Remember

Remember when you were in kindergarten and riding home in the back of the nearly empty bus. You overheard two third grade boys in the seat across from you. They kept glancing at you and talking about kissing you, and you shifted uncomfortably, angling your neck so that your eyes could peek over the high seat back, looking for the driver, who kept her own eyes on the dirt of Bartlett Rd, naturally. And then one grinned, wickedly, in your direction, before leaning over, pressing warm, wet lips against your cheek, which flamed a red, hot heat and you could say nothing. You were too little and your voice wasn’t yet formed.

Remember just a couple years later when school let out and the line of big yellow buses stretched like train cars all along Orchard Street between your Catholic school and the junior high and elementary schools parked kiddy-corner and opposite. Kids of all ages tumbled from doorways and down steps in a rush to leave, chattering and yelling, shoving and running. You wove your way along the sidewalk where those rushing from every which school fought to find a place to climb aboard the same buses. You were nearly there, foot poised in the empty air of the step to board when you heard the boys call. “Catlicker. Catlicker.” And you knew they meant to draw notice that you were not of them and they were not of you. Yet you turned to look anyway, for just a second, one second, mouth parted. Their sneers of disdain at your uniform silenced any thought of protest before it could really form.

Remember the school dance when RL, separating himself from the boys on one side of the room, asked JM to dance. She had a crush on him and we’d all been hoping he’d ask her. When she said yes, he glanced back at the herd with just a hint of a smile. And they shared looks and toothy grins before quarters exchanged hands. The outrage you felt only increased a song ending later when he returned to his side of the room and held out his own hand as all the girls watched. JM turned away. Mortified. A few dances later, he approached you, asking, and you turned him down with a question of your own – Do you really need another quarter? You had no intention of being part of their scheming, still felt offended on behalf of your friend. And the words rose up, after years of being silenced, knowing that mortifications and indignities would no longer, could no longer, abrade your soul or anyone else’s, and your voice found its way.

Jennifer Guyor Jowett teases stories and writers into being. She is the author of Into the Shadows, a middle grade historical fiction based on true-life events, the creator of the #dogearedbookaward, and a defender of fierce girls. Jennifer is a 7th/8th ELA teacher in the mitten state.