First Day of School

“How was your first day at school?” Margaret’s mom asked as Margaret jumped down from the bus.

“It was great,” Margaret answered. “My teacher’s name is Mrs. McKee and she has long hair and she wore earrings with little pink butterflies on them. She smells good. She said we could pick our partners so I get to sit with Christy and her mom let her bring chocolate pudding for snack. Danny wanted to trade with her but Mrs. McKee made us write down the rule that we can’t share our food with other people. We had to write down lots of rules about stuff we can’t do. You will be happy to know that I got to hold the door at recess because I lined up quietly. I’ll bet that Carrie will never get to hold the door because she whispers to Kim all the time. Guess what? Kim’s not the shortest one in our class anymore. I think Amy is. My pencil broke three times and Mrs. McKee told me that I had to be more careful because she doesn’t want me jumping up and down all day going to the pencil sharpener. We went to the library and the library teacher read “There’s a Dog on Your Head!” She doesn’t read the same way you read, but it was okay. David got a puppy this summer so he said he was going to put it on his head when he got home. He got into big trouble. He got into trouble on the bus, too. The bus driver yelled at him to be quiet about fifty times. Mrs. McKee doesn’t yell much. She raises her hand when she wants us to be quiet. We are supposed to raise our hands back. Greg and Marcus had to miss recess because they kept talking when our hands were up. Recess was fun. I wanted to play on the monkey bars but Jane was wearing a skirt so she couldn’t do any flips because she didn’t want anyone to see her underwear so Gloria taught us a new skipping game that she learned from her cousin. We had to do silent reading before lunch, which was okay because I took a book out of the library about this guy named Hugo who lives in a clock and it is pretty good. And before you ask, I ate all my lunch, even the carrots that were kind of dried out. You won’t believe this bit — Larry’s sandwich fell on the floor and he picked it up and ate it! He said he didn’t care. Last year Darrell found a frog down by the fence and dared him to lick it and he did. He is so gross. I’m glad I don’t have to sit near him. After lunch I had to write about what we did this summer. Teachers always ask that. I couldn’t think of anything to write so I said I sat around watching tv. Daisy wrote about how she went to the museum and the art gallery and science camp. And then we had a test on multiplication to see if we remembered it. I remembered some. Mrs. McKee didn’t look too happy about it so I think we are having another test next week. I forgot to tell you that Julia almost missed the bus this morning because she couldn’t find her new backpack. It was under her bed. Oh, and there was a new girl from China. She looked lonely so I told her she could be IT at tag but I guess she didn’t want to play because she just stood there when we ran away.”

“How was your first day at your new school, Jing-Wei?” her mother asked anxiously as Jing-Wei slumped off the bus.

“Some girl called me a name at recess and then they all ran away laughing,” she cried.