Eventually, like all good things inevitably do, lunch came to an end. I packed an extra butter sandwich that Chuck had given me into a ziploc bag that Chuck had also given me and put it into the pocket of my blue rain jacket that I was wearing, said good bye to the first graders for now, and trod out of the cafeteria in my same place in the single file line of my class, between Kiki and the tall boi who still remained unknown. We exited the food-building and crossed the street, returning to the playground just outside the kindergarten from whence we came. Once we were all safely inside the confines of the playground, the teacher turned to us.
"Congratulations!" remarked the teacher, putting their hands on their stomach. "You lot have just completed your first lunch!" My breath caught in my throat as I remembered the butter sandwich in my pocket. "Now, you know what that means!"
The class remained silent, and looked to each other in confusion. It was times like this where I actually wished that know-it-all Tim was here to tell us the answer.
Kyle raised a stubby hand, venturing a guess. "Does it mean… we get dessert?"
"No!" said the teacher energetically. I could easily tell that they had had their fair share of coffee during their lunch break. "It means that it's time for recess! The time when you all get to play around on this here playground, enjoying the vast energy of youth!" Most of the class seemed to be pretty excited by that, but not quite as excited as the teacher. The only exception seemed to be one girl with slender black hair and thick, circular glasses.
"You're free to explore this entire playground, as long as you stay within the fence that surrounds the kindergarten building and playground. I'll ring the bell when recess is over, so please report back here when that happens."
And with that… our first recess had begun. People either began going off on their own or finding groups of two or three. There were so many different contraptions to choose from, including, but not limited to, a swingset, a slide, a wooden train, a wooden fire truck, a cuckoo's tower, and a sandbox. Naturally, I had no idea where to go, so I took out the Lucky Penny, careful not to disturb the butter sandwich. Using the same secret technique from earlier that I sued to decide who to talk to during centers, I began eliminating possible destinations on the playground.
"What are you doing," asked a voice. After inspecting the Lucky Penny and deciding to eliminate the swingset, I whirled around to see the girl with thick glasses sitting on the bench.
"Oh? I'm flipping my Lucky Penny," I replied, showing off the well worn disc of copper as I took a seat next to her.
"I see. And why?"
"Well, it helps me make decisions in times of need," I explained. "Right now, I'm using it to decide where to go on the playground."
"I recall you doing something similar during centers," observed the girl, putting an unusual amount of annunciation on each syllable. "So you allow the course of your life to be dictated by a mere coin? Fascinating. What, pray tell, is your reasoning for that?"
"Huh? I do that because my mama says-"
"Do you dislike the stress of making decisions yourself? Do you take comfort in knowing that any decision you come to can be resolved with so little effort? Or do you perhaps seek to avoid taking responsibility for the consequences of your actions?"
I wasn't sure I liked what this girl was saying, so I changed the subject. "Never mind all that," I cut in, "what are you doing just sitting on the bench, when there's so many things to play on? Who even are you?"
"Ah," bespoke the girl, with an almost grandmotherly smile. "My name isn't terribly important, but if you must know, most others call me Rachel."
"What do you mean, your name isn't important?" I asked. "My name is Maddie, and I think it's one of the most important things about me."
Rachel responded calmly and empathetically. "When something or someone is assigned a name, that name carries with it all sorts of preconceived notions and assumptions. By freeing myself from a name given to me by someone else, I only allow them to judge me by who I am, not what I am called."
"I see," I said, not sure if I really saw at all. I put my hand on my chin as if I was thinking about something and immediately thought of Kiki, Zak, and Jor-bah, whose various nicknames had all affected how I thought of them, whether I had realized it at the time or not.
"As for why I sit on the bench," continued Rachel, "Similarly to you, I also faced the decision of what to do during recess. However, no matter how long I pondered the matter, I could only see three possible options: sit on the bench, sit on the bench, and sit on the bench. And look, now we are both sitting on the bench. We arrived at the same decision, though through completely different methods. Don't you think that's beautiful?"
"I didn't choose to sit on the bench," I protested. "You just started talking to me."
Rachel smiled her grandmotherly smile again. "But you did choose to sit on the bench with me. When I inquired about your Lucky Penny, you could have just chosen to ignore me and go elsewhere."
"But my mama says that it's rude to ignore somebody when they're talking to you."
"And that is just something that your mother decided. If you had chosen to ignore me, there is nothing she could have done about that, as she is not here, correct?"
"She didn't just decide that, it's one of the rules," I retorted.
"And who is the one that makes these rules?"
I opened my mouth to speak but paused momentarily, remembering the butter sandwich in my pocket. Cut into triangles, the devil's shape. I had broken the rules, done the opposite of what my mama says to do, and neither she nor Jesus had done anything about it.
Rachel must have noticed my reaction. "Now you understand. If no one is able to enforce rules, then they needn't exist. If a decision does not yield a result, it needn't be made."
I frowned hesitantly. "My mama says that people that say things like that are called bad influences."
"Perhaps," Rachel conceded, and then after a short pause, "but anyways, unlike you and your Lucky Penny, I have no problem with revealing my inner thought processes." Coming from someone else, like Tim, that would have sounded like an insult, but it was clear that from Rachel, it was more of a mere statement, an admission of impartial vulnerability.
"It all comes back to being judged for who I am," she said. "Many people claim that actions speak louder than words, and I agree. However, I believe that if you can know a person's thoughts, those speak the loudest of all."
