[So] it was with a great rush of excitement that Gramps accompanied me on my first day of school. He had insisted that we arrive early, and Castle Hall, the building for the fifth and sixth graders, was not yet opened. A handful of children had already arrive, busy catching up on the summemr's news. We sat beside a slender Chinese boy who had a large dental retainer strapped around his neck.
'Hi there," Gramps said to the boy. "This here's Barry. I'm Barry's grandfather. You can call me Gramps." He shook hands with the boy, whose name was Frederick. "Barry's new."
"Me, too," Frederick said, and the two of them launched into a lively conversation. I sat, embarrased, until the doors finally opened and we went up the stairs to our classroom. At the door, Gramps slapped both of us on the back.
"Don't do anything I would do," he said with a grin.
"Your grandfather's funny," Frederick said as we watched Gramps introduce himself to Miss Hefty, our homeroom teacher.
"Yeah. He is."
We sat at the table with four other children, and Miss Hefty, an energetic middle-aged woman with short gray hair, took attendance. When she read my full name, I heard titters break across the room. Frederick leaned over to me.
"I thought your name was Barry."
"Would you prefer if we called you Barry?," Miss Hefty asked.
"Barack is such a beautiful name. Your grandfather tells me your father is Kenyan. I used to live in Kenya, you know. Teaching children just your age. It's such a mangnificent country. Do you know what tribe your father is from?"
Her question brough on more giggles, and I remained speechless for a moment. When I finally said "Luo," a sandy-haired boy behind me repeated the word in a loud hoot, like the sound of a monkey. The children could no longer contain themselves, and it took a stern reprimand from Miss Hefty before the class would settle down and we could mercifully move on to the next person on the list.
I spent the rest of the day in a daze. A redheaded girl asked to touch my hair and seemed hurt when I refused. A ruddy-faced boy asked me if my father ate people. When I got home, Gramps was in the middle of preparing dinner.
"So, how was it? Isn't it terrific that Miss Hefty used to live in Kenya? Makes the first day a little easier, I'll bet."
I went into my room and closed the door.
The novelty of having me in the class quickly wore off for the other kids, although my sense that I didn't belong continued to grow. The clothes that Gramps and I had chosen for me were too old-fashioned; the Indonesian sandals that had served me so well in Djakarta were dowdy. Most of my classmates had been together since kindergarten; they lived in the same neighborhoods, in split-level homes with swimming poos; their fathers coached the same Little League teams; their mothers sponsored the bake sales. Nobody played soccer or badminton or chess, and I had no idea how to throw a football in a spiral or balance on a skateboard.
A ten-year old's naightmare. Still, in my discomfort that first month, I was no worse off than the other children who were relegated to the category of misfits - the girls who were too tall or too shy, the boy who was mildly hyperactive, the kids whose asthma excused them from PE.
