The Other Side of the Card

The Other Side of the Card

1On my first morning at Alder Court School, I reached homeroom early enough to choose a desk near the door. My name, Nadira, was already printed on a folded card. I set it upright, then flattened it again. At my old school, people knew how to say my name before I entered a room. Here, even introducing myself felt like a test I had not studied for.

2Students arrived in clusters, continuing conversations that seemed to have started years ago. Ms. Vale handed out cards for a partner interview. “Find someone you haven't worked with,” she said. Chairs scraped across the floor. A boy with green ink on his thumb stopped beside my desk. “Wes,” he said, pointing to himself. I pointed to my name card instead of speaking. He pulled over a chair.

3We answered the easy questions first: favorite snack, least favorite chore. Then Wes read, “Tell your partner about a place where you feel at home.” I pictured the narrow steps outside our old apartment, where my cousin and I used to sit. “Could we skip that one?” I asked. Wes turned the card over. Four blank lines waited beneath the heading: Write a question of your own. His pen hovered above them. I pressed my thumbnail into the card's soft corner.

4“What do you wish people would ask you?” Wes said. I looked up. “Instead of asking where I came from?” “Sure.” The heater clicked behind us. “Maybe what I want to do here.” He wrote slowly, leaving a dark dot where his pen paused. “Okay. What do you want to do here?” I had an answer for that: join the student sound crew. At my old school, I had learned to work the microphones. I could talk about that without explaining what I missed.

5During introductions, Wes glanced at me before reading my name. I said it aloud, and he repeated it correctly. He told the class about the microphones, not the apartment steps. By lunch, I had asked the office where the sound crew met and copied the room number onto my schedule.

6That afternoon, I tucked the interview card behind the schedule instead of throwing it away. The printed questions were still there, but I kept turning it over to the question Wes had written. I had expected a new school to be a place where I had to explain my past. There might also be room to talk about what came next.