Fifth Grade

by Therese Plummer

I have heard so many friends tell the story of their childhoods. Some had two parents who loved them, some had single mothers or drunk fathers, and some had siblings and some had family pets and some imaginary friends. I would listen in a trance at the normality of it all.

I was ten-years-old. I was in the middle of fifth grade. I was in a new town in a new state. I changed into the uniform the nun handed my mother who handed to my sister and I in the schools bathroom stall. The brown and yellow jumper with the yellow blouse underneath with the peter pan collar. brown socks and penny loafers with a shiny penny in each shoe. My little sister was in the stall next to me. We stood up and straightened our plastic headbands with the teeth that chew into your scalp. Mine was blue and hers was purple. We helped each other with the back button on the jumpers. We looked at each other, two deers in headlights, now in our uniforms with our other clothes shoved in our backpacks, and walked in opposite directions.

The message from my mother as she handed us our uniforms was simple and clear. She whispered so we both could hear: “Go make friends, don’t ever talk about where we came from because they won’t understand and have a good day.”

I vowed to become the best secret keeper in the family. It was my treasure. My super power. Something I knew that no one else did and never would because I wouldn’t tell and that made me powerful. It also made me isolated from you.

All of you.

Me against the world.

I made “friends” with everyone in my new fifth grade class. I smiled and made jokes and laughed and said what I thought you wanted me to say. I played in the school parking lot with all of the kids and learned the rules of this new world super quick in order to survive. When I returned home that day my older brother was angry because he said I made friends so easily.

friends?

Is that what they were?

I just did what I was told.

If I knew then the bomb ticking in my heart would go off only five short years later, maybe I would have slowed down. Maybe I wouldn’t have worried about making friends with everyone. Maybe I would have told someone, anyone, the secret I was told to keep.

Maybe.

to be continued…