Lift

Alejandro was shaking and crying uncontrollably.  He had just finished his graded rendition of Lift Every Voice and Sing.
"Alejandro, oh my god, Alejandro, I'm sorry....I'm so sorry, I didn't realize you were upset....I was laughing and joking around with them and I swear I didn't know...."  I explained, grabbing his shoulder while he shielded his face from the rest of the students at the table.
"It's just a stupid song, stupid crap."  I whispered furiously into his ear, shocking myself by referring to Lift Every Voice and Sing as stupid crap.
"It's not your fault," he typed into the browser window of his Chromebook, without clicking enter.
"Sometimes when I see people laughing I just freak out and cry."
"It's weird, I don't know why."

"I took my first Spanish class!"  Prem announced, his eyes dancing with excitement.
"What does puto mean?"
My mouth fell open.  So did Veronica's.
"Did you learn that in class today?"  I asked.
"NO!" he screamed, then ran off toward the trailer.

"You know what!"  the second meanest teacher in the school yelled at the class.
"This isn't just going to count for one grade, it's going to count for four!  One of them will be a quiz grade!"
Adriana shifted uncomfortably in her seat, still waiting her turn to sing Lift Every Voice and Sing in the hallway to her teacher, for four grades.

I sat with Prem and Veronica in their Reading class, trying to help them while keeping track of Faba and Juan who were seated in separate groups.  The teacher passed out a blurry, small print worksheet of "The Cat that Walked by Himself".
I felt my eyes glaze over.
"I'm not reading all that." Prem said dismissively, when I tried to get him to put his eyes on it.
The teacher started getting kids to read out loud, while a second Special Ed teacher alternated between berating their performance and asking comprehension questions.
"Where'd the baby come from?!"  she yell-asked.
I knew what she meant but tensed up for a minute because it could easily bring a host of nuanced responses.
"From the woods?" one kid ventured.
"The dog had it?"  another tried.
"From the butt." Prem whispered to me definitively, shoving his worksheet in the cubby-thing under someone else's desk.

I stood with the walkers, ready to go go go.  Adriana walked up, her report card in an envelope.
"Let's see it!"  I said, while she carefully opened the envelope.
"Oh god," she gasped.
I looked down the report.  All Fs.  Every single grade, except for a B in ESOL.  My grade.
"She been doing a lot of that crap lately, given out them Fs for no reason...."  a girl that we normally don't like muttered sympathetically. 
We smiled weakly and started the hike out of the school and through the neighborhood, twenty-odd kids behind us.