Why do they call it kindergarten, if there are no flowers or trees or plants? There aren’t even birds, goats, or chickens. No cows either.

I didn’t see a garden anywhere.

There wasn’t a single thing growing from the ground. The only colors that were there were gray and brown. It was a rainy morning, and the people hurried by on the streets, bundled up in their own coats and scarves. Their rapid footsteps splashed the puddles on the sidewalk. Steam rose up from the vents as a few stray dogs dug into one of the large piles of garbage and sewage, their tails wagging. Something about their eyes looked a little bit off, and I held onto Stephanie’s hand as she squinted to see each towering building above us. It was so noisy I couldn’t hear properly, and the rain kept making my glasses blurry. Every time I tried to wipe them off, Stephanie pulled me along. She was shivering a lot, even under the umbrella that she had held over our heads.

When we reached the school—a small brick building squished between a clothing store and a restaurant—she almost looked relieved.

* * * * * * *

“And who is this?”

The lady standing in front of us was as tall as a palm tree. She kind of looked like one too—very skinny, but her hair was wild and stuck out in many directions. She wore glasses like me, with colorful frames, a sweater and jeans. Her boots were scuffed up, and when she smiled, she had some strange wiring over her very big teeth. Squeezing Stephanie’s hand very tightly, I stepped behind her and peeked from around her waist. I had never seen anyone as tall as her before—not even back at home.

“Tell her your name,” Stephanie gently said, attempting to move me to the side, but I clung to her leg. I could not stop staring.

As the lady knelt down, her dark brown eyes met mine. She placed a hand on her chest. “My name is Miss Kim. I’m your new teacher for this year.” She smiled again, showing her razor teeth. “We’re going to do a lot of fun things today.” As she raised her palm, I could see it was covered in an array of colors. “See? We’re painting pictures.”

“Oh, my, that does sound interesting,” Stephanie said, beaming. “You want to try?”

“But I’m not an artist,” I said. “I can’t draw.”

“Everyone is an artist,” Miss Kim said. “Everyone has their own gifts and talents. They are all different, but very important.” Her voice was very smooth, calming. I didn’t believe she ever stopped smiling. “And I know you have plenty of them. You just haven’t discovered them yet, and that’s perfectly okay. It usually takes time.”

Before I could ask her what she meant, Stephanie was already helping me out of my wet jacket. They showed me a wooden shelf in the wall, and right above it was a green laminated piece of paper with bears eating a pot of honey on both sides. It had my name written on it in very neat handwriting. I gazed at it for a moment, then back at Miss Kim as she placed my backpack on one of the hooks, next to several colorful ones. I could hear a mixture of voices coming in from the classroom doorway nearby.

I froze. It sounded like a lot of people.

“I’ll be here to pick you up at three,” Stephanie murmured. She leaned down and placed a kiss on top of my head, before giving me a very warm hug. “Behave.”

I didn’t want her to go. This all seemed like a fever dream of some sort, one that I would wake up from and be back in my hut with Security, in my own bed, where the ground was not covered in stinky carpet but solid earth. I didn’t have to wear shoes ever again. And Stephanie would make me a bowl of warm, thick oatmeal with berries that she had freshly picked that morning, and a cup of goat’s milk. Then I would help her in her garden. It didn’t appear to be real to me at all, and I wanted to tell her so as she walked down the hallway, her wet shoes squeaking against the wooden floor. The wind caused her gray hair to rise over her shoulders as she stepped out into the rain.

A lump rose in my throat.

“Come.” Miss Kim offered her hand to me. “Would you like to go and meet our new friends? They are very excited to see you.”

I stared at it for a moment, before slowly reaching over and taking it. Her nails were painted red and she had a small ring on her index finger. There was a very large carpet on the floor, with all sorts of patterns and colors, tables with supplies on them, and a chalkboard with many letters and numbers written on it. Their fingers were stained with paint. A large group of boys and girls wearing the same uniform as me sat in each printed square on the carpet, giggling and yelling as another teacher was sitting in a rocking chair. She held out a large storybook with pictures in it, pointing at each page and speaking in a loud voice over them.

Miss Kim led me to one of the tables. She had me put on a plastic smock so that I wouldn’t get paint on my shirt and placed a sheet of paper on top of some crumpled newspapers in front of me, before opening a box of bottled paints. She squeezed out large drops of them into a plastic pallet. The smell and the texture reminded me of the mud that would form after it rained back in the village. As she handed me a paintbrush, the rain pattered harder against the glass.

