‘Hey! Hey…why is part of your hair white?’ A curious and verbose first grader is close to my face, staring at me. ‘Um, because my hair changes color’ I respond. ‘Oh, you mean like a grandmother?’ She looks at me. ‘Sure, why not?’ I look back at her.
‘Hey! Hey…’ Another one is pulling on my sleeve. ‘I’m in love with my shoes!’ I can’t have heard that correctly. ‘You’re in love with your shoes?’ Nothing should surprise me. He stares back at me. ‘No, no…I need help with my shoes!’ He puts his booted foot up on the chair. He cannot tie the laces. I sit down in the other chair. As I am tying them together, he says, ‘I’m learning to stand on one leg. I’m learning to jump up and down on one leg. Watch!’ He begins to jump. ‘Do you want your boots tied or do you want to jump? It’s time to go’.
‘No! No’ declares another. ‘It’s 1:39 and we don’t leave until 1:45’. ‘That’s only six minutes, girl!’ I answer. ‘Oh’ she replies. ‘Is that a lot?’
I look at the whirling mass of humanity on the rug. ‘Six minutes can be a long time and today it is definitely a long time’. Another student waiting in the growing line yells to me, ‘You have to go pick up your kindergartners!’ They are keeping track of my schedule, these little earnest ones.
My chubba bubba has stopped jumping and I finish tying his shoe laces. ‘Hey! Hey…how many people are in the world now?’ This random question comes flying at me as I’m trying to exit the room. ‘Um, we’re up to 8 billion…and they’re all here in this room, I think’. ‘What?’ a child looks incredulously at me. ‘Yea…I think they are all here in this room’. I’m convinced.
‘Hey! Hey…Maistra…Maistra!’ One of the obstreperous ‘elopers’ is pointing to his face and rambling determinedly in Spanish, while tugging at my sleeve. I’m not getting most of it and he looks fine. ‘You’re fine, I think…I hope. Go home. Time to go home!’ ‘Okay’, he responds. I extricate myself from the room and head down the hallway to herd a pile of kindergartners scrambled up together near the door…’Hey! Hey…’ they all start in talking as they lurch toward me…
690 Saint Paul 