bobcat days

It's summer's end and I can now hear the school bell from my bedroom window. It chimes several times a day, announcing the beginning of a new year and new adventures for all Bonneville Bobcats.

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On most nights, Dad would read to us. He'd sit between our two twin beds at 1936 and prop himself up against the wall. I'd always ask if he wanted a pillow, but he hardly ever said yes. First he would read from the scriptures. He'd open our big blue family copy, studiously fingering the verses to see where we'd left off the night before. My sister liked to say, "We were on the part that says, 'And it came to pass.'" He started to read "The Hobbit," but I made him stop because I was too afraid; especially when he would do his Gollum voice. Instead, he read "Where the Red Fern Grows" and "Ramona the Pest."

Sometimes I would walk to the neighborhood library after school with Ashley and Katie. After a failed attempt at liking "Sweet Valley High," (which is what Katie and Ashley liked best) I read everything Beverly Cleary on my own. I was certain that although she was younger, Ramona the Pest was just like my older sister, and I was like Beezus, the sister who never did anything wrong.

In fifth grade I stopped reading Beverly Cleary. In fifth grade I had Mr. Miller. He loved math, Michigan, and U.S. history; and his face turned really red when he got mad. Sydney, a girl in my class, liked to read the dictionary when she was bored. Mr. Miller would get mad at her for not paying attention when he was trying to teach us the state capitols. Once, he turned me upside-down in front of the whole class to demonstrate inverted fractions. My face got pretty red.

That same year, I was Charlie Chaplin in the Great Americans Parade. Natalie was Benjamin Franklin. She wore knickers and a vest and stuck a pillow up her shirt. Her mom made her wire bifocals and she carried a hot dog skewer with a kite on the end. She had to tell the audience about how she discovered electricity. I didn't have any speaking lines, I just had to waddle like Charlie Chaplin in front of the whole school, which was worse. I had a crush on the boy who played Paul Revere and a secret crush on the boy who played Nathan Hale. I still remember all their lines.

Our required reading that year was a chapter book about the Revolutionary War. Natalie and I would go home for lunch to finish our reading. We'd eat macaroni and cheese while my Mom read to us about Bunker Hill, tea parties and taxes.

One Sunday morning we woke up to toilet paper streaming down from trees in our backyard. By the time we were ready to leave for church, Brad and his little brother were outside with a broom, reaching high up into the cherry tree to clean up their mess. I watched them bundle all the paper up and walk back down the street to their house. I wished it was the boy who played Paul Revere and not Brad and his brother. Fifth grade was the first time I went toilet papering. I spent the night at Katie's house and we toilet papered her next-door-neighbor at eleven.

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I hear children trickle out to recess. Slowly, the playground fills with excited voices, bouncing balls, and girls skipping rope.