MY FIRST EXPERIENCE with Big Kids---you know, those tall people who gossiped, were loud, and hung out in a hallway full of lockers-- actually came in fourth grade, when I was going through that awkward period "between friends." These Big Kids weren't in just the "grades;" they were in the Upper School, and they were who everyone looked to as role models. So I thought.
Of course, I saw a few on the bus now and then. One girl, Cat, seemed really sweet and I liked her a lot. I was sad when she graduated. I listened as Alex studied for something called "health class" and talked about his notes out loud. Another kid, Max, was sort of obnoxious. He liked to sing the Radio Disney theme song and made small talk with the bus driver. But I didn't know them very well.
Before that year, though, we would walk down the upper school hallway twice a week on the way to gym class, as eighth-graders stood around chatting. This hallway was lined with lockers. I called it the "Locker Room." One day as we were going to gym in kindergarten, one girl said about us, "Awww! They're so cute!" I beamed with pleasure.
Back to fourth grade. I was packing up one day and found a note in my locker. It was made of yellow construction paper, had doodles in marker on the inside, and was a kind note left by "a secret admirer." There was only one logical explanation.
Harry Potter, my current love interest, was real.
I was sure that it was Harry Potter who had come for me and left me a note. I mean, who else would do it? Goosebumps trickled down my arm as I studied the colorful stars drawn on the yellow construction paper. I mean....magic! Once I was faced with the knowledge that Harry Potter was real, I wasn't sure how to react.
A week later, sadly, I got another note explaining that her name was Kate and that she thought I seemed really nice. I didn't know Kate, or what had inspired this interaction. Perhaps she took me on as her pity project. I shoved aside my disappointment that Kate probably wasn't a wizard and reveled in the fact that a Big Kid liked me. I don't remember what we said or did or talked about, but I believe we spoke on some occasions.
My mom encouraged me to get her a gift before Christmas break. The day before break started, my teacher worked with another Big Kid to get me down into the Upper School hallway and leave it at her locker. The noisy, bustling hallway was teeming with tall, noisy teenagers, gossiping and chattering and certainly not sitting in their classrooms. It was exciting but terrifying. I couldn't quite see over anyone's head.
Kate and I talked throughout the whole year through notes and "Hellos" as we occasionally passed by in the halls. She graduated that spring. Sadly, I don't remember much else from these interactions, except for that she was one of my good friends at the time. And that she gave me a bouncy ball in her farewell note that spring.
I do remember, though, in eighth grade when I was touring high schools, I was looking at one in New Jersey with a tour guide several years older than me. She told me that she had also attended my school, and we bonded over that. Only on the way home did I realize that my tour guide was Kate. It's a small world, after all.
Only two years later, I became one of these Big Kids myself.
***
Life changed considerably after fifth grade.
I'd always wanted to try the public school experience. More teachers. More kids. Hallway mazes with speckled floors and lockers. Actual cafeterias instead of ordering Papa John's every Tuesday. Class elections.
But my experience was pretty good, too. We had our own hallway lined with tall lockers. We had to change classrooms every period, take a foreign language, and deal with more challenging subjects, including in math (algebra!) and science (physics!). But one of the biggest changes was that Christine was in none of my classes in sixth grade except for Latin.
As I've mentioned, everyone knew each other anyway because of small-ish class sizes, so it worked out nicely. Inside jokes spread like the wind, but they were never catty. Often, we were all in on them. One instance that sticks out for me was when one kid chipped his tooth trying to open a bag of Skittles with his mouth, everyone was referring to him as Chip for a while. Group projects were often fun, especially when you could go in the hallway and goof off.
Math wasn'tâ¯soâ¯horrible---the sixth grade teacher was my academic advisor, and every time we caught 30 teacher mistakes we got a class party. (Of course, we got a little overexcited at times, and we'd soon start shouting "Mistake!" as soon as a ruler was dropped or whenever.) In seventh grade, we got to draw pictures of Scotty dogs using graphs and listen to our other math teacher talk about random topics that ate up time. The best thing about that math classroom was the desks. Former kids had drawn and carved drawings inside of them. The word "Doom" was especially prevalent and could be found in many of them. In one case, it was written three times.
