Chapter 5 2004
At seven the following morning, the bell blared again, and my three roommates zombie-walked to the bathroom down the hall to shower and dress. I followed and was still brushing my teeth when the bell sounded a second time.
I spit and hurried after the others, remembering this time to put on my coat and boots. I did not have a backpack like the other girls, so needed to carry my Keds by their laces.
Inside, I hung my coat, changed my shoes, and walked a foot behind Heddy, Abby, and Michelle to the cafeteria. Following them, I figured out where to get my tray and how to point to the food I wanted in the food line. The three women that served us were Black and wore hijabs.
“Adaa mudan,” I said to each.
“Waad mahadsantahay,” they replied, confirming they were Somali. Each smiled as they said it, and the one who looked like she was in charge winked.
Heddy watched the exchange, her face expressionless.
I carried my tray behind her, but when she sat down at the table with the other girls from our room, she slid to the edge, making it clear I wasn’t welcome. So I continued past and sat at an empty table in the back.
My pancakes and eggs gone, I watched the clock over the door tick toward eight o’clock.
The bell went off again, a sound I would come to anticipate like a shock of electricity, and I followed Heddy’s bright-blond head to the prayer auditorium.
It was a long, narrow room with a soaring beamed ceiling, hard wood pews, large paintings on the walls depicting Jesus’s martyrdom, and a small gray-haired man at the front in a black clergy shirt droning about repentance.
“Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out . . .”
I barely listened, my hands clasped tight on my lap as I looked at the cross above his head and prayed fervently for God to let me go home.
An hour later, I followed Heddy to the second-grade classroom, then hovered near the door as I waited for the others to sit down so I would know which desk was mine.
I counted sixteen others, six girls and ten boys.
The boys stared openly, while the three girls I didn’t know stole quick sideways glances.
Heddy turned to me and shockingly offered an encouraging flick of her head toward an empty desk near the window. I flashed a smile of gratitude and hurried to my seat.
The teacher arrived in a fluster. “Sorry. Somehow I got completely turned around. This building is quite the labyrinth.” She blew out a sigh. “Hi. I’m Ms. Yamauchi.”
I didn’t know what a labyrinth was, but judging by how breathless she was, I assumed she meant it was large and confusing.
It turned out it was her first day as well.
The previous teacher, Ms. Walls, had left to have a baby.
Ms. Yamauchi was young and pretty with shiny black hair to her shoulders and light-brown skin.
She smiled a lot, and I liked her immediately.
“How about we get started by introducing ourselves?”
Each of us stood and stated our name and our favorite subject. Most of the boys said recess. Heddy said math. I said reading. I was proud of how even my voice sounded despite how nervous I felt.
“Wonderful!” Ms. Yamauchi declared. “Let’s start with seeing where you’re at in math.”
We all sat up a little straighter.
“Can anyone recite the twelves multiplications?”
Twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six . . . The numbers spiraled through my head.
I wondered why no one raised their hand.
. . . forty-eight, sixty, seventy-two . . .
“How about the nines? Anyone?”
Heddy’s hand shot up.
Ms. Yamauchi nodded, and Heddy stood, smoothed her skirt, and proudly proceeded to recite the nines as I continued to cycle through the twelves.
Brightly, Heddy said, “Ninety!” as I reached two hundred and sixty-four.
Two hundred and seventy-six, two hundred and eighty-eight . . .
“Vivien.”
My face snapped up to see Ms. Yamauchi looking at me.
“What is twelve times twelve?” she asked, and before my brain could stop my mouth, I said, “One hundred and forty-four.”
She smirked, then winked, and I realized my lips must have been moving as I’d been reciting the numbers in my head.
Heddy, who was still standing, leveled her eyes on mine, and I knew instantly I’d made a terrible mistake. I looked down at my desk and vowed not to move a face muscle again.
When it was time for lunch, I carried the yellow notepad and pencil Ms. Yamauchi had given me when she’d noticed I didn’t have any school supplies to the front of the room and held them toward her.
“Thank you,” I said, not wanting to presume they were mine to keep.
I hadn’t needed to use them. The lessons were simple spelling, addition, and subtraction, lessons Profe had taught me years before.
“Keep them for now,” Ms. Yamauchi said. “I’ll talk to the secretary this afternoon about getting you a binder.”
“Thank you.” I forced myself to look her in the eyes as Profe had taught me.
“You’re welcome.”
I turned to go, but her voice stopped me. “The first day’s the hardest. I promise, it will get easier.” I think she said it for both of us.
I shuffled to the cafeteria and got my lunch—macaroni and cheese, salad, milk, and an oatmeal cookie. As I passed the table with my classmates, Heddy said loudly, “I’m calling my mom. They can’t make me live with her. What if that thing on her face is contagious?”
I tensed so violently I nearly dropped my tray.
I looked at Heddy, and her cold blue eyes held mine.
My nevus was not contagious. It was nothing more than a clump of malformed blood vessels and no more dangerous than any other piece of skin.
I also knew Heddy knew that and that her comment had nothing to do with my nevus.
When I reached the back table, three other kids were already there sitting as far from each other as possible.
Two kept their heads down as I took my seat.
The third, a large boy with an oversize forehead and a face that looked like it had been smashed with a fist, glanced up, then went back to his lunch.
Though I was starving, my food sat untouched as I fought the waterworks in my eyes. Crying would be the worst thing I could do. Boodo’s voice chanted in my head, “Don’t give them the satisfaction.”
I startled when a hand darted across the table and swiped the milk from my tray.
I looked up to see the large boy, half standing.
His other hand snatched my oatmeal cookie.
He sat back down, opened the milk, took a bite of the cookie, then washed it down with the milk.
His eyes held mine as he swallowed, and I lowered my gaze from his.