Was Mattías in the car with them? Slumped beside her in the back seat? Where were they going? Where had they been?
Focusing on the crayon drawings taped to the walls is a far more stabilising experience: suns with googly eyes, stick figures holding hands, a giant poster that simply says PEACE.
—Oh gosh, Shauna says when Maryluz finishes. But wait, why didn’t you pull them out during assembly?
—I didn’t know who they were, the new volunteer says, trying not to feel embarrassment like a badge on her chest, bleating out her basic incompetence to the world.
Shauna stands up, smoothing down her pink volunteer shirt. —Gabriela! she calls out. Tomás! You’re in Leadership Club today! Go follow Carolina!
She points at the new volunteer, Uncle Sam style, I WANT YOU.
The new volunteer opens her mouth to speak but abruptly shuts it: better for her to step back, let the established volunteers lead the way for now. A few children look up curiously from their schoolbooks, but nobody moves.
—I’m doing my homework, one girl says abruptly, her head bowed low over the page she’s scribbling on. I have a lot of it.
—I can help you later, Shauna says. But remember what Mattías said: it’s very special that Carolina has travelled all this way to help run Leadership Club. And it’s very, very special that you and Tomás were invited to be in it.
—What about the other boy? the girl says. Can he come too?
Shauna frowns. —What boy?
The girl still doesn’t look up. —The dirty one, she says. What about him?
Her marker keeps scrawling back and forth.
—I don’t know who you’re talking about, Shauna says, still frowning. But if Mattías didn’t specifically invite him, then no, he’s not allowed.
The girl stays seated. The marker presses down hard on whatever it is she’s drawing.
—Gabriela, Maryluz says. What do we ask of Anthill students?
Still not looking up, the girl says immediately, —To welcome everyone. To be safe, respectful and kind.
—And what else?
The marker pauses. —To make good choices.
—Exactly. No one here is going to tell you what to do. No one’s going to force you to do anything. Here at the Anthill, we want you to be responsible for your actions. We want everybody here to have a choice, and no one else can make it but you. Mattías nominated you for Leadership Club, out of all the other students who come here every afternoon, because he thought Leadership Club was something you would benefit from. So if you don’t want to attend, that’s fine. But I recommend that you think a bit harder before making your final decision.
The girl still doesn’t look up. But she snaps the cap back on her marker. She stands up slowly, notebook clutched tight. The boy beside her leaps to his feet, knocking over his chair.
And when the new volunteer finally sees their faces side by side, the tightness in her chest curls in, and what’s left of her fingernails press into her palms.
It’s the girl and boy from assembly.
Leadership Club
Sometimes it’s like her life is finally getting close to resembling something vaguely back on track: reconnecting with her homeland, the country she left behind! Meeting up again with her childhood BFF! If only somebody somewhere, ideally one of the invisible judges on the icily vocal committee that’s continuously judging her life—if only they could bring down a giant stamp of approval on this moment. But then, yet again, she ends up feeling like she’s just…kind of embarrassing.
—Right, the new volunteer says. Do you all know each other?
Tomás and Gabriela nod. Dafne and Rebecca shake their heads. The other two boys who were supposed to attend chose to keep playing football (or, as Maryluz bluntly informed her, They didn’t want to come). The chair she’s sitting on is so low her knees feel ridiculously high, an Alice in Wonderland giant.
—Okay. Well, why don’t we start with that? Let’s go around the table and, um, say our names. Gabriela opens her mouth to begin but the new volunteer hurries on, interrupting without meaning to: And a fact! Let’s all share an interesting fact about ourselves. A unique, original fact.
Nobody says anything. Tomás puts his index finger into his mouth and starts nibbling it like a cob of corn.
—Okay, I’ll go first. My name is Carolina, and an interesting fact about me…is…(what constitutes an “interesting” fact, exactly?)…I’m from England. Do you guys know where England is?
Three heads shake and one nods. Gabriela says, —It’s in the United Kingdom.
—That’s right, the new volunteer says, trying not to sound surprised. The United Kingdom. Though I used to live right here, in Medellín.
—We’re not in Medellín, Gabriela says. Medellín’s down there.
She jerks her head in the direction of the cable car wires, the rows of brick houses dotting the mountainside, down into the valley below.
Nobody says anything for a beat. Then the new volunteer says, —Dafne, do you want to go next?
The pleading tone of her voice must be painfully obvious, but thankfully Dafne puts her out of her misery and takes the bait. —My name is Dafne, she says in a soft voice, and my interesting fact is I’m from Chocó.
Rebecca says the exact same thing. Tomás says “Ituango,” a word she’s never heard before. —Where’s that? the new volunteer asks, and he mumbles, —Antioquia.
Gabriela says, —My interesting fact is I’m from Brooklyn. The new volunteer looks at her. Gabriela wiggles in her seat. My mother lives there, she continues. In the Hamptons.
The Hamptons and Brooklyn are two different places, the new volunteer thinks, but instead she says, —Okay, I guess our interesting fact is that we all come from…somewhere.
She hands out blank sheets of paper and asks them to write out their names, along with images that represent them and their lives, an activity that feels vaguely age-appropriate.
—Draw what best represents you, the new volunteer says, in the brightest voice she can, sunny Shauna style. So we can get to know each other!
—We already know each other, Gabriela says, but pulls the cap off a marker anyway.
As the children hunch over their name tags—scrawling out letters, scribbling in houses, drawing fat-bellied clouds and anorexic flowers—the new volunteer looks at her own blank sheet.
What about her?
Should she draw a book?
A laptop?