"Clair?" Mrs. Van said.
"Yes, Ma'am?" the little girl asked politely, even though she was bursting to run to the playground to continue her friends' on-going recess game of The Ground Is Lava.
Mrs. Van gestured to a small boy sitting by himself by the playground, drawing things in the dirt with a stick whom Clair had never seen before. "Do you see that boy over there?" When Clair nodded, she continued, "He's new to our school today and he doesn't have any friends. Would you be a friend to him for me today?"
Clair was torn. While she adored Mrs. Van and would be willing to do nearly anything for her darling teacher, her friends were finally going to let her be the lava monster today. Clair glanced over at the little boy. He did look pretty lonely, she thought. She also remembered how scary the first day of school was was her, and she couldn't imagine what it must be like for him, in a new place, surrounded by a bunch of kids who he didn't know who just ignored him. These thoughts helped Clair make up her mind.
"I'd be happy to, Mrs. Van," she said.
Mrs. Van smiled. "Thank you so much, Clair. I can promise you that great things will happen from you doing this."
Clair briefly wondered how Mrs. Van could know such a thing, but then she shrugged. It wasn't much of a surprise once she thought about it; Mrs. Van knew everything.
Clair walked with purpose to the little boy hunched over the dirt. His untidy hair was jet black, and his skin was a bit on the pale side, Clair noticed as she came closer. When she was only a few feet away, she plastered a smile to her face and said as cheerfully as she could, "Hi, I'm Clair."
The boy's head shot up, revealing his beautiful dark blue eyes as he looked at the perky blonde girl in front of him with confusion, looking around him to make sure she wasn't talking to someone behind him. When he realized that she had addressed him, he confusedly said, "Uh, hi."
"I'm Clair," the smiley girl repeated. "What's your name?"
"I'm Jackson, but everybody calls me Jack," the boy replied.
Clair sat next to him on the ground and said, "Is Jack what you want me to call you, or do you want me to call you Jackson?"
He looked at the girl curiously. First she had come up to him of her own free will and started to talk to him, and now she was asking him if he preferred to be called Jack or Jackson. Clair was an odd one, alright.
"I like Jackson," he decided.
"I like that name," Clair commented. "It's nice."
A ghost of a smile appeared on the boy's lips. "Thanks. It was my mom's last name before she married my dad."
"That doesn't make sense to me," Clair blurted.
Jackson looked at her confusedly. "What doesn't make sense to you?"
"Why does the girl have to change her last name to the boy's last name when they get married?" Clair demanded. "Why can't the boy change his last name to the girl's for once?"
The boy looked flabbergasted. "Because it's tradition."
"My dad always said that traditions were made to be broken," Clair said, setting her chin a notch higher in the air. "Of course, I don't actually know what a tradition is," she added meekly.
"Haven't you asked your dad that?" Jackson inquired.
Clair shook her head. "My dad is too busy to answer questions like that. 'That's what teachers are for,' he says all the time."
"Then why don't you ask a teacher?" the boy wondered.
"I keep forgetting," Clair admitted, giggling a little bit, making Jackson smiled shyly. "Do you know what a tradition is?"
The boy straiten up. "Of course I do."
"What does it mean?" Clair asked eagerly.
"I don't really know how to explain it," he said, trying to hide the fact that he too had no idea what 'tradition' meant. He had just given Clair the same answer his parents had when he asked a question concerning age-old praxis.
"Just tell me what you were told when you found out what it was," Clair offered.
"Well, to be honest, I didn't really understand most of it. When I asked my dad what it meant he told me to go watch Fiddler on the Roof."
"What's that?" Clair wondered.
Jackson looked at her in shock. "You've never seen Fiddler on the Roof?" Clair shook her head. "It's a movie about some really weird people who learn to play the violin and people pay them to play for them, except the fiddlers don't have anywhere to live, so they just live on top of people's houses."
"They live on people's houses?" Clair repeated. Jackson nodded. "But if it rains, they'll get all wet. And what if they have to go to the bathroom?"
Jackson shrugged. "How should I know? Do I look like a fiddler on a roof to you? I don't even know how to play the violin."
"Who would live on a roof?" Clair asked, still puzzled. "It would get so cold at night. And," she added thoughtfully," it would be kind of scary."
"It's not that scary on a roof," Jackson told her. "You just have to make sure you don't look down."
"You've been on a roof before?" she demanded. "What is it like?"
Before Jackson could answer, Mrs. Van's voice rang through the playground, announcing that morning recess was over and it was time to go to their classes.
"Whose class are you in?" Clair asked Jackson as they walked inside together.
"I don't know anyone in my class," he said gloomily.
'No, silly," she giggled. "I mean who's your teacher?"
"Oh," Jackson said, feeling silly. "I think her name is Mrs. Van or something like that."
Clair smiled and jumped for joy. "That means you're in my class!"
Jackson's face lit up. "Really?"
She nodded excitedly. "And the chair next to mine is empty if you want to sit by me."
Jackson smiled with glee. His first day was turning out to be better than he had hoped.
I know it's not very long, but hopefully you still enjoyed it. I'm a big believer of keeping it short and sweet, and I hope it was exactly that. Thanks for reading. Please comment and vote!
~Bay
