When life throws you a curve, learn to swivel, says the poster beside the chalkboard in our second-grade classroom. I see it every day and still don\u2019t understand it. The poster shows a baseball player, bent at the hip. Maybe boys would get it. Danny Victorino sits across from me and I\u2019ve seen him with baseball cards, the kind with big flat squares of dry bubble gum. He\u2019s always getting in trouble for gum chewing, or \u201cfidgeting,\u201d or having \u201cants in his pants.\u201d When I ask Danny what the poster means he says it\u2019s like all the other stupid school posters and they all mean the same thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what is it?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t do drugs,\u201d Danny says, and Mrs. May puts her finger and thumb to her mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cZip a lip,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s September and we\u2019re stuck with Mrs. May again. She chirps something about switching to third grade and getting to see some of her favorite students again and I want to barf. \u201cCan\u2019t she just retire?\u201d I grumble.<\/p>\n
\u201cCheer up,\u201d Danny says. \u201cMaybe she\u2019ll get hit by a car and we\u2019ll get a sub.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019d probably squash the car,\u201d I say, and Danny gives a big grin. His pencil starts tapping. He draws a picture of Mrs. May as Godzilla stomping on a car, but she sees it and makes him sit in the corner all day. When we line up to turn in our worksheets, I sneak Danny my T-Rex eraser. Later he pulls the picture out of the trash and gives it to me, wrinkled but still good. Godzilla\u2019s face really looks like Mrs. May.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The next year we finally have a new teacher, Ms. Wilkens. She\u2019s young and claps her hands a lot and says things like \u201cSuper!\u201d and \u201cDy-no-mite!\u201d She makes us form groups of four and put our desks together in squares\u2014conversation spaces, she calls them\u2014and tells us each group has to pick one thing and do a project on it for the whole year.<\/p>\n
Like fighting pollution, she says. Or helping endangered animals.<\/p>\n
Danny won\u2019t move his desk, stays in the row where he was. His long brown hair dips over his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on, Danny,\u201d Ms. Wilkens says. \u201cJoin the Federation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a Klingon,\u201d says Danny.<\/p>\n
I get him to join our group, even though we already have five people, but when we have project time he mostly reads MAD<\/em> magazine and rolls spitballs.<\/p>\n One morning there\u2019s a call on the classroom phone and Ms. Wilkens takes Danny aside. Then the principal comes to get him and we\u2019re sure he\u2019s being expelled, but nobody knows for what.<\/p>\n Danny\u2019s gone for the rest of the week. We all have to sign a big card that Ms. Wilkens gets. We are very sorry for your loss, Ms. Wilkens writes on the board, and everybody copies it.<\/p>\n I draw a T-Rex with a cartoon balloon. Inside the balloon is a heart.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When Danny comes back to school his hair is cut short, almost bald. Nobody knows why. Steve B. says he had to go live with his uncle because he has no dad, and his uncle is a Marine and shaved his head. Steve G. says he did it himself because he\u2019s psycho. He says Danny\u2019s mom\u2019s car was so burned up they had to identify her by dental records.<\/p>\n When I go to the dentist next time, I ask if he\u2019s making records of my teeth, but he just gives me a new toothbrush and some sugar-free gum and says \u201cKeep up the good work! You\u2019re in the No-Cavity Club!\u201d<\/p>\n Danny doesn\u2019t draw in class anymore, or throw spitballs. He sits with his head way down and shreds his eraser, digging his fingernails in and pulling it apart.<\/p>\n When I sit behind Danny, I can see how close his hair is cut. I see little bald patches shaved down to the skin, red cuts where the razor must have nicked his head. I think about his old hair and want to cry.<\/p>\n After Christmas vacation, Ms. Wilkens announces a new plan. Instead of our groups working on different projects, we\u2019re all going to work on one big project together. A class mural, and it\u2019s going to be on the wall outside our door. The whole wall, going all the way down to the janitor\u2019s closet. Each group should come up with an idea for something to put in the mural, Ms. Wilkens says.<\/p>\n While she talks, I see Danny\u2019s head lifting. When she asks what we think about doing the mural Danny doesn\u2019t talk. But I see a sheet of paper on his desk. I see a pencil in his hand, tapping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I ask Danny what the poster means he says it\u2019s like all the other stupid school posters and they all mean the same thing. \u201cBut what is it?\u201d I ask. \u201cDon\u2019t do drugs,\u201d Danny says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[1234,863,1513],"class_list":["post-20262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-coming-of-age","tag-flash-fiction","tag-loss","writer-kathryn-kulpa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20262"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20713,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20262\/revisions\/20713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}