Dinner Down to Size, Chapters 15-16

Chapter Fifteen

The door opened.

The first thing Sabrina registered were the voices in the room. The thick classroom door had muted the sound in the hallway; now that it was open, she could clearly hear the focused, engaged sound of those in the room that was in session. An accented but clear, warm adult voice asking questions, punctuated by the eager responses of children raising their hands, calling out "Ooh! Ooh!" as they competed to answer. Then came the smell. Dry-erase markers, construction paper, that particular combination of cleaning products and kid-sweat that defined elementary school classrooms everywhere.

The room itself was cheerful in that aggressively educational way. Alphabet posters were lined up along one wall with a science theme; A is for Atom, B is for bacteria, C is for comet. It went on and on. Then there was the periodic table on another, student artwork pinned to a cork board near the windows, bright colors everywhere. The desks were arranged in clusters of four. A smartboard at the front displayed a colorful diagram of the water cycle, complete with animated raindrops.

And children. So many actual children, unlike her. Twelve of them, scattered across the room in their desk clusters, most of them turned toward the front where a young Asian woman was teaching. It was difficult for Sabrina to pin down her exact age, but she would guess low twenties . . . Younger than her, but easily commanding a room of kids. She was seen as an adult, unlike Sabrina. The young woman stood beside the smartboard, wearing a lilac accordion-pleated skirt that fell to mid-calf, and an ivory blouse. Her dark hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail, and she held a dry-erase marker in one hand. Even from across the room, Sabrina could see that she was taller than herself, an average height for a woman not nearly as tall as her freakish assistant Elena. And this teacher got to wear sensible two inch heels while her expensive shoes had gone missing.

“And that is why we see clouds forming at different altitudes,” the woman was saying, her accent lilting softly through her words. The Japanese inflection slightly changed how some words would normally sound in English, while still sounding clear and perfectly paced for the age of the kids she was teaching. “The water vapor rises, cools down, and . . . Oh!” She trailed off from the lesson as she noticed the door opening. She saw Mrs. Hatcher, the person in charge of the faculty for the lower grades, standing there with the potential new student half-hidden behind her. “Mrs. Hatcher! Come in, come in.”

The children's attention shifted immediately. Twelve pairs of eyes swiveled toward the door.

Having a room full of people focused on her was normally Sabrina's domain, only with adults in a meeting she commanded. Under normal circumstances, she would never willingly put herself in a situation where she’d be standing before a group of snot-nosed kids. And now she was doing so while wearing a diaper, after soiling herself less than an hour ago. The moment made her stomach drop. ‘No, no, no, no; don’t look at me.’

"Ms. Fujina," Mrs. Hatcher said, her voice carrying that same professional warmth she had used before. "I have your potential new student. This is Sabrina Thorne." The slight emphasis on the last name, Elena's last name, not her own, irritated Sabrina. At the same time, she didn't want anyone connecting how she looked now to her true self. Of course, Elena had put that on the paperwork, because using ‘Holloway’ would raise questions, and potentially create connections that couldn't exist if this nightmare was going to work. "She prefers to be called Rina," The stern administrator added.

Rina. The nickname landed like a slap. Sabrina had never been ‘Rina’ in her life. ‘Sabrina’ was already informal enough; she'd spent years training people to use her last name, to show her the proper respect or to not talk to her at all. But now she was once more introduced as Rina. A child's name; a diminutization of who she was at her core.

Ms. Fujina's face lit up with a smile that seemed genuinely warm. "Rina! Welcome!" She set down her marker and crossed the room in a few long strides, her heels clicking softly against the linoleum. Up close, she was even younger than Sabrina had thought, maybe twenty-two or three. Barely out of college. "We're so excited to have you visit today. I'm Ms. Hana Fujina. You can call me Ms.Hana or Ms. Fujina." She extended her hand. “Please forgive my accent; this is my first year in America. If you need me to repeat something, just say so.”

Sabrina stared at the offered hand. The medication made everything feel distant, like she was watching this happen to someone else. Even through the fog, however, she could feel the wrongness of it. This woman, this girl who was younger than her, taller than her, standing there in professional clothes while Sabrina wore a plaid jumper and light-up sneakers. Her hand moved, taking Ms. Fujina's in a brief, limp shake.

"There's an empty desk right over there," the teacher said, gesturing toward a cluster near the windows. "Next to Maya. Maya, can you wave?"

A girl with dark braids and a gap-toothed smile raised her hand enthusiastically.

"Perfect," Mrs. Hatcher said, giving Sabrina's shoulder one last squeeze. "I'll leave you in Ms. Fujina's capable hands, dear. Have a wonderful time, I will see you again after class." Then she was gone, the door closing behind her, leaving Sabrina in a class full of fourth graders. Students she was expected to go sit with. The door wasn't loud, yet the sound of it still echoed in her mind, sounding like a finality of sorts.

Sabrina stood frozen in the doorway, twelve pairs of eyes still fixed on her; the reality of it crashed over her in a wave that the medication couldn't quite suppress. She was alone. Elena was in that conference room with Mr. Sterling, discussing god-knew-what, and Sabrina was here, in a fourth-grade classroom, expected to sit and learn, like she belonged here.

"Come on in, Rina," Ms. Fujina said gently, "Don't be shy. We're just learning about the water cycle. Have you studied that before?"

Sabrina's mouth opened. Closed. No sound came out.

One of the boys, a kid with red hair and freckles, leaned over to whisper something to his neighbor. They both giggled.

"Rina?" Ms. Fujina prompted, her smile still in place but with a slight note of concern creeping in. "Don't worry, everyone is here to learn. Your desk is right there, sweetie. Why don't you go ahead and sit down?"

The word ‘sweetie’ was said in the same tone the word should indicate, but it felt so condescending. The word jolted her into motion. Sabrina's legs carried her forward on autopilot, her light-up sneakers flashing with each step. Flash, flash, flash, announcing her presence to every single person in the room. The children tracked her movement. Some of them smiled. One girl, taller than Sabrina by at least an inch, stared with open curiosity.

The empty desk was in the second cluster from the windows. Sabrina slid into the chair carefully, not wanting the sound of the diaper to alert those close to her of its presence. Her hands immediately gripped the edge of the desk, and she tried very hard not to look at anyone.

The chair was attached to the desk, fitting her perfectly in a way so few did with her height. That struck her as a negative, not a positive. 'It's made to fit children, and it is the perfect size; my feet aren’t hanging in the air.'

"Wonderful," Ms. Fujina said, already turning back toward the smartboard. "Okay, everyone. Let's give Rina a chance to settle in and get back to our lesson. We were talking about condensation. Who can remind me what that means?"

Several hands shot up. Sabrina stared at the desk surface. Someone had carved a tiny heart into the corner, the kind of mindless vandalism that happened in every school everywhere. Her vision blurred slightly; the lesson meant nothing to her. Without even considering what she was doing, she let the voice faded into the background.

