Illustrated by: Amber
Written by: Shakira
This is a story about when I was in kindergarten. Our class went into the art room and the art teacher, Mr. Black, had switched on this little tv and and colors swirled around on the tv. When the class was over, I didn’t want to leave so I hid under the table. My class teacher escorted my classmates out the room. Mr. Black’s ankles formed in front of me. Then, so did my class teacher’s ankles. I decided to pretend to be a cat, so I growled at them. “What is she doing?” asked Mr. Black. “Well, she is pretending to be a dog and trying to hold in her tears,” said my class teacher. I got really angry. “I’M…NOT…A…DOG!!!” I screeched and scratched the art teacher’s ankle. Then I bit the other one. After that I remember being carried out of the room by my ankles and wrists. They took me to a higher level of the school and sat me in a desk next to a young boy. He had his head down. “What did you do?” he asked lifting his head. “I bit the art teacher’s ankle.” His eyes went wide with fear. “Oh…ok…” and he put his head back down after that.
This story originally appeared in Facing Childhood and Adolescence in Iowa’s Cedar Valley, a publication of The Facing Project that was organized by the University of Northern Iowa in Waterloo, Iowa.