I had gotten in his face. He was the student that had pissed over my student's stuff a while ago. He recently became a walker and mocked me for days. Let's just say I met him where he was at.
"Ms. Melfi, we need you in carpool." I heard the call over the walkie talkie while I walked with my walkers in the other direction. I didn't think much of it. Our online faculty meeting started a little after and our principal was late.
"Sorry," she announced.
"Just so you hear it from me first, we had a gun pulled in the carpool lane, the police are taking care of it."
No one even blinked.
I am testing right now. It's the ESOL test that happens annually and gives me a lot of stress. It takes up my whole schedule, is difficult to administrate and can make me look like shit if the kids don't do well. It effects our school's score, too. My kids are triple counted: minorities, low income and English language learners.
I have to test kindergarten individually, over two days. I saved Ku for last, knowing that he would be the hardest. He did okay the first day but by the second, he was screaming and laughing hysterically, climbing on the back of my chair and clutching me around my neck. I started to get frustrated, then reminded myself that the laughing and screaming is his panic response. We made it through. The minute we stopped, he completely quieted down and calmly took my hand. I put a sticker on his forehead. He requested a second star sticker for his hand. Then, he slowly took them off and stacked one on top of another and pressed them on my hand. Then, he hesitated and pulled my sleeve up. He pressed both star stickers on my arm and pulled my sleeve back down, like it was our secret.
"Is Alec your valentine?" Kaw asked.
"Yup." I responded.
"What will you do on Valentine's Day? Go to restaurant?"
"No, those places are full on Valentine's Day. We'll probably get takeout." I responded.
"Not McDonald's. You should go there."
"I don't know about that....."
"Well, then Chick-Fil-A"
I burst out laughing.
"Ku!!! Ku!!!" I heard kids yelling. I heard him screaming. I looped around the corner and saw a child laughing and dragging Ku around by the arm. Their teacher was late and they were lined up in the hall, unattended. I bent over and got an inch from the kid's face that was dragging Ku.
"Get off him." I said lowly.
"He doesn't know how to act!" the kid responded, laughing.
"Neither do you. Don't touch him." I responded and took Ku by the hand.
He pressed his forehead against my forearm.
"You didn't hear....?" Mr. Warner asked with surprise.
"Where Allen has been, you didn't know? It was all over the news. He was shot in the face by his brother....they say he is going to be okay......"
No, I didn't know. They don't say minors names on TV. It happened two days before my fiftieth birthday, which was freaking me out. The little boy that told me that he should be in ESOL because his mom was from New York and "knew Puerto Rican". The little boy that always said "let me come with you".
I saw all of my walkers up in the front office while I tried to pick up my testing materials. An angry mom was yelling at the administrator that had my testing materials outside of the front door. Really yelling. It was a mess. I finally sat down next to one of my walker-witnesses. Shit had gone down after the walkers got to the stop sign, the point at which I stop watching them and go back to the school. A second grader got pushed to the ground by a fifth grader. The police were called on children. Someone got hurt. One kid's mom got called a bitch by another's. Conflicting stories abounded.
I left with the walkers that afternoon. Angry mom that was supposed to be picking up her kids in the car was standing at the top of our path, heading us off, ready to do whatever she was going to do to the kids that she thought hurt her kid. I sent her kid up to meet her, hoping she would walk away and took the rest of the kids up the hill. When I got back, I found the kids that had been involved in the altercation with her kid inside the school, pressed against a wall.
"Let's go." I told them.
"She's out there. They said that we wouldn't be safe." Victor responded.
"She's gone now. Let's go." I answered.
"What if she's hiding behind a tree?" he asked.
I took them outside and their posse arrived, a muscular older brother on foot and dad in a car that roared through car pool.
They jumped in and took off.
I woke up at five in the morning, thinking of that woman standing at the edge of the bus line, hoping to intimidate the kids that she thinks jumped her kid. It made my stomach hurt. Her kids are assholes and so is the kid that pushed her kid down. There were no innocent bystanders, plenty of guilt to go around, but this was crazy.
"Hey, I'm worried that that thing from yesterday is going to escalate. I mean escalate between the adults." I told the administrator while I picked up my test materials.
"I agree." she answered.
One of the first graders started braiding my hair. Then, she leaned in close.
"Your hair smells like nana!" she exclaimed.
Great. My hair smells like someone's grandmother.
I gathered up my walkers. Angry mom's kids were walkers again, though she had said she would pick them up. The girl that pushed her kid was suspended, but her brother and cousin Victor were walking. We trudged up the hill, angry mom's kid on one side and the 'offenders' on the other, along with about twenty other kids.
"She's up there...." Victor whispered.
I could see her.
"She called my mom a fucking bitch..." James said loudly.
"Stop talking." I said, staring forward.
Her little girl ran ahead and yelled "that's the two boys."
We walked up the hill.
"Hey." I said.
She nodded back.
She stood to my left and the two boys stood to my right.
"Well, there are the little ones, not sure what is taking them so long to get up the hill." I mentioned 'casually'.
She finally started walking away.
"We can't go until she crosses the street." Victor said, his dead eyes watching her under his hood. We waited.
"She crossed. But, she went toward our houses instead of hers."
"Come on, I'll walk with you." I responded, thinking they were paranoid.
We walked to the corner. I really didn't care if I had to walk them all of the way home. I knew that woman could more than beat my ass, but I wasn't sending children, even rough-ass children, out to be subjugated by an adult. I was surprised when I looked to the right and the woman and her children were very much coming from the wrong direction and bounding toward us. At that moment, James' big brother pulled up and Victor and James piled into the car and tore away.
And me, I went back to school.
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