Day One.

Several Scenarios of What It's Like to be a Brand New First Grader:

On the sidewalk outside the school, you walk exactly four steps behind mom. No matter how many times she turns around in impatience, your sluggish light-up Spiderman sneakers refuse to match her pace.

You stand and stand, lost, as the nice lady holds out her hand to you with unprecedented continuity.
"Come on," she says. "It's okay. I'll walk you to your room."
Walk me? you think. What am I, a dog?
She shakes her hand at you. She is smiling. Her hand rests on empty air in front of your face.
C'mon lady, you sigh. Just keep moving! Can't you tell I don't want to hold your hand?

You go outside for recess and you see your old friends from kindergarten. You see your new friends in first grade. They're all the same; they're all friends; on the playground, no one is sad.

You cry at the round table in the office filled with boys and girls and people and teachers and four different languages and the noise of one printer and two copy machines and eighteen thousand screaming rings of the telephone. Your language is a fifth different language. The interpreters are busy elsewhere. You don't know what's happening.
When they give you Cinnamon Toast Crunch to make you happy, you eat it.
You cry your tears and you eat your Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Stories:


Rosalita wears a jean skirt with a blouse featuring little pink flowers on the front. Her tights are almost as white as her brand new, church-worthy, first-day-of-kindergarten shoes. Except it's not the first day of kindergarten; it's just the open house. Her mother sighs:
"Pero pues, los quería poner así que, qué hago?" But she wanted to wear them anyway. What can you do?
As Rosalita, her mother and I walk down the hall to the front doors, Rosalita's mouse-like voice tells me all about her new shoes, over and over again. Never mind the fact she just spent the last half hour standing in front of my desk briefing future kindergarten classmate, José Carlos, on the color, make and level of comfort on a scale from 1 to 10. (Although José Carlos didn't get a word in, he did manage to stare.)
Rosalita's mother gives me a look that says, "Listen, I'd give you some earplugs, but I'm wearing the only ones I got."
Rosalita pauses for breath as she takes her mother's hand, and mom grins. So do I.

Luís doesn't know if he is supposed to ride the bus to his grandma's, or walk home to his mom's. The bus supervisors are frustrated. They turf him to me, and we go see Nef so that Nef can call Luís' mom.
On our jaunt to see Nef, Luís mutters unsoundly Spanish words under his breath.
After all has been figured out, Luís heads towards the bus. Nef yells after him, "Corrale!" but Luís doesn't hear.
"What did he say?" he asks me.
I yell: Run, dude! "Corrale, wey!"
His eyes open and shut, then open and widen.
"...did you understand what I was saying then, back there?"
I wink. Luís abruptly turns and hightails it to his bus.
Am I on to you, Luís. Boy, am I on to you.