I wasn’t phased at all about how Andy shined in a glossy brown way, from his tan-absorbed skin to his slick, combed-back hair and even to the shining scabs on his jaw and elbows.
It was the first day of second grade, 1959, and he wore copper-colored Lederhosen for crying out loud.
But when Andy told me he had something to show me, the obvious thing to do was to run after him towards the evergreens bordering the playground.
"Where do
you want to play?" he asked, as he picked at a sticky stream of pine sap.
"I thought
you were going to show me something."
"Don’t ask
for anything dumb like Pluto or a volcano cause we won’t last two seconds."
I shrugged,
finally uncomfortable that even under the shade Andy's brown face kept glowing. He laughed and scratched his nose while he mused that he should start small and
show me Central Park Zoo.
By the time we were sprinting back to class--with the smell of rhinos at our heels and the flaming feathers of a macaw burned in my memory--Andy’s quirks had me hoping, even expecting, that I’d discover magic hidden behind the weird things about everyone else I knew.
By the time we were sprinting back to class--with the smell of rhinos at our heels and the flaming feathers of a macaw burned in my memory--Andy’s quirks had me hoping, even expecting, that I’d discover magic hidden behind the weird things about everyone else I knew.
Read last week's Friday Figment:
Or
*Photo Attribution: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ara_macao_-Diergaarde_Blijdorp_-flying-8a.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment