A Strange, New World

Brrrrrring! The school bell echoed through the Infant area of United Evergreen Primary School, a sweet relief to my antsy classmates. I didn’t get what all the jeschrect about break time was about; I preferred to sit inside the colorful classroom with bee shapes and numbers plastered onto the yellow cement wall and look through my reading textbook. 

I wanted to learn Enjelsch as soon as possible. 

Before we moved from our hot, dusty, cement house in Schrutzdarp, Shipyard, my two older sisters already knew how to speak the language from the Enjelsche School they attended. English sounded so cool to me, plus it wasn’t fair they could speak a language I couldn't. 

I often begged them to teach me, but they refused. “Teach me Engliiiiish,” I’d whine in Plautdietsch (Low German), hopping impatiently from one bare foot to the other. 

“I don’t have time right now Utje!” Maria would retort, flipping her blonde, sweaty bangs out of her stormy grey-green eyes. 

I’d huff in protest, crossing my arms and pushing my bottom lip into a pout. 

Didn’t have time? Sure. She could sit inside the house with her nose buried in a book for hours on end, but for a short, five-minute English session she didn’t have time? Could run down the dirt road and meet Eva, our neighbor, chat for way longer than Mutta would like, but when it came to translating a few words for me, no time? Hmph.

Mutta and Voda also didn’t know English that well, so I was pretty much on my own in that regard. To make up for the loss, while Mutta rolled pieces of bread dough into buns on the kitchen table, I’d climb on top of the chest freezer by the big, open window. The cassette player would spin hymns into the warm summer air while I blabbed away in made-up English (or at least what I thought English sounded like). My sisters laughed at this, but I thought my version was pretty good. Now, I was finally going to school. 

But Infant One was so, so strange! 

The other kids spoke in words I didn’t understand, faster than my ever-buzzing mind could keep up with. Sometimes I tried to talk to them, but they answered in a language I didn’t know, giggling and pointing at me. I smiled back shyly, not understanding why they found me so funny. 

Maybe they liked me and wanted to be my friends, but I was frustrated that I couldn't chat with them. I wanted to tell them about the cows back in Shipyard and show them the fun in running around barefoot and making mud pies. 

My schoolmates’ games looked cool, too. But then I remembered they didn’t understand me, so I didn’t ask to play. Instead, I stayed inside to read my books. It was quiet in the classroom, and I didn’t have to worry about trying to talk.

School was a lot less fun than I thought it would be. I regretted begging Mutta  to go to school. If I hadn’t begged so much, I could still be playing at home with Spikey, our big, sweet dog. 

Everything was so new and different here. The staut we were now living in was much noisier, cars speeding up and down paved streets, filling the air with fumes that made me cough. It stunk too. 

I remembered our big yard back in Shipyard, and hopping out of bed the same time the sun hopped out of his. I’d run outside to hold Brünih’s tail while Mutta milked her. She told me that Brünih wouldn’t kick me, so I wasn’t scared. We named her Brünih because she was brown. She was gentle too, and I loved petting her warm, silky coat. Hmm, I missed my Brünih, and the countryside, and all that running space...

“Okay class, you can go for break,” my School Liera’s voice broke through my thoughts. She was a slim woman like Mutta, but her eyes were brown, not like Mutta’s sparkly blue ones. The students called her “Teacher Alas.”

The occasional shouts and excited yelps of the other schoolmates outside had already reached us in Room One, as the mostly tidy schoolyard, enclosed by a rusting, chain-linked fence, became overrun by screaming children. The outside chatter only fueled my classmates’ antsiness. They responded to Teacher’s dismissal with a surge of energy as chairs scraped back on the tiled floor and notebooks slammed shut. Some pencils were carefully placed in the grooves carved at the front edge of everyone’s desk, while others were thrown carelessly onto the desk. I watched the yellow, dull-pointed pencil on my neighbor’s desk roll slowly to the edge and then topple onto the dusty floor, echoing with a wooden thud in the emptying classroom. Some kids dug into their school bags for carefully stowed spending money.

Spending money...I wondered what it was like to have spending money. 

Mutta told me I could take a snack from home if I was going to be hungry. She said we don’t have gelt to waste, and that we had enough food at home. It wasn’t necessary for me to buy food if we had enough snacks at home for me to take. I was sometimes curious, though, how my classmates’ biscuits tasted.

I felt Teacher Alas look at me and then walk to her neatly arranged desk. She didn’t tell me anything, to my relief, so I dug into my new yellow and pink Tweety Bird backpack and pulled out the bright blue reading book. I held it carefully in my hands and admired the front page.