‘Elena promised. She promised to take me home after this. Just get through this. Just sit here and wait and then Elena will come back and we'll leave and . . .’ The thought was interrupted as someone spoke to her, as the teacher was still saying something about water.

"Hi!" The whisper came from her right. Sabrina's head swiveled in the voice’s direction.

The girl that had waved before, Maya, as Ms. Fujina had called her, was leaning across the gap between their desks. Her dark eyes were bright with interest. She looked about nine, maybe ten, with the kind of unselfconscious friendliness that only children seemed to possess. "I'm Maya," she whispered, even though Ms. Fujina had already introduced her, "I like your hair! The braid is so pretty. Did your mommy do it?"

Sabrina stared at her. ‘Did your mommy do it?’ the question echoed in her mind. The question was so absurd, so completely disconnected from reality, that for a moment Sabrina couldn't process it. ‘My mom? She hasn't braided my hair since I was eight years old, and even then it had been a nanny who'd done most of the work, and . . .’

"Maya," Ms. Fujina's voice cut through the fog, gentle but firm, "Rina. I know it's exciting to meet a possible new student, a new friend, but I need both of you to pay attention to the lesson, please. We'll have time to chat during recess."

‘Recess?’ The word and the implication of it threw the young woman for a loop.

Maya gave Sabrina an apologetic smile and turned back toward the front, where Ms. Fujina had resumed her explanation of the water cycle. Something about evaporation and temperature, molecules moving faster when they are heated up.

Sabrina slowly blinked, a part of her trying to give the pretty Asian woman her attention. Trying to make sense of the words. But everything felt distant and muffled, like she was underwater; the only thing that felt real was the pull-up pressing against her skin and the knowledge that she was sitting in a classroom full of children, dressed like them, expected to be one of them.

‘The giraffe promised. Just get through this.’

The minutes crawled by. Ms. Fujina's voice rose and fell in that practiced teacher cadence, asking questions, calling on students, praising correct answers. The smartboard cycled through diagrams. A boy in the front row asked if clouds were made of cotton candy. Everyone laughed.

Sabrina sat perfectly still, feeling awkward and out of place, her hands still gripping the sides of her hard plastic seat, trying to will herself to disappear.

" . . . and that's why we see rain!" Ms. Fujina concluded, capping her marker with a flourish. "Now, I want everyone to take out your science journals and draw your own water cycle diagram. Make sure to label each stage. Evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection. You have fifteen minutes."

The classroom erupted into motion as each of the students did as they were asked, more than used to her odd accent, desk lids lifted. Pencil cases unzipped. Papers rustled.

Sabrina still didn't move. ‘I'm an adult. I’m an adult, not a student.’ She didn't have a science journal. She didn't have anything except a notebook, colored pencils, and crayons in the stupid backpack that she had forgotten about until just then.

"Psst. Rina." Maya again. Leaning over, her journal was already open in front of her, a pencil in her hand.

"Do you need paper? I have extra." She was already reaching into her desk, pulling out a sheet of lined notebook paper. "Here! Ms. Fujina won't mind if you use regular paper for today since you're new." She held it out, smiling.

Sabrina looked at the paper. At Maya's eager, friendly face. At the other children around them, all busy with their assignments, all perfectly comfortable in this space that felt like a nightmare.

"I'm in Mrs. Rodriguez's class, usually," Maya continued, apparently taking Sabrina's silence as an invitation to keep talking, "But she's out sick today, so we're combined with Ms. Fujina's class. Are you going to be in Ms. Fujina's class? Or Mrs. Rodriguez's? What grade are you in? You look like you might be a fifth grader, but you're kind of small so maybe fourth? I have a cousin who's small for her age, too. She's really good at gymnastics though. Do you do gymnastics? I tried it, but I wasn't very good. I like soccer better. Do you like soccer?"

The words tumbled out in a breathless rush. Sabrina felt something more crack inside her chest; not the medication-dampened panic, but something that raised an alarm, something that cut through the fog with sudden, vicious clarity.

‘This child is trying to befriend me. This nine-year-old is asking about soccer and gymnastics and treating me like a peer, like someone who belonged here, like . . .’ "Leave me alone," Sabrina said. Her voice came out flat. She didn’t reach for the offered paper.

Maya blinked. "Oh. Um. Okay." She pulled back slightly, the paper still extended between them. "I was just trying to be nice. You looked kind of sad and I thought . . . " She stopped talking as she was cut off.

"I don't care what you thought. Leave me alone," she snapped, part of her almost moving to unzip the backpack to show the girl she had her own paper. It was ridiculous that she was here, and she didn’t really need to do the school work.

"Fine." Maya's expression shifted, the friendliness cooling into something more guarded. She set the paper on Sabrina's desk anyway, then turned back to her own work. "But that isn't how you make friends," she added, not quite under her breath, "And the school rules say to be kind to your peers."

‘Peers.’ The word detonated in Sabrina's brain, repeating. ‘Peers.’ This child, this nine-year-old with her gap-toothed smile and her soccer stories and her concern about making friends, had just called them peers. She had just put them on the same level. Had just confirmed, with perfect childish logic, exactly what this entire nightmare was designed to make Sabrina believe–that she belonged here. That she was one of them. That she was a fourth grader who needed to follow the school rules and be kind to her peers. ‘I have a masters degree!’

"Shut up," Sabrina hissed. The words came out louder than she'd intended. Sharp enough to cut through the ambient classroom noise. Loud enough that Ms. Fujina heard.

The teacher's head turned, her expression shifting from pleasant focus to something more alert. Her eyes found Sabrina immediately. "Rina?" Ms. Fujina's voice was still gentle, but there was a new note in it, something firmer, more authoritative. "Can you come up here and talk to me for a moment, please?"

The classroom went quiet.

Not completely silent; there were still pencils scratching, papers rustling, but it was quiet enough that Sabrina could feel the attention shifting toward her again. Could feel the weight of focus being on her. Her heart started to pick up the pace, almost getting to the point it hammered against her ribs. ‘No. No no no!’

"Rina," Ms. Fujina repeated, and this time it wasn't a question, "Come here, please."

Sabrina's hands released the chair, sliding along the desk. Her legs moved, sliding out of the chair, stepping across the space between the desk clusters and the front of the room. Her sneakers flashed with each step. Flash, flash, flash.

Ms. Fujina waited by her desk, her expression calm but serious. Up close, the height difference was even more pronounced. Sabrina had to tilt her head back to meet the teacher's eyes. There was so much wrongness about it all; so much humiliation from looking up at someone who was younger than her, who should have been beneath her in every possible hierarchy.

"Rina," Ms. Fujina said quietly, crouching down slightly so they were closer to eye level. "I heard what you said to Maya. We don't tell other students to shut up in this classroom. That's not kind, and it's not respectful. Do you understand?"

Sabrina stared at her.

“I will give you a demerit slip. You can do better.”

