June 2013 Issue - Cape Cod Academy

Dragons in the Schoolyard“Uh, huh,” she gazed off absentmindedly as she returned to skippingyouthfully along the path, soft, freckle-shocked face looking past the rowsof green grass patched with pockets of dandelions and scraggly trees. Iwondered bittersweetly as she delved back into the tiny, fanciful world ofher vast and boundless imagination. Sometimes I wished I could see whatshe saw, that I could know what she thought. Others I could only sigh andhope that, someday, she just might want to show someone.RheaIt all started on that second day of school, I think. Maybe before.But that’s when I decided.The first day, I didn’t interact with her much at all, except forwhen I first came in to the classroom. We had these little squarecubbyholes, see, arranged along a shelf near the door. Whoever designedthe room must’ve had poor planning skills, because they created a spacehidden from the rest of the room. I’d been assigned a bottom cubby again,and as I whined to the others, “I aaalways get a bottom cubby!” (in myjust over one year of schooling). Thinking I was too cool to use it, I peeredenviously at the upper shelves, even though I was a little on the short side.A boy walked in, a guy named Simon who was definitely not the brightestkid. He started pushing his things into a cube-like space above mine.“Simon,” I stopped him, “they labeled the cubbies wrong. Yours is downthere; that’s mine.” It was all the persuasion he needed, and soon I foundmyself smugly hefting my butterfly-print backpack on my tip-toes.