Mirabel squirmed as she sat at the breakfast table, today was the day, after years of waiting, she was finally going to go to school. She couldn't wait.
"Is it time to go yet Luisa?" she asked her older sister as she shoveled a spoonful of porridge into her mouth, "What do you think we'll do today?"
Luisa chuckled, "Well, you and Camilo are going to learn how to count and read and write this year."
"But I already know how to do all that stuff," Mirabel protested.
"Well, then, you'll learn how to do it better," Luisa insisted.
"Eat your breakfast Mirabel and stop pestering your sister," Abuela announced, giving Mirabel a sharp look, Mirabel looked down, shoving another bite in.
"Si Abuela, but this is so exciting, finally going to school with Lulu, Lolo, and Izzy."
"Luisa, Dolores, and Isabela," Abuela snapped, "You are old enough to go to school now, Mirabel, you shouldn't talk like a baby."
"Isabela, you make sure Mirabel makes it to her classroom alright, and makes sure she knows where to meet up with you and Luisa so you can come home for lunch."
"Si Mama," Isabela said, rolling her eyes.
"Make sure she's with you before you head home," Julieta insisted.
"Honestly," Pepa said, rolling her eyes, "Dolores, please don't lose your brother," she instructed, "See it's as easy as that."
"The children need to leave if they want to make it to school in time," Abuela insisted.
"Casita, the backpacks," Julieta called out as Casita ran tiles over on the wall as five backpacks raced across the wall towards them. Isabela grabbed the one with roses on it, Dolores grabbed the plain yellow one, Luisa grabbed the unicorn one, Camilo grabbed the futbol one, and Mirabel grabbed the butterfly one that she had picked out when she went shopping with her Mama.
Soon she was out the door with Camilo, Dolores, and her sisters. It was really hard to stay with the group, she wanted to run ahead and learn everything she possibly could, she'd be good at school. Tio Bruno told her that, and he was never wrong. If she was really good at school Abuela would praise her and show off her school work like she does Dolores's and Luisa's. Then she would love her again.
When they finally got to the building marked school, Luisa walked down one hallway as Isabela and Dolores lead Camilo and Mirabel down another one, "Meet us by the front door when it's time to go home for lunch," Isabela said.
"Do we really walk all the way home for lunch and then head back for more school in the afternoon?" Mirabel asked.
"But when will we get to play?" Camilo asked.
"You get to play during free time and recess," Dolores explained, "and you won't start going a full day until next year. This year you'll go home for lunch and not come back until the next day."
"Oh," Mirabel sighed, "We won't learn much if we're only here for a few hours each day."
"Don't worry, you'll learn plenty if you're good and polite and listen to your teacher," Isabela assured her, "Go on in, Dolores and I need to get to our class."
Mirabel took Camilo's hand, she knew that he was nervous, extremely nervous, and tugged him into the classroom. There were nine other kids their age, Mirabel knew them all by name, Carmen, Marcel, Pedro, Jorge, Juan, Carlos, Josefina, Sofia, and Valentina, then there was the teacher, Senora Silva. Everyone was seated at little tables that held four chairs. Mirabel sat down next to Carmen and across from Sofia who was sitting next to Carlos. Camilo sat down at a different table with Jorge, Carlos, and Marcel.
As soon as they were seated, a bell rang out, and Senora Silva stood up and faced the class, "Good morning students, I'm your teacher, Senora Silva and I figure that the best way to start the school off is with a game."
There was a huge cheer, but Mirabel frowned, when were they going to get to the books?
"What kind of game?" Camilo called out.
"It's called the Alphabet Game," Senora Silva explained, "We're going to go around the room and say our name and then one other word that starts with the same sound. For example, Senora Silva starts with the same sound as Snake. Who wants to go first? Raise your hand and wait for me to call on you."
Oh, what a fun game, Mirabel started with an M, and there were so many words that started with an M, Many, Marvelous, Magnificent, words, like Madagascar, Mississippi, and marsupial.
Carmen came up with Cat, Marcel with Mat, and Pedro with Pat. How dull and unimaginative.
"Camilo, your turn, try to think of something that one of the others hadn't said."
Camilo frowned, thinking hard for a moment, "Kite," he announced.
"Kite starts with a K," Mirabel pointed out, "and Camilo starts with a c."
"That's true but it still makes the same sound."
"What about Cake?" Camilo asked.
"That's perfect, Mirabel, your turn."
"Oh, I don't know," Mirabel confessed, "There are so many words that start with the letter M, so many marvelous, magnificent words, I don't think I can choose one. I mean there's this country called Madagascar, lemurs live there, it's really cool, and there's this river in North America called The Mississippi, that one is fun to spell, M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I, and then there's marsupial, that's an animal that carries their young in a pouch on their body. It's kind of like a big pocket."
