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thothmesTomorrow is the first day of school here, and I am ready to celebrate. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids. I had them because I love to spend time with them, and I delight in watching how their minds work. But it's time. The Whirlwind gets up very early, and Middle Daughter stays up very late, and privacy is almost impossible to come by.
Title: Not Too Cool For School
Season: Preseries
Spoilers: If you couldn't recognize them as such, they really won't spoil you.
Synopsis: SG-1 go to their first day of school. No teamy goodness. They're too young for that yet.
Warnings: Kidfic. As a general rule I can't approve of that. It just troubles my Improbability Meter. Where does all that matter go when they shrink? Where does it come from when they regrow? Why? Why? Why? The mind boggles. This is just a journey through the Wayback Machine, without the presence of Mr. Peabody or his boy Sherman. Daniel/Sherman friendship fic might be amusing though.
Disclaimer: These aren't the characters you own, really. They're too young to be jaunting around the galaxy yet. They aren't even really fully formed at this point. Your characters are in your programs all unharmed and unchanged. I don't get any profit, not even an apple for the teacher.
Not Too Cool For School
Chulak. Harvest Home
Teal'c pulled his hand from his mother's. He could feel the heat of his shame in his cheeks. It was humiliating enough that as a new student he did not have the wooden staff weapon that the experienced students bore. Anyone could see his lowly beginner's status from that fact alone. He did not need the added humiliation of being seen to hold his mother's hand. He had seen six harvests, and did not need her comfort and control. He was no baby!
Drawing himself up to his full height, he worked to withdraw all expression from his face, as his father had taught him to do. His discipline was good, and he managed what he knew was a success beyond that expected of one of his years, in spite of the terrible pang of loss that gripped at his chest whenever he thought of his father. Like all Jaffa, his recall of events was extensive and detailed, but still, it had been two years now, and he found that it was harder now to recall all the details of his father's face, or all the shadings of his voice. He recited the list of all his father's many battles and the names of his glorious victories each night in secret, a ritual as he lay in his bed before sleep. His mother had forbidden this, because, she said, their new god might take offense at hearing the glorious victories of Cronus, but Teal'c's loyalty to his father outweighed the strictures of his mother. He kept his recitations to himself. What she did not hear could not alarm her.
Glancing up, he noticed Randec passing by, one of the older chal'tii, almost a warrior! He carried an actual staff weapon, and not just a wooden facsimile. Teal'c's cheeks flamed anew. Had Randec seen him holding his mother's hand like a weanling? His humiliation was complete.
As Randec drew even with Teal'c's mother, he turned slightly to address Teal'c, and Teal'c was impressed by the total impassivity of the chal'tii's face. Surely Randec would be granted the honor of becoming a warrior soon!
“Teal'c, is it not?” said Randec. “Surely a fitting name for a warrior.”
Teal'c could scarcely find his voice, so startled was he that such an august personage should know him by name, but at last he managed to push out “Indeed!” and felt a small swell of pride that he managed his usual volume as he did so, although his voice was not as rich and low as he would have wanted.
“Your name means 'strength', you know.”
“So my father told me.”
“Then you must lend some of that strength to your mother this day. Give her your hand, and show that you are warrior enough to put the happiness of your mother above your own.”
Was that a twinkle in Randec's eye? Teal'c felt a glow of warmth at the notice and advice of this older boy, almost a man grown. Teal'c reached up and grasped his mother's hand, feeling its warmth as it surrounded his own smaller hand. Randec winked at him, and then picked up his pace again to what it had been before.
Teal'c did not see the smile of thanks that his mother sent, only Randec's acknowledging nod.
Sacred Heart Primary, Chicago, Illinois. September 1957
The building was tall and severe from the outside, over a hundred years old and built of brick and stone. Jonny and his mom had walked past it for years on the way to the park or Kozlowski's Market. Now he would find out what was inside. As far as Jonny was concerned, though, that wasn't the exciting part. The best part was that his mom had promised him that he would be allowed to play in the playground next to the building, the one that was surrounded by the chain-link fence, keeping neighborhood kids out and the students in. They had a roundabout thingy that Jon had been itching to try for years, and a set of monkey bars he thought he could probably reach without help.
As Jonny and his mom made their way up the concrete steps to the big wooden door, with its brass thumb-latched handle and big brass lock and the small window panes forming the shape of one of those pointy-topped windows like they had in church, he thought about taking his mom's hand, but decided not to after all. He was a big boy (he'd be six next month!) and he didn't need to do that. Besides, his mother needed that hand to open the door.
Inside the noise of the traffic and the wind outside was muted by the thick walls, but the clatter of everyone's heavy leather school shoes and the high-heels of the mothers moving on the marble floors echoed hollowly around the long hallways, and everywhere was the clamor of children's excited voices.
Jonny noticed that all the other boys were wearing the long-sleeved white shirts and clip-on ties he wore, and the nasty, icky, ichy plaid wool shorts that he had fought with his mother about. They also had the heavy leather Buster Brown good shoes he had on. The girls got short-sleeved shirts and plaid skirts which looked just as heavy and itchy, and shiny black patent leather shoes. He hadn't really doubted that his mother believed that all the other kids would be wearing the same thing, he was just a little worried that there would be other kids whose father didn't wear a uniform at work. Maybe they wouldn't have moms that said “It's your first uniform. Just like Daddy has a uniform. Please?” Maybe they wouldn't be suckers, and they'd be in comfy t-shirts and jeans and well-worn Keds.
