Although I awoke normally the next morning, the strange dream I had last night remained burned into my memory like a cattle prod, and was all I could think about as I stared into my bowl of dry Alpha Bits, that I don't put milk in because I'm not a hecking psycho. What was that place I had been in? Who was that woman that looked like an older Julia? Who was that strangely familiar old man? Why did they keep calling me Amanda? My dreams had only become this strange ever since Mr. Pony had given me those two chips, and now they were so vivid that they were almost indiscernible from my real memories. It gave me a splitting headache just trying to think about it. It was almost as if I had the pieces of a puzzle right in front of me, but couldn't figure out how they fit together. Knowing that I wouldn't get anywhere like this, I decided to put these deep thoughts aside for the time being, since another exciting day of school was about to begin.
About half an hour later, I was once again stepping into the playground outside the kindergarten building. This time, the playground was abandoned, except for the brisk morning breeze blowing an empty TasteyKake wrapper along the ground like a tumbleweed. This gave the harsh brick exterior of the building a more foreboding feeling. I shivered as I opened the door and stepped inside.
Like usual, I reported to the rug in the back of the classroom along with the rest of the class, to hear Mr. Pony's announcement, and begin the daily routine of centers. Though I was excited to spend some quality time with my new friends, it did feel a bit repetitive. And due to the Tienes el Gato drama from yesterday, there still seemed to be some hard feelings lingering in the air, specifically between Randy and Owen. Though Rachel has also been involved in the incident yesterday, she seemed completely unaffected and indifferent to it, once again choosing to sit at the quiet coloring table and forgo interacting with others. What an introvert.
I procured the Lucky Penny and began flipping it, going through the motions of selecting someone to talk to. However, amidst my decision making, Mr. Pony approached me. I became a bit nervous.
"G-good morning, Mr. Pony," I said. "How are you today? Am I… in trouble?"
"Not at all," replied Mr. Pony. "But I just couldn't help but wonder what exactly it was that you were doing."
"I'm trying to decide who I want to talk to," I reasoned. "But since the decision is too hard to make on my own, I'm letting my Lucky Penny decide for me."
Mr. Pony put a hand to their cheek, the one on their face, and tilted their head to the side quizzically. "That's a little unusual," they remarked. "Is there any reason why you do that? Why not just hang out with whoever you want?"
"Because my mama says that if a decision is too hard to make on my own, I should use the Lucky Penny to choose," I answered. "Plus, if I just hung out with only a few people, it wouldn't be fair to everyone else, would it?"
"That's an interesting way of looking at it," replied Mr. Pony, "but here's some advice – sometimes, it's okay to do what you want, even if it isn't completely fair to everyone else. After all, there's only one of you, and only a certain amount of school days left, so go wild! Talk to whoever you want! Treat yo'self before you eat yo'self!"
Upon hearing that last phrase, something clicked inside my brain. I froze and accidentally let the Lucky Penny fall to the ground. I felt like I had heard that somewhere before, but couldn't put my finger on it. Visibly shaken and rattled like the tail of a rattlesnake, I bent down to scoop up the fallen Lucky Penny.
As I looked down at this little circle of awe in my outstretched palm, I pondered Mr. Pony's words. Should I really just talk to whoever I wanted, independent of the Lucky Penny's base desires? Or should I allow this disc of copper to make my difficult decisions for me? Well, just for the time being, I would let the Lucky Penny decide. Heads, I talked to whoever I wanted during centers, tails, I let the Lucky Penny choose for me. As I flicked the coin into the air with my nimble thumb, time seemed to slow down… though unlike before, it never ground to a complete stop. The Lucky Penny landed in the palm of my left hand and I quickly deposited it on the top of my right hand. Heads.
I took a deep breath through my nose, closing my eyes as I exhaled through my mouth. I felt like a middle-aged, slightly racist, yet powerful woman that was about to turn an artificially-enhanced school bus into scrap metal with a single blow, quickly followed by a megalodon. If that was what the Lucky Penny wanted, then so be it. Now I just had to decide who I wanted to talk to myself.
After a few split second decisions, I strode over towards Eli, who seemed to have just finished up a conversation with Kyle, who was back in class after going home early yesterday.
