My little runner has taken to carrying a briefcase. She is six years old. She does not like to stay in the classroom. After breakfast is served and cleared and the real work starts and things like learning and rules begin, she’s had enough. She leaves the classroom and runs the building. Last week I met her briefly on the wrong floor, in the wrong wing of the school and I said, “Good morning, lady! What’s the plan for the day?” “Stay in the classroom”, she answers and takes off down another hallway. I think she has missed the point. Or maybe I have.
Unwittingly, this little one gives me permission to look briefly through a looking glass into her life; a snapshot with openings and closings of classroom and hallway doors. I look at her life each time I see her and wonder what it is exactly that I have seen.
Today I see this briefcase. I wonder where she found it. Somewhere, in this vast corner of the city with crooked and neglected side streets winding down at many odd angles to the public market and the railway, this little one has found a long shoulder strapped vinyl bag, worn and brown, with some sort of a clasp on one side. It fits around her neck and sags down where it bangs around her mid section as she runs. It must be empty because it flaps and flops wildly as she darts and dashes.
Last week she joined us briefly at our table at the end of the hallway. I did not see her and then slowly and softly I felt her sneak up behind me; the lightest presence of a small girl. Her hand is on my back and then she is on my left side and then her head rests briefly on my left shoulder. She sucks her thumb. We continue on with the class as if she is the slightest breeze whispered down the hallway and around the corner. She is simply and suddenly there. In a few minutes I ask her if she would like to tell us what she did over the weekend. She shakes her head no. She is quieter today.
Last week, when she visited us, she could not keep things together, bouncing in and out of our circle, going in and out of the hallway door, climbing and swinging off the large rack which holds huge rolls of construction paper. Finally, for her own safety and so that I could continue teaching, I call the main office and let them know she is on the lam. There is a bit of a time lag until an administrator makes her way up to the second floor. She is tired of this and carries her hand radio with determination. The little runner has made use of the minutes before the administrator arrived and has swiftly run a couple of laps around the A section of the building on our floor and has darted in and out of the cafeteria looking furtively in every direction at once.
In the course of the next few minutes with some fanfare, the administrator in heels successfully wrestles the little girl with the briefcase to the ground where she remains, relatively docile until the security guard arrives to take her away to the ATS (Alternative to Suspension Room). After a bit of animated commentary from my little ones at the table, I calm everyone by singing a quiet song and we go back to work.
Today I give this child a paper snowflake I cut out. She returns the gift with a hug. She asks me, “How do you cry in Spanish”? I think about this and am astounded at the profound depth of her question but before I can answer, she is suddenly upright; alert like a deer by the side of the road, sensing movement, sensing the heat from the beam of a far away car. I look at the side of her head. Her face is energized, twitching with motion and I know she will run again.
As she leaps away from me, she turns and says, “You should write a story about me and my sisters”! She swings open the hallway door and darts off to the right, down the hall in the direction of the music room. I note the school counselor heading down the other hallway in our direction. The little runner is long gone.
The counselor is not going to run after her. This catch and release and catch again story with this child is an old one and it is exhausting for this overworked woman. She rolls her eyes, stopping in at the classroom closest to where we are working and picks up the receiver of the wall phone. One of the school security guards is called. She leaves and heads back upstairs.
At the end of my class, I move toward the cafeteria and pass another child in the hall. I do not know her. She looks at me and states, “I’m going to get my head checked”. I think about that outcome and wonder about our little runner some more. I admire her spunk. At the tender age of six, in her own way, she is proactive. Life is not happening to her anymore. She is happening to life and is adept at making an significant number of adults run giant circles around this great big school of ours.
As I cross the cafeteria I see her suddenly out of the corner of my eye. She is scooting, skipping along the edge of the far wall; briefcase swinging. She is the smallest of mice, moving with stealth along the perimeter. She is headed to the third grade wing and I leave her alone.
690 Saint Paul 