His mother led him down two long hallways, filled with doors, each with a collection of desks inside. All the kids were bigger than he was, but their uniforms were the same. Near the door was a big grownup desk, and behind each big desk with its grown-up sized chair was a blackboard. Above each blackboard was a long metal box with a stick and a ring hanging down (which Jon later found out was a map), a crucifix, and a flag.
The other kids Jon's age had moms with them too, and they were all headed to a door at the end of the second hallway, where a woman dressed all in black, with a white wrapping on her head under a black hood-thing, and white socks and white shoes on her feet. This, Jon knew was a nun. Her special clothes made her look scary, but her cheeks were round and rosy, just like Aunt Kate's. Aunt Kate was nice, and gave him peppermints and bubblegum. He wondered if nuns knew about peppermints and bubblegum, or whether they were too special for that.
They had to wait in line to go in, as each mother stepped up with her child and introduced themself and the child to the nun. There was a tow-headed round faced boy named Stan Borowski, and a red-headed freckled kid named Jimmy Ryan. Next was a quiet pale, thin little girl, so shy she could only whisper named Katie Surowiec, and a big, round, freckled-all-over girl with thin straight hair in braids tied with white ribbons named Mary Ellen Norman. She had caught Jonny looking at her, and had crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at him, and told him his hair was a mess. Jon's mom had spent fifteen whole minutes trying to grease his hair down with hair goop of some sort. He thought Mary Ellen probably made his mom feel bad, because she worried a lot how his hair looked, especially for special things like church and the first day of school where she wanted him to make a good impression. He decided that he didn't like Mary Ellen at all. Good thing his cousin Eddie had taught him how to make a spitball and take apart a pen.
Now it was their turn. Jon''s mom introduced herself, and then pushed gently between Jonny's shoulders to bring him forward for inspection.
“-and this is my son, Jonathan,” she said.
Up close the nun, who went by the name Sister Margaret, had very red, freckled apple cheeks, and smooth, soft looking skin. Her uniform was very dark and a little scary, and she had a small golden crucifix around her neck that swung down as she bent down to take Jonny's hand. She had an interesting smell, which reminded Jonny of church somehow. A few years later he discovered it was the smell of the incense.
“How do you do, Jonathan?” she said.
This was one of those odd, hard to answer grown-ups questions. Jonny was never sure what he was supposed to say to this. When he just said “Fine” his mom never seemed to think it was enough. She wanted him to return the question, she said.
“Fine,” said Jon, and then added a question of his own. “What's black and white and red all over?” he asked.
“I don't know,” said Sister Margaret. “What's black and white and red all over?”
“A blushing nun!” said Jonny proudly.
There was a sudden deep silence, and every eye was suddenly burning into him.
“What?!!” said Jon.
“Jonathan James O'Neill!” came his mother's angry voice. All three names. She was mad!
“You're going to the Bad Place for that one!” said Mary Ellen. “Insulting a nun!”
Jon really didn't like her. The thin pale little girl went and hid behind her mother, and even the other little boys couldn't meet his eye. Apparently sin was catching, and nobody wanted to be exposed.
“It was funny when Uncle Karl said it!” said Jon, frowning. The words were hard to get past the huge lump in his throat, and he scowled still more fiercely and sniffed to be sure he didn't disgrace himself with tears. He looked at the little piggy eyes of Mary Ellen and stuck out his tongue.
“I''m so sorry, Sister!” His mother's voice was soft, and Jonny knew he'd embarrassed her. Again. “My side of the family are Lutheran, I'm afraid. Jon will only be in your class for two months, and then we'll be moving back to Minnesota. My husband's partner was killed in that shootout with the bank robbers last month, and I've convinced him to take a position with the State Police there.”
Now everyone was staring again. Jon decided that school was awful. He wanted to go home. He was just about to open his mouth to ask his mother if he could do that, when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and Sister Margaret knelt down low enough so she could see him eye-to-eye. Her apple cheeks were almost hiding her eyes as she smiled. Her hazel eyes were kind looking.
“I'm sorry you won't be with us very long, Jonathan,” she said. “You seem like the sort of boy who would keep our classroom interesting.” Then she bent closer, almost whispering for him to hear. “And you know what? I am black and white and red all over, aren't I?” She stood and gently ruffled his hair. Jon noticed she was trying to surreptitiously wipe the greasy stuff his mom had put in off on her black robe.
He only attended Kindergarten classes at Sacred Heart for seven weeks, but in spite of the presence of the ever-annoying Mary Ellen Norman and the itchiness of the uniform, they were good weeks.
Jack O'Neill, when he gave his heart, gave it fully and for a lifetime. The path of his life, because it took him into a world dominated by men, ensured that there would only be a very small and select group of women who earned his full and undying devotion. Sister Margaret O'Bannion was one of that exclusive group, and when she died, among the attendees at the funeral was a full bird Colonel in the United States Air Force, who hadn't been in a Catholic church for years, not since another funeral, for an inquisitive and mischievous little boy. He wouldn't do this for just anybody, but he'd do it for her.
