I went to private school until half-way through second grade. That was when my parents decided to main-stream me. The adorable little charter school I was attending was in serious financial trouble, so I guess they figured it was high time to move me from one failing system to another (we'll talk about my views on the educational system some other time.).
I learned pretty quickly that public school was serious business. We sat at assigned seats, which were grouped into "pods" with other students. We ate lunch at the same time every day. We had to ask to use the bathroom. But the weirdest thing for me was that we had units. Like, for a set number of weeks we would all learn about a certain topic. It would permeate every aspect of our day. When we learned about pioneers, we wrote pioneer journals and did word problems about how many oxen Jeb would have if he gave four to Sally because all of Sally's oxen were brutally murdered. Stuff like that. We also moved seats every unit. Boy, was that exciting.
One fateful day, it was announced that our next unit would be dinosaurs. The boys in the class rejoiced. All the girls pretended to scoff. It wasn't cool to like dinosaurs if you were a girl. Everyone knew that. My teacher, Ms. Foley (who was as close to Ms. Frizzle as any teacher could get), told us to all stand up so we could get our new seats. I was put at a pod with two other girls (I forget who-- they were irrelevant) and two boys. I was new to boys.*
One of the boys had been at my old pod. His name was James. James, even durring other units, loved to talk about dinosaurs. He knew everything about velociraptors. Seven-year-old-me found that wildly sexy. I recently ran across an old journal I wrote in around that time. The first page says (I'm not even kidding), "I love James. He is cut. He nows abut velosoraptors." And then there are a million deformed hearts.**
The other boy was different. His name was Bert. Bert had a reputation for being the class know-it-all, and also for being kind of a jerk. Now, I was new to the public school system, so I often found myself competing with Bert for the position of teacher's pet and class brain. He had the advantage of having two anthropology professors as parents. It was so not fair.***
One day, durring recess, Bert approached me. I immediately sensed that something was afoot. He'd breeched the Cootie Line.
"Hey, guess what?"
I looked at him suspiciously. "What?"
He pushed his glasses up his nose. "My dad told me that all humans are turning into dinosaurs."
"No they're not." Wait, are they? What?! This was not discussed in Unit Time.
"Yeah they are. My dad said. And guess what else?" His pale, smug face glowed with the light of knowledge I did not posses. I considered driving him away with a nice round of Kissy Face, but I thought better of it.
"What?"
He leaned in close. I could smell the peanut butter on his breath. "I'm turning into a pterodactyl and so are you. We're going to be the only pterodactyls on Earth." Bert paused, presumably for dramatic effect. "We're going to have to mate."
Mate. Mate. Mate. It echoed in my head. I didn't exactly know what "mate" was, only that it meant that I would have to be Bert's wife. My life was over. I would never marry James.
Ms. Foley blew the whistle, signaling the end of recess. The rest of the day was torture, sitting across from James, just knowing that I'd never have him. Every time Bert spoke, I cringed more than usual.
By the end of the day, I was so fed up that the first thing I said to my mom when she picked me up was, "I have to mate with Bert." And then I burst into tears. Through sobs and gasps I recounted what Bert had told me. My mother called Ms. Foley that night.
The next day, Ms. Foley sat us down in a circle and explained that people do not turn into dinosaurs.
Nope, we don't. But these days, I find that more and more unfortunate.
x,
g
* My first and second grade classes at my little Montessori school were comprised of me and five other girls. This was probably due to the fact that I made out with every boy in my kindergarden class.
** My taste in men has changed surprisingly little since second grade. I mean, I like people my own age, but the sexiness of velociraptor knowledge has yet to fade.
*** Looking back, I think this whole thing was just a plan to sabotage me so that he could steal the title right from under my nose. It was probably also driven by his inability to properly express his affection for me. Which I totally get. I'd be lying if I said I'd never thought about trying this.
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