“You can do anything you like.”

”But I don’t know what to paint.”

“Don’t be afraid to use your imagination, darling.” Miss Kim knelt down to my level. She smelled like strawberries. “Think of the most important thing in the world to you. Think of what you like most. It can be people, animals, food—what makes you smile. It could be your favorite toy.”

I stared at her.

”When you’re done, I’ll place it on that rack over there where everyone else’s is drying.” Miss Kim poured out a paper cup of water. “Then we’ll hang ours in the hallway, okay?”

Wrinkles gathered around the corners of her mouth. I nodded, and she gave me one of her strange smiles before moving away to take another girl who asked to go to the bathroom. After dipping my paintbrush into the water, I decided to use dark green paint for the bottom half. I had only begun doing the left side of the page when I felt a pair of brown eyes on me. I glanced upwards again, directly behind the frame of my glasses.

A boy was sitting at the edge of the table closest to my own. He swung both of his legs against the leg of his chair, making a loud banging sound, his untied shoelaces dangling in the air. His coal black hair was even more ruffled and of control than Miss Kim’s, and he had a jagged scar that stretched down to the bottom of his neck. His uniform shirt was covered in all sorts of stains, and he wiped the snot from his nose with the end of his sleeve. When he saw me staring back at him, he looked away again and turned his head. His dark brown skin was peeling around his fingernails, which he kept biting from time to time with his teeth.

The shouts of the other kids in the room became fainter in my ears.

I focused on my painting again, finishing the grass as I well as I could remember from home. After making sure to add yellow, I then moved onto orange. The boy kept glancing at my paper from time to time, and as I began to add the straw huts, dipping my brush in brown paint, I could finally hear his shoes against the floor. His shadow fell on the table I was sitting at. A strange scent arose from him. We stared at each other for a long time, before he spoke, shuffling his feet together.

”Hi.”

”Hi,” I said, suddenly wanting to cover up my work with my hand. I thought that he would find it ugly and laugh at it. But his dark eyes focused on the middle of my page.

“Are those cows?” he quietly spoke. “Or bears?”

“No. They’re huts.”

The boy looked confused. “Huts?”

“Yeah. From my village. They’re round.”

He stuck his thumb in his mouth. “My house is square. Like a box. But it’s too small.”

I pushed my glasses up my nose. “I live in a house too. But it’s a mini house. An apartment.”

He smiled—two of his front teeth were missing. “I’ve never heard of a mini house before. You need to be tiny to live in one.”

This caused me to laugh, and he began to giggle. He leaned a bit closer and pointed to the white space of the page. “What color are…are you going to paint the sky?”

“Aiden!”

We both looked towards the direction of Miss Kim’s voice. She was walking towards him, a hardened expression on her face. When she grabbed his hand, he scowled and began to pull away. “You are supposed to be on timeout, young man. We’re not talking to anyone. You let him work, please.”

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“Pissy Aiden, Pissy Aiden,” a blonde haired boy chanted from the rug. He stuck his tongue out. “You go potty on yourself. That’s why your mommy has to bring you diapers in the middle of the day—”

Aiden glared at him. Silently, he flew across the room and swung at the boy with his right fist before he could finish his sentence, knocking him to the ground. The other kids began to scatter away as the two got into a tussle. As the teachers scrambled to pull them apart, Aiden delivered one last blow to the boy’s head, before he was carried out into the hallway, screaming and kicking.

The blonde haired boy was crying, and he had a nosebleed. I remained frozen in my chair as they took him to the nurse’s office. I glanced down at my picture as Miss Kim tried to calm down everyone else. I think I wanted to wait another day to finish it.

* * * * * * *

I didn’t know how to count higher than fifteen, and I didn’t have fifteen fingers to count on; only ten. I couldn’t tell the difference between making an upper case letter or a lower case one. There were twenty six letters in the alphabet, so how did they expect me to know all of them when I couldn’t count past fifteen? Tracing them out on the worksheets that they gave me helped some, but by lunch time, I was too scared to talk to anyone. I gazed at the clock, wishing it would go faster even though I couldn’t tell what the arrows were supposed to be pointing towards. The grown ups lied. Nothing about school was fun. Nothing whatsoever.