Columbia Progressive Elementary School, Manhattan. September, 1972
Daniel and Clare Jackson were the only ones there wearing sweaters. To the other parents and children, the morning, at 22 degrees Celsius, seemed warm, but after getting used to the summers in Egypt, it was distinctly cool to them. Everything about New York was different. So cold, so tall, so full of people, with no livestock anywhere to be seen, only the occasional dog on a leash. No smiles of greeting: Most faces turned away to avoid eye contact. There were no open air bazaars, and Daniel missed the rich colors and spicy scents. He missed the gutteral, passionate intonations of Arabic, the familiar tones of the call to prayer, and the freedom to run through the village streets with the workmen's children, scattering foraging chickens, and dodging the little over-burdened donkeys and their handlers.
On the outside, Colombia Progressive looked like all the other big stone and concrete buildings on the street, but inside, it was colorful, with cloth hangings, and construction paper colored billboards. The kids too were a riot of color, with t-shirts in thin pink and purple stripes, bell-bottomed jeans covered with colorful embroidery and decorative patches. Some of the boys had long hair, and some of the kids had headbands tied around their foreheads in soft leather, or indian beading in elastic bands. Daniel knew professors in the Anthropology department at the University, and he knew that it was more polite to say Native American, but other American kids didn't seem to know what Daniel was saying when he called it that.
Daniel and his mother made their way into one of the classrooms. The number 102 was on the door, Kindergarten, and Mrs. Barzetti were carved out in white on little brown slide-in labels on the wall to the right of the door. Daniel wondered what language Barzetti was from, and what it meant.
Inside the room were several rows of low, built-in boxes, filled with toys, puzzles, and blocks. Daniel thought maybe they could ask the school to send some of them off to the village, where they would be a treasure beyond all expectation for the children there. It was hard to imagine that all those toys would get enough use here.
Looking around at the rest of the room, Daniel noticed the other children, in a wide range of shapes and colors, each standing close to a parent. Mostly there were mothers, but here and there was a father too. One of the mothers had a bandana tied over the top of her head to control her hair, just like his mother did. She had a beaded macramé purse. Daniel's mom's was an embroidered one made by one of the village women, and just looking at the little piecework donkey lead by a cheerful fellow in native garb made Daniel homesick..
There were low benches around the other sides of the room, and a collection of pillows on the floor. In one corner were a table with several-inch high sides, filled with sand, and another that could be filled with water, judging from the starfish and octopi on its sides, but that one was empty.
Mrs. Barzetti turned out to be a small, wiry woman with freckled light-coffee skin, an afro hairstyle, and moss-green eyes. After a few moments, she encouraged the children to find a few toys and play, while she took a moment to address the parents about the goals for the year. Daniel was amused by the sight of most of the grown-ups sitting on the small benches, with their knees rising high in the air, but his mom and a few other women (including the other bandana mom) sat comfortably cross-legged on the big pillows.
Daniel looked through the toys, and finding a plastic camel and a horse, he took them over to the sand table, and began to make trails for them in the sand, and cleared a small hole through all of it to be their watering spot. All the while he was listening to what Mrs. Barzetti was telling the adults. He thought that the plan to study math using objects in the classroom sounded interesting, and he wondered what “new math” was. He wondered what a field trip was, and how far they would have to go to find a field in this world of tall buildings and busy streets. And then Mrs. Barzetti said something shocking.
“I know that most of these children have at least one parent who teaches at the University, so I know that every year I will meet with a certain amount of resistance to our practice of not introducing reading to the students until they reach the second grade. We work with professors over in the School of Education and...”
This scandalized Daniel.
“I can read already!” he said.
“No you can't!” said the other little boy at the sand table with him, who had been driving a truck along the paths Daniel had made. Used to the swirl of donkeys, camels, cars, trucks, bicycles, and pedestrian traffic found intermingled in most Egyptian cities, Daniel had met this with an equanimity that most American kids might have lacked.
“Of course I can read!” said Daniel. “Can't you?”
This was a matter of genuine curiosity with him. He knew that most kids here wouldn't be able to read in Arabic like Daniel could. They hadn't lived in Egypt. But he had taken it for granted that they could at least read in English.
The boy didn't answer Daniel's question.
“No you can't!” he said hotly. “Prove it!”
Daniel looked around the room for things to read. There were no signs. Just simple, cheerful pictures made out of construction paper shapes and stapled to construction paper backgrounds up on the walls. Daniel was about to take the boy out into the hall to show him the Kindergarten and Mrs. Barzetti sign, when he noticed a small bookcase and a file cabinet in one corner. He made a beeline for the bookcase, and passing up Harold and the Purple Crayon and a bunch of other picture books, he pulled out a book called Open Classrooms, Open Minds and began to read. He stumbled a bit on the word “Prologue” because he wasn't sure if it was pronounced “Pro-lowg” or “Pro-log”, but then he began to read. It wasn't very interesting, but it was a chapter book, without pictures. He knew grownups were more impressed if there were no pictures.
“You're making that up!” the boy said.
“No I'm not!” said Daniel.
“Are too!”
“Am not!”
Tears of frustration came to Daniel's eyes. He was telling the truth! The truth was important! He was telling the truth! Why couldn't the boy see that! He began to hop around in circles, now clutching the book before him.
“I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!”
Silence. Everyone, kids, parents, and Mrs. Barzetti were all staring.
“I can read,” said Daniel doggedly.
His mom smiled. She got up off the pillow, and came to stand next to him. She reached across to put a hand on his shoulder, and smiled down at him.
