by Amber Gaye

Created on: March 04, 2009

As I stood there, looking at that long, low building of red brick, I couldn't help but think that this was not right. I tugged on my new dress as I thought about how days were meant for running through the fields around Mammaw's house. I wanted to be back there now, sitting in the mulberry tree, filling my belly and staining my shirt with the dark juicy berries.

When I was at Mammaw's I never had to were a dress, and my shoes never pinched. There I was free, allowed to run wild, just like people were meant to. This place called School did not seem natural to me. As Mother took my hand and headed for the doors, I glared up at her wondering how she could do this to me.

When we went inside, Mother handed me over to a tall lady named Miss McElroy, then to my astonishment, Mother left. She told me that she had to go to work, and that I wouldn't even miss her, I would be too busy playing with all the other kindergarteners. This made me very upset; I didn't want to be a kindergartener, I wanted to go to Mammaw's like always, and run through the fields. That's when I decided that I didn't like tall ladies that work in long brick buildings.

Then Miss McElroy did something I never expected, she smiled gently as the children called her Miss Macaroni. I almost smiled too, because I liked macaroni, so maybe this tall lady would be nice after all. So, I let Miss Macaroni take me by the hand and introduce me to another little girl named Kathy.

I liked Kathy right away. She looked kind of wild, and a little crazy, just the way people should. Kathy liked me too, despite my silly dress and stupid shiny shoes. Smiling her warm smile, Miss Macaroni said that she had a feeling Kathy and I would get along splendidly. She was right.

Kathy and I became inseparable. In the days that followed, our crazy antics filled the kindergarten room with rolling laughter. I began to like the long brick building.

One day, near Thanksgiving, we had a party in the kindergarten room. When Miss Macaroni asked for volunteers to miss music class, and stay to clean up the party dishes, Kathy and I jumped at the chance. While Miss Macaroni led the rest of the class down the hall to the music room, Kathy and I began to wash the dishes.

I don't remember what all was said, but it must have been beyond hilarious to our young minds. We began to laugh harder than we'd ever laughed before. We laughed until we cried. Then we laughed some more.

Suddenly, our eyes grew large and round, and our mouths fell open in shock; we had both peed our pants laughing! In true crazy person style, rather than being mortified at peeing our pants in school, we laughed even harder!

I was still snickering when Mammaw came to the school to pick me up early. That day in kindergarten, I learned that it doesn't matter if you're running wild through a field, or attending school in a long brick building, you can be crazy anywhere.

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