Grandpa Magill walked me to the first day of first grade. We started early. He was up before the sun every morning, year-round, waiting for the day to get going. Always in coat and tie and pants with a crease. In the summer he wore his straw hat. On World Series week he always wore his Chicago Cubs cap, even though the Cubs hadn’t gone to the Series since 1945 and hadn’t won one since 1908.
On the way to school, Grandpa scoped out every house. “See those three in a row? I built them.”
He had big knuckles, like a carpenter.
And he acted like he owned all the houses he ever built. He’d grumble if people put on an addition or enclosed a porch. You wouldn’t want to hear what he called aluminum siding. And he wouldn’t put up with litter on the lawn.
He turned me loose twice to run a newspaper out of the shrubbery and up to some stranger’s door. He kept me so busy I forgot to be scared. Then school loomed up. Kids and their grown-ups were coming from all directions. But on that first day you don’t think about anybody but you.
On the school steps, I glanced back for one last look at the world.
Out there, rumbling along the curb, was a ’56 Chevy Bel Air. It was detailed to death with red and black flames painted from front bumper to the dual exhausts. A pair of giant fluffy dice dangled from the rearview mirror. It was Dad, shadowing us in the Chevy, making sure Grandpa and I made it to school.
Inside past the security guard, everybody was yelling. Sixth graders were throwing stuff—sandwich parts, whatever.
Grandpa blazed a trail through them. He swung me around a couple of corners, and we pulled up in front of a classroom.
A smiling lady in a corduroy skirt stood there.
Grandpa told her I was his grandson. His hat was off. He waited till I reached up to shake the teacher’s hand.
She was Mrs. Bird, and she checked me off a printout, so there was no going back.
I was trying to figure out how Grandpa knew where first grade was when Mrs. Bird gave him another look. “Sir, are you Mr. Addison Magill?”
Grandpa nodded a little bow.
“What an honor to meet the architect of Westside Elementary. I had no idea you were still—I mean, what a pleasure!”
No wonder Grandpa knew where the first-grade room was. It was where he’d put it. He wasn’t a carpenter. He was the architect. This was a lot to learn before school even started.
Grandpa gave me a little boost on my backpack. Then he was gone. Now you see him, now you don’t.
• • •
We began Mrs. Bird’s first grade in a circle on the floor, holding our ankles. And guess who was sitting next to me? The new girl with all the red hair. Lynette Stanley.
“Why are you sitting next to me?” I asked, not moving my lips.
“You’re the only one here I know.”
The Stanleys were new in town. I’d gone to kindergarten with everybody else. All seven boys named Josh were here. Josh Hunnicutt had been the smallest kid in kindergarten and still was. And that meant I wasn’t. Russell Beale was back. We’d heard he’d flunked kindergarten and had to repeat it. But it was only a rumor.
It was your regular first grade. Three people were crying. There were a few thumb-suckers. One kid was in some kind of superhero costume with a cape. Two girls had brought their Madame Alexander dolls. The security guard had taken a knife off Jackson Showalter. He’d brought a hunting knife in his backpack to the first day of school.
“Is that the kid they had to disarm?” Lynette nodded across the circle at Jackson. It wasn’t nine o’clock yet, and he was famous already. I nodded back. There were missing teeth in every mouth around the circle, but Jackson looked like he’d lost his in a fight.
“And who have I got on my other side?” Lynette said in my ear. I looked.
“Natalie Schuster,” I muttered.
Lynette crossed her eyes and held her nose. “She’s wearing perfume.”
“She could read before kindergarten,” I explained. “Books without pictures. She thinks she’s a grown-up.”
“Weird,” Lynette said. “Spooky.”
“You think you’re a grown-up too,” I told her.
“No, I don’t,” Lynette said. “I’ve got a fifth-grade vocabulary, but I’m in first.”
“Can you read?”
“Isn’t that what first grade’s for?” she said.
Now the teacher was settling on a small chair. She tucked her corduroy skirt. “Boys and girls, my name is Mrs. Bird, so you are my little birds.”
Natalie groaned and poked two fingers down her throat.
“Who knows a good word for a little bird?” Mrs. Bird asked.
“Chick,” said Natalie. “Birdy. Something like that.” Natalie was always first with an answer. She never had to think about it.
“Fledgling,” Lynette said.
Mrs. Bird looked really happy. “Fledgling! That’s a very good word. That’s a fifth-grade word, Lynette.”
We had name tags pinned on our shirts.
“Except it’s not a word,” Natalie said into Lynette’s other ear.
Lynette turned to her. “Fledgling’s a word.”
“No, it happens not to be,” Natalie said. “If it was, I’d know it. I was reading before kindergarten. I’ve read every one of the American Girl books. They ought to write one about me. And I hate your hair.”
And so our journey through grade school began. It was already happening in that first circle of Mrs. Bird’s fledglings.
In grade school, your best friend better never be a girl unless you are a girl. But there sat Lynette Stanley with hardly any space between us, talking my ear off. And when people began to notice we were best friends, I might just as well put on a dress and throw myself backward off the monkey bars.
And there on Lynette’s other side was Natalie Schuster. And Lynette had already crossed her. Teachers didn’t cross Natalie. Even the kindergarten teacher’s aide hadn’t crossed her.
“Is she going to give me trouble?” Lynette asked me before the circle broke up.
“Maybe, maybe not. Just don’t throw around too many big words where she can hear.”
And across the circle was Jackson Showalter, hunkered down and blowing his nose with his thumb. He had trouble written all over him, along with a lot of stuff inked on his arms. His shifty eyes scanned the circle.
“Just do me one favor,” I said to Lynette. “Don’t save me.”
“From what?”
“From whatever. You know what I mean. Like you did you-know-when. At the wedding.”
“Right,” Lynette said. “Save yourself.”
“Also, later on, when we have phones, you will never text me. Okay?”
“Deal,” said Lynette.
And now I was pretty sure Jackson Showalter’s narrow eyes were on me, where I sat next to Lynette Stanley, with Natalie Schuster on her other side.