You Got This
Jack's first day of school was Monday of the final week of August. On Sunday night, he lay wide awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. Stella, her mom instincts in full gear and on high alert, went in to check on him a little before 11:00. She knew he would be awake. Turning on the lamp next to his bed, she leaned forward and rubbed the back of her hand against his cheek. "Can't sleep, baby?" He shook his head. "Excited? Nervous? What?"
"I don't know. All of the above, I guess? People talk about having butterflies in their stomach, but mine are more like...bats. Or maybe vultures. I don't know, Mom. I really do want to go to school, but I'm also really, really scared. What if nobody likes me? What if I can't figure out how to act or where to go or what to do? What if—I don't know—what if about a million things?" He was near tears.
"Wow," said Stella. "No wonder you can't sleep. That is a lot to be thinking about all at once. Turn over and let me rub your back." Jack complied, and Stella began to run her hand up and down his back. She thought about how, just a few months before, she could feel every rib, every vertebra. Now her son was solid and sturdy and strong. Would that it was so easy to do the same thing emotionally. "You know," she said quietly, "whenever I'm nervous and scared like that, there's this thing your dad says to me. He says, 'You got this, Stella Kidd.' So I'm going to tell you the same thing. You got this, Jack Severide. You are smart, and funny, and handsome, and extremely interesting. You're also kind and generous and good. So you don't need to worry about any of that stuff. You're going to be just fine."
"But don't you have to say that stuff? I mean, you're my mom. Of course you think I'm wonderful. But what about everybody else?"
"Ya mean everybody else, like the people at 51? Coach Peter? Your teammates and all their parents? The Herrmann kids? Terrance Boden? Buddy, your dad and I do think you are quite something. But we're not the only ones. All those people cannot be wrong about you, so I repeat: You're going to be just fine. Got it?"
Jack smiled a little. "Got it." Stella continued to gently rub Jack's back, feeling him begin to relax. Kelly walked into the room, wondering where she had got to, and she put her finger to her lips. Kelly smiled, gently patted his son's leg, and then left the room. Jack drifted off to sleep, and Stella softly kissed his cheek and arranged the covers. Turning off the light, she tiptoed out of the room.
Kelly was seated on the sofa. "He asleep?"
Stella sighed and settled in next to him. "Yeah. I asked him if he had butterflies, and he said they were more like bats or vultures. Poor baby. Imagine being his age and having to do this for basically the first time. I mean, I know he's been to school a couple of times before, but both of those times he knew it was temporary, because he knew he was going to take off. This is different. He's invested, you know? He wants to prove himself, he wants to please us, he wants to do this but he's completely terrified. I feel like I'm throwing my infant to wolves, or something."
Kelly dropped his head back and closed his eyes. "There are some hard parts to parenting, all right. That first time I spanked him back in March, I felt like throwing up. I knew it needed doing, knew that it was really a way to protect him, but I hated it. Then when he had appendicitis last month, I felt completely powerless. I couldn't make it stop hurting, couldn't protect him from it, couldn't make it go away, couldn't be in the operating room with him. It was scarier than any fire I ever fought. But this may be the toughest thing of all. Letting him go, letting him deal with whatever lies ahead, take any lumps there are to take, and learn about life without us there all the time. But we have to. It really is for his own good. Even Dr. Charles thinks so."
Stella snuggled against him and sighed. "I know. But I think in the morning I'm going to have a few bats of my own flying around in there."
Kelly kissed the top of her head. "Me, too. But you and I are going to have to act like we don't have a care in the world. If he thinks we're nervous for him, it will only make things worse."
"I know that, too. Let's go to bed and pretend to sleep, shall we?"
"Good idea."
Late August in Chicago can be anything from the dog days of summer to the edge of autumn. Monday morning dawned overcast, humid, and breezy, ahead of a predicted rainy cold front. Jack was up ahead of his parents, getting dressed. The Dunbar uniform was casual. The school colors were black and red, so there was an option for either color of polo shirt, with the school crest embroidered on the left breast. Boys and girls were permitted to wear jeans, or khaki or black uniform pants. Girls also had an option for skirts in those colors. The footwear rules were fairly loose. No high heels, closed toe and heel, no boots, and solid color socks must be worn. Jack had some of everything. He dressed in crisp new khakis, a red polo, red socks, and new white sneakers. By the time he was done, his parents were up and Kelly was fixing breakfast.
They greeted him cheerfully. "Did you sleep okay once you got there, bud?" asked Kelly.
"Yeah. Thanks, Mom. I think I would have been awake all night if you hadn't come in to talk to me."
"No problem," she told him. "That's what moms are for, after all."
He smiled at her. "Yeah, I'm finding that out."
Jack manfully attempted to eat breakfast, but he couldn't get much down. The vultures were taking up too much room. His parents did not try to force him. They kept up their cheerful, positive front throughout breakfast, not mentioning his lack of appetite. Jack brushed his teeth, ran a comb through his freshly trimmed hair, looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, and took a deep breath. "You got this, Jack Severide," he whispered. He was grateful to have parents who believed in him. Now he just had to believe in himself.