“Yes,” she said. “You read very well, both in English and Arabic.” She looked up at the rest of the room. “My husband taught him,” she explained.
“Can you teach us all some Arabic?” asked Mrs. Barzetti
“Insh'allah,” said Daniel.
“You're making that up!” said the boy.
The American School, Frankfurt, West Germany. September 1974
Sam held her mother's right hand, and Mark held on to her other, and both kids looked about at the funny signs with the dots above some of the A's and O's, and listened to the odd back-of-the-throat noises that people in the street made as they talked. They weren't going to school on base with the other kids in the neighborhood. Dad had investigated, and he'd found a school with a better program. So mom would be taking them to school off-base every day, and bringing them back. Both twins had been nervous about the whole business, until Mom had assured them that their teacher would speak English, although it might be a little funny sounding if the teacher turned out to be British, and their class would be in English. Some of their classmates might be German, but they would only be allowed to speak English in the classroom. That was a big relief to both kids. Mark had been worried about making a fool of himself, not knowing how to say anything. Sam had been worried about how to ask to go to the bathroom.
Each child had a backpack on their back, bought back in the States before they shipped out, a few weeks ago. Mark had chosen a Cookie Monster backpack which he thought was nice, but Sam's mom had managed to score a coup – indeed a major coup – with hers. It was a Major Matt Mason backpack, and it was her pride and joy. Sam slept with it, she loved it so much. It showed him flying through the air with his jet-pack back pack. Daddy said that such a thing didn't exist yet, that a flying backpack wasn't real. Sam was going to figure out how to make one when she grew up.
Just when both kids were beginning to wonder if they were ever going to get there, Mom guided them across a street and turned down into it, and halfway down the block was the school. Mark let go of their mom's hand, to run over to another little boy, with a G.I. Joe back pack, and soon they were talking a-mile-a-minute about favorite TV shows, while Sam, her mom, and the boy's mom followed more slowly.
The building was old, with lots of dark wood, and electrical cable running in protective piping, and pipes carrying water running across the ceilings and down the walls. Mom said that was “retrofitting” and it was a way of using a very old building and still having modern lights and plumbing. It was very interesting to be able to follow the paths of the wires and the pipes, and Sam wanted to pick a strand and follow it all through the building, but Mom said they'd better follow Mark instead and find the Kindergarten classroom. She asked if Sam knew that “kindergarten” was a German word. Sam wondered how she would ever have known that.
The problem started when they got to the kindergarten room. Miss Stringer at the door was pleasantly round and comfy looking, kind of like Auntie Jen, who had married Uncle Irving last year, but her English was a little funny. Sam remembered that meant that she was English from England. Sam could still understand her, so that was okay.
The problem was with a tall boy, with a head of wild dark curly hair, eyes as blue as her mom's, and a snub nose covered all over with freckles. He took one look at Sam's backpack, and tried to rip it off her back.
“You can't have that!” he said. “That's a boy's backpack!”
Sam, who hadn't been expecting the attack almost let him get it, but she soon recovered herself, and swung around very quickly, forcing him to let go, and kicked him in the shins. For good measure, and because it was what Daddy would have called “a target of opportunity”, she grabbed his hand as he tried to hit her back, and bit it. By that time he was starting to howl, and Mark came along and pushed him from behind, shoving him right over.
“You leave my sister alone!” yelled Mark.
Then all the grownups got involved, and pretty soon, Sam, Mark, and the boy, who turned out to be Tommy, were all serving the first time outs of the school year, each in a separate corner. Then Tommy had to apologize for trying to take Sam's backpack. Sam had to agree to use words and get a teacher instead of kicking, and was told that if she ever tried to bite another student she would have to go and see the Headmaster. She had to tell Tommy she was sorry. She did, but she also told him that it was her Matt Mason Backpack, and girls could have whatever backpack they liked, and when she grew up and invented a backpack for flying she wasn't going to let him have a ride. Not once. Mark also had to say he was sorry to Tommy for pushing him.
“I'm sorry,” said Mark, “but if you bug my sister again, I'll do it again, and I won't be at all sorry, because you've been warned!”
He had to do extra time for that, but he didn't mind because Sam gave him her little snack cake from her lunchbox at snack time as a thank you for helping her.
They also got a talking to from Mom when they got home.
“I've never been so embarrassed in my entire life,” she said.
Later on when Sam and Mark had been put in bed, Sam heard Mom telling Daddy all about it.
“I should hope he would!” was what Daddy said about what Mark had done. Sam felt a warm glow of pleasure as she heard him say “That's my girl!” about what she'd done.
Mom said “Jacob!” but Sam could also hear her laugh.
Besides, Tommy was an idiot. He couldn't even tell her what twelve times twelve was.
***************
And why am I posting a day early, and not on The Day, when I should have plenty of time for such things? Because the elementary school wants us all to go up to the school by 7:40 and participate in All Sing with our kiddies, and go into the library afterwards for a meet-and-greet to get to know the new parents. I don't mind the social aspects of it all (although I kind of hate it when they make me sing kiddie songs and dance first thing in the morning), it's the timing of the thing. They make me get up 3 hours before I am accustomed to rising in order to be there. So tomorrow I'll be a groggy, sleep-deprived, caffeine-seeking missile by 9:30 a.m. I want to do this while I'm firing onall at least most thrusters!
