Nursery Rhymes
I’m walking to school all by myself today, because it’s the first day of second grade, and I did it yesterday with Mom but we pretended she wasn’t there, so she didn’t tell me where to go. And I didn’t get lost. That means I’m big enough now.
It smells like apples and pencils this morning. I have on a brand new shirt and pants, and new shoes and socks, well the socks are brand new and the shoes I only wore one time before, on yesterday.
And I have a new lunchbox with a peace sign and flowers on and a new notebook which is green, which is my favorite color even though every other girl likes pink and purple. I like green.
My backpack is the same from last year though.
The sidewalk around here has a lot of cracks and pieces missing, Dad says the taxes should have fixed it but I guess they didn’t yet. Anyway so you have to be sure to watch where you’re going and not get dis-racted by an interesting rock or a butterfly or something.
But when you’re watching out for cracks at least you can play Step on a Crack, Break Your Mother’s Back.
I forgot: also my brown sweater is brand new.
I like how the air feels today. It feels like if you go to a football game, it’s not really cold but your nose runs a little. The wind is blowing yellow leaves right between my feet.
For Halloween I’m going to be a cat, Mom’s going to help me make it.
Step on a crack. Break your mother’s back. So I don’t step on a–
Oh.
That shouldn’t be there.
A book shouldn’t be on the sidewalk. Especially not right in the middle of a sidewalk, where you could walk on it, if you weren’t playing Step on a Crack.
It looks really old. Really old and huge. It doesn’t look like a school book.
Oh. Oh! I might know, I think. I bet it’s a library book. I bet it came from the library at school. Some big kid must have dropped it or something.
Then I will be the HERO and bring it back. Like this kid thinks they’re going to be in huge trouble and get detention and have to pay for the book, which with this big book would probably be like maybe fifty dollars or something. And then I will show up and say “hey did someone lose this?” and they will start crying they’ll be so happy, even though they’re fifth grade.
I better check to see if there’s a name or something though. The paper is so thin and whispery, it’s like a dictionary, this book. Its title says . . . How to Make Everything Turn Out Okay.
But it doesn’t say the writer.
That’s a really good title though, it makes you want to read it.
Okay, I am not getting dis-racted, I’m going to school, but I’m just going to open it up to the first page. Just to see. Probably it will be too hard or too boring but just . . .
Step on a crack
Break your mother’s back
Step on a hole
Break your mother’s sugar bowl.
I know this one! It’s just a nursery rhymes, it’s not hard! Is this book just nursery rhymes? I think so. It’s funny there’s no pictures though, just all these pages and this tiny writing.
Step on the grass
Miss your favorite class.
HA. That’s funny. I didn’t know that part. I’ll try not to step on the grass!
If the milk you’ve spilled,
Your cat gets killed.
. . . What is that part. I don’t like that part.
Is that true?
Eat the last ice cream
Your friend’s terrible screams.
Wait a minute.
Tear your winter coat
Cut your mother’s throat.
That’s horrible. I don’t like this. What if it’s only, if you tear it on accident!
Forget to wave goodbye
Your mother’s going to die.
What is this book! I don’t like this book.
I waved goodbye to my mother this morning, though, for sure. I DEFINITELY did.
Did I?
I’m shutting it NOW. Wait but I gotta see—what do I do if . . .
Turn three times around
Or your house burns to the ground.
I gotta remember these! I gotta not forget them or—I didn’t know there were all these other ones, all these other rules.
Pick a flower in the bud
Find your friend in a pool of blood.
No. Stop.
Better not oversleep
Or your dolls grow teeth.
I think I should stop reading this book now.
Break your daddy’s phone
Hear the rattling bones
Please don’t.
Let your hand touch the ground
See your little brother drown.
I don’t want to read this book. I hate this book, it’s horrible. But I gotta keep reading. I gotta remember all these and there’s so many pages, there’s like a million . . .
Tell your mom a lie
Hear a dead baby cry
Underneath your bed
Where the blood runs red.
Stop it! Stop it! I will learn them, I will! I will learn all the rules, I will memorize every rule in this book, I promise, just please please stop stop STOP.
—–
“And so this is the children’s ward. You’ll be working the night shift here, Thursdays, though Sundays — sorry, not the greatest hours, but that’s how it goes when you’re new.”
“I don’t care. But man, this place is sad. I didn’t know kids could go so crazy that—“
“Yeah, look, we don’t say ‘crazy’ here—“
“Sorry, right. That kids could go so . . . whatever, that they would have to be locked in rooms like these.”
“You’ll get used to it. So listen, your main job is, besides the paperwork, you walk up and down the halls during the night, looking in these little barred windows, see? Like this one. You make sure the kid inside is okay, hasn’t choked to death or hung himself or whatever.”
“Man, I didn’t know it would be like this.”
“Are you saying you don’t want the job?”
“No, no. I need this job. Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Man, look at this one, with the book. She is reading the heck out of that great big book.”
“She’s been here a couple of years. When she first got here, they tried taking that book away from her. She screamed for three days, and when she lost her voice, she just sat with her mouth open in a silent scream, her face all red and her eyes bulging. It was horrible. Finally, they gave it back.”
“Oh wow, she just got up, turned in a circle three times, and then sat back down to read.”
“Yeah she does that, or little weird jumps or snapping her finger, or knocking wood, or muttering to herself. No one knows why. Anyway. The doctors have looked through that book, cover to cover, to see why she’s so obsessed with it. No one can figure it out. It’s just an old book of nursery rhymes.”
Reading is much scarier than I thought. 🙂
It is the route to MADNESS. Which is why we do it, of course.