Calf and Lamb

"My butt hurts."  Ariel announced.
"You know when you go to the bathroom and it hurts real bad and you just sweat...." she continued.
No, Ariel, I really don't, I thought to myself.  

"You're my mom now."  Rafael announced to our principal.

She looked at me, a little wide eyed.

"And you, you are my tía."  he continued, motioning toward me.

"Well, I guess I've been downgraded."  I announced.

"He's yours now."  I whispered to my principal, laughing.  

Standardized testing started. I never know how that is going to go; I usually have to proctor a group that does not include any of my students.  Randomly, Eduardo got put in my group.  Either him or Baby Gustavo gave me this awful, bleeding throat, hacking cold that was killing me.  I was determined not to call out during testing and came in anyway, wearing a mask.  While I gave the rest of kids the mints during testing, Eduardo and I shared a bag of cough drops and coughed our way through testing. I would let the kids play around in the room after they were done.  I felt terrible when they elected Eduardo to be the leader of their next Simon Says and he said,  I can't, I do not speak English, but continued running and playing with the American kids.  Then, he just came and sat with me and drew pictures of Quetzals and volcanoes.  

Alec and I stood at our local, pop-up farmers market.  One of us buys vegetables there every week, but usually we don't both go together.   In honor of Earth Day, the meat farm next to our vegetable stand brought a calf and lamb for people to pet while they sold lamb and veal butchered and packaged out of a cooler next to the petting enclosure.  There was a sign on the enclosure, advertising how much of the calf you could buy, one quarter, half or the whole damn thing.  I've seen that meat farm for years selling their products, but I have never seen them bring the actual animals into a petting zoo format.  I was enraged.  I guess people should know where their meat comes from, but I couldn't stop staring at those poor animals.  I petted the calf quickly, and walked away.  

I was getting a little tired of Rafael's weird jump up, surprise hugs.  Or, when he tried to track my phone.  I will always help him, I'm his teacher and I care for him tremendously, but his odd, misplaced affection was just kind of grossing me out.  He ripped the door open of the trailer one day and tried to grab me in a hug.  I shifted quickly and side-hugged him.

"So, it's like that."  he said, a cold look in his eyes.

He is nine years old.  

I don't know where he gets this shit.  

"So Wagner, um, you should get your personal things out of your trailer.  Those contractors out there are going to rip the stairs off of the trailers that are getting hauled away and we're afraid they'll rip your stairs off, too."

I stared back.

"So, I'm going to put my lunch and stuff in the trunk of my car....."  I said slowly.

"Sorry, yeah, we thought you might need a minute to process.  We aren't using you for testing this afternoon, because of, you know, the stairs."

"Me cago en tu primo."  Eduardo growled, slapping his laptop when Rosetta Stone didn't accept his answer.  

"Gross."  I answered, tired.  

I have seven kids in the trailer in the mornings now.  

"Mira, abuela."  Rafael started.

I looked at hm.

"Señora." he continued.  

"No es abuela, ni señora, es mamá!"  Eduardo yelled.

"She's got like, fifty years...."  Rafael sputtered.

Hmmm, the kids never guess my age correctly.  He must have googled me, too.  

"Lo mataré." Eduardo muttered.

"Tienes amor tóxico."  Adan said to Rafael, smiling slyly.  Rafael tried to throw shade on him and Adan gave it back to him, hard.  

After that, all of the boys started calling Rafael "Amor Tóxico".  

I was alarmed that Rafael could shift so fast into meanness when he felt rejected.  I wondered what it might mean for him when he was older.  Would he be that guy that tells everyone that some girl was a lesbian just because she didn't want to go out with him?  Claim that she actually begged him to date her and he said no, as opposed to the other way around? I was glad the other boys knew what it meant to be toxic toward someone.   I hoped they could show Rafael a better way to be and that maybe he would listen to them.  I also couldn't believe I was dealing with a maelstrom of nine through twelve year old boy fever.  

I stood in the counselor's office at school, begging for help with Adan's situation.  His mom texted me that in a matter of days they would be effectively homeless.  

"Ms. Wagner!!!!"  I heard, screamed.

I saw four little faces, Adan, Eduardo, Danny and my new girl, Arecely.  Four little beautiful faces, poking into the counselor's office.  They ran off.  Arecely's hair was down and it flowed behind her, waving up and down.  

To make a long story short, Alec persuaded the farm to sell us the two animals.  It was not cheap, and they nearly called the law on Alec because they feared he would drive to their farm and let all of their baby animals free.  We put the calf in the backseat of Alec's 2006 Honda and he held the lamb in his arms while I drove the whole heard to a rescue farm in Conyers.   

I got in the car Monday morning and it still smelled like farm.  And I drove to work and I faced the day, thinking of the baby animals and hoping they slept well.