Incident In Mrs. King's First Grade Class

    I can remember the discussion in my babysitters dimly lit living room.
"Oh no. Are you sure she has Mrs. King!?" inquired Mrs. Sexton.
    "Yes. I have the letter at home," replied my concerned Japanese mother.
     "Oh God. Well you need to get her changed. That teacher hated Wendy. She was always picking on her for no reason," she informed my now terrified mother. "Oh yes," Mrs. Sexton continued, "she's crazy. She just decided to start picking on Wendy one day. Wendy had a miserable year last year. Mrs. King is the worst first grade teacher imaginable. Get Mari out of there!" she ranted as I listened on. I soon became petrified of the evil Mrs. King.

    My mom actually did try to get me switched out of Mrs. King's class. However, once she found out that Mrs. King taught only the best readers in first grade, Mom had second thoughts. Finally the first day of school came, and I was introduced to the dreaded, the frightening, the old Mrs. King.
Mrs. King had short brown curly hair. She wore it like the old ladies did in the television shows. She also wore thick glasses with thick brown rims. I was afraid to look right in her eyes for fear that she might label me a trouble-maker. I had grown very scared of old ladies in the soap operas... you know, the ones who stole babies and ruined everyones lives.
    For months I waited for the floodgates to open. Mrs. King surely was saving up all her evilness for me.
    And then it happened.
    She called my mother and asked her the one thing that could strike terror to any 6-year old heart: She asked my mother to come to school to talk to our class about being Japanese. OH MY GOD! Why me? How embarrassing to have all my new friends see and hear my funny little mother. She talked funny, wrote funny, and ate really, really funny food. Life was over as I knew it. I was to be labeled as weird. Mrs. King was truly evil.
    The night before the visit Mom cooked all evening making fried wontons, or gyozas, that made the house smell of hamburger, garlic, and soy sauce. She volunteered me to make onigiris. First I had to take a palm full of rice and place a pickle inside of it. Then I rolled the rice and covered each one with some seaweed paper. I begged and begged to not use the seaweed, but she insisted that our hands would get sticky if we didn't. I knew that my friends would call me crazy for eating black paper. I even imagined some of them choking on it, or even worse, throwing the food back at us. I slowly packed all the food into baking pans and watched morn cover them with foil.
    Later that night she made mc help pick out her kimono for the class visit. I grumpily agreed on the white kimono with the gold and red fish. She smiled and then chose the deep purple sash, or obi, and held it against the kimono. I thought it looked prettyin our house. I never dreamed that my new friends would ever see these strange costumes. She whisked the jewelry box from the top of her dresser and asked me to help her pick out her hair ornaments. I picked the shiny silver fan with the little metal danglies. She picked the black lacquer stick, which I thought looked like a chopstick except it had a jade green ball on the end.
    I really don't know if I even slept that night, because my mind kept thinking up of new and horrifying possibilities for the following day. Rejection was imminent.
    The next morning Mom was scurrying around the house, loading up the car, and mumbling to herself as she carefully wrapped the obi around her torso. I sat quietly on my bed, knowing that soon I would be the laughing stock of Clinton Young Elementary School.
    The car ride to school seemed only to take seconds, and we were soon trudging through the familiar halls on our way to Mrs. Kings door.
    Some moments are magic, and magic is best when it is unexpected.
    My mother turned to grin at me as we entered Mrs. King's room. To my surprise all the students sighed "Wow!" in unison as my mother stepped through the threshold in her colorful kimono. My new friends flocked around my mother touching her sleeves, her obi, and asking her about her hair ornaments, and I began to explain what they were. Suddenly I was the expert on being Japanese, and suddenly being Japanese was very, very cool.
    Mrs. King waited for a while for the discussion to die down and then asked us to take our seats. She then turned to my mother and asked Mom about the book she had brought. My mother pulled from the depths of the Blocks shopping bag a huge picture book that she had apparently checked out from the library. When did she get that?! Then the magic was explained; Mrs. King and Mom were in cahoots!
    Mom opened the book and slowly turned the pages while she described the mysterious country she called home. She showed us a picture of a funny pointed mountain, which she explained was a volcano with snow at the top. On the next page she showed us a picture or two Japanese women in kimonos sharing tea. Mom then described the traditional tea ceremony. She put the book down and used her small Japanese hands to illustrate the turning of the cup three times and the proper way to take a drink. Then she showed us a picture of a grinning Japanese student. I remembered that I liked her uniform and I especially loved how her hair was gleaming black -- like mine.
    Mom surprised me again by going to the chalkboard and asked us to tell her what words to write in Japanese.
    "Book!"
    "Dog!"
    "Japanese!" exclaimed the excited students.
    Mom then scratched funny looking letters on the board and my classmates roared with delight. Soon they all wanted their names written in Japanese.
Mrs. King then asked us all to get in a circle around my mom who was sitting at a table with a flat wooden box in front of her. Mom slowly opened the case to expose a black stone, a brush with blond bristles, and a plastic square cup. She quickly scraped the black stone with another stone to make a black powder. She brushed the powder into the plastic cup and added a little water. Even I was mesmerized by the ceremony of making ink.
    She started to write our names with the brush on small white cards that Mrs. King handed to mom. Magically she began to draw the most beautiful characters on the cards. Gently she blew on the wet ink to dry it and soon everyone was sharing their new name. Mrs. King, or King-sensei, got her name written as well! Mrs. King suggested that we each take out a piece of paper and try to write our names in Japanese. Everyone turned to stare at mine, because they could tell that I was comfortable with the funny strokes.
    Finally, the class just had to take a break from all the fun and go for a restroom break. Mrs. King seemed to let us linger in the bathroom, and she gave us extra time at the water fountain. I remember a lot of the students saying that they were going to go to Japan someday and learn to write in the funny words. I even remember a lot of the students telling me that my mother was really pretty. I had always thought that she was just different. Mrs. King brought us to order with a huge smile -- very odd for Mrs. King. Of course we didn't know the surprise that waited for us in the room.
    As we quietly walked back to our room in the first grade hallway, I was able to smell gyozas. I heard squeals from the students walking into the room before me. My mother had laid out a Japanese feast on Mrs. Kings table. Oh, there were gyozas, rice balls, and boxes and boxes of my favorite Japanese candy.