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 CHAPTER TWO: FIRST GRADE

 D A T E : September 2002ish 

 ✖ the art of making friends ✖

First grade was a blur, considering I would never be able to remember half of it for the life of me. That happened a lot when I looked back on elementary school and realized so many important things happened prior to middle school, that it was tough to recall it all. But then again, nothing in middle school would have ever happened if elementary school hadn't come first.

And as such, I had to add this package to my pile of suitcases, because good or bad, we all carry it wherever we go.

Bluebell became more of a problem than I anticipated, and it was no wonder Fynn felt off about her at first considering we came to school that first day with kisses from Mom and Mrs. Walton, only to find Bluebell already giggling by the school door with her poka-dot pink backpack at her feet. I frowned because I didn't know who those girls were, or anyone for that matter.

"Who's Bluebell talking to?" Parker asked us, and we both shrugged. We were beginning to realize that "neighbors" didn't mean "best friends forever".

We were too terrified to stray from Parker, who just wanted to hang out with his buddies before the morning bell rang. Where are we supposed to go? When does the bell ring? What time is it? All these thoughts were racing through my head as I clamped on hard to Fynn's arm and stood directly next to him and Parker by the grass, realizing I must have stood out against them since boys and girls were looking at me strange, but after a while they gave up worrying about it.

Eventually one of Fynn's friends showed up, being escorted across the parking lot by his dad. As soon as Parker sensed his escape, he walked off and released Fynn on his friend, who he hadn't seen all summer because his family lived so far away. His name was Ryan.

"This is your friend?" Ryan's dad asked, and the curly brunette-haired boy nodded eagerly. "Alright, have fun. Mommy'll come and pick you up at two o' clock sharp, bud."

"Alright," he said, squinting and squirming when his dad ruffled his hair and walked off amid the parents gushing over their kids and taking pictures with their film cameras.

Ryan waddled over to us, and Fynn broke off to jump by his friend. "Hey, hey, look at what I got!" Out of his pocket, he wielded a brand spanking new yoyo with a scratch on the paint from when Parker chipped it on driveway the first day.

"Cool! Can I try?" Fynn passed it over and Ryan stuck the loop of string around his middle finger and dropped the yoyo from his palm. At that point, I stepped over because I looked like I was all on my lonesome, standing out in the grass like that, and I didn't want to look like I was all by my lonesome because I had Fynn.

Ryan stopped messing around to look at me. "What're you doing over here? Get lost."

"Hey! Skye's my friend, and she's really good at the yoyo. Here, give it to her and let her try," Fynn demanded, but Ryan scowled and shook his head.

"No way! This is a guy's toy, play with a doll or something," he retorted, and I could tell Fynn was getting too mad to handle. I was glad that the morning bell rang, even if it almost made me pee my pants.

Ryan huffed and passed the toy over to Fynn, who snatched it back and didn't say another word to him, though I knew he would if he could. All I could do was frown and try not to get too overwhelmed. I could feel my ears flaming up, and I was glad that Mom had styled my hair down so no one would see.

We were introduced to the teachers in the gymnasium, and our names were called off lists and we had to stand in individual lines. Fynn and I split up for that, and it turned out we split up for the rest of the day, and after that, the rest of the school year considering we were assigned two different teachers. The only time we got to see each other during the school day was at recess.

Everything was so... organized at first. We walked into a classroom with primary color tiles and a rug checkered with the rainbow, and desks with each of our names taped to the surface. I was almost too busy wringing the hem of my shirt and searching for my name that I nearly missed finding both Ryan and Bluebell in the same class.

I was hardly the social butterfly Bluebell was, so I simply found my place and sat down, unpacking everything from my backpack into the desk while everyone discovered their places in a buzz of excitement. None of us realized that we'd go through this same process for another twelve years of our miserable lives.

Because I went into Ms. Sumer's line in the gymnasium, her name was written up on the board and on the plaque at her desk. Parker had given us the lo-down on which teachers were good and which teachers were bad. Ms. Sumer was one of the good ones.