ETA OUTAKE: Original wording "Later on when Sam and Jack had been put to bed," All fixed now! Snigger.
Title: Not Too Cool For School
Season: Preseries
Spoilers: If you couldn't recognize them as such, they really won't spoil you.
Synopsis: SG-1 go to their first day of school. No teamy goodness. They're too young for that yet.
Warnings: Kidfic. As a general rule I can't approve of that. It just troubles my Improbability Meter. Where does all that matter go when they shrink? Where does it come from when they regrow? Why? Why? Why? The mind boggles. This is just a journey through the Wayback Machine, without the presence of Mr. Peabody or his boy Sherman. Daniel/Sherman friendship fic might be amusing though.
Disclaimer: These aren't the characters you own, really. They're too young to be jaunting around the galaxy yet. They aren't even really fully formed at this point. Your characters are in your programs all unharmed and unchanged. I don't get any profit, not even an apple for the teacher.
Chulak. Harvest Home
Teal'c pulled his hand from his mother's. He could feel the heat of his shame in his cheeks. It was humiliating enough that as a new student he did not have the wooden staff weapon that the experienced students bore. Anyone could see his lowly beginner's status from that fact alone. He did not need the added humiliation of being seen to hold his mother's hand. He had seen six harvests, and did not need her comfort and control. He was no baby!
Drawing himself up to his full height, he worked to withdraw all expression from his face, as his father had taught him to do. His discipline was good, and he managed what he knew was a success beyond that expected of one of his years, in spite of the terrible pang of loss that gripped at his chest whenever he thought of his father. Like all Jaffa, his recall of events was extensive and detailed, but still, it had been two years now, and he found that it was harder now to recall all the details of his father's face, or all the shadings of his voice. He recited the list of all his father's many battles and the names of his glorious victories each night in secret, a ritual as he lay in his bed before sleep. His mother had forbidden this, because, she said, their new god might take offense at hearing the glorious victories of Cronus, but Teal'c's loyalty to his father outweighed the strictures of his mother. He kept his recitations to himself. What she did not hear could not alarm her.
Glancing up, he noticed Randec passing by, one of the older chal'tii, almost a warrior! He carried an actual staff weapon, and not just a wooden facsimile. Teal'c's cheeks flamed anew. Had Randec seen him holding his mother's hand like a weanling? His humiliation was complete.
As Randec drew even with Teal'c's mother, he turned slightly to address Teal'c, and Teal'c was impressed by the total impassivity of the chal'tii's face. Surely Randec would be granted the honor of becoming a warrior soon!
“Teal'c, is it not?” said Randec. “Surely a fitting name for a warrior.”
Teal'c could scarcely find his voice, so startled was he that such an august personage should know him by name, but at last he managed to push out “Indeed!” and felt a small swell of pride that he managed his usual volume as he did so, although his voice was not as rich and low as he would have wanted.
“Your name means 'strength', you know.”
“So my father told me.”
“Then you must lend some of that strength to your mother this day. Give her your hand, and show that you are warrior enough to put the happiness of your mother above your own.”
Was that a twinkle in Randec's eye? Teal'c felt a glow of warmth at the notice and advice of this older boy, almost a man grown. Teal'c reached up and grasped his mother's hand, feeling its warmth as it surrounded his own smaller hand. Randec winked at him, and then picked up his pace again to what it had been before.
Teal'c did not see the smile of thanks that his mother sent, only Randec's acknowledging nod.
Sacred Heart Primary, Chicago, Illinois. September 1957
The building was tall and severe from the outside, over a hundred years old and built of brick and stone. Jonny and his mom had walked past it for years on the way to the park or Kozlowski's Market. Now he would find out what was inside. As far as Jonny was concerned, though, that wasn't the exciting part. The best part was that his mom had promised him that he would be allowed to play in the playground next to the building, the one that was surrounded by the chain-link fence, keeping neighborhood kids out and the students in. They had a roundabout thingy that Jon had been itching to try for years, and a set of monkey bars he thought he could probably reach without help.
As Jonny and his mom made their way up the concrete steps to the big wooden door, with its brass thumb-latched handle and big brass lock and the small window panes forming the shape of one of those pointy-topped windows like they had in church, he thought about taking his mom's hand, but decided not to after all. He was a big boy (he'd be six next month!) and he didn't need to do that. Besides, his mother needed that hand to open the door.
Inside the noise of the traffic and the wind outside was muted by the thick walls, but the clatter of everyone's heavy leather school shoes and the high-heels of the mothers moving on the marble floors echoed hollowly around the long hallways, and everywhere was the clamor of children's excited voices.
Jonny noticed that all the other boys were wearing the long-sleeved white shirts and clip-on ties he wore, and the nasty, icky, ichy plaid wool shorts that he had fought with his mother about. They also had the heavy leather Buster Brown good shoes he had on. The girls got short-sleeved shirts and plaid skirts which looked just as heavy and itchy, and shiny black patent leather shoes. He hadn't really doubted that his mother believed that all the other kids would be wearing the same thing, he was just a little worried that there would be other kids whose father didn't wear a uniform at work. Maybe they wouldn't have moms that said “It's your first uniform. Just like Daddy has a uniform. Please?” Maybe they wouldn't be suckers, and they'd be in comfy t-shirts and jeans and well-worn Keds.
