I could smell those lilac bushes with all the big bunches of little purple flowers as I walked by them into the park towards the trees on the other side. Mom had told me about the seasons, and I was old enough now to see how they had worked each year. Most plants hid or “slept” during the winter, except for the “evergreen” trees, which kept their “needle leaves”. Then when it got warmer in the spring, all the other trees, bushes, and other plants would have those tiny “bud” things that would start to grow into new leaves and then flowers too, that would start small, like little kids started small. But then next it would be summer, and the leaves and the flowers would get bigger, and all the plants would be covered with green and also the other colors of the flowers.

That’s what it was now, summer. I had seen all these changes happen for a lot of years now, because I was six years old. I used to worry when things changed, but now I liked it, specially when I knew what kind of changes were coming. They were changes in a circle, like a clock, where a time would come, then be gone, but then you knew it would come again. You just had to wait, but you didn’t have to worry.

It was cloudy and the wind was blowing a little, specially in the middle of the park where there weren’t any trees or bushes, but it still felt kind of warm.

It was FINALLY the last day of first grade. It seemed like it had been forever since I started going to that regular Bach school. Started having to get up when the little hand was pointing at the “7”, before I wanted to get up, and started walking to school when the big hand got down to the “6”. I liked to walk, especially when I got across the park and could walk on that long street that went down to my school, with the big maple trees above me that felt like a giant tunnel. I even liked it when it was raining, because I would wear my raincoat and my rubber boots and it would feel even more like an adventure. Like I was cozy inside my spacesuit but everything outside me was different.

But back in the winter I didn’t like walking so much when it was really cold and cloudy and windy, and still kind of dark. It felt like it was too early, like the outside wasn’t ready for people yet. And when it felt like that, I just wanted to go home. I DID like it in the winter when it snowed, but that didn’t happen very much, and if it was still kind of dark I still wanted to go home.

At home, or while I was walking to school, I was in charge of what I was thinking about and could do my regular thinking about whatever I wanted to. And what I usually wanted to think about was pretending, because that was my favorite thing to do. I could think about doing pretending with my friends or just my toys. Or I could even do pretending by just thinking, without my friends or without my toys. It was fun, and EVERY kid I knew or just saw or talked to in the park, most of all, wanted to have fun. And the kids I liked to talk to and play with, like me, had the most fun when they were pretending.

But when I got to school, our teacher, Miss Z, was in charge of us, except maybe at recess, and she wanted us to think about school stuff. At home, even though mom and dad were in charge of me sometimes, like at bedtime or when we had to go somewhere in the car, they didn’t tell me what to think about, unless they got mad at me. Now sometimes my friends would tell me what they wanted me to think about, but I could decide if I wanted to. But if Miss Z told me what to think about, I couldn’t tell her I didn’t want to. All the older kids I knew, like Danny and Marybeth and Ricky, all said that was how school worked. You just did all those things to “learn” stuff that would help you and also make your teacher think you were a good “student”.

And some things were good to learn and most kids wanted to learn them, like how to read and write, or how to use numbers to figure stuff out. But sometimes we would be reading stories, because she told us to do reading, and the story I was reading was really interesting and I wanted to keep reading it, but she said I had to stop because it was time to do numbers. And if she could tell that I didn’t like that, she would say I could finish reading it later, but that wasn’t the same, because she was in charge when I wanted to be in charge.

And sometimes Miss Z would make us think about stuff that I didn’t want to think about. I didn’t want to think about it because it was hard instead of fun, like “spelling” or “penmanship”. I didn’t like things that were hard, because I couldn’t figure out why I was doing it and that kept making me worried, and I didn’t like worrying all the time. A lot of grownups said that things that weren’t EASY were hard, and the really important things were hard. But me and other kids I played with thought that things that weren’t FUN were hard, and the really important things were fun. That was really different.

On those days when I didn’t have to go to school, or after I came home from school, I could just think about whatever I wanted to and then do whatever I was thinking about if I wanted to, because it was fun. That’s the way I had always done things, since I could first remember. I did things because they were fun. Now I was wondering if we really weren’t supposed to do that anymore. Did grownups want us to do more things that were hard instead of fun? Is that why we all had to go to school?

Grownups all had to do “work”. Dads usually had to go somewhere else to do their “work”, though dad did some of his in his office in the basement. I think he used to like some of it, but it seemed now like it was mostly just hard. And moms did their “work” at home. I couldn’t think of anything mom had to do that she really liked, except maybe “working in the garden”. She actually liked that, but she didn’t do it very much. Most of what they both were doing now was hard and not fun.

Walking down the long street towards my school, I saw Gabe and Theo up ahead of me. Theo was this other kid in my class. He and Gabe lived right next to each other. I yelled at them to wait for me and ran down to where they were walking. I tried to walk next to Gabe, but the sidewalk wasn’t wide enough for all three of us. So I had to walk on the grass in front of the houses, but some houses had bushes by the sidewalk so then I had to walk behind them or try to walk on the other grass part next to Theo.

“Last day of school”, said Gabe, with a big smile, “No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks.”

“You don’t like books?” Theo asked Gabe, then looking worried said, “I see you reading those Tom Swift books all the time.”

“I’ve just heard a lot of kids in the park say that”, said Gabe, “I think they mean school books, not regular books.”