"Howdy," I said, closing my eyes, smiling, and raising my hand in a form of greeting.
"H-hi," Eli replied. "Uh, sorry, but w-what was your name again? ...Megan?"
"Am -" I almost told him Amanda. My mind was clearly still on the dream I had last night. "Maddie." I quickly corrected myself. "And you're Eli, right?"
"Yeah," he said. "A-anyways, what's up? Do you n-need something?"
I had to get him out of his shy persona if I wanted this conversation to go anywhere, and quickly. Fortunately, I knew just how to do that. "I was just wondering if you had decided on any cool projects for the sandbox yet."
"Oh!" His eyes lit up. "I've actually come up with a pretty interesting idea based on a few observations I made about the sandbox." He pulled a rolled-up piece of blue construction paper out of his back pocket and unfurled it, revealing a design plan drawn on it in white crown. "The most interesting thing I noticed is that the wooden boards enclosing the sandbox only extend for a few inches beneath the ground, and are only about a foot tall total. Also, the sandbox has no bottom, meaning that underneath the sand is just a layer of dirt. And, another thing, the deeper you get into the dirt, the sturdier it becomes."
"Cool!" I said, although my brain had trouble processing what this all meant. But Eli seemed to enjoy talking about his discoveries, so I was fine with that. "So, what does that mean? And what does it have to do with your drawing?"
"It means," implied Eli both excitedly and thoughtfully, "that theoretically, it would be possible to dig a tunnel from inside of the sandbox, to somewhere outside of the sandbox." He traced a line with his finger for visual effect.
"Oh!" I snapped my fingers as Eli's explanation made clear what was right in front of my face. I felt like I was having a brain blast from Jimmy Neutron. "That makes sense. But wait, what if the dirt on top of the tunnel caves in?"
Although he didn't seem like a 'nice guy' to me, Eli tipped his yellow helmet as if it were a fedora. "I just need to get a bunch of sticks to support the tunnel ceiling, and that should prevent it from collapsing."
"I can help with that if you want," I said. "I bet there's a bunch of sticks lying around the playground."
"That would be great, thanks," he said. "I've already got Kyle helping me, but the more the merrier!"
All of this talk about digging made me remember something. "Also, I might have something else that might help you with the tunnel." I reached into my pocket and procured the green plastic shovel.
"Whoa!" he said in surprise. "I was looking for something like that a few days ago, but it wasn't in the shed. Thanks, Maddie!" I didn't have the heart to tell him that this was the same shovel I had found in the sandbox two days ago.
"So yeah, just remind me when recess starts and I can help you and Kyle with the tunnel."
"Will do. See you then." Looking forward to our little construction project later on, I wandered away from Eli. Now, who did I want to talk to next? The obvious choices seemed to be Kiki and Jordan, though Kathleen, William, and Jacques seemed cool as well. I also didn't know very much about Jenny, Skylar, or Jeremy, so I kind of wanted to talk to them as well. At the end of the day though, as much as I wanted to hang out with someone else to get to know them a little better, I had told Kiki that we would hang out before school yesterday, and my mama says that if you make a promise to someone, you should try your best to keep it. I went up to Kiki, who was currently absentmindedly sucking on a lollipop.
"Hey Kiki," I said, getting her attention.
"'Sup," she replied.
"Sorry I didn't hang out with you during centers yesterday," I said, feeling a but guilty. " I wanted to, but… my Lucky Penny wanted me to hang out with other people."
"It's all good," she said, before taking the lollipop out of her mouth. "It be like that sometimes."
"You know what?" I replied, nodding and putting my hand to my chin thoughtfully. "It really do be like that sometimes."
"Tru," she replied, with no 'e', before putting the lollipop back in her mouth.
"By the way, what flavor lollipop is that?" I asked.
"It's orange," she said. "Just like my coat. So, you know how there's like, three main flavors of lollipops, or popsicles, and stuff? Do you know which ones they are?"
"Yeah, I think," I replied, needing to think very fast. Crap. What flavors could she be talking about? I wondered. As I stood there for a indefinite amount of time, totally transfixed, the words slowly appeared to me in my brain, until I could utter them aloud.
