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Show Officers, with their orange sashes and shiny silver badges, to instill some kind of order on the bus, to make the other children follow the rules. But they were often the ones leading the ruckus, all the time Grandma barreling toward school. That first fall in Virginia, my brother still in the hospital, I took my favorite record to school for Show and Tell. Every night, as the trees tossed their branches in the wind and a rainfall of acorns spattered the roof, I listened to my Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer record on my green and blue Electric Company player. Burl Ives's voice was the last thing I heard before I fell asleep. When the teacher announced Show and Tell, I knew I wanted to bring my record. That morning, to keep it safe, I tucked Rudolph behind my back for the duration of the short trip to school. Around me chaos reigned. Sit down, Grandma yelled, rubbing her hand up and down on her blue knit pants, eyes in the mirror and not on the road. The smell of the heater mixed with the exhaust fumes and circled about our heads; I looked out the window at the gray morning, more leaves on the ground than the limbs of the trees we passed, feeling the stiff album behind me, close against me like a friend. When we arrived at school, everyone rose like a tide to leave. Kids in the aisle stayed the exodus to allow their friends to cut in front. Those in the back yelled at the others to move it. And I waited for a break, a moment when I would not be noticed, to sneak into the aisle and down the rubber-treaded steps. In my haste, I forgot the record. By the time I arrived at the classroom with its bright fluorescent lights and yellow desks clustered in learning pods, I realized what had happened. My backpack was empty, andtkeJosg, experienced at a moment when loss was threatening to consume my family, seemed nothing short of disastrous. Though I begged, the teacher would not let 60 |
