Notes: This was originally written for the 'Beginning' prompt over at the community 'spprompts' on LiveJournal (everyone should go join and participate!). I added a bit here and there to post on here, so this version is slightly different. This is inspired by my job as a preschool teacher, though I'm hoping not to be there for much longer (for reasons unrelated to the kids, who are mostly great!)... kids do a lot of weird shit, and this fic barely touches on it, haha. Anyway, enjoy!
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
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"Pretty much all the honest truth telling there is in the world is done by children."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The first day of preschool was difficult for everyone in one way or another, but Kenny was the only one who didn't cry when his mom dropped him off. Even as a three year old, he didn't fail to notice that. In fact, it wasn't even just that he didn't cry; it was that he was happy to be there. The second he walked into the building, he felt a surge of excitement rush through him, because there were toys there, real ones that weren't even broken, mostly. But even the broken ones looked more fun than the trash and random objects he was forced to play with at home.
That, above anything, told him two things: the first was that school was way better than his house, and the second was that there was absolutely no reason to cry.
Still, as he sat on a mat playing with Tinker Toys and watching the other kids get dropped off, he noticed that every single one of them did cry. Kenny hardly ever cried, because he got hurt so often, and so badly, that it just didn't seem like shedding any tears was worth the effort. And anyway, not seeing his mom for a few hours was way less painful than dying (as least in his opinion). It was only after seeing a bunch of other kids screaming like their life was ending as their mothers walked away that something occurred to Kenny - maybe he was the only one there who knew what it really felt like to be hurt.
He really hoped he wouldn't die at preschool. The place seemed safe enough; that much was true. Even before he learned how to walk, he knew enough to look around a room for sharp objects or exposed wires. At school, even the wall sockets were covered up. It seemed impossible to die in such a childproof environment. Nowhere was ever really safe for Kenny, though.
Anyway, a fat boy came in a little while after Kenny did and he cried. He cried a lot and clung to his mom, grabbing at her and begging to be picked up. For a second, Kenny thought she was actually going to take him back with her, because it looked like dropping him off was hard for her too, but she finally left. The boy, whose name turned out to be Eric, kept crying and screaming and hitting the teacher who was trying to console him, and he didn't stop until he saw a boy with black hair come in and wave goodbye to his mom with hardly any tears. Kenny figured maybe he saw he was the only one still crying and felt bad about it, because afterward he didn't cry about his mom anymore and laughed at anyone else who did.
Like the boy with the green hat - he was one of the kids Eric laughed at. Kenny learned later that his name was Kyle, and when he was dropped off that morning, he cried a lot and hid behind his mom's legs like the last thing he wanted to do was come inside and play with the toys (which Kenny didn't understand at all). His hat was way too big for his head and it seemed, to Kenny, like he was trying to hide behind that, too. His mom tried and tried to pry him off and kept throwing apologetic, embarrassed looks at the teacher, but whenever she made a move to leave, so did Kyle. And the more the teacher waved stuffed animals in his face, the more he cried and clung to his mom.
It wasn't until the fat boy called him a baby that Kyle finally let go of his mom. He stood there, looking shocked and angry, and his mom took that opportunity to slip out of the room. Kenny wanted to tell him that Eric had cried even more than he did, but he couldn't find the words for it, seeing as he didn't know a lot of them and sentences were still hard to string together. And by that time, there were so many other kids in the class that it seemed impossible to even navigate his way over to them, anyway.
There were a bunch of girls playing with a toy kitchen not too far away from where he was sitting, and their giggles were intimidating. So was the way they screamed whenever one of them wanted a toy another girl already had. There was one with black hair and one with wild yellow curls that were the loudest of them all, and the teacher's attempts to tell them to share and play nicely fell on deaf ears. Kenny was both terrified and intrigued by them. He didn't try to join in the girls' game, though, because as much as he liked watching them, he hated fighting and only knew how to play alone.
Most of the other kids were also by themselves, too shy to talk to anyone new, and the kids that were playing together, like those girls, were just fighting anyway. So he was sort of glad to be by himself with his Tinker Toys.
He did notice, though, that the boy with the black hair was sitting with the boy in the green hat and seemed content to watch him build a tower made of lettered blocks. They both looked nervous at first, but as the block tower grew taller, they grew more comfortable. And they didn't fight over the blocks, not even once. Kenny heard them introduce themselves, and then Kyle began talking and explaining the blocks one by one, and the other boy - Stan - listened intently. He presented each block and said things like 'ay' and 'eff', which meant nothing to Kenny, except for that it seemed like they had something to do with the squiggles on the blocks. Like maybe each block had a name. It didn't seem like Stan understood what was happening either, but he smiled and nodded just the same. One block was named 'pee' and the two of them laughed together about it.
