Before that though, she was a redheaded girl, and we both had the same pair of red buckled shoes. We walked to Kindergarten together, and all the grades through sixth grade.
She had a dog named Gandalf, and I knew he was named after someone or something literary and old, but that’s all I knew. I was afraid of Gandalf.
We noticed the morning glories on our way to school and were sad when they’d closed when we returned home. Many days, I stopped at her place, and sat in her yellow kitchen next to a window that faced her backyard. We read Archie comics, drank lemonade, and ate brownies her mom had just pulled out from the oven upon our arrival.
Once, we took another route home from school at the persuasion of a girl whose name means, “song.” She knew the neighborhood better than the two of us, and at some point turned to go to her place, while my redheaded friend and I turned another way, and it didn’t take long to decide we were lost. Suddenly our walk turned into a sorrowful, terrifying quest. We would never see our mothers again. We must learn to eat acorns. We would make salads from the morning glory pedals.
We found a spigot jutting from the trunk of a tree. “Maple syrup!” we cried. At least we’d have maple syrup. We were on her street, about five houses away from where she lived, when we made this observation.
We staggered and shuffled up her walk where our moms were sitting on the front steps, talking. Gasping as though our detour took us to the Sears Tower where we had to climb over 90 flights of stairs in order to get a glimpse of where in the Chicagoland area we were, we threw ourselves at our mothers’ feet.
“We were so lost!” we wailed.
Nobody moved. Even Gandalf, who usually bounced and jumped at our presence, was unmoved.
“Didn’t you worry? Didn’t you wonder?” we pleaded. I looked at my limbs, and wiped my face for surely I carried dirt and blood from this terrifying journey.
“You weren’t lost,” my mom said.
I gave a sideways glance to my friend. She returned my look, then, with a finger, pushed her red-framed glasses up the bridge of her nose, and raised her head.
“We’re going inside,” she declared.
Gandalf stayed with our mothers.
I lost one red shoe that winter on the way to school. I don’t know how I didn’t know I lost it. How did I not notice I made it to school with only one shoe on? How is it that I am able to withstand getting lost and losing one shoe in the same year? And only at 6 years old! Oh, the trials I must face, I thought as I spread peanut butter on a piece of celery during snack time. The thought of my impending plights was so stressful I broke my celery and started to cry.
Mrs. O’Brien, the best Kindergarten teacher that ever was, swopped in, her long, brown hair cascading toward me as she bent down and examined the broken pieces.
“Oh, but look,” she said, pointing to what I was holding in the palms of my hands. “Now, you have two.”
Two snacks.
Mrs. O’Brien could show me how to make something out of anything.
That spring, I found my red shoe on my friend’s front lawn.
But by then, it no longer fit.
This is a prompt from the book, The Writer’s Book of Days, by Judy Reeves.
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