Margie whispered to me, “Why do you think we are putting them on the board? Do you think it will be a test or something?”
Freddy said, “Who cares?”
The Blue Frog
One afternoon, as I was walking back from the bus stop, dodging a band of Clackerty-Claffertys who had jumped off the bus in a noisy heap, I spotted Antonio standing in our driveway. I hadn’t seen him in nearly a week. There he was, that smile on his face. My own smile, I thought, must be inferior by comparison.
I think it matters how people look at you when they first see you, before they have a chance to rearrange their expression.
“Do you need help?” I asked.
“Why do you keep asking me that?”
“No reason.”
He asked me to tell him about the bus. “Does it take you right to the school or does it stop at other places?”
“It stops to pick up other students and then it goes right to the school. Are you going to be taking the bus?”
His curly black hair hung down over one side of his forehead. When I’d ask him a question, he’d pull at one of those forehead locks, thinking.
“That may be,” he said.
“I can show you how it works, if you want.”
“Saw a tiny blue frog in the street today,” he said.
“You did? A blue frog?”
“A man came along and ate it.”
“The man ate the blue frog?”
“Yes, and then he croaked.”
From the upstairs window the grandmother called, “Ann-tone-ee-oh!”
“You sure you don’t need help?”
“Quit asking me that. Gotta go.”
I went in my house and ate toast and wondered who had croaked, the frog or the man?
Who Is It?
At the beginning and end of each day, Miss Lightstone would silently trace her finger below Who are you? and then turn to look at each of us with a slow, roving gaze.
“I still think it’s going to be a test,” Margie said.
“A test?” Arif asked. “How could it be a test?”
“Like maybe an essay test,” Margie said. “Maybe we’re supposed to be thinking about it and preparing to answer that question.”
I did not like the sound of that, but the idea lodged in my head like an annoying fly. Figure it out. Who are you? What is the answer? What will you say?
One morning, there was a word in bold writing pinned on the bulletin board: reflection.
Nearby was a photo of a still lake with trees on the bank perfectly reflected in the water. Beneath the photo were the words Green Lake.
While we were contemplating these new additions, Margie said, “Well, they’re connected—there’s a reflection in the photo of Green Lake.”
“A lake that isn’t there,” Freddy said.
“What are you talking about?” Arif asked. “The lake is right there.”
Freddy approached the board and jabbed his finger at one of the first lines we had posted on the day we examined piles of books: “There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.”1
“Wait—what?”
“It’s a test, I know it.”
Renaldo, who was standing to one side, said, “Who’s that?”
Miss Lightstone was now at the classroom door speaking with the office secretary, Miss Judy, who handed our teacher a folder. A student stood beside her, but we couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. We could only see an arm and a leg.
Miss Judy and Miss Marlene
The previous day, we had read aloud short passages of dialogue from several different books, taking turns as the characters. We sounded as if we were in miniature plays: people didn’t always talk in complete sentences, often they interrupted each other, and sometimes they talked over each other.
Afterward, we did a writing experiment: a conversation between two people. It could be a real conversation or a made-up one.
I wrote about the time Dad and I visited two older women who used to work at the university where he taught part-time. One of the women, Miss Judy, I knew because she now worked in the office at our school. She and her friend Miss Marlene were slender and frail, birdlike in their jittery movements. They served us tea and cookies and talked over each other:
Miss Judy:
(pointing to Dad’s chair) Do you know who sat in that chair—
Miss Marlene:
—the one you’re sitting in—
Miss Judy:
The empress of Japan!
Miss Marlene:
Right there!
Miss Judy:
At this table, only it wasn’t this table—
Miss Marlene:
This table wasn’t fancy enough—
Miss Judy:
So we had to cart up a different table—
Miss Marlene:
And we made tea in these little cups—
Miss Judy:
These same cups you’re drinking out of—
Miss Marlene:
And we had little cookies—
Miss Judy:
Better than these cookies—we had little fancy ones—
Miss Marlene:
For the empress of Japan—
Miss Judy:
And we’re talking, talking—
Miss Marlene:
Talking, talking—
Miss Judy:
And after all this talking, do you know what the empress of Japan said?
Miss Marlene:
It was so—so—cute.
Miss Judy:
She said, “May I have a cookie?”
Miss Marlene:
The empress of Japan!
Miss Judy:
“May I have a cookie?”
They were so eager, Miss Judy and Miss Marlene, to tell us their story of the visit of the empress of Japan, and when they finished, Dad nodded appreciatively while I looked longingly at the cookies.
Because Miss Judy worked in our school office, I saw her nearly every day. She winked at me, even if I was late or in trouble, like the time when I saw the angels.
Now, Miss Judy was standing like a gawky bird in the doorway of our classroom, handing Miss Lightstone a folder and introducing her to a new student. The whir this set off in our class reminded me of sitting with Miss Judy and Miss Marlene and hearing the tale of the empress of Japan. There was a rhythm to the whispers in my class, and I tried to capture it quickly in my notebook.
Who is that?
Is it a boy? Is he new?
Must be—
Never seen him—
Or her. Maybe it’s a girl.
Will he—or she—be—
In our class—
Oh, I hope so—
What’s the big deal?
Who is it?
Starting school two weeks late?
Must have just moved here—
From where?
Who is it?
“Class,” Miss Lightstone said, ushering a boy into the room, “we have a new student. This is Antonio.”
Everyone gaped at him. He was so perfectly perfect standing there, confident and at ease, all cleaned up.