My Second Year in Kindergarten

I am five and I am in kindergarten for a second year. Over the weekend, the teacher has put up the October pictures. They are the same pictures she put up last year in 1988. When she asks me to show my mother what I like about the classroom, I select a book from the orange box that she has placed under the bulletin board.

"Bernardo was a little brown bat," I read aloud.

"Oh, Taylor. You must have this book at home," says the teacher.

I look over at my mother. It is frightening to hear the teacher say that she thinks we must get this book. I don't know where we would find it. Will I be punished if we can't find it?

"He lived in a hole in the side of a chestnut tree," I read, my voice shaking a bit. "In the daytime, he slept in his cozy nest. At night, he flew out and ate bugs."

"Very nice reading, Taylor!" says the teacher. "I bet you've read this book so many times you've memorized it!"

I look at the teacher. Everything she says is confusing. I look at my mother.

"Taylor can read," my mother tells the teacher.

"I'm sure she isn't really reading this book," says the teacher. "It's fairly advanced. She's a smart child to memorize things, but she's not a dictionary."

I stand up and go over to the teacher's desk. There is a dictionary on the desk and I pick it up. Of course I am not a dictionary. I am a girl and a dictionary is a book.

"Webster's Dictionary," I read the title, and then go on to read the other words on the cover. "Modern definitions. Easy-to-read type. Parts of speech. More than 440 pages. Specially designed for home, school, and office."

"Oh, my goodness," says the teacher. "I see what you mean. That is quite amazing." The teacher pauses. Then she says, "She does seem academically ready for school. We'll just keep working on the social part. I'm sure being an only child has been difficult, because she won't have had much practice sharing. And she is quite spoiled—you should not give her everything she wants, Mrs. Simon, just because she yells. But not to worry—her social skills will develop. We'll keep working on them and each day is a new day. Right, Taylor?"

I look at the teacher. I have no idea what she is talking about. I look at my mother. She nods. I nod. Then we go home and I hear my mother making sounds in her bedroom that are not happy sounds. I sit naked in a sunbeam until my father gets home and then we have supper.

There is a big amount of yelling in my parents' bedroom. Their voices are so loud I cannot tell one from the other. This frightens me and I squeeze under the couch, where I am pressed between the wooden frame and the cool tile floor. Eventually, I hear some words and I think someone is saying, "And all the buttons are wrecked on the vcr!" But maybe I heard incorrectly even though I know that all the buttons are wrecked—the vcr has not worked in eleven days. I miss the satisfaction of pressing those buttons and seeing something change.

"Don't you tell me I should be a better mother!" someone says. "You should be a better father! How about that?"

I count as high as I can, into the ten thousands, and then I see my father's shoes. He is not supposed to wear them in the house. He is jingling the car keys in his pocket and I come out from under the couch and we go for a drive. We drive past the pet store two times. On the third time we don't go past, we go in, and I ask for a cat. My father says, "No."

"Can I have a small cat or a big cat?" I say. Sometimes if you give people a choice, they pick one of the things that you want instead of none of the things.

"No. No cats."

"A ferret?"

"No."

"Two snakes?"

"No, Taylor. No snakes."

I stand and look at the gerbils for a long time. I don't ask for one but I keep standing there.

"You like those, hey?"

I nod, still looking at them, my hands cupped in front of me as if I am holding one.

"I sense a question in the air," says my father. I do not answer. I do not know what he is talking about.

"Okay. Pick the one you want," my father says finally. "We'll take it home and show your mother."

"Can I have the gerbil to keep?" I ask.

"Yes," he says.

I pick a honey-brown one and the pet-store owner puts it into its own little cage. There are wood shavings on the bottom, and a water bottle, and a little bowl of food.

"What are you going to name it?" asks my father.

"Ashton," I say. There is a little pause.

"No," my father says. "You can't name your gerbil Ashton. That name belongs to … that was your older brother's name."

"He died," I say. I know that Ashton died a year before I was born so I am not an only child. I don't know why my mother didn't tell this to the teacher. I am not spoiled because I am not an only child.

"You can't use his name for your pet," my father says. "Think of another name. Do you like the name Walnut?"

"Okay," I say. "Walnut."

And when we get home, my parents are not fighting but looking at Walnut, who has already learned to drink water from the little water bottle in the cage. He drinks and drinks and we laugh at the way he holds the water bottle with his paws just like a baby holding a bottle.

Walnut was the first of a series of gerbils. After Walnut came June, and after June came Charlotte, and after Charlotte came Hammy. And last fall, before I turned nineteen, I got my fifth gerbil, Harold Pinter, named after one of my favorite playwrights. Harold Pinter and one of Harold Pinter's babies, Samuel Beckett, are at home in Canada, getting looked after by my friend Shauna and her husband. I hope Harold Pinter doesn't miss me too much or he could get agitated and eat Samuel Beckett. That would be a disaster and I can't bear to think about it. Instead of thinking about it now, I count the birdsong units of the cuckoo that lives in the forest near the villa in France where we are staying. Seven. That is a good number.

I am typing at the kindergarten computer and I type only numbers. Nobody ever tries to talk to me about them when I am typing numbers. Each number has its own personality and I think about the curves and the corners, just as interesting as letters, although other people don't seem to think so. When lined up, numbers have the potential for so many different meanings, just as letters do. Two lines of numbers that are the same length are worth different things if their numbers are different, and it depends on where the round parts are. Six has a round part in the bottom, and it is more than halfway to the most. Eight has two round parts, and it is worth two more than six. Nine has a round part on the top, and it is worth one more than eight. Zero is the biggest round number, and it can make a line of numbers less or more depending on where it is placed. A line of eight sevens is more expensive than a line of eight sixes, but less expensive than a line of nine twos, and a line of nine ones is worth more than any of them if there is a zero at the right end.

Numbers are the smallest unit of meaning I know. Words are the next largest unit of meaning, and in spite of the confusion they often bring, I admire their complexities. Words are almost as interesting as numbers. But it is safer not to use words unless you have to.