Kindergarten Blues
As Annie Honey bustles around the Green Acres Boys' Kindergarten classroom – thirty minutes 'till showtime – the first shrill yell of an incoming student makes itself audible.
Yet when the young new teacher, fresh out of college, rounds the corner and pokes her way out of the supply closet, the only figure in the room is that of a tiny little boy, seated quietly at the orange round table. His head swivels around to face Annie, and she gives him a sweet smile. "Hi," she says warmly.
"Hi," whispers the boy. He peers up to meet Annie's eyes, which are the same distinct color as his own and yet wildly different. The teacher's eyes, though brown like her new student's, are nowhere near as expressive and emotional as the little boy's. While Annie's eyes are like a dull shade of coffee, the boy's are like chocolate. "I'm Angel," he says softly.
"Oh, hi, Angel," Annie replies warmly. "I'm Annie, I'm going to be your teacher. 'Kay?"
Angel bobs his tiny head up and down. She's nice.
"Where's your mommy or daddy?" Annie inquires, looking around the room in bewilderment. Although audible are the shrieks of new arrivals unwilling to get out of their parents' cars, nobody else is in sight. There is nobody nearby that might be Angel's parent, or in fact anyone else at all. Apart from Annie and little Angel, the building is completely empty.
Angel's lower lip juts out adorably, defensively. "Daddy said to walk here," he explains patiently. He has the air of one who knows more than anybody else can imagine, but he is nice about it.
A gasp on Annie's part cannot be prevented. "You walked here?" she demands. "But you're so little! And the city is dangerous, babe!"
Angel does not say anything. His arms crossed over his chest in an adorable imitation of someone he obviously admires greatly, Angel merely watches his teacher. His brown eyes are attentive, scanning the room for something that might merit his attention.
Seeing that there will be no greater or more detailed answer, Annie sighs. "Well, Angel, you want to color pictures?"
"Daddy says that's girly," Angel says, and then claps a hand over his mouth, acknowledging the unmistakable gender of his companion. "Sorry," he mutters, and stares at his shoes, battered and made of poor material to begin with. "I just – I'm not 'llowed to color." His face lights up when he spots the blocks in the room, and he looks hopefully at Annie. "Can I build?" he asks excitedly.
"Yeah, sure, baby," Annie answers. Then, remembering that most children prefer not to be addressed as baby, she rectifies her statement, "Sorry. I mean, sure, Angel."
"Mama used to call me baby," Angel informs his teacher. "Only then she died."
"I'm sorry," Annie says softly. "You miss her, right?"
Angel nods.
"Okay," Annie resolves, "so then, can you build a huge block tower? I bet if she's watching you from wherever she is, she'll be able to see you working hard, and she'll like that."
Angel beams. "'Kay!" he exclaims. With an excited smile and eyes shining, Angel sets to work. As he does so, the next arrival enters, his mother beside him and his father waiting in the car outside. This new boy's name is Roger Davis, and Annie, busy drawing up name tags in the supply closet, does not notice his and his mother's arrival. Angel, however, does. "Hi," he calls across the room, and looks up from his blocks. "Wanna help me make a castle?"
The boy wrinkles his nose. "I like cars," he informs his companion, and sits decisively by a mountain of cars. His mother, puzzled, scans the room in search of a teacher.
It is then that Angel feels it necessary to comment, "Annie's in the closet."
The mother double-takes, reminds herself of the child's age, and nods. "Thank you," she says. Her heavily made-up face rewards the little boy with a smile. Prim and proper, Mrs. Davis would never "sink so low" as to genuinely socialize with anyone under the age or intelligence quotient of herself and her fellow members of the country club, but the child sitting before her is truly ideal, unlike her own son – an argumentative five-year-old with an unexpected passion for music.
The new boy's mother catches sight of a flash of red hair, and she ducks into the closet to speak with Annie. As she does so, Roger springs up and turns to Angel. "You talked to my mama," he announces.
Angel nods. "Uh-huh," he agrees.
"You can't do that," Roger whines. "You get your mama and I get mine. Can't share. You're mean."
Cheeks turning red, Angel tells Roger, "I am not mean."
"Yes you are!"
Without another word, Roger leaps forward and launches himself onto Angel's tiny frame. Roger, who has been eating cake and ice cream and chips non-stop since he was born, is much heavier than the little boy who, after his mother's death, has only managed to procure table scraps from his father. Whimpering, Angel attempts to squirm away, but Roger's fist is pressing against the other boy's nose forcefully and one of the more serious of all of Angel's past boo-boos begins to form. When Roger pulls his hand away to pummel Angel in the chest, he finds his knuckles flecked with red.
Angel, seeing Roger's surprise at having blood on his hands, suspects that he might get off of his victim now and apologize. But no; it seems that Roger is even more mean than he previously seemed, because now he merely continues to punch Angel repeatedly in other locations, such as his chest and forearms.