"Cherry..." I muttered, my eyes closed. "Orange… and, uh, wait, I've almost got it… grape, right?" My eyes snapped open excitedly as I came up with my answer.
"Yeah," she confirmed. "The most popular flavor is cherry, since the most people think that it tastes good. Most people don't like grape, and think people that do like grape are weirdos." I nodded my head in agreement. Though I had never really thought about this before, it seemed like she was spitting scraight fax.
"So that's why I like orange lollipops the best," continued Kiki. "Because it's not super common like cherry, but not purposefully weird like grape. Orange is… spicy."
"I've never really thought about it that way before, but you're totally right," I said.
"I actually have an extra cherry one I can give you if you want." I was tempted to accept the offer, but my mind flashed back to the whole butter sandwich ordeal from yesterday.
"Thanks, but I'll have to take you up on that later," I answered, and explained Mr. Pony's rule to her.
"That's pretty wack," she said. "Oh, by the way, I planted that acorn you gave me. One day, it's gonna grow up to be a great big tree."
"Awesome!" I replied.
"For sure," she said. "It's like they always say, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago." She paused for a second, swaying back and forth slightly and putting her hand to her chin. "Or was it 30?" I said nothing. "Oh well. Either way, the second best time is now."
I agreed with that. Kiki seemed like a person that was very easy to agree with. I could have kept talking to her longer, but Mr. Pony's handbell cut through our thoughts. Fer some reason, I had felt awfully disconnected from them as of late. As eccentric as Mr. Pony could be, I hadn't quite gotten my daily dosage of their caffeinated self just yet.
"Dingalingalingalingaling!" exclaimed Mr. Pony. "Okay, ladies, gentlemen, and others. Please report to the carpet. We're going to to be doing something a little different today."
My body quaked and quivered like an Oreo on top of a drying machine. Something different? I mean, I knew I had complained about how repetitive things were just a few minutes earlier, but at the same time I didn't think I was mentally, emotionally, or psychologically ready for something different. In short, I was, uh, in the book of life, it was on, uh, a weird paige. Specifically, a weird Paige Prep. Pulling myself together, I swaggered over to the carpet. As I prepared to sit down, Randy's sing-songy voice rang out for all to hear.
"Criss cross, applesauce, sitting in a circle!" He clapped his hands and repeated this chant until everyone was seated. Somehow, I ended up between Jenny and William.
"Mr. Pony, what's going on?" asked Owen, waving his hand to and 'fro. "Are we gonna play duck duck gray duck?"
"Wow," responded Kathleen; "Is that game anything like duck duck goose?"
"I'm pretty sure they're the same game," said William, looking down somewhat and visibly exhaling.
"Yeah," added Kiki. "Owen's just being a silly gray duck."
Owen put his hands behind his head and grinned. "Aw, you got me!"
"Order!" ordered Randy, but in his throaty voice, it sounded more like 'h'ors d'oeurves', which my mama says is french for appetizers.
"Thank you, Randy, but please let me handle the situation," said Mr. Pony, standing next to the easel pad on the outside of the circle. "So, class, what will be happening next is no duck duck gray duck. I actually had a student last year who really enjoyed this activity, His name is shep, some of you might know him."
My mind was still on the duck duck gray duck thing. Who even called duck duck goose duck duck gray duck in the first place?
"We'll be doing what's known as a sharing exercise, because sharing is caring," continued Mr. Pony. "It's… show and tell! Where students volunteer to show the class some object they have and tell them about it."
Julia raised her hand. "What, specifically, do we have to say about the object?"
"Well," replied Mr. Pony, "You can say pretty much anything you want about it, but if you're having trouble coming up with ideas, you can say what it is, a story of how you got it, and why it's important, for beginners."
Owen raised his hand. "May you put on some music, please?" he asked, selecting his words carefully. "I need to get in the zone."
"Well, since you asked so nicely," replied Mr. Pony, putting their hands on their stomach, "sure!" They busted out a boombox and hit the play button. A strange, semi-verbal beat began playing. And with that… show and tell had begun.