Walking Home

I can smell my mom's perfume as she leans over and pins a note to my sweater. It says, "Paul is allowed to walk home from school today." She signed it in her beautiful script. I can't read the writing. I only know what the note says because I asked her to write it. I love to walk home from nursery school. I have to think hard, though. One time I walked too far and a lady had to help me get home.

Straight down the street past the white fence with all the plumerias and bees. Turn at the playground. I don't know left or right, but I know which way. My house is the last one in a row of houses all connected together. We have a banana tree out front. We even got a bunch of bananas from it last year, but me and Cindy and Dougie ate them all before they even turned yellow. They were crunchy and sour. Dad was mad at us. He didn't get to eat any.

Mom drops me off at the nursery school in my blue sweater and buster browns. She's going to IBM school in Honolulu. She says she punches cards there. I don't know why she has to go there to do that, we have cards at home. Mom tries to smooth down my blonde cowlick, but it doesn't help. I squirm away and run to the playground. I see Nancy Green and I want to push her 'cause she makes me feel funny on the inside. I don't know why I do that. I don't push any other girls.

Mom says my school used to be a church. It's long and white and pointy on top. It's up on a hill with lots of grass all around so we can play Jack and Jill at recess. I love to roll down the hill, but when we're done, the grass makes me itch. The teacher is standing on the steps and rings her triangle bell for everyone to come inside. I never even got to push Nancy down.

This morning we're learning to make the letter 'P'. Big P. Little p. Big P. Little p. Five rows of P's. After that, we get graham crackers and grape Kool-Aid. I dunk mine, but I have to be fast, or the cracker turns to mush and falls in.

At recess, I push Nancy down three times. The teacher says that I have to find a nicer way to show Nancy that I like her. "I don't like her! I hate her! She's icky!" I tell the teacher.

"Well, if you hate her any more, you'll have to marry her," the teacher says. I don't understand the teacher sometimes.

We put our heads down after lunch and then we get to draw. I draw my cat Percy laying in the road in front of the house with cherries coming out of his mouth. I saw him just like that yesterday from my bedroom window upstairs. I told my mom and she made me stay inside while she looked. She came back after a while and said he was fine. I haven't seen Percy since then.

I walk home and stop to look at the plumerias and the bees. My sister comes here sometimes to make leis. I just like to smell them. I get on the teeter totter at the playground but it's not much fun alone. The next door neighbor's palm tree has two tiny eggs in a little nest made in the bark. Mom says that the mother won't come back if I touch them. Sometimes I worry that my mom will go to IBM school and never come back, so I don't dare touch them.