My parents enrolled me in school the day after we moved into our new apartment. It was a U.S. Government school and, thankfully, everyone spoke English. Every desk in the classroom was occupied with a student from America. I looked around for a place to sit just as Mrs. Nelson said, “Lisa, the custodian is bringing you a new desk. Oh, here he is now.” Mrs. Nelson put a gentle hand on my shoulder and guided me to the desk he had just placed in the front row near her.
With her hand still on my shoulder, my eyes surveyed the room and that familiar knot of discomfort resurfaced again. I felt like a snowflake in a coal mine—totally out of place and wondering what I was doing here anyway. This was not where I belonged! My instincts were to take a deep breath and try and make friends with the other members of my new class, but I felt like it might be easier to just melt into the background and become invisible. My teacher was the grandmotherly type who came to my rescue. She made being the “new girl” seem kind of important. Soft flecks of gray were sprinkled throughout her once dark hair. Hazel eyes that twinkled looked down at me from her tall frame as she greeted me with a warm embrace and assigned a girl in the class to be my “special friend” for the day.
Sitting near my new teacher felt comforting as I stared across the room at all the unfamiliar faces. I loved her immediately. She smelled like flowers on a warm spring day as she stopped by my desk to bring me a pack of eight new Crayola crayons, a twelve-inch ruler, and a sharp new yellow pencil that was mine to keep. Later that morning, she paused at my desk for a brief moment and gave me a gentle hug around my shoulders. I knew then and there that she loved me, too.
I quickly settled into the routine and noticed how good it felt to be around other kids my age again. I couldn’t wait for recess so I could really make some new friends. Simple things such as doing arithmetic problems and copying spelling words from the dusty old black chalkboard were a great relief. There was talk of an upcoming spring program for our parents and a May Day celebration. I had never heard of May Day and wasn’t sure what kind of a holiday that was. Apparently, you made baskets full of colored tissue paper flowers and then put them on someone’s doorstep. Since I didn’t know anyone at all, who would I give my May basket to?
Lunch was a new experience in itself. There were so many children crowded into one place and the noise was as loud as firecrackers on the Fourth of July. My “special friend” waited in the long lunch line with me and showed me how to get my bent and well-used silverware from the holders and set them on the sage green tray. “Every day of the week we have pretty good food,” she explained, “but on Friday we have fish.”
“Every Friday you have fish? Why do they do that?” I inquired. I wasn’t a fan of fish. It smelled, made the whole school stink, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why we had to have it every Friday.
“It’s for the Catholics; they have to have fish every Friday.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s part of their religion. Catholics can’t eat meat on Friday,” she explained as if I should know that.
I thought fish was meat—after all, it did come from a dead animal—but I didn’t want to appear too unknowledgeable so I just said, “Oh,” as if that explained everything. I followed her to a table where kids were trying to exchange food items for something more desirable, but no one wanted to trade away their peanut butter fingers for mushy green beans.
The table was filled with members of my new class whom I recognized, but I didn’t know their names. I ate my lunch in silence hoping one of them would invite me to play with them when we went outside. My “special friend” told me that some of the boys played marbles during recess and most of the girls just played on the tricky bars. “If you bring a sweater to put under your legs, you can twirl really fast,” she commented in a voice that reminded me of a mother. I knew that, because we did the same thing back home. I also knew you had to make sure you tucked your dress under your knees so it wouldn’t fly up when you twirled around. At least they did some of the same things during recess in Germany that we did in Utah. After we finished eating, she left me at the door and went to join some of her friends.
I timidly crept down the 12 cement steps from the cafeteria to the playground where I noticed a gang of boys huddled in a group, shooting large steel marbles in a circle drawn in the dirt. They were arguing about whose marble had just been knocked out of the circle. The largest, a tall stocky boy with sandy brown hair and freckles, grabbed both marbles and quickly stuffed them in his cloth marble bag. It looked like they were playing marbles for “keeps,” something they would never have allowed us to do back home. I observed the game and confrontation from the sidelines for a few minutes and then wandered aimlessly around the playground hoping for a place to “fit in.” Students of all ages, wearing a collage of colorful clothing, could be seen in every part of the playground. They appeared as a kaleidoscope which kept changing to a new design as students went from one game to the next. I longed to be a piece of that massive pattern.