American Chica_ Two Worlds, One Childhood - Marie Arana [48]
“When you walk in,” Papi said that morning as he surveyed us with warm approval, “look at the lettering over the door. My design.” He poked his solar plexus and crinkled up his brown eyes with such good humor that I was convinced his connection with that place was a good omen.
I was wrong.
We were put in a large classroom with what seemed to be children of mixed ages. They were all from the cinder-block houses. There was no Billy or Carlitos or Margarita. Our neighborhood friends had been sent off to the nuns or sent away to Trujillo. There was nobody here we knew.
“Mocosos,” a big boy said as George and I sat down. Snotnoses.
“Mataperro,” George shot back at him. Thug.
We’d never been in a room with so many children. The teacher was a plain young woman with bright lipstick and a sheath-tight skirt. She introduced herself as “Señorita,” made us each stand and say our names, and told us that she would brook nonsense from no one. “Somos una clase de i-guales,” she said. We’re a class of eeee-quals. But try as Señorita might with her ruler and her chalkboard and her stentorian announcements, I couldn’t help but gape at the rich spectacle about me. It seemed anything but equal to me.
There was a girl in front with hair so perfectly curled that it seemed to spring from her head like a doll’s: straight out the hole, down the back, and coiled tight at the ends. Her dress was butter yellow, crisscrossed with blue lines. A white belt burst into a perfect bow in the back. Her shoes were smudged with dust. But they were topped with the most heartbreakingly beautiful lace socks I had ever seen: woven with ribbons as blue as the sky-kissed lines of her dress. Just at the point where the sock met her brown skin, the white lace shot out and over, like a frill under a duchess’s chin.
I looked down at myself. Plain blouse, round collar, breakfast stain. Skirt swelling at the belly. Not a pretty sight.
Señorita’s bullhorn voice was coming at us over our desks. “WHO knows how to write their name?” The doll’s hand shot up, as did everybody else’s in the room, including mine.
A round boy in the corner was stuffing chunks of dulce de camote into his mouth in full view of the teacher and then holding a pencil to his lips, as if that could hide the machinery of his chewing. The candy was making his black hair stand on end, and making my mouth water.
“WHO knows how to write the colors—azul, rojo, verde?” Fewer children raised their hands, but when I looked around and saw George punch the air, I put my hand up, too, and waved extravagantly.
On the other side of the class a gaunt girl leaned forward, her left arm stiff against her waist. One of her legs was shackled in metal, and two black straps girded the ankle and knee. I strained over my desk to see her foot, but a sharp thwack of the ruler against the chalkboard brought me up straight. Señorita had her eyes on me.
“Yes?” she said. “Yes?”
I looked at my hands.
“Not paying attention is rude. Sí? Staring is rude. Sí?” She said this, although she was plainly staring at me. “Do you suppose this is a circus, Señorita Arana?” she went on. “Or do you suppose this is a school?” Her bright lips stopped here and puckered.
“Es una escuela,” I said, with a voice as tiny as an Andean flute. Two dozen faces were trained on me.
“Good,” she said. “You may be the chief engineer’s daughter, but you have no privileges in my classroom, you understand?” she added, and gave me a parting glower. “Now, class. How many of you can add?”
Far fewer hands sought the air, but seeing George’s there, I floated mine up, too. The bully between us snorted.
“Aha,” the señorita said, surveying us. “I see. And now, the final question, the big question, the one that will tell me if I have a future Pythagoras in here: Who among you can multiply?”
Here, as she uttered the magnificent word—mul-ti-pli-car—she flung out her hands like