Fifth grade was spent in total anticipation of sixth grade, because I was part of the “cool crowd,” and the “cool kids” in sixth grade ruled the whole elementary school. I had waited years for the chance to be in the coolest grade, and I would enter it with my cool friends. But unfortunately, my mother had other plans for me—braces and private school.
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! You’re ruining my life! You’re not my real mother, my real mother wouldn’t do this to me! I know I’m adopted!” I protested upon learning her plans for me.
Meanwhile, my sister would get to stay in public school while I had to start sixth grade in private school.
I had to wear a stiff, ugly uniform. And I had to wear a skirt—a big change from the jeans I had been living in for the past several years. The variety of the outfit consisted of either a wool skirt or a polyester skirt. I opted for the wool skirt, since it actually moved a little and didn’t feel like I had wrapped my waist in rigid brown paper. Also, for the first time since I was a little kid, I had to wear tights. Once again, I was forced to endure the scratching of itchy fabric directly on my skin. To top it all off, I had to button myself into a rigid, white blouse.
I looked at myself in the mirror. This isn’t me. I don’t belong in a skirt or tights or a buttoned up white blouse. But I was already dressed in the ridiculous costume so I felt utterly defeated. There was no going back to my friends, my school, my life.
I drifted to the living room, waiting for my mother to gather her things and drive me to school. I had to depend on her for a ride, rather than walk to school on my own.
“You look so cute! Let’s take a picture!” she gushed.
“No, I look like a dork,” I fumed.
Then my sister came in. “No, you don’t. You look like a nerd!”
“See?” I said to my mother.
“Baby! Get out!” she yelled at my sister.
But it was true. The uniform was horrible. Judging by the hideous outfit, I was sure the school would be even worse. And the braces made me feel hideous. I had to meet new people, who would ridicule me. I missed my friends. I wondered what they were doing. How would their first day of school be? I was sure they would roam the halls like they owned them, and command respect from all the younger kids.
My mother dumped me in the front of the building, and left me to fend for myself. I found my homeroom. I saw an empty desk near the door and sat down.
“You can’t sit there,” protested a stout, imposing Asian boy.
I stayed where I was. I hated this place and was ready to face my first enemy. I was so consumed with rage over having been ripped away from my old, wonderful life, that I didn’t care about making a single friend here. In fact, I welcomed a fight with anybody, everybody—it would make it easier not to have to talk to anybody. I could never be friends with these rich, snobby kids, whose parents dropped them off in Mercedes and BMW cars. I even saw a limousine drop off one kid. A limousine! For a kid! It was obnoxious. I was not like these kids, and never would be, I vowed to myself. I resented my mother for trying to force me to be like these people.
I turned to look him right in the eyes.
“Tough,” I seethed.
“Yo, man! That’s messed up!” he said, exasperated.
“Mike! Be quiet, she can sit wherever she wants!” the teacher reprimanded.
I turned to him again, and deliberately curled my lips into a sinister smile, just for him.
“Yo, man . . .” he began to mutter, shaking his head at the notebook on his desk.
The two girls who sat in front of me kept turning around to smile at me.
Why the hell do they keep smiling at me? I wondered.
It made me uncomfortable. Nobody in Queens smiles at strangers. You’re not even supposed to make eye contact with strangers. Everyone knows that.
At the end of the class, the first girl turned around in her chair and said, “Hi, I’m Evelyn, we can be friends if you want.”
“OK,” I answered cautiously, not enthused by the invitation, but also unwilling to hurt this girl’s feelings. She seemed nice enough.
“Yeah, me too, I want to be friends too, I’m Andy.”
“OK, hi,” I replied.
I felt like sixth grade dragged on and on, but I took solace in my horse-filled weekends at Leslie’s. Unfortunately, my mother had different plans for that part of my life as well.
__________
“So you know Yvette who rides Shiloh?” my mother asked me on the way to the barn one Saturday morning.
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, she said there is a bigger barn upstate where you can really learn to ride, and be better.”
“So?”
“Well I think you should start riding there instead of at Leslie’s.”
“No!” I protested.
“Do you want to be a trail rider all your life?”
“Why are you trying to ruin my life!” I shrieked, now in tears. “What about Tango, and Firefly, and . . .”
“Tango and Firefly will be fine without you,” she retorted, sternly.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. Why are you doing this to me!” I cried.
“It’s for your own good. You’re too young to understand now, you’ll understand later.”
I knew I had no choice. She had made up her mind—again. Life at Leslie’s was over; my life was over.
After my final weekend of riding at Leslie’s, that Sunday evening, I tearfully kissed all of horses on the nose for the last time, lingering on my favorites. I hugged the staff I had come to know so well. I even hugged Leslie. Leslie’s piercing blue eyes had been dulled by the red around them. After we hugged, she turned on her heel and shut the office door behind her.
I was left alone in the barn, devastated and unwilling to leave the safety and warmth of this home. I would never love any place more than I loved Leslie’s.