Somehow, I was able to sense that this was the end of our conversation. I stood up from the bench, my head spinning with more thoughts than usual, and swaggered off, picking back up where I had left off with the Lucky Penny. If I remembered correctly, only the fire truck, sandbox, and cuckoo's tower remained. After several flips of the Lucky Penny later, I decided to go to the sandbox. There was two people there, Kyle, who was sitting with his legs splayed at a ninety degree angle around a mound of sand that he was patting intently with both hands, and the very first person I had talked to, the boy that looked like Bob the Builder.
"Howdy," I said, stepping over the container wall into the sandbox.
"Hi," replied Kyle, sounding a bit like Stitch from Disney's Lilo and Stitch. He appeared to be chewing something, but I wasn't sure I wanted to learn what.
"H-hi," stuttered Bob the Builder. "M-my name is E-eli. N-nice to m-meet you."
"I'm Maddie," I said, smiling, closing my eyes, and holding up my hand as a form of greeting. "What are you guys building here in the sandbox?"
Eli's face lit up a little. "Oh, I haven't started actually making anything yet, so far I've only been seeing what I have to work with. There's a lot of equipment in that shed, but I might have to wait for it to rain a little so the sand gets to a more packable state." He gestured towards a wooden cabinet attached to the side of the building that had a lot of toy dump trucks, bulldozers, and diggers, as well as other shovels and buckets.
"Wow," I said. "So, any ideas so far?"
"Oh, a whole bunch," said Eli. "But before I start any of them, I gotta draw 'em out first to make sure I know what I'm gonna do." He seemed a lot more confident when talking about this stuff, but I felt like if I pointed it out to him, he'd become self conscious and awkward again. He strode towards the shed as Kyle grunted like a professional tennis player. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something sticking out of the sand. I cautiously uprooted the green thing – it turned out to be a small plastic shovel, and thinking that it might come in handy later, slipped it into my pocket.
"There's so much cool stuff in here," remarked Eli, his back still turned to me as he peered at the toy construction equipment. "Whoa, check out this safety cone!"
With our conversation seemingly forgotten, I prepared to peace out, until the powerful odor of gasoline assailed mah naw-streeyils.
"Chwk!" went Kyle as he split his mound of sand with a stiff karate chop. He popped up to his feet, and flexed his stubby arms above his head as if he were a Dragonball Z character powering up.
"Gow! I'm going to violate you!" he shouted, his voice somehow reaching an octave deeper. He performed an awkward looking hop without bending his knees and crushed the remainders of his mound of sand underfoot.
"Um," I asked, with a sweat drop dripping down my furrowed brow, "who are you talking to?"
"Gow!" Kyle stared at me with an agitated look. "The sandbox, of course."
I wasn't sure how to react to that, so I just said "okay" and walked away from the area. My mama never said anything about what to do if somebody talks to inanimate objects, and I was afraid if I showed him my Lucky Penny he would just try to eat it.
I didn't know how much time still remained in recess, but I needed to make the most of what little time I had left. I procured the Lucky Penny, the hot heat of the sun's outside weather making it feel slick in my sweaty palm. The sunlight glinted off of its metal as I flipped it through the air. Heads. I decided that meant that I should go down the slide at least once. I strode to the back of the line, behind three people that I had I had not talked to. I stepped a bit to the side to see who they were and who was at the top of the slide. All of a sudden, the boy in front of me, who had short blonde hair, long lower eyelashes, chiseled cheekbones, and a red and black flannel shirt, and khaki pants spoke up.
"Hey! No cutting in line!" His voice had a strange, throaty undertone to it.
"I wasn't cutting in line," I insisted, as the person in the front of the line climbed the ladder. "I was just seeing who all was in line."
"You better not be cutting, or you'll be in trouble!" the way he said that word made it sound like "chubble", so I stifled a giggle.
"I promise, I'm not," I reassured him. "By the way, it's your turn to go."
He turned around to notice that the two people in front of him had climbed the ladder and slid down the slide. "Right," he said, putting his right foot on the first rung. "I knew that." He climbed up and slid down. Now, it was my turn. My eyes narrowed, and I grinned with determination. Grasping each warm metal rung with each hand, I used my feet to climb to the top of the ladder one at a time. When I reached the peak, I could see the entire playground, and all of the children playing around on it. I felt like I could fly. If I could, it would just be hop, skip, and a jump to reach the mysterious area known as the top of the school building.
I shook my head, turned around, pushed those thoughts out of my head, and sat down on the slide. My mama says that I shouldn't go places I'm not supposed to, so the only place for me to go now was down. I pushed off the top of the slide, and it was over in a second. I didn't even feel myself descending, just my leg thudding against the woochip-filled mulch as I reached the end of the slide. As my brain rushed to catch up with the rest of my body, I heard a noise in the distance, though it was only several feet behind me.
"Dingalingalingalingaling!" The teacher's voice rang out clearly, as clear as a bell, the bell that they were ringing right now. "Attention, students! Recess is now over! Please line up in front of the building."
I swaggered as my brain adjusted to my body before returning to my spot in line between Kiki and the tall boi behind me. As we filed into class with the teacher marching in place next to us, an apprehensive thought crossed my mind. What happens now? What could possibly be waiting for us inside this building? This building… of kindergarten? Little did I know, I was about to find out.