Beautiful Trouble

Fifth Grade

 Fifth Grade She rode a short bus,little loaf of bread on wheels, which let her out at the front steps of her red brick school. The classroom smelled like pencil lead and minty paste, and lacy, paper snowflakes were taped to frosted windowpanes.The radiators clanked and steamed. She went to the cloakroom to hang her hooded coat, and that’s where he was, her red-headed tormentor, waiting to kick the backs of her knees and call her stupid. He was an ear wiggler, a knuckle cracker, a kid who picked his crusty nostrils, one the principal called a wiseacre.Once when she’d sewn her Girl Scout housekeeping badge on upside down, he’d said she was dumb,clumsy, ugly. She suffered that day, but sat at her desk imagining how she could stab him with her safety scissors and how he would cry all through recess with the others standing around. He would be a mess of snot and tears and after a while she’d forgive him because, after all,she was a good girl and wanted peace, a word which she could correctly spell. But then he would probably spit in her face or crush a milk carton on her head at lunch and tell everyone how she was worthless, worthless. She’d pretend not to care because, big deal, she already knew that. Let me tell you how she stood in the girls’room stall, her socks puddled around her ankles, her eyes brimming with tears, telling herself how different things would be when she was a grown-up woman, maybe thirty, yes, how very different she knew everything would be. ...