As I nibbled on the edge of my ham sandwich and guzzled down my milk carton, I noticed that the blonde haired boy was back. He carried a bloodied napkin crumpled up in one hand, still whimpering and sniffling, his lunch bag clutched in his other one. He only stayed for a few more minutes before his mother came—a large, heavyset woman with sunglasses and hair even yellower than his. She had drawings up and down her arms. I couldn’t hear them due to all the noise in the classroom, but I made out her wagging her finger and yelling at Miss Kim in the hallway, before storming off and grabbing her son’s hand. She looked a bit overwhelmed, leaning against the wall, taking slow breaths. Her forehead was sweaty.

I threw my carrot sticks in the trash.

* * * * * * *

Because it was still raining, we had recess in the gymnasium. I didn’t know what a gymnasium was, but city folk liked them a lot because they could play games. It was supposed to be a basketball court, but years of wear and tear left the floor covered in dust. Paint peeled off the walls, and there was a strange smell that filled the entire space. The windows were covered in some sort of dust, and the lights left a yellowish tint against the space. Everyone was screaming—running around as much space as the gymnasium would allow.

I reached for a jump rope, but a girl roughly pushed me to the side, causing me to fall. She glared at me before grabbing it and skipping to join her friends, where they were all snickering at me. My face was red; burning hot, but I got up and walked away. I could feel the girl’s eyes on me. I tried to look in the plastic bucket for any more soccer balls, but they were all deflated and stuck at the bottom.

“Who wants to play hide and seek?”

”Oooh, oooh, me! Pick me!”

”Me!”

There was a group of kids next to a teacher, giggling. I approached them from behind, confused, but wanting to hear what they were saying. Ms. Kim smiled and pointed at a boy. He grinned and took a step towards her, eagerly jumping up and down.

“Oliver, you’re it,” the teacher said. “Count to ten. And squeeze your eyes shut and make sure to turn around all the way. No peeking.”

The boy clamped both hands over his eyes. “One…two….three…”

Grinning, I took off running after the crowd of kids, who were also spreading out. My boots echoed against the wooden floor, as we made our way through the lobby, nearby a few empty closets. I followed a couple of kids into one, but they told me to go away, because there wasn’t any more room left.

“Four…five…six…”

I stood there, dejected at the now empty hallway. After attempting to open another door, I found that it was locked. Desperate, I ran into the bathroom, but nearly three other boys were hiding under the sinks and behind the stalls. I went back out, taking a deep breath. Oliver was still counting. After running through the gym again, I stumbled into a back room. There was a lot of dust in the corners, but it looked like a storage room. I loudly sneezed—it smelled like mothballs. I opened another door and found a strange hallway, although it was empty.

“Seven…eight…nine…”

Slowly, I stepped inside.

The lights flickered above me as I made my way down. There were a bunch of crates filled to the brim with basketballs, soccer balls, and tennis rackets. A large electrical scoreboard was placed in the corner, followed by several wrinkled uniforms smushed together in a plastic bag. A few posters were placed against the wall, and I climbed over the clutter on the floor.

A great deal of old boxes were behind all of the items, and I crouched down on my knees and crawled through until I made it beneath them. After crawling under a cardboard box, I slightly lifted it up, giggling. The noises outside the storage room grew fainter, and I heard the other shrieks from kids as they were being discovered. I laid on my stomach and folded my arms, waiting.

There was a leak.

It dripped from the corner of the ceiling and landed directly on the floor. Then a few more drops landed on the ground. The lights began to flicker, before the power completely went off in the entire room. I could still see how the lights were on outside, leaving a yellow bar on the ground.

I remained as still as I could as they flickered on again, but this time, only the front part of the room was well lit. I peeked out again at the depth of darkness in front of me from beneath the cardboard box. My breaths were shaky, and although I suddenly wanted to leave the room again, I couldn’t because my body was completely paralyzed. My mouth was dry, and my heart was thudding in my chest. With one shaky hand, I slightly lifted up the box again.

The floor was soaking wet.

Water dripped overhead from the ceiling, leaving a faint thunking sound against the crate. It was getting harder to breathe, and my stomach was churning uncontrollably. A deep wave of nausea settled over me. Water poured down from the cinderblock walls, and I shivered, realizing how cold it was in the room. Then, there was a sopping sound. I remained still, staring at the dark. Something was moving, gliding effortlessly.