His mother led him down two long hallways, filled with doors, each with a collection of desks inside. All the kids were bigger than he was, but their uniforms were the same. Near the door was a big grownup desk, and behind each big desk with its grown-up sized chair was a blackboard. Above each blackboard was a long metal box with a stick and a ring hanging down (which Jon later found out was a map), a crucifix, and a flag.
The other kids Jon's age had moms with them too, and they were all headed to a door at the end of the second hallway, where a woman dressed all in black, with a white wrapping on her head under a black hood-thing, and white socks and white shoes on her feet. This, Jon knew was a nun. Her special clothes made her look scary, but her cheeks were round and rosy, just like Aunt Kate's. Aunt Kate was nice, and gave him peppermints and bubblegum. He wondered if nuns knew about peppermints and bubblegum, or whether they were too special for that.
They had to wait in line to go in, as each mother stepped up with her child and introduced themself and the child to the nun. There was a tow-headed round faced boy named Stan Borowski, and a red-headed freckled kid named Jimmy Ryan. Next was a quiet pale, thin little girl, so shy she could only whisper named Katie Surowiec, and a big, round, freckled-all-over girl with thin straight hair in braids tied with white ribbons named Mary Ellen Norman. She had caught Jonny looking at her, and had crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at him, and told him his hair was a mess. Jon's mom had spent fifteen whole minutes trying to grease his hair down with hair goop of some sort. He thought Mary Ellen probably made his mom feel bad, because she worried a lot how his hair looked, especially for special things like church and the first day of school where she wanted him to make a good impression. He decided that he didn't like Mary Ellen at all. Good thing his cousin Eddie had taught him how to make a spitball and take apart a pen.
Now it was their turn. Jon''s mom introduced herself, and then pushed gently between Jonny's shoulders to bring him forward for inspection.
“-and this is my son, Jonathan,” she said.
Up close the nun, who went by the name Sister Margaret, had very red, freckled apple cheeks, and smooth, soft looking skin. Her uniform was very dark and a little scary, and she had a small golden crucifix around her neck that swung down as she bent down to take Jonny's hand. She had an interesting smell, which reminded Jonny of church somehow. A few years later he discovered it was the smell of the incense.
“How do you do, Jonathan?” she said.
This was one of those odd, hard to answer grown-ups questions. Jonny was never sure what he was supposed to say to this. When he just said “Fine” his mom never seemed to think it was enough. She wanted him to return the question, she said.
“Fine,” said Jon, and then added a question of his own. “What's black and white and red all over?” he asked.
“I don't know,” said Sister Margaret. “What's black and white and red all over?”
“A blushing nun!” said Jonny proudly.
There was a sudden deep silence, and every eye was suddenly burning into him.
“What?!!” said Jon.
“Jonathan James O'Neill!” came his mother's angry voice. All three names. She was mad!
“You're going to the Bad Place for that one!” said Mary Ellen. “Insulting a nun!”
Jon really didn't like her. The thin pale little girl went and hid behind her mother, and even the other little boys couldn't meet his eye. Apparently sin was catching, and nobody wanted to be exposed.
“It was funny when Uncle Karl said it!” said Jon, frowning. The words were hard to get past the huge lump in his throat, and he scowled still more fiercely and sniffed to be sure he didn't disgrace himself with tears. He looked at the little piggy eyes of Mary Ellen and stuck out his tongue.
“I''m so sorry, Sister!” His mother's voice was soft, and Jonny knew he'd embarrassed her. Again. “My side of the family are Lutheran, I'm afraid. Jon will only be in your class for two months, and then we'll be moving back to Minnesota. My husband's partner was killed in that shootout with the bank robbers last month, and I've convinced him to take a position with the State Police there.”
Now everyone was staring again. Jon decided that school was awful. He wanted to go home. He was just about to open his mouth to ask his mother if he could do that, when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and Sister Margaret knelt down low enough so she could see him eye-to-eye. Her apple cheeks were almost hiding her eyes as she smiled. Her hazel eyes were kind looking.
“I'm sorry you won't be with us very long, Jonathan,” she said. “You seem like the sort of boy who would keep our classroom interesting.” Then she bent closer, almost whispering for him to hear. “And you know what? I am black and white and red all over, aren't I?” She stood and gently ruffled his hair. Jon noticed she was trying to surreptitiously wipe the greasy stuff his mom had put in off on her black robe.
He only attended Kindergarten classes at Sacred Heart for seven weeks, but in spite of the presence of the ever-annoying Mary Ellen Norman and the itchiness of the uniform, they were good weeks.
Jack O'Neill, when he gave his heart, gave it fully and for a lifetime. The path of his life, because it took him into a world dominated by men, ensured that there would only be a very small and select group of women who earned his full and undying devotion. Sister Margaret O'Bannion was one of that exclusive group, and when she died, among the attendees at the funeral was a full bird Colonel in the United States Air Force, who hadn't been in a Catholic church for years, not since another funeral, for an inquisitive and mischievous little boy. He wouldn't do this for just anybody, but he'd do it for her.
