My entire second grade experience was a blur to my excellence. I didn’t care much for the teacher or her other students. I wanted to be free and well, I wanted everyone to obey me. So I spent an entire year planning my total domination of the third grade. However, every perfect plan has one flaw, its doppelganger. His name just happened to be Noam, and he just happened to have chocolate covered peanut brittle. I bullied him into subservience, just an accomplice to my shenanigans that I could blame when something went wrong. What I didn’t expect was to fall in love with him.
It almost seemed wrong but wasn’t that how it was in the movies? A woman marries a man, man becomes King or something. Woman secretly kills man to become Queen. Queen gets a small, nerdy servant who turns into her lover and becomes the new King. But then of course, the new King dumps the new Queen. Our love started off nicely, he’d meet me by the trees at lunch, carry my milk pouch for me and clear my spot on the grass of leaves. The perfect gentleman. Occasionally I’d let him play with worms and bugs that wandered by us but other than that, he held my bag and book as I climbed my favorite tree. Noam would then hand me my book and I’d tell him to go away. And the cycle repeated everyday until he broke up with me.
It shouldn’t have mattered, we were seven! But alas, I missed my fateful assistant. I cowered everyday in my tree, hoping the yard duties would not see me hiding and allow me peace. I mean, I’d just be there again when they left and Candy liked me so she never cared. I sat in my tree, trying to focus on the book in hand only to keep knowing that he broke up with five days before my birthday. When my birthday came, he came up to my tree, handed me a carefully wrapped box and then walked away. Inside were four perfectly round glass magnets with flowers on the inside. They weren’t overly expensive or brilliant, but they filled my soul with so much joy.
At home, I displayed my magnets and would kiss each one every night before bed. My brother, Matt, would hoot and holler and say that I loved Noam. Of course, I would never admit such an act of betrayal to my impervious reputation for being emotionless which in turn helped me to cut in line during lunch, have other kids buy me pumpkin cookies during the holiday season, and quite possibly, a wide berth of freedom. I enjoyed my reputation and my power but what I didn’t enjoy was the loneliness. So I hung up my cold shoulder, and took off my armor. The next day at school, I “made” friends with a group of girls by following them around all day. Most of them found me exceptionally annoying. But one girl, obviously their leader, permitted me to stay, to continue to follow them.
Her name was Jillian and she permitted me much freedom when it came to following them but not quite enough to be part of the group. I guess it was because I invited them all over for a sleepover to which they all attended and found me kissing my magnets downstairs in the middle of the night. Or perhaps it was the time that I told my teacher that my grandmother had a heart attack in a movie theater that weekend when in fact I just saw it on the news. I guess it was just because I was weird.
I think things got worse the day Noam came back up to me toward the end of third grade. He held in his hands a box of chocolate covered peanut brittle and asked me to sit with him on the bench. I obliged, he was becoming quite the little tyrant that I once was. He said that he missed me and my book. That lunch was boring and no other girls treated him with the same respect. I wondered to myself what respect I had given this charming boy. Noam offered me his peanut brittle and I took the box and then left him alone on the bench.
The next day he left a note in my desk: can I come back? I didn’t say yes but I didn’t say no, I just threw it away. When he got to his desk that morning he pulled out a brown paper lunch sack and looked at me expectantly. I nodded in encouragement. He spilled the contents of the bag onto his desk. They were the magnets that he had gotten me. My brother and I had smashed them with a hammer the night before. Noam began to sob for some reason and came over to me. He asked why I had done it. “I’m tired of kissing magnets.” I said. He looked at me puzzled. “And I’m tired of your peanut brittle!” I shouted and stormed off. Yet somehow, chocolate peanut brittle is my favorite holiday snack. In fact, my box is right here.
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