Moving her lips, Sabrina found no words coming out as she was admonished and told she was getting a demerit. Whatever that was. Something was wrong; it was difficult to organize her thoughts into anything coherent, and beneath the fog there was a scream building, a desperate need to explain. That she wasn't supposed to be here, that she was twenty-six years old and a Director of Operations, that she didn't need to be lectured about kindness by someone who was barely out of college.

"I know it can be difficult being the new student," Ms. Fujina continued, her voice softening slightly. "And I know Maya can be a little chatty sometimes. But she was trying to be welcoming. She was trying to help you feel included. And when someone does that, we respond with kindness. Okay?"

The word hung in the air between them, waiting for Sabrina's agreement, waiting for her to accept this reality where she was a student and Ms. Fujina was her teacher and Maya was her peer. Sabrina's mouth opened. Once more, nothing came out.

"Rina?" Ms. Fujina prompted. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Behind them, the classroom had gone almost completely silent now. Everyone was watching. Everyone was waiting to see what would happen to the new girl who'd told Maya to shut up.

Half turning to the side so she could see the brats, Sabrina shook her head. None of this was okay.

Ms. Fujina straightened up slowly, her expression shifting from gentle encouragement to something more measured. Not angry, exactly, but disappointed in that particular way teachers had perfected over generations. "I see," she said quietly, "Well, that's very unfortunate, Rina. Because you were mean to Maya. She's another student here, someone you should be trying to make friends with." She paused, studying Sabrina's face with a thoughtful expression. "When you were in the office with Mrs. Hatcher, did you sign the school guide? The student behavior expectations?"

Sabrina blinked, the medication making her thoughts move like molasses. She remembered Elena pushing papers in front of her, telling her to sign. Multiple forms. She'd signed something, the memory of using the wrong name clear in her sluggish mind, it didn’t matter, none of this did. "Yes," she managed.

"Did you read it before you signed?"

The question hung there. Sabrina's mouth felt dry. "No."

Ms. Fujina's expression softened into something that looked almost like concern. "Okay. That's okay, Rina. I know reading can be hard for some students." She spoke slowly, carefully, the way someone might explain something to a child who struggled. "Many kids come from public schools where they're below where they should be. There's no shame in that. But we still need to go over the rules."

'She thinks I can't read,' Sabrina realized with dawning horror. 'She thinks I'm fucking illiterate!'

"Our school has three main rules," Ms. Fujina continued, holding up fingers as she counted. "One, be kind to your peers. Two, Respect your teachers and all adults. Three, try your best in all your work. These rules help everyone feel safe and respected. Do you understand?"

Sabrina stared at her, unable to form words. Her hands balled into fists, just about done with this bullshit. The ridiculous promise to be a little girl to Thorne was present in her mind, which was bullshit as well. That still mattered more than anything the fourth grade science teacher with her sickly sweet attitude had to say; at least Elena was trying to help in her inane failing way. For now, Elena had leverage. That would be gone soon enough, and Sabrina could get her fired.

"The thing is, Rina, even though I've explained the rules now, you still broke the first one. You were not kind to Maya. So I still need to give you a demerit." Turning and walking to her desk, Hana’s heels clicked against the linoleum. She opened the drawer, pulling out a small pad of pre-printed forms, pale yellow carbon copies. Ms. Fujina clicked a pen and filled one out with quick, efficient strokes.

The sound of walking in high heels was so familiar to Sabrina. She didn’t own the sound, but since she was a teen it was what she heard with every step. Now she was in children’s shoes that still left her feet a bit sore after wearing nothing but four to five inch heels for so long. Now this woman made that sound, instead of her. 'No. No, this isn't . . .' Sabrina's thoughts scattered like marbles. 'I don't get demerits. I give performance reviews. I terminate contracts. I don't-'

Ms. Fujina returned, the slip in her hand. "Normally, a parent or guardian has to sign this," she explained, her voice taking on that careful, educational tone again. "But for you, Rina, this is more about education. About learning our rules. So please put this in your backpack, and we'll talk about it more later."

She held out the slip. Sabrina stared at it, at the neat handwriting documenting her supposed failure to be kind to her peer. Maya Chen, age 9, fourth grade.

"Now, there are punishments for demerits," Ms. Fujina continued, "Since you didn't read the guidelines before signing, would you like one of the students to go over them with you? Maya is very good at explaining things, or . . ."

"No." The word burst out before the woman could go on. Being treated like a child was once again starting to feel like too much. “I’m not a student. Listen, lady. I have a college degree.”

Hana’s expression shifted. Not to shock or concern, but to something almost amused. A small smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. "A college degree?" she repeated, her tone gentle and patronizing. "Well, that's something big kids get, Rina. But I would love it if that were true for you someday. For now, though, please take the demerit and put it in your backpack."

'She doesn't believe me; of course she doesn't. How is she and everyone too blind and stupid to see the truth?!’ The realization crashed through her with brutal clarity. 'She thinks I'm making it up. She thinks I'm a child with an overactive imagination.' And worse, so much worse, was the understanding that followed. Telling the truth had made everything worse. The claim about her degree hadn't convinced the Japanese woman she was an adult. Instead, it had convinced her that Sabrina was a troubled child who needed extra patience, extra understanding; the kind of gentle correction reserved for kids who told elaborate lies about being princesses or superheroes.

'I have a masters degree!' Sabrina's mind screamed, 'I have a masters in business administration from a top-tier program. I manage logistics contracts worth millions. I have an office with my name on the door. I have employees. I have a 401k. I have a car payment. I have . . . ' But none of that mattered. None of it existed in this room. Here, she was Rina, a fourth-grader who'd been mean to another student and was now acting out, claiming impossible things to avoid consequences.

The medication made her thoughts move like syrup, made it hard to find the words that would explain, that would make Ms. Fujina understand. How could she prove it? What could she say that wouldn't sound exactly like something a child would say? 'I'm really an adult, I promise. I have a job and everything!' Even in her own head, it sounded pathetic.

Behind her, she could hear whispers starting up. Soft, curious murmurs from the other students.

" . . . said she has a college degree . . . "

" . . . that's what my dad got when he went back to school."

" . . . Such a liar . . . "

Maya's voice was quieter than the others, but still audible. "She was really mean. I was just trying to be nice."

Sabrina's hands remained at her sides, the demerit slip still extended toward her in the teacher’s hand. Her fingers wouldn't move. Couldn't move. Taking it would mean accepting this, accepting that she was a student who'd misbehaved, accepting that she belonged here. But not taking it . . . 'What happens if I refuse? What happens if I just stand here?'

Ms. Fujina's expression shifted slightly, the gentle amusement fading into something more practical. "Rina," she said, her voice still kind but with a note of finality, "I need you to take the demerit now. We need to get back to our lesson."

Sabrina's mouth opened. "I'm not-" she started, but the words tangled in her throat. 'I'm not a child' would sound exactly like something a child would say. 'I'm an executive' would sound like fantasy. 'I'm twenty-six years old' would be met with that same patronizing smile. Every truth would come across as a fantasy or a lie . . .

