Rosé Heron grew up homeschooled in Africa. She was used to living with her parents, having monkeys as her friends and the African plains as her playground. But when her family moves to the suburbs of California, she finds herself a stranger in a str...
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Rosé
My parents were acting like chickens with their heads cut off. Or birds, buzzing so fast they might explode from the effort.
"This is your lunch in here, okay?" Dad says in his don't-frighten-the-newborn-cubs tone. He held out a brown paper bag. "Now, I put a dollar in there so you can buy some milk. You can ask one of the big kids where to do that."
Mom chimed in. "Do you remember your phone number? Your address? I wrote it down for you, just in case." She continued speaking in a fast pace. "Put it in your pocket, I don't want you to lose it" She pushed a stray frizz of mom-hair out of her eyes as she handed me a piece of paper.
"And if you get scared today," Dad added, "Just go up to your teacher and say, My name is Rosé, and I'm feeling a little scared."
"Just like we practiced!" Mom forced a wavery smile. It wasn't very convincing. "Okay? You ready?"
I slowly stood up from the pavement with a shy smile on my face.
Mom leaned in, close enough for me to smell the eco friendly detergent she used on our clothes clinging to her shirt. Her eyes welled up. She squeezed me hard enough to crack a rib as Dad whipped out his camera.
"Okay, smile!" he said. "It's Rosie's big day!"
Click.
Right on cue, Mom burst into tears.
I patted her on the back. I wasn't sure what else to do. I mean, I guess it's natural for parents to cry on their kids' first day of school. But that usually happens when the kid is five.
And the thing is, I'm not five.
I'm seventeen. And... until today, I was homeschooled: That means my mom was my only teacher and dad was the only sub.
I know what you're thinking:
Homeschooled kids are freaks. But my family's totally normal! I swear.
Except for the fact that both my parents are research zoologists, and we've spent the last twelve years in Africa. So, you know, for the most part, my "classmates" and "friends" were lions, monkeys, snakes, birds, and a native warrior or two - totally normal.
I had a great life. But then my mom got offered a full professorship at Northwestern University. Two weeks later it was Goodbye, Africa and Hello, California.
In California, the only "wild animals" you saw racing were the frenzied morning commuters.
I didn't want to admit it to my parents — they were clearly both stressed out enough for me as it was — but I was a little nervous. I'd never set foot in an American high school. I had no idea what to expect.
Then again, I'd survived the African wilderness. The savannah. The jungle.
I mean, high school couldn't be much worse than that, could it?