Science wasn't too bad, either. It was a well-known fact in school that our teacher played the role of a Black Panther in Forrest Gump and had his own fan page on Facebook. Everyone looked forward to his classes.
I wasn't fabulous in Latin at first, but I was decent enough to get a 99 on my last final exam. Best of all, Christine and I shared that class. Our favorite thing to do was translate ridiculous stories from one of our textbooks about how Claudius threw an apple at his friend Nero's girlfriend in a failed marriage proposal attempt, and the shouting match that ensued. Latin classes are generally known for having a lively, nerdy atmosphere, and ours was no exception as we did fun projects, tried to plan a toga party, and translated the Grinch in Latin before Christmas.
In Health, one girl always held the trash can up to her face for fear of throwing up during the more in-depth discussions. In computer class, we even got to make personalized yearbook profile pages once we got to eighth grade. Although we were no longer playing Kid Pix, these were the cream of the crop of the yearbooks every year. But we still couldn't get away from Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.
Once a week, we also had advisory group. This was led by one teacher (in my case, the head of the upper school, who was also the one who walked me into the building in kindergarten), and some other schoolmates made up the group. Every week, someone would be assigned to bring a snack, and we'd munch away while talking about ridiculous things. Afterwards, we'd walk to meeting for worship together.
This was fun except for the dreaded report-card reading day where we'd read our report cards...and if we were extra lucky, the advisor would pull us aside to talk about them. My preferred method of reviewing grades was always not to review them. Even through college, I'd prefer to complete assignments and forget about them. I wasn't a terrible student in middle school, except for math and the occasional bad grade in science or Latin, but the sixth through eighth grades were the weakest years of my academic career. There were just too many other things to be focused on. And who wanted to spend hours at home doing homework when you could do a quick job in study hall?
Lunch and recess were great on their own. We felt quite special to still be enjoying the privilege of recess as middle schoolers. We also got to enjoy eating outside when it was nice out, unless litterbugs ruined the privilege for a while. Of course, Christine and I reserved these times for sitting out on a hill overlooking the fields and talking. Sometimes, we'd watch games of tennis baseball going on below, which was the hot sport of recess back then. It was what it sounded like: baseball where you'd hit a tennis ball with a racket.
Then there were the dances. We had DJs, the Cha Cha Slide, the Cotton Eyed Joe, and even...dun dun dun...the slow dance! I never got the courage to ask anyone to dance---my crush was usually out in the hall with their friends most of the time. (Not to be confused with the other group that would often hang out with the science teacher in the hall.)
But then there were the clothes. I didn't dress especially well because my mom was largely still picking clothes for me at this point, although I was branching out into finding some of my own cute things at the mall and in catalogs. For my first dance, I dressed in a loose-fitting pink blouse with big long sleeves and a matching flowy skirt with orange fringe, and wore my hair teased out to form a wide triangle. I looked like Madam Morgan, Fortune Teller. Eventually I started wearing leggings with a denim miniskirt over the top. That was better, and on trend.
At home, I'd get to standard cool-kid activities like logging onto AIM for some old-fashioned instant messaging, checking my email for the newest chain letters to send out, and working on myYearbook profile. That was a very 90s-looking social media site that predated Facebook's popularity, though not quite as well known. I did have a MySpace account for about 2 weeks, mostly to try and get American Idol contestant Danny Noriega to notice me, but myYearbook was where it was at for 2000-esque profiles and friending hot emo guys. I'd still watch Arthur after school sometimes, too, like I did in elementary school. (Oh, come on. Don't pretend that you still don't love Arthur.)
But not all these changes were favorable. Christine and I didn't have computer time together...and hardlyâ¯anyâ¯class time together in sixth grade. We still played with Microsoft's Office Assistants if one of us went to the computer lab, but we'd do so ourselves and report to each other on what we did with them...though now, considering, I doubt that Christine was always doing so during her computer time. Microsoft was actually beginning the process of removing their Office Assistants. On the bus to a community service field trip one day the following year, Jason brought us the bad news: "They're taking the animated dog away from Microsoft Word."