"Rina." Ms. Fujina's tone shifted, not harsh, but more firm. The kind of voice that expected compliance. When Sabrina still didn't move, didn't reach for the slip, Ms. Fujina made a small sound of understanding. "Okay, sweetie. I can see this is hard for you. Let me help." She stepped around Sabrina, moving toward the desk cluster where Sabrina's backpack sat on the floor beside her chair.

'No. No no no, don't!'

Hana’s dark hair draped over part of her face as she picked up the backpack, a small iridescent thing with a unicorn that Elena had provided. The sound of the zipper seemed impossibly loud in the quiet classroom. She slipped the demerit inside, nestling it between the notebook and the pencil case, then zipped it closed again and set it back down.

"There," she said, straightening up and returning to where Sabrina stood frozen. "All done. Your guardian will see it when you get home, and we'll talk about how you can do better at the end of class. For now, let's get back to work, okay?"

She placed a hand on Sabrina's shoulder, gently steering her back toward her desk. The touch was kind, less firm than how the administrator did it, but Sabrina still hated being touched without permission. It made her want to scream. The walk back to her desk felt endless. Flash, flash, flash went her sneakers. Every eye in the classroom tracked her movement. She could feel their curiosity, their judgment, their fascination with the new girl who'd gotten in trouble on her very first day. When she reached her chair, she sank into it mechanically, her hands gripping the edge of the desk again.

"All right, everyone," Ms. Fujina said, her voice bright and professional as she returned to the front of the room. "That's enough excitement for today. Let's get back to our water cycle diagrams. You have ten minutes left. Make sure everything is labeled clearly."

The classroom settled into focused work. Around Sabrina, pencils moved across paper with the easy confidence of children who'd been paying attention, who knew exactly what they were supposed to do. She could hear the soft scratch of graphite, the occasional whisper of someone asking to borrow an eraser, the rustle of papers being adjusted.

Not moving now that she was sitting once more, other than to shake her head, Sabrina wanted to take no part in this. Her eyes were unfocused as she stared at the wood grain. The backpack sat beside her chair like an accusation. Inside it, the demerit slip waited. 'Just sit here. Just wait. Wait it out.'

"Rina?" Ms. Fujina's voice cut through Sabrina’s thoughts. Jerking her head up, she could see the teacher was still standing a few feet away, her expression concerned. "Sweetie, you need to start your diagram. You don't have your things out."

Sabrina stared at her. ‘My things?’ she asked herself.

"Maya," Ms. Fujina said, turning slightly toward the girl at the next desk, "Cou;d you please explain the assignment to Rina? She missed part of the lesson, so she might need help understanding what to draw."

Maya looked up from her own paper, where a neat diagram was already taking shape. Clouds labeled in careful print, arrows showing the movement of water. Her expression was uncertain, guarded. "Um. Okay, Ms. Hana." She turned toward Sabrina, her voice quieter now, less enthusiastic than before. "So, we're supposed to draw the water cycle. You know, like . . . Water evaporates from the ocean or lakes, then it goes up and makes clouds, and then it rains, and the water goes back to the ocean. And you have to label each part. Evaporation, con-den-say-tion, Pre-sip . . . Umm, pre-sip-uh-tation, and collection."

The words were careful as she corrected herself, adding extra syllables on some of the words the way a child might explain something they'd just learned themselves.

"I don't need your help," Sabrina said flatly.

Maya blinked. "Oh. Um. Okay." She glanced toward the teacher, uncertain.

"Rina," Ms. Fujina said, her voice still gentle but with that note of firmness underneath. "Maya is trying to help you. But if you don't want her explanation, that's fine. You still need to complete the assignment. The diagram is on the smartboard if you need a reference. Please get started."

Sabrina's jaw tightened. Her hands reached down for the god awful backpack, pulling it up with movements that felt mechanical, disconnected. The zipper opened. Inside, nestled among the supplies Elena had packed, were the notebook, the crayons, the colored pencils and now a demerit slip. Whatever that meant. No regular pencils, no pens; just children’s art supplies.

Pulling out the colored pencils, which at least had actual points unlike the thick waxy crayons and the notebook, she set them on the desk. The paper Maya had offered earlier still sat there, untouched. Sabrina pushed it aside and opened the notebook to a blank page, the one right after her terrible drawing she started earlier. Around her, the students continued working. The sound of their productivity felt like pressure against her skull.

'This is insane. I'm a college graduate. I have a masters degree. I shouldn't be sitting here with colored pencils drawing a diagram about rain.' Yet her hand moved anyway, picking up a blue pencil. She stared at the blank page. Water cycle. She knew this. Everyone knew this. Water evaporated, rose into the air, formed clouds, and fell as rain. Basic science. Elementary school science. Literally. But, drawing it . . .

Her hand hovered over the paper. ‘Where do I start? With the ocean? With the sun?’ The smartboard diagram showed a cross-section view. Water at the bottom, sun at the top, arrows indicating movement. Labels in neat print. Evaporation. Condensation. Precipitation. Collection.

'Evaporation. That's when water turns to vapor. Condensation is . . . clouds forming? Or is that- No, condensation is when the vapor cools and becomes liquid again. Precipitation is rain. Collection is . . .' The medication made her thoughts slow, made it hard to hold all the pieces in her mind at once. She knew this. She'd learned this in school, actual school, when she was a child herself. But now, trying to recall the exact terms, the exact sequence, felt like reaching for something on a high shelf, just out of reach.

She drew a wavy line at the bottom of the page. ‘Ocean. Easy enough. Then what?’

Her eyes flicked toward the smartboard, trying to be subtle about it, trying not to look like she needed help. The diagram was still there, colorful and clear. She could see the arrows, the labels, but from this distance the text was small. 'Draw something with the answers in view for everyone, please. How stupid is this and yet . . . I can't ask. I can't look like I don't know this. I can't give them more ammunition.'

She drew the sun in the corner. Added some wavy lines rising from the ocean. ‘That was evaporation, water vapor rising, then a cloud.’ She labeled it, her handwriting not staying in a straight line, looking uncertain with the colored pencil. "Evaporation."

‘No, wait. The cloud wasn't evaporation. The cloud was condensation.’ She scribbled it out, the blue pencil leaving a messy smudge. She started again. Around her, other students were finishing. She could see Maya's completed diagram out of the corner of her eye, neat and colorful and correct. A boy across from her was adding decorative details to his sun, making it smile with a pair of dark sunglasses on its new face.

Sabrina's hand tightened on the pencil. Her diagram looked like a mess. The proportions were wrong, the labels were in the wrong places. She couldn't remember if "collection" meant water gathering in the ocean or water gathering in clouds or something else entirely. 'This is fourth-grade science. I should be able to do this in my sleep. Why can't I-'

But she knew why. It was stupid. She didn’t need to retain information on why it rained; she only needed to know how to look up what the weather was going to be like on her phone . . . the phone she didn’t have. The sheer emotional weight of sitting there was a lot. Dressed like a child, treated like a child, expected to perform like a child, all while her adult mind screamed in the background. ‘This is wrong, all of this is wrong.’

