September 2007

The door to my nursery school was big and red and arched. It looked like the door from a fairy tale. When I walked through it for the first time, I fully expected to enter an enchanted place.

On the first day of school, we were each given a bowl filled with little wooden blocks of different sizes and shapes. We were told to build something, anything.

 “Anything?” I said, because I was always and forever worried about doing things right.

 “Anything,” said the teacher.

I dumped my blocks on the floor and stared at them.

The boy next to me said, “Give me your blocks.”

 “What?” I said.

 “Give me your blocks.”

 “No,” I said.

But he could tell that I was afraid of him and so he pinched my arm and took my blocks, all of them.

 “What did you let him do that for?” said the girl who was sitting on the other side of me.

 “He pinched me,” I said.

 “Hey,” she said to the boy, “those are her blocks. Give them back.”

 “No,” said the boy.

The girl stood up. “He took her blocks!” she said, pointing at me; and then she swiveled dramatically and pointed at the boy. “He pinched her!” she shouted.

 “Is this true?” said the teacher to me.

I nodded. I started to cry.

I wasn’t crying because I had been pinched. And I wasn’t crying because my blocks had been taken from me. I was crying because I was astonished at the girl’s bravery. I was crying because I couldn’t believe that someone would stand up for me.

Her name was Trinky Stemmler.

That’s her, with the kerchief on her head.

She is standing next to me.

She was my first best friend; friendship was the fairy tale that I found on the other side of that red door.