"Oh my gosh? What?" Rocky couldn't possibly be going away forever! "That's sad!" I turned to Christine. "Isn't that sad?"
"I don't mind. I don't even like the Office Assistants anymore anyway," Christine replied.
My heart plummeted. We'd had so much fun with them...and now, they were gone. Next time the school upgraded the computers, Microsoft no longer had Assistants in their Office programs. That era was over. What was the point of playing with them in the computer lab if my best friend wasn't interested?
But Christine was in more of a hurry to grow up than I was. As soon as we went on to middle school, a switch had flipped. She didn't even want to go ride the tire swing together for five minutes just to remember. At recess, we did what many other middle schoolers did: sat out on the hill by the field and talked. No more tire swings. Smoothies were finished, after eight months of them being our life.
Nor did we have Library time any longer, or class parties. That meant I could no longer check out my favorite book on How To Take Care of Poodlesâthe good one that had shiny, glossy pages-- or decorate Christmas cookies during class time.
But we did get into boys. Every six months, it seemed, Christine liked someone new. From class clown Daren to serious but eccentric student Ryan, fresh new love interests always brought new possibilities. To avoid detection, we would talk about them in a well-thought-out code: we called everyone It. Harry Potter was It 1, for me. Daren was It 2 , Marcus was It 3, and so forth. I don't remember how many "Its" we had, but there were a few.
And then there was the writing. I had some pretty fabulous English teachers. My first one was new that year, and was super fun. We had a great time throughout three years turning to picture books and short stories for writing lessons, making our own magazine, having poetry slams, and even listening to our teacher read out loud---a treat that not many get to experience at that age. When it was time to write, many of us would retreat to our favorite desks or cushions in the classroom or even in the hallway. I wrote a lot in middle school. Sometimes I wrote Office Assistant stories at writing time. That practice ended when our teacher looked at it---it was structured time, after all---and started making suggestions to character development and plot. That was the last day the Office Assistants were in my writers' notebook. They were sacred characters, and should be left to Christine and I only.
***
Sixth grade was the Year of the Dogs.
What I mean by this is that the year prior, Christine's family had decided to adopt a dog. They were looking specifically at Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, who are basically the cutest designer dogs around with their big eyes and beautiful coats. They looked around at various breeders until they found a dog that they liked. It was a female puppy with brown and white fur, and they had decided to name it Katie.
The adoption process was pretty long. She would report back to me with reports on how excited they were to adopt, or how they were preparing for the dog, or that they had decided to rename her Meggie because they had a family member named Katie that they didn't want to disrespect or something along those lines. But still, she was at the breeder's house and wouldn't be home for a while. So we speculated and talked about what preparations were being made in the house and counted down the days.
Finally, months later, Meggie came home. I got to meet her one day after dropping Christine off after she visited my house. She was excited, and was quite the loud barker despite her small size. She was excited to see everyone she met and jumped on me just to say hi. She attacked my dad's shoes and followed me around, jumping all the while.
Unlike my dog, she was a specific breed, not just a boring old mutt (though I loved Brittany and her goofy nature very much). She had wide eyes and beautiful markings and was always ready for a game of fetch---again, unlike Brittany, who would just take the toy, run away with it, and didn't give it back. At lunch, I would even ask her about the "latest Meggie report." The only fun part of gym classes was waiting on the bleachers for class to begin, talking about what Meggie did that morning. Maybe she walked across the keyboard or cried as Christine walked out the door to catch the bus. Supposedly Meggie was a real love puppy who cried when Christine left for school and gave goodbye kisses. I wanted a dog like that, too.
Soon after that, my family got excited about dogs. Although we had Brittany, chances were good that her lifespan was ending and that we'd get another dog in the future. She did pass away the next year. Our own search for a dog would begin soon after. My mom loved the idea of a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel like Meggie.
But my weird obsession with Meggie reached its peak when it was time to do sixth grade personal essays. We had a lot of free choice here- we could just write an essay, or turn it into a magazine of sorts, or make it into any creative project we wanted. I decided to make my project about Cavaliers. My personal essay was focused on Christine adopting Meggie---which sounds completely bizarre to me now. Yes, myâ¯personal essay.