The worst of the injuries, however, turns out to be an accident; as Roger moves his leg to get into a better position on top of the smaller boy, his knee presses down – hard – on a soft spot between his legs and his belly that has always brought Angel much curiosity. But he whimpers no more than he had when Roger punched him previously, because if he knows anything for sure about bullies, it is that they never discontinue a fight just because of a victim's pain.
Nor, in fact, will a bully end a fight because of the presence of others. While Roger continues to beat Angel, pressing down especially hard on previously acquired bruises, two new people enter the classroom: a dark-skinned boy with yellow-orange sunglasses, and a woman who surely must be his mother.
"Get off!" the boy cries, and Roger shoots him a strange look. Never before has Roger encountered a person, particularly one his age, uninterested in violent displays of behavior. The boy continues to glare at Roger for several more moments before his mother strides forward and pulls Roger off of Angel, fury in her eyes.
Once Roger has been set down in a chair at the green table, far away from Angel and the other boy, the new boy's mother catches sight of Annie and Mrs. Davis. She marches over to them and murmurs something that must be an explanation of the situation, and within moments, three angry women are standing in front of the three boys. Specifically Roger, whose vivid green eyes will not remove themselves from Angel.
"This is my son, Roger," the only blonde of the four confesses. Her voice, however, has a challenging tone to it, as though daring the others to make a judgement or accusation. "He is… a bit… unrefined." She bites the word out as if it were a curse, as though the fact that she has an unrefined son might as well be a crime. With her eyes flaming, promising punishment to the little boy who was clearly not as excited for kindergarten as he had claimed, Mrs. Davis professes her sorrow that such a thing had happened. She looks at the mother of the new boy and inquires, "Is he your son?" She gestures towards Angel.
"What? Oh, no, no, no, no," the woman says. She points to the new boy. "He is my son," she explains. "Tom. That's his name, I mean. Tom. And I'm Martha." Extending her hand, she adds, "Martha Collins. Pleasure to meet you, Ms. – what did you say your name was?"
"Davis," the woman responds. "Alison Davis."
The women shake hands.
As they do, a new voice makes itself heard. Another early parent, of course – another mother, to be exact. This one is babbling eagerly to her son. Her words are mid-conversation as she opens the door to the building, and her heels clack against the floor as she walks through the halls. "So even though you'll be really far from home, you can just talk to the teachers and all your new friends and – oh! – the lovely young lady who's there to serve you apple juice, she's the daughter of Marla's sister, you remember Marla, my friend from back home? Oh, Marky, I don't know what we're going to do in the city here, baby, but you just have fun in school, okay? I'm just going to go talk to the teacher."
With that, the two enter. The woman is carrying her son, a blond boy with glasses, a plaid shirt, and khaki pants. It is September, but he is already adorned in a heavy winter coat, which his mother removes upon their entrance into the classroom. She then approaches her fellow women, shying away from the dark-skinned Mrs. Collins and German Mrs. Davis. Comfortable does she feel only with Annie, whose freckled charm is hard to ignore.
Mark, newly placed on the floor from his former position in his mother's arms, spots the boy sitting alone at the green table and approaches him. "Hi," he says brightly. "Wanna be friends?"
Roger makes a low growling noise, and Mark's eyes widen. As Roger bares his teeth, Mark bursts into tears, and he runs over to the table at which Angel and Tom are sitting. "He's scary," Mark whimpers, pointing at Roger – who is, by the way, shocked that he drove a boy that he had wanted to befriend to such terror. A typical Roger move would be to remain in his seat and sulk, but he does no such thing. Instead, he rises and crosses the room, stands beside Mark, and hurriedly apologizes.
"What was that?" Mark asks, puzzled. Roger's apology had been muffled and rushed, and it was hard to hear.
"'M sorry for being mean," Roger says, and his eyes are so hopeful that Mark cannot help but pity him.
Angel, however, can help it. "He beat me up," Angel whispers, pointing at Roger.
Roger says that he is sorry for that too, and takes a seat beside the other three, content in his belief that everything is resolved. Well, briefly.
"You look good," Tom tells Angel. "I like your shirt."
The shirt that Angel is wearing belonged, in fact, to his mother. It was laid on his bed one day due to a mistake in the laundry, but Angel kept it. It is soft and warm and pretty, and Angel's favorite thing in the world is things that look pretty.
"It's pretty," Angel says shyly.
"Yeah," Tom agrees. "Hey, do you want me to fix that boo-boo on your cheek? My mama taught me how," he says proudly.
Angel grins. "My mama did too," he says with a smile.
The two boys smile, and Angel asks tentatively, "Can you be my friend? All my other friends are girls, but you're really nice."
Tom nods. "I can be your boyfriend, if you want. Can you be my boyfriend?"
Angel tilts his head to the side. "Doesn't that mean you have to kiss me?"
Tom shrugs. "I'll do it if you want," he says, and before Angel says a word, he kisses Angel sweetly on the cheek.
Mrs. Cohen, looking over, appears to be absolutely horrified. "I miss Scarsdale," she grumbles under her breath, and with that, she waves good-bye to her son and briskly makes her exit.