She added another label. Drew another arrow. It didn't look right. None of it looked right.

"Two minutes," Ms. Fujina announced from the front of the room.

Sabrina's pencil moved more quickly, more desperately. She didn't care if it was correct anymore. She just needed it to be done. Needed this to be over. The classroom continued stirring as the students worked. Pencils scratching, papers rustled. A boy in the front asked if it was okay that he used colored markers for his diagram. Ms. Fujina said yes, that was lovely.

The institutional machine moved forward, uncaring, as if nothing significant was happening at all.

Sabrina sat fidgeting with a purple colored pencil, staring at nothing. The backpack sat on the floor beside her chair. Inside it, nestled between school supplies she would never use, was a demerit slip documenting a behavioral problem–a failure to be kind to her peers. A slip that required a guardian's signature.

‘Does Thorne really need to sign it? No, what am I thinking? This doesn’t matter and she is no guardian of mine; she is nothing but my assistant. The stupid giraffe would so sign it with a smile or fake concern on her face, and then she'd use it. Another piece of leverage. More proof that I can’t be trusted to behave like an adult, that I need supervision, that I need . . . I can't do this. I can't. I can't.'

The thing was though, she was doing it. She was sitting there, in a fourth-grade classroom, with a demerit in her backpack and twelve actual children around her. All of them believed she was one of them. If she wanted to tell them the truth, none of them would believe her, because she couldn't prove otherwise.

“Alright, class," Ms. Fujina's voice cut through the ambient noise, bright and authoritative, "Time is up! Please put your pencils down."

The scratching sounds ceased immediately. Around Sabrina, students set down their writing implements with the obedience of children who knew classroom routines. A few added last-minute touches, a final arrow, a decorative flourish on a cloud but most simply stopped, their diagrams complete.

Sabrina stared down at her own paper. The mess of blue and green colored pencil looked nothing like the neat diagrams surrounding her. Her ocean was a wobbly line. Her sun was lopsided. The arrows pointing from one stage to the next went in directions that didn't quite make sense, and the labels . . . She'd crossed out "Evaporation" twice, finally settling on writing it next to the wavy lines rising from the water, but now she wasn't sure if that was right. "Condensation" was smudged where she'd tried to erase it with her finger. "Precipitation" was spelled incorrectly; she'd written "Presipitation" before catching it and squeezing in the missing 'c' above the line. "Collection" sat at the bottom, but she'd drawn the arrow pointing the wrong way.

'It's wrong. It's all wrong. A fourth-grader could do better than this.' And they had. She could see it on every desk within her field of vision.

"Wonderful work, everyone," Ms. Fujina said, moving between the desk clusters with that easy teacher grace. "Now, I'm going to come around and correct your diagrams. When I get to your desk, please hold up your paper so I can see it clearly."

'No. No no no.' Sabrina's hands moved to cover her diagram instinctively, but that would only draw more attention. She forced them to rest in her lap feeling the cushioned pull-up under the uniform she shouldn't be wearing.

Hana started at the front of the room, moving methodically through the clusters. Each student held up their work when she approached. "Very good, James. Excellent labels." "Nice use of color, Sophie." "Perfect arrows showing the flow, Michael." The praise was genuine, warm; the kind of positive reinforcement that made children beam with pride. Sabrina watched as each student received their validation, their confirmation that they'd done well, that they understood, that they belonged.

The teacher moved closer. Two clusters away. Then one. Sabrina tried to avoid looking at her, just glaring down at her work. The medication made everything feel distant, enough to keep panic from overtaking her but not distant enough to suppress her shame. 'She's going to see it. She's going to see how badly I did. She's going to know I couldn't even complete a simple fourth-grade assignment.'

Ms. Fujina reached Maya's cluster. "Maya, let's see yours." Maya held up her paper proudly, and Ms. Fujina's smile brightened. "Excellent! Your labels are so neat, and I love how you added color to show the different stages. This is exactly what I was looking for."

Maya glowed. She glanced sideways at Sabrina, just for a moment. There was something in that look; not quite smugness, but a quiet satisfaction. Then the teacher turned to Sabrina. "Rina, may I see yours, please?"

It felt as if every eye in the cluster was on her. Sabrina's hands wouldn't move. Couldn't move.

"Sweetie?" Ms. Fujina's voice was gentle, patient. "It's okay. I just want to see what you did."

Slowly, mechanically, Sabrina's hands picked up the notebook. She held it up, the messy diagram on display for everyone to see. The smudges. The crossed-out labels. The arrows going nowhere. The misspelling.

Ms. Hana studied it for a long moment. Sabrina waited for the criticism, for the disappointment, for the confirmation that she'd failed even this simple task. But when the teacher spoke, her voice was warm. Encouraging. "This is a good start, Rina! I can see you understand the basic concept. Water goes up, forms clouds, comes back down. That's the most important part."

'A good start.' The words were meant to be kind, but they landed like stones. Not "good work." Not "excellent." A good start. The kind of thing you said to a struggling student who'd tried their best but hadn't quite gotten there.

"I can see you had a little trouble with some of the labels," Ms. Fujina continued, crouching down slightly so she was closer to Sabrina's eye level. "That's okay. These are big words, and spelling can be tricky. But you got the general idea, and that's what matters for today."

She reached out and tapped the paper gently with one finger. "Next time, try to make your arrows a little clearer so we can see which direction the water is moving. And remember, condensation is when the water vapor turns back into little droplets in the clouds. You had it labeled by the ocean, but it should be up here." She pointed to where Sabrina's cloud was drawn. "See?"

Sabrina nodded, the movement disconnected. 'She's explaining it to me like I'm a child who doesn't understand. Because that's what I am to her. That's what I am to everyone here.'

"But you did try, and that's what's important," Ms. Fujina said, straightening up, "I can tell you put effort into this, even though you missed part of the lesson. That shows good character, Rina. Keep working like that, and you'll do great here."

She moved on to the next student, leaving Sabrina sitting there with her "good start" diagram and her ‘participation trophy’ praise.

Around her, the other students had already moved on, putting their papers away, preparing for whatever came next. Maya was organizing her pencils back into her pencil case with meticulous care. The boy across from Sabrina was doodling on a scrap of paper, his completed diagram already tucked safely into his desk.

She looked down at her own work. At the messy, childish attempt that had earned her gentle correction and patronizing encouragement. 'I have a masters degree,' she thought again, but the words felt hollow now. Empty. What did a masters degree matter when she couldn't even draw a water cycle diagram without making a mess of it? Ripping the page from the notebook, she shoved it into the desk out of sight. She could remove it from her sight, but not from her mind.

"All right, class," Ms. Fujina announced from the front of the room, "Please put your science materials away. We're going to transition to reading time now. Everyone should have their reading book ready."

The classroom erupted into motion again. Desk lids lifted. Books emerged. The institutional rhythm continued, uncaring, unstoppable.

Sabrina wanted to yell “Fuck this.” ‘Reading time,' she thought distantly. 'What fresh hell is reading time?'

