After wrapping up Tyler’s first week of kindergarten, my mind went back to a time when he was in preschool two years before. During that year he seemed happy enough, but there was one week that I could tell something wasn’t right.
Tyler was never the talkative type. So far, the only detail he’s given up about kindergarten is that he’s had pizza every day for lunch. Back when he was three, that tidbit of information would have been a week’s worth of conversation.
One day he came home, didn’t play with any of his toys and ate nothing for dinner. “What’s wrong?” I asked a million times. “Did something happen at school?” Finally he looked up at me and sobbed, “Charlie hit me!”
I was furious. I think it must be every parents’ nightmare that one of these days in the distant future they’d have to contend with bullying. I was no exception—and with three kids, I figured my odds were tripled. But I never thought I’d have to deal with it this soon. Who was this three-year-old brute with light-up sneakers and Wonder Pets lunchbox with matching thermos? I was on the warpath, and it was leading straight to Charlie.
I told Doug about it, and he was as livid as I was. “Do you want me to go in there and straighten this kid out?” he asked. I imagined him bursting into my son’s preschool classroom with tear gas and a billy club. I decided to handle it myself.
The next day I walked Tyler to class and scanned the room. I had no idea what to look for. I imagined a kid with sticker tattoos, a pack of candy cigarettes stuffed up his sleeve, and Batman Underoos sagging down past his waist, but no such kid existed. Was it the one in the corner kid pegging ABC blocks at the wall? Was it the one with the smirking face smooched up against the window? No one was above suspicion.
“Where is this Charlie?” I whispered to Tyler.
He pointed, but Charlie wasn’t there. There was a Goldilocks of a girl in sandals and knees covered with Tinkerbell Band-Aids holding a puppet show all by her lonesome, but no one else was in sight.
“I don’t see him,” I said. “Is he here today?”
I think you all see where I’m going with this. As it turned out, Charlee was a girl.
Why is this story pertinent two full years later? Because when I walked into Tyler’s new classroom on kindergarten orientation, there right next to his seat at his table was Charlee’s nametag. She sat behind it, curls bouncing on her shoulders, flashing Tyler a smile that could have been either sweet or menacing. Only time will tell.
I met my husband in kindergarten, back in the days that he was “Waldo” and I, “Mary Poopins.” I wonder if thirty years from now, Tyler and Charlee’s faded class picture will hang in their finished basement, the tales behind it entertaining their future children for years to come.
This story was inspired by a comment written by Jerry Beach after my post about my boy’s first day of kindergarten: “May Tyler meet, hate and eventually Merri (sic. Jerry’s funny like that) the annoying girl in the front row of the class picture who cuts her own bangs, wears terrible socks and calls him awful names.” And might I add, one with Tinkerbell Band-Aids who throws a mean punch.