Written in big, black letters was “FUN WITH PETS.” As I turned the book over to admire its smooth back, I caught a whiff of the crisp, clean smell of new pages. It smelled just like the bookstore Mutta bought it from. She called it “Dakers.”

Even though Teacher would go through the reader after Break, the fifteen-minute recess time was too long of a wait for my curious, five-year-old mind. Since Room One was empty of people and sound, except for Teacher Alas who busily scribbled at her desk, I happily sank into the contents of my very own, first ever book. I turned to the first page and proudly began sounding out the words that I could.

“The… fat… rat… sat on the… mat,” I read softly under my breath. A thrill ran through my entire body. Oh, the joy of reading and understanding what I read! 

I giggled at the page’s picture of a very overweight brown Müs plopped on a black rug. Just imagine the chaos in my house full of girls if we found a fat rat like this one, perched on one of Mutta’s carefully sewn footdakjen! Susana would probably brave the dangerous waters, responsibly taking on her role as our oldest sister and protector of all things evil, and rid the house of the creature. Maria would probably fail her role as second oldest and hop with me onto a higher surface, screaming. Juliana... well… since she’s the youngest, and quite unpredictable as babies usually are, would probably stare up at the squealing huddle that would be Maria and I, with her wide blue eyes, and wail at the frightful sight of us. Or she’d clop on all fours to the endangered creature and adopt it as her very own stuffed toy. I giggled again at the thought. 

A brown-skinned girl walked into class, interrupting my train of thought. She clasped a corn chips bag in one hand and a pink milk ideal in the other. 

I wondered how it tasted. 

She glanced at me through dark brown eyes, and I recalled Teacher Alas calling her Leesha. Leesha was very pretty, with smooth skin and tight curly hair. I glanced at my own straight, brown hair braided into two pigtails, and envied her a bit. Curly hair was way prettier than straight hair. I wished I could befriend her; she seemed nice enough. But would she struggle to understand me like the rest of the kids? I was too scared I might embarrass myself, so I pushed the idea to the back of my mind where more things were thought than my mouth could keep up with. 

Leesha strolled around the classroom, weaving through the scattered desks and chairs while crunching away at her corn chips and sucking loudly on her ideal. Another student entered—a rude, loud-mouthed boy who liked to nerk all the girls. He was chubby and waddled after Leesha, croaking a humorous tune he created to irritate her. It worked, and she spun around and ordered him away from her.

“Kevin!” she protested, pulling her hand out of the chips bag and jabbing a chip-encrusted finger into the air, “Move fahn yah!” Kevin continued teasing her, grabbing at her chips bag and chanting in his raspy voice. Half of me felt entertained, but the other half felt a twinge of irritation toward Kevin, who’d disrupted the room’s peace… and my English-reading time. I was annoyed at both of them that my quiet spot had been breached. Most kids preferred to play outside. I wished Teacher Alas would order them out of the room or command their silence. But she’d only glanced up and, after a slight pause, returned to her scribbling. 

Hmph.

Leesha and Kevin continued their squabble while I sat there awkwardly in my hard-backed chair, tightly gripping my precious Fun With Pets. Kevin circled Leesha, grabbing at her ideal now, and I pictured her squirting the pink liquid into his chubby face. 

I started to chuckle but then stopped, afraid to draw Kevin’s attention to myself.

STOMP. STOMP. STOMP. Leesha stomped out of the room, with the chubby, olive-skinned boy trailing right after her, still whining like a mosquito. I sighed in relief and returned to “The Fat Rat.” I eagerly turned the shiny, crinkly page, sinking again into the pretty curves and edges of each letter. 

Brrrriiiiiiing! The school bell jolted me out of my trance. 

What?! Break time was done already?! Ack! 

It was all Kevin’s fault for interrupting and distracting me. Now I needed to go outside and join my classmates in the line-up so I could go back into class. It didn’t make much sense, but Teacher said we had to do it…

With a sad, final look at the grinning, overweight rat, I shut the textbook and carefully placed it on my desk. Rising from my seat with a sigh and flipping my two pigtails over my shoulder, I plodded over to the scrambling, scurrying, sweating, chattering huddle of students. 

How had I let myself get so distracted? 

Hmph. 

Tomorrow, I promised myself, I would find a quieter spot for Fun With Pets and me.

_________________________

Photo by Justina Petkau Photography

Agatha Petkau majored in English at the University of Belize. She lives in Orange Walk Town and enjoys long-distance running and playing musical instruments, among other things.