I stood in front of the class, emphatically explaining the oral assessment they would be doing and then unleashed them to practice for a few minutes before we began. As I turned toward the computer, I felt a hand touch mine tentatively. I turned to see Oliver standing beside me.
"I need help." he said.
A full sentence. He had gotten out of his seat to ask me. This was a first.
"I'll help you, Oliver. Let's go to your seat."
I wandered the room, checking work. Bailey sneakily handed me a birthday card he had made himself.
"Sorry it's late..." he whispered.
I hugged him. A side hug so as not to embarrass him.
"Oh Bailey, I don't know what I am going to do without you next year when you go to middle school."
He smiled clandestinely.
"And," I thought, "if anyone fucks with you, if anyone says one word that you are 'really' a girl and not a boy, you just let me know. I will fuck them up."
"Do you want to see a picture of the baby?" Alejandro asked me, smiling.
He goes by Alex, anglicizing his name for American classroom use. We speak exclusively in Spanish. Before the Christmas break when all of the kids were bringing in costly gift cards and treats, he gave me two Icebreakers because he saw that I eat them all of the time and a handmade card.
"YES!"
"Okay," he said, smiling, "but it is from when he was in the hospital, so he has tubes in him."
I saw Oliver's head tilt and his eyes wander.
"You are looking at my hair."
"YES."
"Do you want to touch it?"
"YES."
He petted the red streak softly and then rotated to the back, skimming the trimmed edges like a hairdresser checking his latest cut. And then we continued working.
My mind's eye wandered and "Stand" by Sly and the Family Stone filled my ears. I imagined Oliver standing behind a seated woman in a hairdresser's chair, working wonders like Edward Scissorhands while the client smiled happily, handing him stacks of money.
He ripped the cape off and checked his cut, got his giggle out and motioned for the next client from the line.
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