Columbia Progressive Elementary School, Manhattan. September, 1972
Daniel and Clare Jackson were the only ones there wearing sweaters. To the other parents and children, the morning, at 22 degrees Celsius, seemed warm, but after getting used to the summers in Egypt, it was distinctly cool to them. Everything about New York was different. So cold, so tall, so full of people, with no livestock anywhere to be seen, only the occasional dog on a leash. No smiles of greeting: Most faces turned away to avoid eye contact. There were no open air bazaars, and Daniel missed the rich colors and spicy scents. He missed the gutteral, passionate intonations of Arabic, the familiar tones of the call to prayer, and the freedom to run through the village streets with the workmen's children, scattering foraging chickens, and dodging the little over-burdened donkeys and their handlers.
On the outside, Colombia Progressive looked like all the other big stone and concrete buildings on the street, but inside, it was colorful, with cloth hangings, and construction paper colored billboards. The kids too were a riot of color, with t-shirts in thin pink and purple stripes, bell-bottomed jeans covered with colorful embroidery and decorative patches. Some of the boys had long hair, and some of the kids had headbands tied around their foreheads in soft leather, or indian beading in elastic bands. Daniel knew professors in the Anthropology department at the University, and he knew that it was more polite to say Native American, but other American kids didn't seem to know what Daniel was saying when he called it that.
Daniel and his mother made their way into one of the classrooms. The number 102 was on the door, Kindergarten, and Mrs. Barzetti were carved out in white on little brown slide-in labels on the wall to the right of the door. Daniel wondered what language Barzetti was from, and what it meant.
Inside the room were several rows of low, built-in boxes, filled with toys, puzzles, and blocks. Daniel thought maybe they could ask the school to send some of them off to the village, where they would be a treasure beyond all expectation for the children there. It was hard to imagine that all those toys would get enough use here.
Looking around at the rest of the room, Daniel noticed the other children, in a wide range of shapes and colors, each standing close to a parent. Mostly there were mothers, but here and there was a father too. One of the mothers had a bandana tied over the top of her head to control her hair, just like his mother did. She had a beaded macramé purse. Daniel's mom's was an embroidered one made by one of the village women, and just looking at the little piecework donkey lead by a cheerful fellow in native garb made Daniel homesick..
There were low benches around the other sides of the room, and a collection of pillows on the floor. In one corner were a table with several-inch high sides, filled with sand, and another that could be filled with water, judging from the starfish and octopi on its sides, but that one was empty.
Mrs. Barzetti turned out to be a small, wiry woman with freckled light-coffee skin, an afro hairstyle, and moss-green eyes. After a few moments, she encouraged the children to find a few toys and play, while she took a moment to address the parents about the goals for the year. Daniel was amused by the sight of most of the grown-ups sitting on the small benches, with their knees rising high in the air, but his mom and a few other women (including the other bandana mom) sat comfortably cross-legged on the big pillows.
Daniel looked through the toys, and finding a plastic camel and a horse, he took them over to the sand table, and began to make trails for them in the sand, and cleared a small hole through all of it to be their watering spot. All the while he was listening to what Mrs. Barzetti was telling the adults. He thought that the plan to study math using objects in the classroom sounded interesting, and he wondered what “new math” was. He wondered what a field trip was, and how far they would have to go to find a field in this world of tall buildings and busy streets. And then Mrs. Barzetti said something shocking.
“I know that most of these children have at least one parent who teaches at the University, so I know that every year I will meet with a certain amount of resistance to our practice of not introducing reading to the students until they reach the second grade. We work with professors over in the School of Education and...”
This scandalized Daniel.
“I can read already!” he said.
“No you can't!” said the other little boy at the sand table with him, who had been driving a truck along the paths Daniel had made. Used to the swirl of donkeys, camels, cars, trucks, bicycles, and pedestrian traffic found intermingled in most Egyptian cities, Daniel had met this with an equanimity that most American kids might have lacked.
“Of course I can read!” said Daniel. “Can't you?”
This was a matter of genuine curiosity with him. He knew that most kids here wouldn't be able to read in Arabic like Daniel could. They hadn't lived in Egypt. But he had taken it for granted that they could at least read in English.
The boy didn't answer Daniel's question.
“No you can't!” he said hotly. “Prove it!”
Daniel looked around the room for things to read. There were no signs. Just simple, cheerful pictures made out of construction paper shapes and stapled to construction paper backgrounds up on the walls. Daniel was about to take the boy out into the hall to show him the Kindergarten and Mrs. Barzetti sign, when he noticed a small bookcase and a file cabinet in one corner. He made a beeline for the bookcase, and passing up Harold and the Purple Crayon and a bunch of other picture books, he pulled out a book called Open Classrooms, Open Minds and began to read. He stumbled a bit on the word “Prologue” because he wasn't sure if it was pronounced “Pro-lowg” or “Pro-log”, but then he began to read. It wasn't very interesting, but it was a chapter book, without pictures. He knew grownups were more impressed if there were no pictures.
“You're making that up!” the boy said.
“No I'm not!” said Daniel.
“Are too!”
“Am not!”
Tears of frustration came to Daniel's eyes. He was telling the truth! The truth was important! He was telling the truth! Why couldn't the boy see that! He began to hop around in circles, now clutching the book before him.
“I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!”
Silence. Everyone, kids, parents, and Mrs. Barzetti were all staring.
“I can read,” said Daniel doggedly.
His mom smiled. She got up off the pillow, and came to stand next to him. She reached across to put a hand on his shoulder, and smiled down at him.
“Yes,” she said. “You read very well, both in English and Arabic.” She looked up at the rest of the room. “My husband taught him,” she explained.