But she already knew. She was going to find out. Because she was here, in this classroom, expected to participate. Expected to be a student.

Chapter Sixteen

Ms. Fujina's heeled footsteps approached Sabrina once again, the soft click of her shoes against the linoleum floor making Sabrina's expression turn into a scowl. She didn't look up, couldn’t bring herself to look up into her stupid smiling face. The water cycle diagram was still burning in her mind, the gentle correction still echoing in her ears.

"Rina?"

The childish nickname version of her own name landed like a stone in her chest. Not Sabrina. Not Director Halloway. Rina. The diminutive that had somehow become her identity in this nightmare. She glanced up, the scowl still in place.

Hana stood beside her desk, holding a stapled packet of papers. The pages were crisp and white, official-looking, with the school's logo printed at the top. "I have something for you," the teacher said, her voice warm and encouraging, "While the class does reading time . . . For you, I have this. It’s just a standard assessment we give all potential new students. It helps us understand where you are academically so we can support you properly."

Sabrina stared at the packet. An assessment of her. The word should have been laughable. She was a college graduate; she had a master's degree in business administration. She'd negotiated million-dollar contracts and managed complex financial portfolios and was a leader of people.

And now she was being handed an elementary school assessment test.

"Take your time," The teacher continued, setting the packet on Sabrina's desk, "And make sure you read all the directions carefully, okay?"

The words felt patronizing, like something you'd tell a child who couldn't be trusted to follow simple instructions. 'I'm a fucking adult!,' Sabrina thought, the words sharp and defensive in her mind. 'I know how to read directions.'

With a gentle and patient expression, Hana looked down at the ten-year-old, feeling like she wanted to help. "Do you have everything you need? Pencil, eraser?"

Pride flaring hot, Sabrina shook her head. Of course she had what she needed. She wasn't an idiot. ‘I’m not some unprepared child who showed up to school without basic supplies,’ she thought. Her pride made her forget how ill-prepared she truly was.

"No, I'm fine," she said, the words coming out clipped and certain.

Ms. Fujina smiled. "Wonderful. Just raise your hand if you need anything." She moved away, her attention shifting to another student who was waving their hand in the air.

Sabrina looked down at the assessment packet. The cover page listed three sections: English, Science, Math. Elementary subjects. Child's work. 'Finally,' she thought, a spark of defiance igniting in her chest, 'Finally something I can actually demolish. Something I can use to prove I don't belong here.' So much had been stripped from her, and the classwork sat heavy in her mind, making her feel . . . making her need to prove she was actually above it all.

She reached for the backpack. The unicorn-adorned monstrosity wasn’t even something Elena had insisted on; her assistant had just put it on her out in the parking lot. Sabrina’s fingers found the zipper and pulled it open. Inside, she could see the multi-set box of crayons and colored pencils, the waxy sticks visible through the clear plastic window of the packaging. Then there was the notebook and the demerit slip, but there were no real pencils or pens to be found.

'Shit.'

Her jaw tightened. She wasn’t about to ask the teacher, a person younger than her that ran the classroom. Not now. Not after she'd just said she was fine, that she had everything she needed. Asking now would make her look stupid and/or incompetent. She stared at the colored pencils in the bag for a moment, her mind working through the problem. ‘A colored pencil will work. It’s still a pencil; it will still make marks on paper. The color doesn’t matter; what matters is proving how trivial this all is.’

Sabrina pulled out a blue colored pencil, its tip sharp. She set it on her desk with deliberate confidence, as if she'd chosen it intentionally. 'It's fine. I'll make it work.'

Turning to the first page of the assessment packet, Sabrina began reading the English section. Vocabulary matching. It appeared so simple she couldn't help rolling her eyes, easily knowing every word on this list. The colored pencil hurriedly moved across the paper; the answers came easily. She matched "ephemeral" with "lasting a short time," "obfuscate" with "to confuse or obscure." The blue pencil glided across the page, leaving a trail of color in uneven lines, but she was sure all the answers were correct.

Then she reached the fifth word, matching “Peculiar” with its definition when her hand slipped slightly. The pencil jerked across the line, making the “C” look like an “O”.

“The fuck?” Sabrina whispered to herself, glaring at the mistake. One thing the school system had failed with for her was properly learning cursive. She had faked it long enough that she had tried the little flourish without thinking, botching the simple word. She looked at the mistake, her mind already calculating the fix. ‘Just erase it, and . . . ” Her thoughts trailed off as she looked at the end of the writing tool. Colored pencils didn’t have erasers; she couldn't erase it.

Sabrina tightened her grip on the pencil, her eyes locked on the mistake. The curve of the “O” mocked her, an obvious flaw she couldn’t undo. She drew a single line through the word, trying to keep it clean. Her second attempt writing above the crossed out mistake made the paper look worse in her eyes; it made it appear as if the spacing was off, and now the line crossed behind both attempts in a way that made it look cluttered. Staring at the paper, she cursed the writing utensil, as if it was at fault.

The next few vocabulary words blurred together. Not because they were difficult, but because her eyes wouldn’t stop flicking back to the crossed-out mess. Her hand moved more quickly, trying to push past it. The paper caught slightly under her palm as she wrote, the skin of her hand picking up faint smudges of blue.

The matching section ended, and the next page told her to write a paragraph. She read the prompt twice. ‘Describe your favorite season and explain why you like it.’ It sounded like something she would have been asked in second grade. Tapping the pencil, she began thinking about the answer. ‘Not winter. Too cold, and I don't care for Christmas . . . Not summer. Too hot, and all these brats are out of school. Fall . . . Sweater weather, when I can wear my designer boots. Yeah, that’s it. The start of the fourth quarter, when it’s time to shave off the dead weight. Layoffs always cut costs and secure department bonuses . . . ’ Her thoughts trailed off as she noticed a boy in the little desk cube glaring at her for tapping the pencil. Ignoring him, she began writing, determined to bury the test, this latest insult, with her intelligence.

She filled in the first line with, “My favorite season is autumn due to its temperate climate and aesthetically pleasing transformation of foliage.” The pencil dragged slightly where the pressure increased, and the sentence sloped down into the margin before it reached the end. Words that sounded polished in her head came out cramped, with uneven loops and inconsistent spacing. Each letter pressed harder than the last, she was forced to shrink the tail end of the sentence in order to fit the line.

Her second sentence began with “Additionally,” but the thought behind it flickered and dimmed before the midpoint. Instead of the polished phrasing she’d intended, the result turned into a jumble about fresh air, leaves, and thinking clearly, followed by the phrase “for calm and relacksing” written without hesitation, until the spelling error registered too late. A line slashed across it, leaving the mistake exposed under the smudge of blue.

The paragraph lost shape quickly after that. Attempts to rewrite resulted in layered words, one on top of the other. Inserting “seasonal clarity” seemed clever until the next phrase repeated “season” again, making the sentence sound clunky and rehearsed. The absence of an eraser turned each fix into another blemish, the pencil tip wearing down more quickly with each correction.