Kenny almost wanted to walk over and join them, but it sort of felt like he shouldn't, or wasn't allowed to, even though it was free play time and all the kids could play with whatever toy they wanted to. It seemed like there was a big bubble surrounding those two, and Kenny didn't want to pop it (even though he liked popping other kinds of bubbles). He yearned to laugh with them, though, because they made it seem like playing together wasn't so bad after all. He never moved, though, and things stayed that way until the fat boy from before waddled over and kicked over their tower of blocks, laughing meanly as he did so.
For a second, Kenny thought that Kyle was going to cry again, but he didn't. Instead, he stood up and pushed Eric so hard that he fell right on his bottom. As he started to wail, the teacher rushed over and removed Kyle from the play area. She sternly told him 'No thank you, we don't hurt our friends' and Kenny thought it was sort of strange that she would call Eric a 'friend' after he just knocked down the block tower on purpose. She told Kyle to go say he was sorry, and then he did start to cry, protesting about how it was the fat kid's fault. He had to apologize anyway, though, and Eric looked way too pleased with himself.
He then proceeded to waddle over to the kitchenette the girls were playing with, and messed up the entire pretend scenario they'd finally settled on by throwing the plastic food across the room. They screamed and ganged up on him, and after that it seemed, at least from where Kenny was sitting, that the girls stopped fighting (at least with each other).
Later, during lunch, Kenny decided to be brave and put his chair right across the table from the two boys who had been playing with the blocks. He even introduced himself, and he felt a rush of relief when they didn't ignore him. Sometime during the day, the teacher made Kyle put his hat in his cubby, and his hair was big and red and almost made Kenny want to laugh (but he didn't, because he didn't want to get pushed down like Eric had been). Kyle looked nervous without his hat, and it reminded Kenny of the way his older brother Kevin still needed his teddy bear when he went to bed or he wouldn't be able to go to sleep.
Eric sat next to Kyle and spent lunchtime alternating between eating and pulling Kyle's hair. His hands were sticky from fruit and he had spaghetti sauce on his face, and Kyle kept telling him to stop (only to be told by the teacher to 'not use his whining voice' and to say 'no thank you' instead). Even after he said 'no thank you', though, Eric didn't stop. But the teacher didn't seem to notice that.
Eventually Stan stood up and stuck his finger in Eric's face and said 'no thank you' in a voice that was much bigger and sterner than any three year old's voice ought to be. For a moment, Eric looked scared, and Kenny was glad, but then Eric started fake-crying and ran to the teacher to tell on Stan. He had to eat the rest of his lunch away from the rest of the class, and Kyle told Eric, in the quietest, most threatening whisper he could, that he hoped a bee stung him in his eyeball. Kenny laughed and Eric pouted, almost like he was surprised that getting Stan in trouble didn't make Kyle happy.
During naptime, Eric had an accident, and Kenny saw Stan and Kyle exchange a look as if they agreed that he deserved it. Kenny felt sort of bad for him, though, because another kid had an accident too and he was really upset about it and kept saying he'd be grounded over it. Kenny didn't know what 'grounded' meant, but it sounded bad and he hoped that it didn't happen to either of them, not even Eric.
Snack was brownies. Brownies. Kenny never had brownies before, and his snacks at home were often the same as his other meals (which were usually waffles), so when the brownie turned out to be delicious, he decided preschool was his new favorite place to be. He even asked Stan and Kyle to be his friends, then, because he liked them almost as much as he liked brownies. They agreed, and he was happy. They said they were best friends, though, but Kenny was surprisingly okay with being a less important, regular friend. It felt natural that way, and definitely not something to be argued against.
Eric decided he was their friend too, though no one said that was okay, and when his mom picked him up and asked him if he made a lot of friends, he said yes and pointed directly at Kyle. Kenny thought Eric had a funny way of making friends.
They went outside after that, and Stan and Kyle ended up having to sit on the wall for 'not keeping their hands to themselves'. Kenny didn't realize there was such a thing as hugging too much, but maybe the teacher thought they were wrestling or something. Another kid, named Trent, was also sitting on the wall, but he was definitely not there for hugging anyone. He was sitting there for throwing a big piece of ice at Kenny's head. The teachers were mad about it, but they didn't seem to realize that he would have died had he not ducked in time.
When his mom picked him up, he felt like crying for the first time that day. He didn't actually cry, but he definitely thought that leaving preschool was sadder than arriving there. As his mom ushered him out of the room, he looked back and saw Stan and Kyle whispering to each other over by the blocks. Kenny desperately wanted to know what they were saying, but he thought he would probably never find out.
Actually, he figured there would be a lot of whispers he would never be a part of, and he'd just have to accept that. Either way he couldn't wait to go back to school, especially because he didn't die that day, so maybe that meant he wouldn't ever die there.
Home seemed especially lonely that night, and he wished his friends were there to play with him while his mom and dad yelled at each other. Somehow he drowned during his bath, too, which made the night that much worse. But everything worked out, because he woke up in his bed the next morning, alive and well, already dressed and ready for school.