New Day Rising

I sat at my desk in the utility trailer behind the school on the first day back after Spring Break.  It is getting lighter in the mornings and I was not all the way feeing this operation.  My mind was more in Terlingua.  I noticed movement through the window and realized it was a dog running past.  It filled my heart with dread.  Another loose dog, an off-leash dog, a dog whose body I might see in the street on the way to school the next day.  

"So, like, Wolf...that was Kim Kardashian's kid?'  Bway Pa began.

"That was Kylie!"  Kaw hissed.

We all stared at him.

"Boo...that came out fast...." I muttered and we tried to get back to Social Studies homework.  

At seven o'clock in the morning.  

We've been testing.  All the time, testing.  It is like the Twilight Zone.  My brain starts to fog as I sit there, watching them, watching them take the test.  

Ms. Snyder walked through the classroom I was testing in, randomly.  She was wearing some sort of yellow headdress and a black t-shirt. 
"Happy Earth Day.  I'm the sun."  she said dourly, and left. 

We saw the dog again, lurking behind the fence.  I saw it run across the playground, too.  Or what we call the playground.  A cracked blacktop.  Or the dirty field in the back.  

I stood, waiting for my walkers to arrive, talking to a pre-K teacher.   A student ran by and gave me a hug.  Victor strolled out, a huge smile on his face.  

"Well hello everyone!" he announced, arms spread wide.  

"Oh, no."  I laughed.  

"No hugs for you.  Move along."

He shrugged and raised his arms in the air and dropped them.  

I walked to the car and saw the dog sitting patiently by the fence.  I tried to approach and it sprinted away.  

I stood on lunch duty with only one other person present.  Testing, or people that just used testing as an excuse to not show up for duty explained our lack of adults. The kids were bad, loud, crowding up.  Then, one of the worst fights I've seen since teaching high school popped off.  I have a lot more to say about that but I really can't right now, Kitty.  All I can say is no child should know how to do that to another child at ten years old, while multiple full grown adults struggle to make it stop, all while tripping over beads ripped from someone's hair.  

I walked kindergarten outside, all of them with their sunglasses on.  Ku screamed and pointed.  I knew right away what it was and saw the dog by the cafeteria dumpsters.  

"That dog!"  a fellow trailer-parker commented.  "I nearly hit it this morning when I pulled in!"

Jaime's mom roared up on an ATV to pick him up from school.  He happily hopped on the back and they sped off.  A second later, Victor ran up.  

"Where'd they go?"  he asked breathlessly.

"They left.  Jaime's mom picked him up on an ATV."  

"I know!  I wanted a ride on the....tractor." he responded hopelessly.  

I sat at my desk, trying to get my shit together while my fifth graders ate breakfast.  Paw Ku and Kaw lurched up beside me.  

"Bway Pa cut herself.  She did it on purpose.  It's on her arm."  they said, almost in unison, like twins.  She wasn't there that day.  

"Thank you for telling me.  You two are good friends.  I will take care of this.  She won't know that you told me."  I responded.  

I carried a leash around and treats that Lola loves for a week.  Every time I looked at the dog, even through the glass doors of the teacher's "lounge", it took off.  I left it food one night and it was gone by the morning.  I couldn't stop thinking about it.  

Ku picked out a book from my shelf, something he never does.  It was Dog Man.  He flipped through it, legs crossed and hand to chin, like he was really reading it.  I heard him puffing through his nose, this noise he makes when he replicates a freight train moving when he draws trains, which he does everyday.  

I spoke to a dedicated group of dog rescuers.  They sprang into motion overnight and clandestinely set up a trap baited with hot dogs and liquid smoke that we monitored from a camera that was strapped to a tree.  I watched it obsessively.  There's more to that too, Kitty, but I can't tell you now.  

"So, I'm wondering how many moon's my anus has."  Baby Gustavo mentioned randomly, while researching his planet project in the trailer.  

"Uranus is very gassy."  I answered.

"Uranus is cold,"  he answered.

"Which makes no sense 'cuz I would have thought it was hot."  he returned.

"Yeah, but Uranus has gas rings around it."  I responded.

"STOP TALKING ABOUT BUTT HOLES!!!"  Mario yelled.

"We can't."  I responded.

"Once it starts, it is impossible to stop."  

*Title, Husker Du