The muscles in her hand were cramping from the grip, but letting up wasn’t an option. A final attempt to close out the thought turned into a run-on sentence about pumpkins and sweaters and change, none of it as coherent as it had sounded seconds earlier. The final line veered sharply upward, cutting across the guide line as the paragraph ran out of space.

No adult would read it and see a businesswoman. No teacher would guess a graduate had written it. It was a total mess of overwritten thoughts and visible corrections, exactly the kind of thing they’d expect from a child trying too hard to impress.

She looked down at the paragraph again. She had repeated the word “transition” and left the last sentence hanging. Her hand reached for the margin and began scratching out the second half of the line. The colored pencil left a wide arc of blue, thicker than she meant. She cursed under her breath and tried to write over it, only to realize the sentence no longer made sense.

Her fingers tightened around the pencil, and she turned slightly in her chair.

“Maya,” she whispered, keeping her voice low, “Do you have a real pencil? One with an eraser?” The all too happy to help teacher had asked if she needed anything and Sabrina had practically shooed her away; now she needed a pencil to fix the problems caused by the stupid blue colored utensil.

Maya looked up quickly, already reaching into her desk. “Yeah! I’ve got one. My mom bought me a full box of them and then I used the pencil sharpener. It's sort of fun, but you can’t go too far. Did your mom forget to get you pencils?”

“Maya,” Ms. Hana’s voice interrupted softly from across the room, “I know you’re trying to help, but we don’t talk during reading time, remember?”

Maya stopped mid-motion, but still extended the pencil. Sabrina took it without a word. She turned back to her paper and pressed the eraser to the page, rubbing at the smudged line. The old writing didn’t vanish; it faded and smeared, leaving a blue-ish cloud that made the new words harder to read. Frustrated with the cheap eraser and its failure to eradicate the evidence, she erased again, harder this time. The paper started to wrinkle under the pressure.

Once more, the blue eyed young woman rewrote the line. Her wrist bumped the desk. The new sentence trailed into the margin. Another mistake. A glaring problem that made her press her lips together as she slowly shook her head. The eraser squeaked as she attacked the spot, and this time the paper tore slightly at the edge. Freezing, she let out a long breath. ‘You have got to be kidding me.’ Her other hand slid under the desk to smooth her skirt across her lap, feeling the wrongness of the pull up underneath.

She froze again, not daring to move once she felt it. In the quiet of the room, the light crinkling sounded way too loud, even with how it was muffled by the skirt. The fabric of the uniform was wrong; it was cheaper and stiffer than what she was used to, and it did nothing to help her frame look womanly. It was all wrong. The desk she sat at, being in this room along with the abysmal job she was doing on a test meant to understand a child's education level. ‘Fuck. FUCK! I ALMOST FORGOT ABOUT THE DIAPER.’ The thickness of the leak-protecting garment was present in the forefront of her mind once more. The humiliating truth no one else could see, but she couldn’t forget. Her shoulders sagged, and her handwriting collapsed further with each line.

‘Just finish the paragraph, this can be salvaged. I have fixed quarterly reports with more mistakes before. I’m just- just frustrated. God, I could use a drink.’ But it didn’t matter what she told herself; the damage was done. The paper was a mix of blue and gray writing with smudges across its surface, with almost as much on her writing hand from how it pressed and drifted over the surface of the paper as she wrote. The English portion of the test didn't look neat and orderly at all. There were scratched out lines, writing varying where it shouldn’t, and so on. There was also more of the test to do, and Sabrina wasn’t going to let this speed bump stop her from proving this whole thing was beneath her.

Turning the page brought momentary relief. The neatly printed questions of the science section offered the kind of structure that didn’t require neat handwriting or full paragraphs. She just had to make small deliberate marks next to the correct answers. The layout was clean and spaced, each question followed by four plainly written responses stacked in gentle lines beneath it. The whole thing was printed in that large, slightly condescending font used in materials for children still mastering long words. She stared at it for a moment, reminding herself this part would be easy. Factual, unambiguous; something a grown woman like her could dispatch in minutes without getting pulled into a spiral of smudges and sloppy cursive. She welcomed the clarity of it.

The first question asked about the hottest planet in the solar system, and her eyes passed quickly over the choices. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter. She circled Mercury without hesitation, her internal logic confident. ‘Of course it’s Mercury; that’s the one closest to the sun.’ Whatever this test was trying to catch, it wouldn’t be clever enough to unseat what she believed to be common sense. Her foot tapped softly under the desk. Not in defiance or anxiety; it was just a movement that settled without permission and stayed even after she noticed it.

The next question took longer to land in her brain. The letters swam slightly as her eyes dragged across them, the phrasing too plain. She blinked twice, forcing herself to reread it more slowly. It was asking what created most of the Earth’s oxygen. Trees, oceans, flowers, or mountains. The borrowed pencil circled trees, the choice almost automatic, reinforced by years of public campaigns and climate debates and infographics filled with rainforest statistics. Her hand tightened slightly on the pencil, not from doubt but from the rising need to finish and move on, to get through this and prove something no one else in the room seemed interested in questioning. ‘I don't belong here. How does no one see that?!’

As she shifted in the seat, her skirt adjusted just slightly across her lap. With that movement came the same sound from before, the soft plastic rustle she had been unable to move past. The heat in her face returned instantly, flushing up the back of her neck. Her hand hovered over the next question for longer than she realized, eyes stuck on the surface of the page while her mind went sideways trying to tune out the sensation, the memory, the reality of what she was wearing under the uniform. Her focus faltered, and the question blurred again before she forced herself to read it. What is the main ingredient in household dust? Dirt from outside. Bits of clothing. Hair and pet fur. Dead skin cells.

She stared at the options, frowning faintly. Dirt made the most sense. People tracked it in on their shoes. It blew through the windows. She circled it and moved on before that faint tickle of memory could reach her fully. Something about skin cells she vaguely remembered reading once, though it felt like the kind of gross overstatement people liked to exaggerate, and she didn’t have the patience to pick it apart at the moment.

The next question asked which animal had more than one heart. Dog. Octopus. Cow. Elephant. She circled cow, her brain skipping to the connection between multiple stomachs and internal complexity, knowing it wasn’t exactly how biology worked but also not caring. Not in this room, not on this paper. The pencil dug into the page slightly as she moved to the next line, the pressure building in her fingertips as her body shifted again. Not enough to make noise, but enough to feel that constant low discomfort.

Each question asked less than the last. Which is hotter? The surface of the sun. Lava. Lightning. A firework explosion. She picked the sun, not out of confidence, but because she was tired of second-guessing. Tired of questions that looked simple and then tried to trap her with facts she hadn’t cared about since she was a kid. Circling it, her hand then dropped slightly from the motion. She noticed movement at the corner of her desk.