Across from me, Ryan claimed his spot, and as soon as we made eye contact, his eyebrows dropped and he stared at me. Unable to keep eye contact, I simply looked away and unpacked my notebooks and pencils.

"Is that a Spiderman notebook?" he blurted out, knocking the top one away to reveal it.

"Uh, yeah-"

"That's awesome! I couldn't find any at Target so I got the Hulk instead," he explained, drawing up his chest like he was prepared to tear his shirt off like the Hulk.

I giggled behind my hand and asked if I could see it. We displayed all of our notebook designs on the tabletop, and it was sufficient to say we were fast friends over our love of Marvel and DC characters. Fynn and I watched cartoons of them nearly every morning in the summer.

Class began and we introduced ourselves to everyone while sitting at our desks. I was pretty sure Ryan was mistaking me for a guy because after that all he ever talked about were what cartoons I watched, what games I played on my Gameboy, who would win in a fight, Superman or Batman? (Superman, let's be honest here.)

I didn't mind all that much, if it weren't for the fact that that was all he talked about with Fynn at recess, either that or playing football or basketball on the playground. Unfortunately, while I was best friends with Fynn, this was the time that I was supposed to blend into one group, not two. I was too "boyish" to be with the girls, and too "girlish" to be with the boys, and that was probably why Joni felt bad for me.

If there was any first grader who understood the concept of feminism, it was Joni. She was probably the first thing that popped out of Fynn's mouth when he started talking about his class, and how she knew all the answers, and how she was smarter and cuter than everyone. I laughed over how his cheeks flushed, and teased him like, "You liike her, don't you Fynn-i-kins?"

"No I don't! Don't call me that!" he whined, stomping his foot. "Gosh, no!"

"You do!"

"Do not! I'm leaving!" he exclaimed, and ran off to catch up with the guys out on the grass passing around a ball. I would have laughed about it if it weren't for the fact that now I was completely alone out here on the playground.

I failed to make any friends that wanted to play with me.

I went to the first place I could think of when it came to blending in—the swings. Marching across the wood chips, I passed Bluebell and her new friends, who I heard giggling across the room during class when the teacher was talking. Even when she waved at me and gave me a toothy smile, I didn't feel welcome to join, so I just smiled back and kept walking.

The swings were grouped in sets of two, and in one of the sets of two was a girl with two pigtails tied with blue bows, and an empty seat. "Can I sit there?" I asked, pointing to the swing beside her.

She shrugged and said, "I dunno, can you?"

I frowned and took the seat anyway, clinging onto the chains and scuffing the ground with the tips of my toes. She was looking at me, but I decided not to look back at her. "Hey, you're the one who hangs out with all the boys."

"Yeah, so?"

"I dunno. I heard there's this third grade girl who cut all her hair off, and now she dresses like a boy and plays with the boys at recess."

In truth, I never really considered Fynn a "boy" until now. I considered him my best friend, and everything else didn't matter. I couldn't exactly tell the difference between boys and girls except for their change in clothes, but everything on the inside was the same. We were all people. "Is that bad?"

She looked down and back up again. "Well, no, I'm just saying. Maybe you need a friend to watch out for you. My name's Joni, what's yours?"

"Skye, and I'm not a boy."

"'Course ya are. We've all got a little boy and a little girl in all of us, ya know?"

Joni's statement really hit me hard, right in the heart and in the head. It got me thinking about how boy I was, and how boy she was, or how girl Fynn was, or even how girl Ryan was. Whenever I stopped thinking about it for a while, someone would say something like, "Oh boy!" and it'd get me thinking about it all over again. Or even when Parker would laugh and call Fynn a girl for running from the softball.

But on that same day Joni said that to me, she declared herself my friend and that made Fynn more jealous than anything. Joni and I walked back inside together, and at the end of the day when I met up with Fynn to find our parents, she was right by my side again.

