My brother started school before I did-I guess my parents figured it was more important that he get back into the tenth grade than I get back to first, and he wasn’t as adamant about not going. He was socially accepted pretty quickly-he managed to achieve finding a best friend who lived around the block and a pretty girlfriend in what I consider record speed. It was a couple of days later that I was ushered to the door of my new first grade classroom. I remember that my parents didn’t come in with me, and that it was midmorning. As my mother gave me a gentle push into the classroom, it fell completely silent. The teacher announced my name, showed me where to hang my coat, and left me to my own devices-for some reason recess was inside that day. I scanned the classroom for a likely playmate. There was something funny about this place. For one thing, it was awfully quiet. No raucous laughter, no jive talk, no cussing, no fighting. For another thing, the class was utterly divided. Boys played with boys, girls played with girls. And finally, with the exception of one Asian girl, every single kid in the classroom was as White as I was. I was baffled. What was I supposed to do?
I was closest to a group of girls who were staring at me as if I was a specimen from another planet. There was a brunette, a redhead, and the Asian girl. I was about to walk into my first blonde joke.
“What do we do?” asked the brunette, Courtney.
“I think we’re supposed to ask her to play with us,” said the redhead, Lisa.
“Yeah, we HAVE to. She’s the NEW girl,” agreed Joy, the Asian girl, with a touch of irritation.
They all stared at me and I finally shrugged and joined their game of “house”-thank God I’d had some experience with Chace or I’d really have been screwed.
“It’s really quiet in here,” I commented.
“That’s cos of yesterday,” said Joy, who turned out to be talkative and always brimming with fun. “You’re lucky you came today instead of yesterday.”
“Why? What happened yesterday?” I asked, imagining one of the worst scenes from my old school, like the day Anthony played hooky, then tried forging a note from his Grandmama saying he was sick, despite the fact he didn’t yet know HOW to write. Miss Wilson came to get him and you could hear them both screaming (and him howling) all the way down the hall.
Courtney took up the tale. “See that boy over there?” She pointed to a tall, broad kid with shaggy dark hair. “That’s Justin. He’s ALWAYS in trouble.” She rolled her eyes.
Joy jumped back in. “Yesterday, he couldn’t get his boot off. He was pulling and pulling and he pulled real hard and it flew up in the air and landed up in one of the lights!”
All three girls giggled, but then Lisa said, “He really got in trouble. Mrs. D. was yelling forever. She yelled at all of us, and sent him to the principal. That’s why everyone’s so quiet today. The janitor had to come and get his boot back.”
I stared at them. “But he didn’t mean to!”
Joy shook her head, and echoed Courtney. “He’s ALWAYS in trouble.”
Things at this new school were going to be very different indeed.
At lunchtime, first through third grade gathered in the cafeteria. There were maybe as many kids in all three grades as there had been in first grade in Jacksonville. I scanned the crowd, which confirmed my suspicions. I was sitting with my first friends, and turned to ask them the inevitable question.
“Where are the black kids?”
They stared at me.
“There aren’t any black people here,” said Joy.
“At school? Why not?”
“Not just at school. In the whole town,” said Courtney. She lowered her voice. “I heard a black family moved in once. But then someone burned a cross on their yard and they moved away and never came back.”
I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I knew enough to know it was a horrible, hateful thing to do.
“That’s real bad,” I said.
I can’t say I was completely tactful at six. I turned to Joy. “What about you? You’re not white.”
“Oh, well, there’s me, and there’s Job, he’s that boy over there. We’re both Korean. We’re adopted. But our families are white,” she said. “But we’re the only ones in first grade.”
“At my old school, there were hardly any white kids,” I said. “One of my best friends, Elliot, was black.”
Courtney wrinkled her nose. “That’s so weird.”
Posted on March 24, 2007