It was fairly warm outside, but rain and chillier temperatures were predicted for later in the day. Jack grabbed his black school windbreaker. His mom had wanted him to get the red one, but he really wanted black, and Dad had backed him up, so black it was. He had acquiesced to a new backpack for school, but continued to stubbornly hold onto his battered tactical pack for every other purpose. His school backpack was an understated gray plaid. Even with his limited school experience, he knew that dinosaurs or superheroes would be deadly in the fifth grade. You might get away with Star Wars or tie-dye, but he wasn't taking any chances. One more deep breath, and he walked out into the living room.
"I guess I'm ready."
"Right on time," said Kelly. "Let's go." They went in Kelly's Mustang, because although they loved Stella's vehicle, Kelly's car was way cooler, and Kelly knew this could be important. It had been a while since he was a fifth grade boy, but not so long he didn't remember what kinds of things they noticed that could make or break a kid's status.
On the way to the school, which was anywhere from a ten to twenty minute drive, depending on traffic, Kelly asked, "Do you want us to walk you in? It's allowed the first week."
Jack chewed his lip. "Just as far as the office. I can take it from there. I mean, I've toured the school, I know where everything is, I can find my room and all that. So I don't need actual help. Just a little...um..."
"Moral support," supplied Stella.
"Yeah. That."
"Okay, to the office it is, then," said Kelly. Then turning to his wife, "And Mom? No hand-holding, no last-minute hair-fixing or collar-straightening, and in the name of all that is good and holy, no kissing. One quick hug, that's all you're allowed."
"Wow. That's a lot of rules, mister. But I will comply. I have no desire to publicly humiliate my child by showing that I care."
From the back seat: "Whatever, Mom." Stella didn't have to look at him to know he was rolling his eyes. She was pretty sure she could actually hear them. Jack, for his part, was thankful that his dad had a good memory of what it was like to be a kid. And to have a mom.
Kelly, though, did have one very definitive line. Raising his brows and gazing at his son in the rear view mirror, he inquired, "Jackson Everett, did anything I said give you permission to be disrespectful to your mother?"
"No, sir," very quietly.
"Well, then?"
"Sorry, Mom."
"You're forgiven," said Stella. "I love you even when you're a smart aleck, you know."
Jack grinned then. "I know. Good thing, too. 'Cause, well, you know..."
They all laughed, and all was well. As they pulled into the school parking lot, Jack felt the vultures begin to flap their wings. He began to take deep breaths in and out the way his parents encouraged him to when he was stressed, and inside his head he was chanting, "You got this, Jack Severide, you got this, Jack Severide, you got this, Jack Severide..." over and over again. As they exited the car, his palms were sweating and his heart was pounding, but he walked steadily toward the door, flanked by his parents.
Once he bid his mom and dad good-bye in the office, allowing that one quick hug from his mom and a cheerful pat on the back from Kelly, he was on his own. He entered a hallway teeming with students and headed for his classroom. Several other students were lined up outside the classroom door, waiting for the door to open at 7:45. The girl in front of him turned around and smiled. "My name's Martha, what's yours?"
Jack smiled in return. "I'm Jack."
"Nice to meet you, Jack."
"Thanks. You, too. Uhh..." he hesitated. "Is this a pretty good place? I mean, are people nice and everything? I mean, you obviously are, but, uhh..."
Martha giggled. "Most people are really nice. There's this zero tolerance policy for bullying and stuff. There's one boy in our class named Bradley who's kind of a jerk, but he hasn't done anything bad enough to get expelled yet. Some of us are hoping he will. He's the only one, though. Don't worry. You'll be fine. You got this."
Jack laughed out loud. "You sound like my mom," he told her.
She tossed her head. "Well then, your mom must be really, really smart.
The two of them laughed together, and Jack felt himself relaxing. He really just might be fine.
Jack's teacher, Mr. Anderson, was welcoming, but didn't make a big deal over Jack being new. He just stood by Jack's desk and patted him on the shoulder, saying, "Everybody, this is Jack. You know what to do." People waved and said hi from their desks, and that was that. It didn't take Jack long to figure out who Bradley was. In the first place, he was the first kid to get called down for misbehaving, about fifteen minutes into the morning. In the second place, he was sullen and angry and very obviously did not want to be there. Jack decided to try to stay out of his way as much as possible.
In addition to a gifted program, Dunbar had a program for students with learning challenges as well. All students were together in their classes until lunch. After lunch, two or three days a week, they were split into the specialized groups, with about two thirds of the students remaining in the regular classes, and the rest going to one of the specialized programs. The other days, they went to music, art, and the like in the afternoons. Jack would be joining the choir and a martial arts class. He thought the whole thing was a pretty great idea, actually. He was excited to learn that Martha was in the gifted program, too, so they would be going to that class together.
In the gifted class, the students had advanced math and language for part of the afternoon. After that, they would be allowed to pursue their choice of a number of special interests. Jack had signed up for American Studies. Other options included advanced science, literature classes, and even video and special effects. Sometimes they were teamed up with the kids from Challenge classes to help with projects and so forth. It was pretty cool. Jack thought he could get used to this place.