Tip, click.
The simple distraction meant I didn’t have to focus on the other people arguing in the room. Their voices were too loud, especially the woman sitting in the chair next to me. She was moving around a lot more than me, gesturing and waving her arms when she spoke, but her chair didn’t rock like mine did.
Maybe it was because she was a lot bigger than me.
For a moment, my brain stalled like a broken engine when I realized how much taller the woman was than me, even sitting down.
Why? I wasn’t particularly short.
Then I caught sight of my reflection in the window across the room.
Oh right. I was just a kid, barely seven years old, and the woman was my mother. She was an adult, so of course she was bigger than me.
How could I forget that?
Tip, click.
I stopped thinking about it and focused only on keeping my uneven chair balanced beneath me.
“Ma’am, you must take this seriously,” the man behind the desk said.
I looked over at him. I knew this man, just like I knew my mother.
He was…
He was…
Memories came back to me in a rush of understanding, too quick to process all at the same time.
Right, this was the principal at my new school. I’d just started first grade. After only a couple of days of classes, a note had been sent to my mother asking for a meeting, which led us here.
No one had told me what the meeting was about. I didn’t remember doing anything bad. Ever since starting school, I’d been on my very best behavior. Until now, I’d been home schooled, and I’d been looking forward to finally meeting otherkids. But now, my mom was angry, so I must have done something wrong.
“It’s fine,” my mother shouted at the principal, not for the first time. “He’s fine. You drag me in here saying that you have serious concerns about my son, and all you want to talk about is his clothes. This whole thing is a waste of time.”
I looked down at myself.
My clothes?
What was wrong with them?
This was the outfit that mother had picked out for me this morning. I’d even been very careful not to spill anything on it because I knew that always made her mad.
Had I accidentally ripped something during recess?
I’d fallen when one of the other kids tripped me near the swings.
I nervously patted my hands over my knees where I remembered hitting the pavement. I didn’t feel anything ripped, but maybe there was a problem that I just couldn’t see.
“Ma’am,” the principal said again, not quite shouting but very close. “Your son’s clothing is in violation of our school’s dress code.”
Dress code?
I knew what a dress was, and I knew what a code was, but in my seven years of life, I’d never heard these two words put together before. It clearly meant something special.
Codes were a type of secret.
Was there a secret dress that I was supposed to wear?