trans_9 | Memory Lane's Got Some Potholes... [locked]

"Actually, she can be the captain. Maybe she's an alium, and her alium people pick girls as captains all the time," says Jaime diplomatically. "I can be the doctor."

Brenda was about to kick Paco in the shins again, but she grins at Jaime instead.

"Yeah! Alium captain!"

She sticks her tongue out at Paco.

"They're weird aliums," Paco said, but shrugged. As long as he got to do the weapons noises, he was happy. "Can we go to a dinosaur planet? Or a planet with giant bugs?"

"It can be a planet with both!" says Jaime enthusiastically. "It's got bugs as big as the dinosaurs!"

And thus their first recess is frittered away fighting the giant bugs and dinosaurs and bug-dinosaurs of Zyrtrin IV.

The next is on a pirate ship.

The next after that is spent hunting for shiny rocks and cool bugs, and having a drawing contest in the dirt. (Brenda wins by default of fists, Paco argues it, Jaime changes the subject to distract them with far more skill than a kindergartner should have).

They don't play with each other every single recess, but eventually Jaime just seems to stray towards them or more often, he's off poking in the dirt and they stray towards him since he comes up with so many play pretend ideas.

Only, one day, second graders stray towards him first, led by Luz Arroyo, someone that the three would someday come to despise. Jaime is tiny, Jaime is quiet, that means they think he's an easy target and this group is a nasty piece of work.

"Whatcha doin', peanut? You like bugs? Maybe you like 'em up your shirt?" says Luz, crouching down and tilting his head in a mocking fashion as he speaks.

There's snickering. "Isn't this the little weirdo that ate glue? I heard he ate glue."

"I didn't eat it," says Jaime, not looking up from his poking in the dirt. "That was Jamie Sanders. My mommy says not to eat stuff that's not food."

"Oh your mommy says that? Does your mommy dress you like a girl, too? 'Cause you look like a girl."

"My mom says that if you don't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all."

"Does she? Why would I have anything nice to say to you, peanut?"

"My mom also says if someone's being mean for no reason, they're a stupid-head, and big baby and just doing it because they know they're stupid and want to feel smart."

That's when the other kid shoves him over on his butt, hard.

"I'm not stupid."

It seems for a moment that Jaime is cowed, but--but--he just has to open his mouth again. "You could've fooled me."

And that's when Paco and Brenda come outside, and behind the jungle gym out of the sight of the lunch monitors, see a teary-eyed Jaime pinned to the ground by two second graders with a third trying to shove ants up his shirt while he tries to kick him in the face.

Nobody has picked on Brenda since the first day of school, when she hit a kid that took her apple at lunch. She's not used to being at the bottom of the recess totem pole. But the look on Jaime's face when she sees him at the bottom of a dog pile of second graders will forever impress on her what it MUST feel like.

Brenda yanks on Paco's arm for him to follow her, then flies down the little hill from the doors in a charge that's as much thoughtless as fearless. She doesn't slow up on the approach and just barrels straight into the kid with the handful of ants, knocking him down and beating her little fists on his back when he lands on his face in the dirt.

"LEAVE JAIME ALONE!"

Paco was hot on Brenda's heels. He'd gotten a few comments about his size and a few people asking how many times he'd been held back, but he was a pretty unoffensive kid other than that. Not really weird, even though he hung out with the weird kid and the weird girl.

He's about the same size as the guys trying to hurt his weird friend though, and Paco knew that he wasn't going to put up with that.

Paco collided with the two boys and Jaime and all four of them went down.

"You heard her! Leave 'im alone!"

The kids decide they're not worth the trouble. They don't have the advantage in size, numbers, or sheer ferocity anymore.

"Ow, get off, you crazy girl!"

They manage to squirm away and run off.

"You gonna regret messing with us!" Never mind they messed with them first.

Jaime is curled on the ground sniffling for a moment, and then he peeks, and sits up, and immediately stops crying.

"They're gone, right?"

Then he nonchalantly shakes the ants out of his shirt, seemingly unbothered.

"You both okay?"

"MEANIES!" Brenda's screams after then as they run off, shaking her fist like she sees angry people do on TV. Then she runs back to Jaime ignoring the grass-stains on her tights and how one of her ponytails has come out, holding out a hand to help him up.

"I'm fine. Did they get ants in your hair?" She starts picking a stray ant or two off his clothes.

"I'm good," Paco said cheerfully, straightening his T-shirt and rubbing his forehead where it clonked against one of the second graders'. "What about you? Gonna walk it off?" That was what his dad had told him to do when he fell off of Mikey-next-door's bike. His mom had then dragged him inside and put band aids everywhere he was bleeding from and gave him an ice pack. "Do you need Superman band aids?"