Maya wasn’t looking at her directly, but her elbow had nudged forward, and with it, a small folded note had appeared. Slid just barely across the space between their desks with an air of cautious pride that pretended to be subtle. There was no eye contact, no smirk or wink. The note rested halfway under Sabrina’s arm. She didn’t reach for it immediately. When she finally opened it, the crease cracked softly between her fingers.

Science section. Remember Pluto isn’t a planet. It’s stupid but true :)

The pencil in her hand didn’t move.

She had already passed a question asking which was not a planet and it had clearly been Pluto. She had known the answer before she even got to that question. The note didn’t help. It didn’t offer anything new. It just assumed she needed help. That she was someone who might forget. That she was someone who could use the reminder like some child..

No response formed in response to the passed note. No glare. No returned note. The line of her mouth thinned slightly, her hand gripping the pencil once more not to write but just to stop herself from tearing the paper in half.

Turning the page brought no satisfaction this time, only the next demand waiting in oversized print at the top of the sheet. The word “Math” sat bold and centered, followed by a second line in cheerful block letters reminding her that she must show her work to receive full credit. She barely gave it a glance. The first problem sat directly beneath it. Simple addition, single digits; nothing that required steps, explanation, or effort. She could do it before the average ten-year-old even finished reading the question aloud. ’How dumb are some of these kids for this to be a question?’

The pencil rolled once between her fingers, its weight still awkward from lack of practice. With a slightly too tight grip, she leaned in and wrote the answer in the space provided. The lines beneath it, left empty, waited for a justification she had no interest in giving. ‘Eight plus six, show my work. Please . . . The answer is right; only results matter. I’m not wasting my time scribbling out arithmetic for problems I could solve in my sleep.’

The next few followed the same rhythm. Simple two-digit subtraction, basic word problems about cookies or playgrounds or whatever else passed for math in this environment. One question asked which of two fractions was larger, both of them common enough that she didn’t have to pause. Three-fourths was more than two-thirds. It was obvious. She didn't need number lines or pie charts to sort that out.

Still, every answer landed in its tidy blank, with the space below it left untouched. The structure of the section made it seem like she was trying to cheat by being competent. The urge to fill in the extra space wasn’t just unnecessary; it felt insulting. She knew she was right. She wasn’t going to perform like a child learning how to carry numbers just because a set of printed lines told her to.

A sound to her right broke through the hum of her focus. A zipper tugged open. Plastic crinkled. The sound was odd enough that it pulled her attention. Her head turned on reflex, catching sight of the boy two desks over pulling a juice box from his lunchbox. The foil crinkled loudly as he peeled the straw wrapper, and the faint squeak of rubber soles followed as he squirmed in his seat to drink.

“That's for lunch, sweetheart,” Ms. Hana’s voice came, soft but firm as she approached, “Are you thirsty?”

The boy mumbled something, still holding the juice box close.

“And how do you ask to get a drink?”

Sabrina blinked down at her test. Her pencil hovered uselessly above the page. She hadn’t finished reading the next question, and now she was stuck on the phrasing again. The voice of the teacher carried too clearly. The scene unfolded with her cheerful, polite, calm, only made worse by the fact that it worked. The boy asked politely. Ms. Hana smiled and handed him a laminated hall pass from her desk. He left quietly, walking between rows. It felt like he, a real child, was getting to escape.

Her leg bounced harder beneath the desk, the subtle fidgeting outside her control. When her eyes returned to the test, the next question looked unfamiliar even though she had already read it. She skimmed it again and circled what she was pretty sure was the right answer, too annoyed to care if the numbers lined up exactly. The font was too wide. The cheap wood of the pencil in her hand was too light. Everything seemed designed to trip her up.

The final question was boxed in cartoon stars at the bottom of the page, signaling itself as the fun challenge, the special problem to end on. She already hated it. It was one of those long word problems packed with details and numbers meant to distract, the kind meant to test whether a student could pay attention more than whether they could calculate.

Lila buys 6 packs of gum. Each pack has 8 pieces. She gives 5 pieces to her brother and eats 3 herself. If gum costs two dollars per pack, and she has five dollars, how many pieces of gum does she have left?

Sabrina exhaled slowly through her nose, rereading it once to scan for the math, and again to figure out what parts didn’t matter. The money clearly didn’t. The question was about pieces of gum. So six packs times eight was forty-eight. Five to her brother, three to herself, minus eight total. That was forty. But the sentence order made her second-guess it. Her eyes flicked back up to the mention of the five dollars. Something about it snagged, like it was supposed to factor in. Her mind darted sideways for a moment, recalculating as if she needed to account for what she could afford, even though the gum was already bought. She caught herself, annoyed, and scribbled down thirty-eight.

If anything came back marked wrong, it would be because the question was poorly written. Or because the layout was childish. Or because she wasn’t given a real pencil from the start. She sat up straighter, pressing her thighs together, all too aware of the rustle beneath her skirt as the bulk of the pull-up shifted again. As usual, the sensation anchored her back in the physical reality of what she was wearing and where she was sitting.

Her fingers released the pencil as if it had burned her. The test was done. Every section and frustration endured. She didn’t want to sit there pretending to re-read her work like a nervous grade-schooler hoping for a gold star.

Sliding out of the seat, causing part of the lights on her shoes to flash as she stood up, she was immediately called out by the teacher.

“Rina,” Ms. Fujina’s voice carried lightly from across the room, calm but unmistakably corrective, “Please remain in your seat unless you’ve been given permission to get up.”

Being spoken to like that was insulting. The idea of needing permission to stand was outrageous. The paper crinkled in her hand as she glared at the young asian woman.

“I’m done,” she said, her voice clipped but still quieter than she wanted it to be, the words more muttered than declared.

“It’s polite to raise your hand if you need something,” the teacher replied gently, her tone never changing.

The correction dug under her skin more than the rule itself. Holding the test paper tightly in one hand, Sabrina sat back down with exaggerated care, then lifted her arm in the air. Each movement was deliberate and stiff, her elbow angled too sharply as if she were lifting a weight, rather than a hand. “I’m . . . ” she began, but didn’t get to finish.

“Pssst. Rina, you have to wait to be called on,” Maya whispered loudly from the next desk over, a note of cheerful correction in her voice as if she were passing on a helpful reminder.

Sabrina didn’t turn her head. Her hand remained raised. Her teeth clenched so tightly her jaw ached. Hana turned toward her a second later, finishing whatever it was she was looking at before smiling as if the interaction had been completely natural.

“Thank you, Rina. I see you’re finished, but we still have a few minutes before recess. Why don’t you go back over your test and check your answers? Sometimes we catch things we didn’t notice the first time.”

The tone was sweet, the suggestion harmless, but it made Sabrina’s skin crawl. She lowered her hand slowly, pressing it to her lap to hide the tension in her fingers. “No. I’m done!”

“Rina, please don’t argue, I would rather not give you another demerit. You are doing so well.”

The gently threatening reply was yet another infuriating blow to her dignity. If it wasn’t for the calming effects from what she had been given earlier, she might have cursed the woman out right there. Still, it wasn’t enough to stop her from snapping, “EXCUSE ME?!”