The Wounded Poet

Chapter 8: Stranger

In third grade, we had a new face. There was this new kid we had never seen before. He had neat brown hair and was pretty tall for a third grader. Easily one of the tallest in the classroom. He had some Nikes, black shorts, and a dark green T-shirt. He was not scrawny, but he was a little on the thin side. He was pretty athletic though. He froze in the doorframe. His eyes darted the room, analyzing every little detail of the classroom, and every little quirk of every student's physical appearance. In a flash, he locked eyes with everyone. Goosebumps erupted from his arms from how cold those stares were. Both the class and the kid didn't know what to think of each other, but the kid felt intimidated by the class.

"Class, this is Darren Langford!" Mrs. Taylor, our third grade teacher, announced. "Everyone say 'hello!'"

Everyone said 'hello' in unison in a monotone voice.

Then, I saw Darren start shaking. His lip was vibrating and his eyes began watering up. He was a very shy kid. He walked slowly to an empty seat next to me after Mrs. Taylor offered the seat to him. I remember being conservative about it; trying not to interact. But Samantha, who sat across from me, initiated contact.

"My name is Samantha," she whispered to Darren.

"Hi, Samantha," Darren quietly replied. "My name is Darren."

"Do you want to be friends?"

"Okay."

Darren began feeling a little better. His eyes weren't watering anymore. His face was still red though.

"That's my friend, Peter," Samantha said, pointing to me.

Darren turned to me. I forced myself to turn to him.

"Hi," Darren said.

"Hi," I replied back.

At recess, we hung out with Darren and got to know him a little better.

"I'm from Las Vegas," Darren said.

"Where is that?" Samantha asked.

"It's in a place called Nevada," Darren replied, incorrectly pronouncing 'Nevada'.

I think Samantha felt a connection with Darren. He was in a new world too, just as Samantha was years ago. He didn't know the environment, or who he'd get along with. Samantha was born in San Francisco, but she never really saw it until she was removed from that awful tyranny of King Frank and Queen Mary Rollins. Even though Darren had nice parents and grew up in a stable home, he had a lack of knowledge about the inner workings of San Francisco life. Just like Samantha. They both came from Sin City—figuratively and literally, respectively—and they were both late bloomers to experience the life and the atmosphere. I was born and raised in San Francisco, but I have trouble connecting with the lifeblood of the populace. We are all lost, and that's why we were all together.

We became good friends, and we learned that Darren enjoyed photography. Also, we had a student council in third grade, and Samantha ran for president of third grade. The way our student council worked was that third, fourth, and fifth graders had their own councils, but certain days had joint meetings for all grades. Samantha was probably the only student in our class that could correctly spell "president." My parents kinda pushed me into running for vice president, even though I didn't really understand what the title actually meant, because I was such good friends with Samantha. So, I ran for vice president. Darren, feeling pressured that his two friends were running for our third grade student council, picked "representative", which was basically a Press Secretary communicating the actions of the student council to the third grade classes. I guess it was meant to introduce the concept of leadership and government to our young minds, but personally, giving third graders power of any kind, no matter how regulated, will end up a bit disastrous. The only role students ran for was the president. Samantha beat this kid Harry Conley by a really close margin, like around two votes. I remember in those joint meetings how scared we were of the fifth graders, who were basically twice our size. Samantha was basically the only one who talked to the other grades, usually the fourth grade president.