First day

Tiny trembling hands fiddled with the buttons on her dress. They couldn’t stay straight, it was wrinkled. She hated that, she wanted everything to be perfect. She hated to leave her mom, hated to give up the great times watching ‘Bobby’s World’ or ‘Moon Dreamers’ with chocolate milk and bologna sandwiches. She liked them with mustard. She would at least know one person she was going to school with. Her uncle’s friend had a daughter her age and they were best friends. That was a relief. The world flew by as she rode on her mom’s lap in the passenger’s side of her grandpa’s blue S-10. Everything was familiar for now, until they got to the little school. It was already noon and she was glad she didn’t have to wake up early like some of the other kids. Her backpack bounced against her back as she held her mom’s hand as they walked down the giant hallway. This is the first time she would be somewhere alone without her mom or some other family member nearby.

“Be good,” her mom said.

“Don’t leave me,” the little girl said.

“I’ll be back in three hours to get you,” her mom said and kissed her goodbye.

Her stomach felt like a cat rolling around with a ball of yarn. But it wasn’t cute at all. She wanted to throw up. The teacher came to her and smiled, taking her hand.

“You want to come meet your new friends?” the teacher asked. She nodded. Something was holding her mouth shut and her face was warm. She saw her friend and went to her. They smiled at each other and the teacher gathered them all and talked for a while. Mostly they were supposed to play and get to know one another. She saw another girl she had played with at her grandma’s house. She was very nice too. She had two friends. TWO! That was so many. The room had a little playhouse in the corner. She loved to play pretend so she went inside there and picked up the phone.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hello it’s me,” no one said.

“Hi, how are you?” she said. No one started talking, telling her a joke and she laughed. She turned around and several faces stared at her. Curious, accusing, bewildered faces. She felt pressure on her whole body as the attention on her wrapped her in a bad feeling.

“You aren’t really on the phone,” one of them said.

“I was imagining,” she said.

“That’s weird,” someone said. She stood there, she was weird? She was wrong and different.

“What are you?” a boy asked her. She just smiled at him. He scoffed, “I asked you a question.” She wanted to cry, she could feel tears stinging her eyes already. She couldn’t speak, there was too much heaviness in the air. A pressure on her chest, a sickness in her stomach, all of her skin was hot. It was hard to breath and the last thing she could do was open her mouth to speak. What would she even say? She had no words in her brain, just that awful feeling. Attention. Bad attention.

“She can’t talk,” someone laughed.

“Can’t you talk?” someone else asked her. She smiled at them again.

“She must be stupid,” someone said.

“What are you?” there it was again. WHAT was she? Not ‘who’ but ‘what’. Her brain tried to process it all but it got stuck. Words wouldn’t come to her mind, nothing could, it was a carnival of broken attractions in there. The ferris wheel was spinning off into the distance. Every light was going off at once. Words wouldn’t come.

“You don’t look American,” someone said.

“You look Chinese,” another.

“Are you Chinese or Japanese,” laughed another voice. She didn’t know those words but the faces behind the words twisted in disgust. Different, weird, not like them, disgusting. Kids started pulling their eyes into slits laughing at her.

“I don’t know what that is,” she said.

“You’re ugly, you don’t look like an American,” someone said. Ugly, she knew that word. She felt it in her core. Yes. She knew that about herself. Her sister called her that all the time. She didn’t want to be seen anymore. She wanted to be alone with the phone and the fake person on the other line who couldn’t see that she was ugly and wrong. She looked for the nice blond girl she had played with at her grandma’s house. She was off to the side watching silently, looking sad. Like she wanted to help but was just as confused as the little girl who had just a little bit darker skin. Who had dark hair and almond eyes. The girl who was taught by her mom that Indians were really cool and good. But this didn’t feel good, this felt wrong and weird. Like everything she had thought was something to be proud of was disgusting and embarrassing.

But then she remembered her family, her grandpa’s round comforting belly, solid and great to hug. Her grandma’s soft hands handing her raw dough as she made homemade noodles. Her uncle singing to her as she fell asleep. Her dad putting toys together for her on Christmas morning. Her older cousin shutting her door to make sure she was safe in the car. Her mom, her favorite person in the world. Her mom who had the most beautiful smile and black hair and dark skin. The one who protected her no matter what and gave her chocolate milk and Reese cups and talked to her when they had ‘me’ time. They weren’t ugly. It was just her, she was ugly and wrong. Everything her sister said to her was true. All these kids were saying it too. No one else in her family could tell her because they felt sorry for her because she was so ugly and probably stupid too because she couldn’t talk. Something was wrong with her. She needed to hide. She hated school. She shouldn’t have came here.