Friends & Belonging
They All Got One
Marta can walk the whole painted line without falling off. Heel, toe, heel, toe, all the way to the drain. Today she walks it extra slowly. Because Zara is sitting on the low wall. With something in her hand.
The something is a small stack of party cards. On the front of each one, a person in mid-air with their knees pulled up. Zara gives the top one to Bruno. Bruno reads the whole thing out loud, including the zip code.
Sofie gets the next one. She folds it twice and stuffs it down her sock, because that is where Sofie keeps things. When she walks off, her sock goes crackle, crackle, crackle.
Marta keeps walking the line. Close enough to hear the date and the time. Close enough that Zara could hand her one without even getting off the wall. Two more go while she is down at the drain. Four gone. Two left.
One goes to Esme, who is not even outside; Bruno runs it in to her. The last one goes to somebody’s cousin in third grade, who is not out here at all. Zara wipes the wall dust off her hands.
Zara slides off the wall and stands right next to Marta, on the line. She is talking about the socks you have to wear there. Grippy ones, rubber on the bottom, and you can’t bring your own. Marta’s foot stays exactly where it is. Heel against toe.
The stack is gone. Zara is standing right next to her, talking about socks.
What does Marta do?
Every choice costs something. Let’s see what.
Ask Zara, “Am I coming?”
“Am I coming?” Marta asks, looking at the line instead of Zara’s face. Zara stops talking about socks. Bruno is back from taking Esme’s card in, and he is standing close enough to hear.
“Six,” Zara says. “Mom said six.” She says it fast, and then she looks at the drain. Bruno looks at the drain too. Nobody looks at the line. Marta has not fallen off it once all recess.
After school, Zara walks with her to the gate. She explains the grippy socks again. She explains them for a long time, longer than socks take, and Marta lets her.
On Saturday Marta knows exactly what time it starts. At half past two, while it starts, she is on the bus with her uncle, going to the pool instead, with her own socks in her bag.
Say nothing and keep walking
Marta keeps her feet on the line. Heel, toe, heel, toe. Zara finishes about the socks and goes off to find Sofie, and the bell rings, and nothing at all happens.
On Tuesday, Marta looks at Zara’s hands when she comes in. On Wednesday, again. Nothing in them. On Thursday, Sofie’s sock crackles past. On Friday Marta puts her grippiest socks in her bag anyway. Takes them out. Puts them back in.
On Monday they are all talking about the trampolines at once, over the top of each other. Somebody bounced into the padding. Somebody’s brother cried. Marta sits at the end of the table and finds out everything.
At recess the painted line is wet and Marta walks it anyway. She gets all the way to the drain without going off once. She turns around by the drain, one foot already up for the way back, and starts again. Heel, toe, heel, toe. Wet shoes, and still not one step off.
Tell Sofie, “I’m busy that day”
Marta finds Sofie by the fence. “I can’t come anyway,” she says. “We’re going to my uncle’s. He’s got a boat.” Her uncle does have a boat, with a hole in it, up on bricks, but she leaves that part out.
By the end of lunch three people know about the boat. Bruno asks how big it is. Sofie asks if she can come. Zara is on the wall and does not ask anything at all.
On Saturday morning Marta takes Sofie to see the boat. It is on bricks in a yard, and it has a hole in the back you could put your arm through. Sofie puts her arm through it.
They sit in the boat on the bricks for most of the morning. Marta’s uncle brings out a bucket and they bail out rainwater that has nowhere else to go.
On Monday Zara comes over at the gate. She wants to know if the boat floats. Marta tells her about the hole. Then Zara says her mom said six. She says it fast, and then she asks about the hole again.