Seriously, Superman band aids were the coolest thing ever.

"That didn't actually hurt a lot. I was fake crying and acting like it hurted more so they wouldn't punch me and actually make me cry."

Trufax. Even though he is a bit banged up and is genuinely sniffley, it had mostly been an act.

He brushes ants out of his hair.

"You guys were really awesome though. Thank you for helping me 'cause I don't think the lunch monitors saw."

"The big kids are always doing stuff where they can't see."

She puts her fists on her hips. "If you're okay can we play now?"

"Pfft," Paco said, rolling his eyes. "They don't see anything except how to stop fun stuff from happening."

Paco's been sent to recess time-out more than once for running where he's not supposed to, or for breaking one of the dozens of other playground rules that are set down for the kids' safety, but seem like they're there just to make it more difficult to play.

"Yeah, let's do something!"

"Okay!" And just like that, there's a sunny smile again. "We should play Eco Rangers! I'll be Recycling Ranger!"

Later, after more playing, they have their first playdate, at Jaime's house, and it starts to make it clear how this whole friendship is going to be. By chance or by choice, the kid needs a lot of looking after. He needs someone to protect him.

"Owwww!"

Like when he gets run over by an older kid on a bike when he runs out onto the sidewalk after getting ice cream. No broken bones, no conked heads, but he's a mess, and other than verifying that he's not hurt too badly, the other kid tries to just take off.

"Oooooooooow!"

Brenda shakes her fist at the older kid as he pedals off, but she's way more worried about Jaime for the moment than about chasing him down and yelling at him.

She crouches beside Jaime and helps him sit up. He's got his ice cream all over his shirt and pants, his elbows and knees are scraped up. Actually there's some ice-cream on one of the knee scrapes which is probably not good.

"Are you okay?" Her little face is drawn into a fiercely concerned pout. "Do you want me to get your mom?"

Edited 2009-04-04 07:20 (UTC)

"Yes," he sniffles, tears welling up and positively pouring down his cheeks.

"Come on," Paco said, wrapping a hand around Jaime's arm and trying to tug him to his feet. "You can have some of my ice cream."

Ice cream would make it better, right? Because Jaime's not all right, no matter what's coming out of his mouth. But you didn't say that out loud. It was an unspoken rule about being a boy.

Brenda leaves Jaime in Paco's capable care and tears off down the block to Jaime's house where Bianca is bent over the front flower beds in her sun hat. She practically JUMPS on Jaime's mom and pulls on her arm with the urgency only kids with important tasks have.

"Mrs. Reyes, Mrs. Reyes! Jaime got hit by a bike!"

"Thanks, Paco, 'cause... I don't think I can--" Sniff. "--eat mine now."

It's on his shirt.

His mother meets up with them halfway there, and scoops him up.

"Jaime! Oh, Brenda, honey, when you said he got hit by a bike, you had me thinking it was a motorcycle!"

If he's walking, it's not.

"Brenda, Paco, can you help me?" he says, as she ushers them into the house, and sits Jaime on the counter, getting out the ice packs, and getting a clean bowl of water and a clean rag. "Paco, there's a first aid kit on the bottom shelf of the hall closet outside of the laundry room. Brenda, can you get me a clean towel from the drawer in the bathroom?"

Brenda practically salutes, then runs off to the bathroom, coming back with three more towels than are entirely necessary.

"Here you go!"

She leans up against the counter even though she can't see over and reaches up to pat Jaime's hand.

"It's okay. Your mom will fix you cause she's awesome. You dun have to cry now."

"Yes ma'am," Paco says, stuffing the now-drippy ice cream he and Jaime are sharing into Jaime's hand and heading for the hall closet. He comes back with the first aid kit and puts it on the table before nudging Brenda with his elbow.

"Shhh. He's not crying."

"Yes I am," Jaime says, and then he laughs a wibbly laugh, because it's kind of obvious.

His mother wipes his tears away. She's almost done patching him up.

"Brenda, Paco, thank you so much for helping me fix him up. What you did was very responsible. You did such a good job."

Brenda shrugs. "We couldn't leave him on the sidewalk. That's not good-friend-ey."

"Of course they helped mom--ow--" That stings. She's done, and sets him down gingerly to the ground.

"They're not just good friends, they're my best friends."

It's said in such a profound way for a kindergartner, as if it's the end-all-be-all and going to last forever. It turns out he's right from the start.

Memory Lane's Got Some Potholes... [locked]

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