She wanted to go to school with him. She wanted to don a gang jacket and sit in the back of the classroom with a bat so that everyone understood what would happen to them if they messed with her kid. She wanted to go in and give a speech she’d actually rehearsed over and over in her head. The rest of you may be gender-conforming children, she’d say, but you’re not nearly as smart, funny, or interesting as Claude, so you tell me which is better: awesome, dynamic boy in a skirt, or tiresome, whiny child with a runny nose who has nothing to offer but compliance. Instead—and this was probably for the best—she had to go to work.
But Penn went. That was another thing Claude wanted when asked. Yes, he wanted Penn to come to kindergarten for the day as long as he sat in the back and said nothing and left at lunchtime. So that’s what Penn did. He sat on an impossibly tiny chair, knees up by his shoulders, heart up in his throat, and sweated. It was three degrees outside.
“Welcome back, boys and girls. How was everyone’s break?” Miss Appleton enthused without waiting for any response. “I’m so glad to see your smiling faces. I hope everyone had fun, and I hope you’ve come back to school ready to learn. We have so many wonderful tasks and treats ahead. Now, I know a lot happened to some of us while we’ve been away. Susan lost her first tooth. Davis went with his grandparents to New York City. Carrie got a haircut. And Claude is going to be a fairy girl! We have so much to learn from one another, boys and girls.”
Everyone looked around at Susan, Carrie, and Claude. (A week in Manhattan seemed unlikely, even to kindergarteners, to yield anything interesting to look at.) Susan peeled back her bottom lip and stuck out her jaw like a monkey then helpfully pushed her tongue through the hole where her tooth had been. Carrie touched the back of her hair where her ponytail used to be. Claude smiled weakly at his shoes. The children wiggled.
“Does anyone have any questions they would like to ask? I would love to hear from boys and girls with their hands raised nicely who are sitting quietly on their pockets.”
Every hand in the room shot up but Claude’s.
“Let’s see,” said Miss Appleton. “Marybeth is raising her hand nicely.”
“Did the fairy come?” said Marybeth, and it took Penn a moment to understand that the fairy in question pertained to Susan’s tooth not Claude’s wings.
“Yup.” Gap-toothed Susan grinned. “She left me two dollars and a comic book.”
“Ooooh,” said the kindergarteners appreciatively.
“Next question,” said Miss Appleton. “Jason?”
Jason turned to Claude. “Are tights itchy? They look itchy.”
Claude flushed and shook his head.
“Very nice,” said Miss Appleton. “Who’s next? Alison?”
“Will Claude get long hair?” Alison asked her teacher.
“I don’t know, honey. Let’s ask him. Claude, do you plan to grow your hair out long like Alison’s? Or will you have medium hair like Carrie and Josh? Or will you keep your hair short like right now?”
“I don’t know,” Claude told his shoes, barely above a whisper.
“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see,” said Miss Appleton. “We have time for one more question. Elena?”
“Did you see the Statue of Liberty?” Elena asked Davis.
“No,” said Davis.
Miss Appleton clapped her hands together. “Boys and girls, you asked good questions, and you asked them nicely and quietly, so I’m putting a cookie token in our cookie jar to help us earn our cookie party. Now, let’s all find our math partners for Math Trays. Blue table, you may get up and get your math trays.…”
And that was it. No one looked askance at Claude. No one whispered something nasty. Claude’s brown jean skirt and wings were no more or less interesting than a trip to New York or a haircut or certainly an ordinary lost tooth (teeth got lost like tourists among the kindergarten set). They were, bless them, too self-involved to be invested in Claude’s identity crisis. They were too much five-year-olds to give a cookie token about anyone but themselves.
As he got in line for lunch, Claude sidled by Penn’s mini chair to whisper, “You can go home now, Dad.”
“You okay, baby?”
“Yup.”
“You sure?”
“Yup.”
“I’m proud of you, Claude.”
“I’m proud of you too, Daddy.”
*
The next morning Claude asked at breakfast, “How long will it take to grow hair down to my butt?”
And Rigel said, “How long will it take to grow hair on my butt?”
And Orion said, “Hairy butt, hairy butt.”
Claude was wearing a purple corduroy jumper over rainbow-striped tights. And he had shed his wings.
Naming Rights