning."
Penny moved the blanket over again. "I thought it was his thirtieth."
"Well, those big numbers are all the same," Tracy shrugged.
"I guess. Do you still wanna go play in the sandbox?"
"Yeah!" The two girls ran over to the sandbox and immediately sat down, claiming their pails and shovels. In a few minutes, both had a slightly crumbly structure sitting in front of them.
"I'm building Cinderella's castle," announced Tracy proudly.
"I'm building…" Penny tilted her head and squinted. "You know, I don't really know what I'm building."
"That's okay," Tracy assured her. "Maybe if you let go of your blanket and builded with two hands, you could make Sleeping Beauty's castle!"
Penny shook her head vehemently. "Nuh-uh. I'm not letting go of Blankie."
The girls sculpted in friendly silence for a few minutes, until they were interrupted by a blonde girl in a pretty pink dress.
"Hey, look at Blanket Girl!" The blonde walked up and pointed at Penny, and everyone on the playground turned to laugh at her.
"Blanket Girl, Blanket Girl, Blanket Girl!" Penny turned bright red and hid her whole face behind her blanket, which only made her tormentors laugh louder.
Tracy frowned and stood up. "Leave her alone! What did she ever do to you?"
"What's it to you, fatso?" the blonde girl snapped.
Tracy was so astonished for a moment that she couldn't speak. No one had ever said anything that mean to her, not in her whole life. Luckily, Miss Pruitt quickly came to the rescue.
"Amber von Tussle!" she shouted, grabbing the blonde girl's arm. "We do not call names at Patterson Park Elementary School. Do you understand?" Amber just glared at her. "Fine. Go back into the classroom for a time out, then." Amber still didn't say anything; she only tugged her arm out of Miss Pruitt's grasp and stomped back to Room Three.
Tracy turned back to Penny and half-smiled sympathetically. "Are you okay?"
Slowly, Penny came out from behind her blanket. "Yeah, I'm fine. I don't think I'm going to bring Blankie to school anymore, though."
"It's okay. Blanket Girl's not that good of a nickname, anyway."
A grin inched its way across Penny's face. "You're right." She stood up and put an arm around Tracy's shoulders. "Do you wanna be best friends?"
Tracy smiled back. "Definitely!" Suddenly, she had an idea. "Hey, best friends tell secrets, right?"
"Right."
"Well, do you wanna hear one?"
"Okay."
Tracy looked around to make sure no one was listening, and then whispered, "I'm afraid of ballerinas."
"What?" Penny shrieked.
"Shhhh!"
"Sorry." She lowered her voice to a whisper, too. "You're afraid of ballerinas?"
"Yeah." Tracy nodded solemnly. "I saw one on TV once, and my mommy said that they don't eat."
Penny made a face. "That is scary. Why?"
"I don't know. It's weird." Before Tracy could continue, the bell rang, and everyone started making their way back to the classroom. She and Penny emptied their buckets and started over, too. Nearby, two boys were talking and jostling each other around.
"Space Men comes on at three-thirty, right?"
"No, that's at four o'clock. The Lone Ranger comes on at three-thirty." Suddenly, one of the boys knocked into Tracy, who fell over into the grass.
"Ow!"
"I'm sorry." The boy leaned over and stretched out his hand to help Tracy up. "I didn't see you there."
Tracy gasped. He is the cutest boy I've ever seen. She shyly gave him her hand and he pulled her to her feet.
"I'm Link," he said politely.
"I'm Tracy." She suddenly realized she was still holding his hand, and dropped it. "Thank you for helping me up."
"You're welcome." Without another word, he turned back to his friend and they continued talking about The Lone Ranger.
"Well, that was nice of him," Penny remarked.
"He held my hand," Tracy breathed, feeling a little dizzy. "Oh, Penny, isn't he just adorable?"
Penny wrinkled her nose. "I guess."
"He is," Tracy sighed.
"I think he's from Room Four."
"Oh." Tracy felt a little disappointed. She'd been hoping he was in her class. "Let's go inside."
Meanwhile, in the classroom, Isaac had caught sight of Amber standing in a corner. He started to chant "Amber's in trou-ble" under his breath, but stopped abruptly when the blonde shot a death glare at him.
"Isaac Quentin, you smell like hamster."
He ran away before the nickname "Hamster Boy" could slip out of her mouth.