Meng Jia is Not the Color PINK

Chapter Six

I'm halfway through a worksheet on fractions when Taecyeon walks into class. I'm so glad, not only that he's back but that he can help me to understand what to do with ?/6 = 2/3.
He sits down at his desk.
I hand him the box of wooden fraction pieces.  "Welcome back." He smiles and then looks over at my worksheet. "The answer is '4'." Mr. Cohen comes over, hands him a worksheet and says, "Welcome back. How's it going?"

"Great." Taecyeon reaches into his knapsack and pulls out a pencil with Alabama written on it. "This is for your collection, Mr. Cohen." Great? Great? Great, I think. Here I spent all of this time missing him and he says things are going great. Taecyeon smiles. "A lot happened."

Leaning down, Mr. Cohen quietly asks Taecyeon, "Later, would you like to tell the class about what's happening? You certainly don't have to, but if you want to, it might be fun to share."
"Sure." Taecyeon nods.

As Mr. Cohen walks away, I wish that he hadn't said that to Taecyeon.  I want Taecyeon to tell me first, not to have everyone find out at the same time. I look over at Taecyeon. He is doing the math work very quickly. I look down at my math and then start chewing on my stub of a pencil.

It would have been nice if Taecyeon had given me a new pencil, too. Finished with his math, Taecyeon picks up my paper and checks it out. He finds two mistakes, shows me how to do it correctly and then helps me finish up.

Fractions are not my favorite thing. In fact, they are one of my least favorite things. The only things I hate more are 1) Brussels sprouts, 2) watching kids picking their noses and eat the snot and 3) having people I love leave.

Mr. Cohen flicks the lights off ad on. "Take a minute to finish the problems you're working on and raise your hand if you want me to come over and explain anything. You can finish this up for homework." People finish up.

Since Taecyeon and I are already done, we play tic-tac-toe. I win. We enter the win on a scorecard that Taecyeon keeps in his desk. We've been keeping track since the beginning of the school year.

I'm ahead. Two hundred and twenty to one hundred and ninety-nine. The lights flick off and on. "Clear your desks. Get ready to pay attention. Taecyeon is going to tell us about his trip." Everyone gets ready, and Taecyeon goes tot he front of the room.

I'm sure that he's not going to tell them everything, that there will be some stuff that he'll just tell me. Taecyeon begins. "We left very early on Saturday morning." He's wearing a brand-new sweatshirt, one that says "Alabama."

Personally, I don't like the sweatshirt. I wish he had on a sweatshirt that I know. He continues, "The airplane trip was really fun. Before the plane took off, the flight attendant let me go up front and see the cockpit and meet the pilot. They gave me wings to wear."

"Like an angel," Jimmy calls out. "So where's your halo?"
"Jimmy." Mr. Cohen uses his teacher "cut it out" voice.

"Wings." Taecyeon points to the pin on his sweatshirt. "And then we sat down and the plane went up and this lady in front of us threw up into the barf bag. . . "
"Ewww," "yuck," "gross" and "yea" are a few of the comments from the class. The comment from Mr. Cohen is "Taecyeon. Continue, please without all the gory details." Taecyeon continues.

He talks about meeting his dad at the airport, about the motel they stayed at, with a game room, swimming pool, room service and everything. Then he tells us how Mr. Daniels had been looking at lots of houses, and they all went around to check out the ones he liked the best. And they found one that they all liked.

They picked it out the first day. I thought buying a house was supposed to take long, long time. Taecyeon tells us how big the house is, how he and Danny are going to have their own rooms, bow his mom said that he could put up baseball player wallpaper in his room and how there was a special area in the backyard with a basketball hoop.

"Any other kids there?" Hyuna asks. Jackson gives Hyuna's arm a shove.
"What's that for?" Hyuna rubs her arm as id she'd been run over by a bulldozer. "I just asked a simple question." Jackson looks over at me.

I stare ahead as if nothing's bothering me. To prove that I'm not upset, I repeat Hyuna's question. "Any other kids there?" Taecyeon nods. "Lots. Next door, the family have five kids, two old enough to babysit for Danny, one my age, Jon they call him Junior and one Danny's age, Jim Bob."
"Twins?" Tiffany Shroeder asks.
"No." Taecyeon explains. "A lot of people there have two first names. Great, I think. Next thing, we're going to have to start calling him "Taecyeon Bob." Taecyeon goes on.

He tells us about the university where his dad works, how there's a great game room there and how there's lots of stuff to do. Then he tells us about the school they visited, the school that is going to be his NEW school.

He goes on and on about how they not only have desks, but they have their own lockers, about how it was built a few years ago, about how instead of just one third grade like we have at our school there are four third grades, how you don't have to bring your own lunch because there's a cafeteria that serves complete meals, how the school even has air conditioning. Taecyeon keeps blabbing on and on.

I keep waiting for him to mention the VERY important thing that his new school and neighborhood doesn't have-MEEE.
. . . . . . . . . . But he never does. :(