Mrs. Fresh

I watched a couple of older kids chasing around my first grade boyfriend as we walked up the hill away from the school.  He ripped his mask down, exposing his missing front teeth and low hanging canines and gave them the finger.

Paw Ku has been selling toys that she doesn't want anymore to other kids on the bus.  It worries me, she could get in trouble for that.  She speaks of kids ripping her off that she won't sell to again, like an old hand of trading and selling.  They are making her go to morning tutorial instead of coming to the trailer for homework help, because she is a matter of points between one level and the next on a test that helps the school's CCRPI score.  Ku doesn't have to go, nor does Angel or Alberto, because they are nowhere near hitting a score point that would help the school, even though they are grades below reading level.  

She opened her bag and I saw a mountain of those push things that all the kids like now.  She opened an outer pocket of her backpack and a bunch of ones were in there.
"Paw Ku, don't open that pocket again with kids around, they will see it and steal it."  I instructed.
"Yeah, I forgot it was there.  But I want to give some money to that breast cancer thing the school is doing."  she answered.

"Do you want to give them a dollar?"  I asked.
"Nah.  I want to give them two."  she responded.
"Okay, get out two and hold it in your hand until you see the donation can, but close that pocket on your book bag."

"Okay." she responded, and she and Kaw ran through the outside, early morning twilight and banged on the door to get inside the school.  

Our nurse at school died.  My favorite memory of her was every morning when I came to our mutual duty station she would call me Ms. Warner, and tell me that she wanted to go home.  They had a ceremony for her in front of the school last week.  I was interpreting RTI meetings all day, which is not my strong point.  My Spanish sounded like Frankenstein.  And, I am not familiar with this horrific vocabulary of telling families that I love that their children are in the tenth percentile in reading and that their teachers hate them and think they are lazy.  I ran to my car to drive to the Housing Authority.  I saw the staff out front, celebrating a woman that I really liked.

I got in our car, slunk down in the seat and drove away.  Through the bus line.