"Thank you, Mirabel, for all those wonderful M words," Senora Silva said, shaking her head as she continued on with the game. She, however, kept an eye on Mirabel who wasn't really paying attention and was squirming a lot. That was normal, all of the other children were like that, but unlike the other children, who were glancing longingly at the toys, Mirabel glanced longingly at the bookshelf.
Once everyone had a chance to introduce themselves, Senora Silva passed out a worksheet to everyone. Mirabel watched eagerly, Luisa, Isabela, and Dolores brought home worksheets all the time, they looked like so much fun, especially Dolores and Isabela's math ones from last year, It included the alphabet, and you had to figure out what number was disguised as that letter. She really hoped that she could do something like that. Or maybe do what Luisa did with the different shapes, she'd be good at that, she knew all of her shapes.
Senora Silva placed the worksheet down in front of Mirabel, watching as she eagerly snatched it up, looked at it, and sat it back down with a sigh, as though disappointed with it.
Mirabel wanted to cry, she had been told that she would learn new things, yet this worksheet was literary "A is for Apple" with an apple to color and guided lines to show you how to write an Upper and lower case A. She already knew how to write! Why didn't they warn her that school was so boring?
"Okay class, here is what I want you to do, trace the big A, fill in as many big A's as you can on the lines provided, then repeat that step with the little a, once you're done with that, color the apple. Any questions?"
"What do we do with it once we're finished?" Josefina asked.
"That's a good question, bring it up to me once you are done."
Mirabel quickly filled in the rows of A's that she was required to before turning her attention to the apple, pulling out the box of crayons that she had got just for school. Now, what type of apple should she color?
….
Senora Silva wasn't really that surprised that Mirabel was the first one done. Her letters were straight, even, and uniform. Her name on the line meant for the name, despite the fact that she hadn't told them to write their name.
"I made the apple a Honeycrisp," Mirabel explained, pointing to the green apple with red scribbles over it.
"I see that, and it is a very good Honeycrisp apple as well," Senora Silva agreed, "Why don't you go look at a book until everyone else is done?"
"Can I read the book I brought from home instead?" Mirabel asked.
"You can read?"
"Uh huh, Luisa gave me all of her Loretta D. Lopez books. They're so funny. I was hoping school would be like what she described, I guess things aren't like in books, huh?"
"No life isn't," Senora Silva agreed, "Have you finished reading any of the Loretta D. Lopez books?"
"Yeah, I've read the first one, it's about her going to school for the very first time."
Senora Silva pulled out a blank piece of paper, "Can you do something for me?" she asked, "I want you to write what the book was about, what Loretta D. Lopez did, and all of that, okay?"
"Yeah!"
…
Mirabel smiled as she continued to write, by now everyone else was done and they had moved on to a letter sound recognition activity. What sound does M make, N, what about Z, S, F? It was the world's most boring game ever, but she didn't have to participate. Senora Silva had after she had started going down the alphabet and the sounds each letter made, told her that she could just work on writing about her book.
By the time she was done writing, it was time for recess, which was what they called it when they all went outside to play. It was fun, but Mirabel didn't learn anything, well, except for the fact that Carlos was a bully, but she kind of wasn't surprised.
After recess came Art, and they were told to draw something that they loved, Mirabel drew her family, including Abuela and Isabela even though they didn't love her, she still loved them… maybe.
Math was after Art, it was a simple worksheet with groups of different objects on one side of the page and numbers on the other, all you had to do was draw a line from the group to the number that corresponded with it. Mirabel was done with it before Senora Silva finished passing the paper out. So she ended up reading through Math as well.
After Math was free time, a play period, which was fun, but she could do that at home in the nursery. Then they had story time, with a story that Mirabel had memorized. She tried to be good and listen but… it was so boring.
After Storytime they went outside to play some more, which was really not that special, they could do that at home. Science was interesting… in the most boring way possible. They talked about how puppies became dogs, kittens cats, and so on, there was another worksheet that Mirabel finished before it could be explained to the rest of the kids.
"How do fish turn into a frog?" Carlos asked.
"How does a worm turn into a butterfly?" Sofia asked.
"They go through a change called metamorphosis," Mirabel explained, "It's really cool, their body turns from one thing to another, Isabela helped me catch some caterpillars last year and we kept them in a jar and watched them turn into beautiful butterflies, but then Abuela made me release them."
Senora Silva glanced at the clock after hearing that, it was almost time for them to head home. She quickly pulled out a piece of paper and wrote a quick note, folding it and putting it into an envelope.
"Mirabel," she called out, "Can you give this to your parents please?" she asked.
Mirabel nodded, tucking the envelope in her backpack, "You can count on me," she said with a bright smile.
Senora Silva returned the smile, it would be interesting to see how the Madrigal family would react when they learned that while not gifted magically like the rest of them, she certainly was gifted intellectually. She hoped it would be a positive reaction. She had been there when she failed to get a magical gift and had seen the reaction of her family. It was heartbreaking to watch. Alma Madrigal especially hadn't reacted well at all. Hopefully, hopefully this would be received well.