It gets weirder: I even wrote a poem based on one we touched on in class about Meggie. I wrote a poem about an event in my friend's life...about herâ¯dog...almost like it was my own...and with such admiration that it was like I had a crush on it. It wasn't a bad essay, per se. It was just... really creepy.
My personal essay was focused on a sleepover that Christine and I had. In seventh grade, it was about going to a birthday party. Somehow I thought it really difficult to think of any meaningful (I guess it was more meaningful than the guy who chose to write about knocking over a stop sign, anyway.) things to write about. I still tried to make my dog essay creative.
In fourth grade, one classmate wrote about how her grandpa, who loved cookies, accidentally ate a dog biscuit instead. I thought it was stellar. She not only managed to drag out one tiny moment into a page-long story, but she used present tense, something I'd never done. It made her sound professional, at least at the time. I tried to imitate her technique and the result was something different than what I usually wrote. So at least it sounded decent.
Nothing was as odd as writing about how much I loved my friend's dog...several times. It did, however, inspire us to adopt a Cavalier of our own. After our beloved mutt who hated Fetch and wasn't a "real" breed, Brittney, died, we visited a local breeder whose show dog was about to have puppies. These puppies were to go to good homes. Dog racism dictates that the ideal Cavalier is light brown and white, or "Blenheim." They are the ones you see most often. However, we chose a brown, white, and black one named Cooper. He was cute and sweet and had big eyes that he bugged out whenever he got in trouble and gave too many kisses. He was everything a cute puppy should be. He was a real dog, too, not just a mutt whose breed we couldn't tell when anyone asked us what type of dog we had. Cooper was special.
In more ways than one, too. We all have our version of the ideal dog: playful, happy, somewhat affectionate, a little hard to train, and always lovable. Cooper was a little stranger than that, for several reasons. His favorite foods included dandelions and cat droppings fresh from the litter box. (We didn't actually know this until we adopted our cats eight years later). One of his biggest fears was leaves in the house. He'd challenge it, bark at it, anything; as long as it didn't think of touching him. The horror. He was very possessive about food and would not hesitate to cover the other dogs' bowls, growling and hissing at them. He also got very possessive of his Christmas stocking goodies and more often than not spent December 25th in time out. Most often when you pet him, he jumped a foot off the ground in surprise. He did not share his affection time. If he was giving one of us kisses, and our other Cavalier, Ginger, came over to give more kisses, he growled at her until she stopped. On walks, his favorite place to take care of business was in the middle of the street.
Oh well. At least he was cute, and seriously affectionate. Even if he was a little neurotic. His cuteness often got him out of trouble.
Cooper was also the inspiration for a poem I wrote. I was terrible at poetry by the time eighth grade rolled around. Unsure of what on earth I should write about, I often resorted to my dogs for inspiration. So when it came time for our class to perform our poems for our families, I chose a poem that I wrote...about my dog's hair. If anything is weirder that using your friend's dog as the subject of a school essay, it is most definitely writing about your own dog's hair. The poem began: â¯Your fur reminds me of a black marshmallow, white with black spots... I don't remember the rest from memory, and I'm not going to find the rest for you. There may have been a line about how his tail acted like a broom for the floor. I'm pretty sure even I, a terrible poet, was unhappy with it.
Our class brought in a former eighth-grade parent to help us with our editing. Although she admitted that some of my poetry seemed prose-y (a polite compliment considering the content of my writer's notebook back then), she also said that she couldn't stop thinking about my Cooper poem. Soon we worked together to create something that described his appearance and sounded something like poetry. When it came time to read them to our families, I did so, and at least people pretended they liked it.
So maybe middle school wasn't quite the embarrassment-fest that it is for many. I mean, aside from the game of tag in gym where we had to move to the center of the gym and yell "I'm a skunk!" whenever we got tagged, or the time when I confessed my love for my crush. I probably could have spared myself near entirely if I had let go of my Cavalier obsession. However, the adoption of Meggie triggered a chain reaction of adoptions, including Ginger and then Rosie several years later. Perhaps it was all for the best.
Because I was a Big Kid now.