My breaths were shaky in the cardboard box, and it was incredibly hot inside. Saliva dripped from my mouth as my stomach flopped several times. I wanted to yell, but couldn’t. My eyes were burning, welling up.

Two pale bare slowly stepped from the shadows, visible underneath ragged, torn pants. Water continued to splash around the ankles, around the blisters and scars and purple, bruised toes that resembled rotting stumps of flesh. They took a few more steps, water flowing from their soles and causing items to float around the place.

They stopped directly in front of me.

I began to hum a song that I had learned in this morning. It was a trick that Stephanie had taught me—whenever I got nervous, I attempted to remember my favorite things. I had liked that song, although I found it too short anyways. I liked spiders, and I felt bad for what had happened to this one. I began to softly sing, my bare feet almost silent against the cold floor.

“The itsy bitsy spider

crawled up the water sprout.

Down came the rain and

washed the spider out.”

I remained still for a moment, huddled behind the cardboard box. The same pit that had formed in my stomach while I was at Old Pete’s barn came back again. Something wet met my bare foot, and I stopped, my throat going dry. Then I continued to hum the tune.

”The itsy bitsy spider—”

No, I was missing a verse. I struggled to remember the song.

The deep nausea was returning in my throat. The ground was soaking wet and slippery, like someone had spilled a large bucket of water all over it and left.

There was a faint tapping noise.

“Out came the sun…” I continued.

and dried up all the rain.

The words out in a quiet, gentle whisper that was barely audible in the room. I dove under a table and huddled up into a ball. A lump rose in my throat. I couldn’t sing anymore, and the floor was damp. My hands were shaking a great deal, and I clamped them over my mouth to stifle my breathing. From behind the cardboard box something moved. I rubbed my eyes again. Perhaps I was imagining things. Perhaps this was a dream. I tried to pinch myself, but it hurt to do so.

And the itsy bitsy spider

went up the sprout again.

The whispered words were barely audible.

Silence.

After an eternity, I finally peered out from behind the cardboard box. The room was empty, and I scrambled to my feet. My ears rung as I stood still. Sitting on top of the left table closest to me was Security. His torn up fur was deeply tinged up, and the colorful threads made up the multiple stitches across his body. He had brand new button eyes this time, which were a cherry color, and a broad smile had been sewn across his lower face, near his floppy ears.

Evander.

The whisper was softer than the wind.

I couldn’t see where it was coming from. One of the lights overhead burnt out, causing orange sparks to fly out in the air. I flinched, seeing water from over the wrinkled plaster in the white walls.

Evander.

I didn’t know what that word meant. I had never heard it before. Water sloshed around my ankles, and I flinched, noticing how dark and slimy it felt against my bare feet. Suddenly, the faucet in the storage room turned on, causing more of it pour down until it reached the top and spill over the edges. It stained the floor, leaving an inky consistency that coated the tiles. I glared at the black shadow, narrowing my eyes. Then I raised my fists, getting into a stance. After making sure my knees were bent, I listened for any footsteps approaching, biting my tongue. I wish I knew how to fight like Aiden. What I needed to do was to get to my sister and Stephanie, to protect them, to keep them safe. They were depending on me. I had let everyone down enough already. I didn’t want to do it again. I would make sure to never to do so.

”Go away,” I yelled at the darkness, my shaky voice echoing in the empty storage room. “Go away, or you’ll be sorry.”

It was quiet again.

I tried to move, but couldn’t. Another light shattered, chunks of glass falling above.

I stared at Security. He stared back at me, his gaze welcoming but unfamiliar. It made me want to reach out and embrace him, but something else made me timidly take a few steps back. Slowly, my breaths became visible in the air, like small clouds rising from my mouth. It was a challenge to breathe. It no longer smelled like I was inside of a building. Instead, I could make out the scent of earth, grass, trees, and of course, water.

Dirty footprints marked the floor around the table. They were quite large. My legs began to work. After observing Security for a while, I turned around, pushed past the cardboard box, and took off running down the hallway, not daring to look back. I tripped and landed right into a puddle because the ground was so slippery. Ignoring the pain shooting up my arms.

Evander.

There was a spark as the lights went out.