"Skye! Skye, what're you doin' right now?" she shouted to me through the hall, already suited up with her backpack on and a thin jacket for the fall-like weather.

"Um, I gotta find my mommy," I told her, but demanded to know how her class went because I wasn't sure what to think of mine until I compared notes.

"Oh! Well, it was fun I guess. We played games and Ms. Heiser is really nice!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms about her in such expression, it made me laugh. "And- oh, hi Addison."

I hadn't realized he showed up until she pulled my attention to him. He cringed and fumed at the mention of his first name, but only managed to show it in the color of his cheeks. "My name's Fynn," he practically spat.

"No it isn't. Ms. Heiser said your name was Addison."

"Well, his name is Fynn," I clarified, peaking both Joni and Fynn's attention. I shifted uncomfortably and played with my backpack strap.

A few awkward seconds later, Joni collected herself and said, "Mommy and I are going to get ice cream, do you guys wanna come with?"

There was really only one ice cream place I ever went to in town, so I knew exactly what sort of fun was going to be there. Unfortunately, Fynn and I both knew our parents had other things planned--we were going out for an early supper at our favorite restaurant.

"We can't. I'll see you tomorrow though!" I told her, and she didn't seem too down about that. She hugged us both, swashing the two of us against her sides before she broke away and ran to a tall, skinny woman stood by. They held hands and walked off, Joni sprouting exciting facts about the day and prancing along by the woman's side.

I looked back at Fynn, who scowled after Joni before turning to face me, his cheeks and ears pink. "You think she likes me?"

"I dunno," I admitted. "C'mon, let's go. I'm starving."

And so we walked the length of the hall and back in search of our moms, and later found them in the gymnasium where some of the parents waited for their children. Parker was there too, showing them pictures in a book he got from the library. On the way out of school, he handed the book over to Fynn and I, and on the way home he read the story we picked out. There were pictures of mice and birds, cats and dogs, turtles and snakes, and he made up voices for each of them.

"You know," he said, pointing to the illustrations, "you'll get to take art classes, and when you go to the library, the librarian tells you guys stories, and next year you'll start typing classes."

"Typing? But I already know how to use a keyboard," Fynn told him, mostly intrigued by the big bold words on the page like SWOOSH or RAWR! He practiced growling and roaring at me until I shoved my hand in his face from across the space Parker took up between us.

"Nah, you don't know a thing about typing. You can't just use your two pointer fingers."

"I don't, sometimes I use my pinkie." He wriggled his pinkie finger in front of his brother, only to have it snatched and yanked on. Fynn whined for Parker to let go, and I started screaming because it looked like it hurt, and that was around the time that Mom scolded us for being so loud, and for Parker to let go of Fynn's finger before he broke it.

To keep another fight from breaking out, my mom decided to engage us in some friendly conversation. "So... how was your first day of school? Did you meet any new friends?"

"Yeah! My table is the best!" Fynn exclaimed animatedly, his eyes wider than life. "There's Zach and Brody, oh! And there's also Heather and Julie, but we didn't talk to them much. They were really quiet. But Brody has the big pack of crayons--like, over a hundred!"

"No, that's crazy," I accused, huffing and puffing over the fact that Fynn's class was ten times better than mine. As far as I knew, I only had one friend in my class, not including Bluebell if she kept acting this way. I didn't understand what changed, but it seemed that we would only be seasonal friends.

"Nuh-uh, it's true."

"Is not! There's only the 64 pack!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Well, I guess we'll have to see who's right tomorrow," my mom resolved from the passenger's seat. "How was your day, sweetie? Anything exciting happen?"

I couldn't think of much, other than the fact that Bluebell was no longer a school friend, and Ryan was only friends with me when we sat together and had to pick opposite-gender partners, and I only ever saw Joni at lunch and recess. So instead of voicing these problems, I shook my head and admitted that Ms. Sumer was nice before Parker streamed off on his own rant of how incredible his first day was.

At that point, school just seemed so trivial to me if I wasn't able to have Fynn and Joni in my class.