A Different Shade Of Spy

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Cinderella and the Spy

It was about a year before Iris's Bat-mitzvah. That day when she would be twelve years old, finally considered an adult or at least a teenager. Already, Iris's father had begun to treat her like a grown up, not that he had ever treated her like some fuzzy wuzzy baby. He took her to movies then discussed the themes or else he would let her go by herself to a pottery course all the way in the neighboring town but other adults including her mom when she paid attention at all didn't. Iris had often complained into her diary,

"Why are adults so aggravatingly and annoyingly stupid! First they say that we should start acting more grown up, then they treat us like were still in diapers or something. Granted adults never know how to treat me (it must be because as Kate had said, "Preacher's kid" A.K.A a Rabbi's daughter people are never sure whether to treat you like a kid or some "Holy Vessel") but why do they insist we act grown up when they themselves never do.

Take for example the class field trip to the library Mrs. Winters said the stupidest thing,

"Now remember class stay together and remember to be quiet, oh after the librarian shows you all around there will be a story at the reading corner and a quiz after, when we get back. Your homework assignment for tomorrow will be... What I learned at the library or the many uses of the library."

That last bit was directed at me because the librarian had just told her that I was a regular when she said,

"Iris do you think you'll be here this afternoon I could use your help with the stacks."

So while everyone listened on how to use the library I sat down and finished the assignment I was just putting my papers away and shuffling the books I was carrying when the librarian pointed to me and said,

"If you have any questions just ask Iris she practically works here."

Then Mrs. Winters said, "Well Iris, do you wish to add anything to what Miss Simeno had to say?"

Sure I thought and then said,

"Yes, first the Librarian goes by Ms. Simeno and second the reading circle is for children from three years old to about six so why should we be listening to story time, Ma'am?"

I could see she wanted to put me in detention but I had answered so politely in front of the librarian that she probably didn't want to look any worse then she already did. Ms. Simeno hated people calling her Miss firstly she told me that she wasn't a miss which implied she'd never been married and was some sort of "Old Maid" but also because she didn't like being called Mrs. Simeno because she said it implied she was nothing more then her husbands property; the word she used was "Appendage." I remember telling her I thought that an appendage was like hands or feet something physically attached, and she said that that's what people use to think women were, way back when, she said,

"Well as the daughter of a Rabbi you should know that the idea came from the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible."

That people had gotten the idea that just because you were married meant you didn't have a life of your own or thoughts ideas...Ms. was a way of saying, she told, me that she was her own person in her own right. I still think if she was so sensitive why not just keep her maiden name or hyphenate it or change it altogether like some couples I read in the newspaper did. Grown ups should "GROW UP!"

It was one afternoon in that same library that she met Susan. Iris had just sent her little brother José to find books on cars and motors and had even shown him some of her favorite magazines one called "Popular Mechanics," then Iris had sat down to do her math homework. It wasn't that Iris wasn't good at math, it was every time she did it, the teachers' way, the answer seemed to come out wrong, her way she always got the right answer but because she worked half or all the problems in her head, but she couldn't show how she got the answer the teacher always gave her a hard time.