Wild Girl Read Online Free Page B

the sky. “Nice …,” I said again. “Nice tree.”
    I walked with my head up now. My words were turning out to be very useful.
    The pencil teacher opened the classroom door, and another teacher came toward us. She patted my shoulder, talking slowly, introducing me to the class. I couldn’t find a place to fit in any of my words except
hi
, and I was too shy to say it. I thought about
watch out, the mosquito bites;
it wouldn’t work here in a million years.
    Jackets hung along the side of the room. All of them had different colors, and for the first time, I saw that this placecould be bright and cheerful. I unwound myself from my own jacket, glad that the bunny scarf was under my bed where no one would see it. In my head, I told the jacket,
You belong here now
.
    A girl looked up, patting the seat next to her, and someone else reached out to pat my arm as I walked past to the empty seat at the table. Was that what they did in America, patted everyone who came into the room or walked by?
    But the boy in front of me just leaned over and drummed with his fingers on the table. “Ian,” he said, and smiled. “Hi, shrimp.”
    Shrimp?
    What was that? It sounded like something lovely, so I smiled at him. “Hi, shrimp,” I said, too, and he burst out laughing.
    “Ian,” the girl said with an edge to her voice.
    He raised his shoulders and smiled at me.
    “Okay,” I said. What was going on?
    The teacher clapped her hands once, and everyone stood suddenly and changed seats with a great clatter. The girl who had patted the empty seat pulled me along with her to a table near the window. “Liz.” She pointed to herself.
    How strange to have a name that sounded like a swarm of bees. I nodded as if I approved. “Lidie.” I pointed to myself, glad my name sounded more like a flower.
    Liz asked me questions, talking loudly as if I were deaf. She took books out of a drawer in the table, one for her and one for me. I spotted a picture with a lot of trees. Ah, yes. “Forest,” I said.
    She smiled and mumbled something that sounded like—was it
certo?
She spoke my language! I felt the relief of it in my throat and chest.
    I let a flood of my own words come, telling her about Jales and coming here, and the most important thing: I had to go to the bathroom.
    My talking wound down like Titia Luisa’s old clock. Liz’s eyes told me that she didn’t understand a word. She raised her shoulders helplessly. I turned toward the teacher, who was standing still, looking at me. I saw something in her eyes, too; she felt sorry for me.
    I felt sorry for myself. The morning took forever to move itself along. When everyone bent over their books, reading, all I could do was page through mine, pretending the silly trees were fascinating.
    All the time, I thought about bathrooms: the one outside Mrs. Figueiredo’s classroom, with the row of faucets that dripped; the one in the barn yesterday, with its wonderful drawing of Man o’ War on the door: all the bones carefully marked, the muscles outlined.
    At last I couldn’t wait anymore. I took a deep breath and went up to the teacher. I patted her shoulder nicely and pointed to the door.
    The teacher smiled and pointed to herself. “Mrs. Bogart.”
    I shook my head and moved toward the door. I’d have to run down the hall and open all the doors until—
    Mrs. Bogart stepped in front of me. She took papers off her desk, then led me back to my seat, talking. She openedthe blank notebook the Horseman had bought for me and smoothed down the first page with her large hands. Then she put her own papers next to it.
    Baby math problems.
    Mrs. Figueiredo’s lip would have curled up at these. But there was no time to think of the math problems a six-year-old could easily solve. I felt the wetness coming, seeping into my lovely jeans with the yellow flowers. I sat there, frozen.
    But the girl, Liz, next to me and the teacher finally realized what was happening. The teacher made a small sound, a sound