“Can you teach us all some Arabic?” asked Mrs. Barzetti
“Insh'allah,” said Daniel.
“You're making that up!” said the boy.
The American School, Frankfurt, West Germany. September 1974
Sam held her mother's right hand, and Mark held on to her other, and both kids looked about at the funny signs with the dots above some of the A's and O's, and listened to the odd back-of-the-throat noises that people in the street made as they talked. They weren't going to school on base with the other kids in the neighborhood. Dad had investigated, and he'd found a school with a better program. So mom would be taking them to school off-base every day, and bringing them back. Both twins had been nervous about the whole business, until Mom had assured them that their teacher would speak English, although it might be a little funny sounding if the teacher turned out to be British, and their class would be in English. Some of their classmates might be German, but they would only be allowed to speak English in the classroom. That was a big relief to both kids. Mark had been worried about making a fool of himself, not knowing how to say anything. Sam had been worried about how to ask to go to the bathroom.
Each child had a backpack on their back, bought back in the States before they shipped out, a few weeks ago. Mark had chosen a Cookie Monster backpack which he thought was nice, but Sam's mom had managed to score a coup – indeed a major coup – with hers. It was a Major Matt Mason backpack, and it was her pride and joy. Sam slept with it, she loved it so much. It showed him flying through the air with his jet-pack back pack. Daddy said that such a thing didn't exist yet, that a flying backpack wasn't real. Sam was going to figure out how to make one when she grew up.
Just when both kids were beginning to wonder if they were ever going to get there, Mom guided them across a street and turned down into it, and halfway down the block was the school. Mark let go of their mom's hand, to run over to another little boy, with a G.I. Joe back pack, and soon they were talking a-mile-a-minute about favorite TV shows, while Sam, her mom, and the boy's mom followed more slowly.
The building was old, with lots of dark wood, and electrical cable running in protective piping, and pipes carrying water running across the ceilings and down the walls. Mom said that was “retrofitting” and it was a way of using a very old building and still having modern lights and plumbing. It was very interesting to be able to follow the paths of the wires and the pipes, and Sam wanted to pick a strand and follow it all through the building, but Mom said they'd better follow Mark instead and find the Kindergarten classroom. She asked if Sam knew that “kindergarten” was a German word. Sam wondered how she would ever have known that.
The problem started when they got to the kindergarten room. Miss Stringer at the door was pleasantly round and comfy looking, kind of like Auntie Jen, who had married Uncle Irving last year, but her English was a little funny. Sam remembered that meant that she was English from England. Sam could still understand her, so that was okay.
The problem was with a tall boy, with a head of wild dark curly hair, eyes as blue as her mom's, and a snub nose covered all over with freckles. He took one look at Sam's backpack, and tried to rip it off her back.
“You can't have that!” he said. “That's a boy's backpack!”
Sam, who hadn't been expecting the attack almost let him get it, but she soon recovered herself, and swung around very quickly, forcing him to let go, and kicked him in the shins. For good measure, and because it was what Daddy would have called “a target of opportunity”, she grabbed his hand as he tried to hit her back, and bit it. By that time he was starting to howl, and Mark came along and pushed him from behind, shoving him right over.
“You leave my sister alone!” yelled Mark.
Then all the grownups got involved, and pretty soon, Sam, Mark, and the boy, who turned out to be Tommy, were all serving the first time outs of the school year, each in a separate corner. Then Tommy had to apologize for trying to take Sam's backpack. Sam had to agree to use words and get a teacher instead of kicking, and was told that if she ever tried to bite another student she would have to go and see the Headmaster. She had to tell Tommy she was sorry. She did, but she also told him that it was her Matt Mason Backpack, and girls could have whatever backpack they liked, and when she grew up and invented a backpack for flying she wasn't going to let him have a ride. Not once. Mark also had to say he was sorry to Tommy for pushing him.
“I'm sorry,” said Mark, “but if you bug my sister again, I'll do it again, and I won't be at all sorry, because you've been warned!”
He had to do extra time for that, but he didn't mind because Sam gave him her little snack cake from her lunchbox at snack time as a thank you for helping her.
They also got a talking to from Mom when they got home.
“I've never been so embarrassed in my entire life,” she said.
Later on when Sam and Mark had been put in bed, Sam heard Mom telling Daddy all about it.
“I should hope he would!” was what Daddy said about what Mark had done. Sam felt a warm glow of pleasure as she heard him say “That's my girl!” about what she'd done.
Mom said “Jacob!” but Sam could also hear her laugh.
Besides, Tommy was an idiot. He couldn't even tell her what twelve times twelve was.
***************
And why am I posting a day early, and not on The Day, when I should have plenty of time for such things? Because the elementary school wants us all to go up to the school by 7:40 and participate in All Sing with our kiddies, and go into the library afterwards for a meet-and-greet to get to know the new parents. I don't mind the social aspects of it all (although I kind of hate it when they make me sing kiddie songs and dance first thing in the morning), it's the timing of the thing. They make me get up 3 hours before I am accustomed to rising in order to be there. So tomorrow I'll be a groggy, sleep-deprived, caffeine-seeking missile by 9:30 a.m. I want to do this while I'm firing on
ETA OUTAKE: Original wording "Later on when Sam and Jack had been put to bed," All fixed now! Snigger.
