Once Upon a Time: True Stories of an Aspiring Writer

17: The Boarding School Beginning

IF QUAKER SCHOOL was eight years of Obama*, high school was four years of Trump.

It was a downgrade. Like, a massively horrible, how-the-heck-did-we-get-from-that-to-THAT? downgrade where you're smacking yourself and saying, "Really?" And so we enter The Dark Ages of this book. But was all of it so horrible? Let us find out.

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Unlike many participation trophy-filled rituals, my middle school graduation was actually a big deal. (Honest!) This was because many of us had been at the Quaker school for years, we were a closer-knit class, and moving on to high schools to leave this life behind was pretty monumental. I think it was about that more than it was about achievement.

It was only eight short years ago that I was the shy kindergartner playing Don't Scrape the Stop Sign and building forts with Holly and Emma. Already I was learning algebra and had a solid best friend. I didn't even remember a different school experience, and that was about to change forever. 

The last week of school was always exciting. We got our yearbooks on Field Day as usual, but instead of merely looking through it as I was apt to do, I tried harder to get some good autographs and filled the inside pages with well-wishes.

Yearbooks at the Quaker school weren't that great. They were on the cheap side, though I didn't notice at the time—I was just excited to see the photos of my classmates and me. It was also interesting to see people who were on your bus or the names of previously faceless kids called in the carpool line. They weren't as thick as the ones my sister got from her public elementary school and mostly served as a testament to the graduating eighth-grade class, who also happened to make up the yearbook staff. There were class pictures, faculty pictures, group photos of sports teams, eighth-grade baby pictures, club group photos, and maybe a collage or two, and a "goodbye" page for any leaving long-term faculty. The eighth-graders each got half a page to share quotes and special moments or fun facts, decorated as they chose. There was also a dedication and a letter from the head of school, and that was about it.

Everything changed when we were the eighth graders. I had been looking at eighth-grade profiles for years admiring the "big kids" with their inside jokes and "never let me forget" moments. I also got to be in the coveted title picture of "Nine Year Survivors" who had been at the school since kindergarten. 

But I could look through it later. I had autographs to collect. 

So on that day's traditional Field Day extra recess, as we said goodbye forever to the tire swing and the hill where we'd talk and eat lunch on nice days with the joy of still getting recess as young teenagers, I ran around collecting well-wishes. We had a wonderful graduation dance as well, where we danced to Vitamin C's "Friends Forever." 

On graduation night, we dressed up in suits and white gowns. Christine and I showed up in the very same dress, of all the dresses one could possibly buy at the time, and I had gotten my hair curled that afternoon. 

That evening we sat in the Quaker high school meeting house for the very last time, sharing small stories we wrote of our time there and gathering in one last silent meeting with our families while the rain pounded onto the roof above, washing away all the fancy bar mitzvah parties and Halloween parades and homework sheets with comics on the back and friendships that would more than likely dissolve after that summer when it no longer became convenient to see one another. 

We would still have a pool party the next day, as we always did on the last day of school in middle school, but a few students couldn't make that. It was weird going to the party the following day only to realize that I'd never, ever see Jake again. Jake, who I played basketball with in first grade and who Christine liked once and who kicked my stool in art class and who was always good for a laugh. Just gone.