“And you don’t like Miss Z?” Theo asked.

“No”, said Gabe, looking worried now, “I like her. I think it’s just what kids say about all teachers. They want you to do things what they think is the right way, and they don’t like it if you don’t.”

“You want to do things the wrong way?” Theo asked.

“NO”, said Gabe, sounding a little mad now, “Maybe I just want to do it a DIFFERENT right way.”

“Hmm”, said Theo, smushing his mouth together thinking.

Since I’d just been thinking about the same kind of stuff I decided to say what I was thinking, because that’s what kids did since we were on the same team.

“I don’t want someone to tell me what to think about all the time”, I said, “Even if they’re really nice like our teacher.”

“That’s what grownups do”, said Theo, “Don’t your ma and pop do that?”

Mom and dad didn’t, unless they were mad at me, which wasn’t very often. I shook my head, but wondered if they were supposed to. But Molly’s mom and Paul’s mom didn’t, and I don’t think Gabe’s mom did either. But I think Kenny’s mom and dad did.

Theo looked worried again. “So how do you know how to be good unless grownups tell you?”

I lifted my shoulders up and down. I hadn’t thought about that.

“I just figure out what’s good or bad”, said Gabe, “You just have to watch people. Grownups. Kids. You can tell when it’s good or bad.”

Theo thought about that as we all walked down the street to school, me behind the two of them because it was too hard to keep walking next to either of them.

Finally Theo figured out what to ask next. “Well what if you think it’s good but your ma and pop know it’s really bad?”

Now Gabe moved his shoulders up and down. “I don’t know”, he said, “Then I guess you need to do a lot of thinking about if you’re right or they are.” That made sense to me.

“Hmm”, said Theo again, “I guess I’ll have to think about that.” Gabe and I nodded.

When we walked in our room at school our teacher saw the three of us and said, “There you are!” That seemed like her favorite thing to say, like she wasn’t sure she would see you but liked it when she did. “The folders with your school work are up on the front tables with your names on them. Why don’t you each get yours and take it to your desks.”

After a few more kids had come in, the bell rang.

“Oh dear”, she said, “That bell is SO loud. Hurts my ears.” Some of the kids nodded. It WAS pretty loud and always scared me. Even when I was watching the clock and knew it was about to ring, it still made my teeth shiver.

It wasn’t a regular day because our teacher didn’t do any teaching, and we didn’t have to do any learning. She just gave each of us a “folder”, which was kind of like a book but the pages weren’t stuck together. It had stuff we had written and pictures we had drawn at school that we could take home and show our moms and dads how much we learned. I saw some of the pictures other kids did and some of them looked better than mine. Also some of them wrote their letters better than I did.

Then she asked each one of us, if we wanted to, to say what “fun plans” we had for the summer, like those “vacation” things that some people did where you went somewhere different. Theo said he was going to his grandparents in “Cleveland”, wherever that was. Mary said her family was going to the “ocean”, and she was also going to “camp”, whatever that was. Jake said he was going to ride his bicycle and play in the park every day. That sounded good to me.

So while the other kids were talking about what they were going to do, I started thinking about what I was going to do. I figured I’d do a lot of pretending like I’d done before. Small pretending in the basement and the backyard with soldiers, Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, boats and submarines, and my new Erector Set and bridge and building stuff. Building that giant fort with all my Lincoln Logs with Molly helping me. Big pretending in the park with other kids fighting in a war, making secret “clubs”, being Captain Nemo, Tom Swift, or other neat guys. I would also do a lot of reading about other stories that I could use for pretending, like more Tom Swift stories, or the Borrowers, or that Civil War that Danny told me about. Riding my bicycle to my friends’ houses. Mom taking me to Molly’s new house so we could do little pretending in her backyard or big pretending in her room or that Burns Park near her house.

Amanda said she was going to this giant lake, some kind of “super” lake, that was as big as the ocean, and she also was going to read a lot of books. I wondered if she said that book part, because she thought our teacher would like her more and think she was the best “student”, that’s the word our teacher called us sometimes when we were learning I guess. I think because Amanda said that, Gabe said he was going to read books too, LOTS of them, and work on the submarine he had invented.

I went after Gabe. I didn’t say most of the things I had been thinking about. I said I was going to ride my bike and play in the park every day, like Jake had said. I said I was going to read lots of books like Amanda and Gabe had said. And since I did want the other kids to think I was doing neat things in the summer, even though Miss Z was listening too, I said I was going to build a giant pretend fort in the backyard, bigger than I’d ever built before, because I had gotten even more Lincoln Logs for my birthday. Some of the other boys looked at me like that was a good idea and they wanted to do that too.

We went out for our last recess and Amanda, Gabe and I hid in that same giant tube thing in the playground we hid in on that first day I went to this regular school. But this time Jake was in there with us. Just like always, Amanda was wearing a dress, so she could only sit a certain way so we couldn’t see her underwear. I always wondered why she even wanted to wear dresses so much. They seemed like they made everything harder. But she said that’s what regular girls wore, unless they were “tomboys” like Molly.

Amanda, Gabe and Jake were my “school” friends. I saw them every day we went to school, and sometimes I’d see Gabe on the weekend too in the park. But they were still a different kind of friend than Molly was. Molly said that I was her “best friend”, not her “boyfriend”. But I wondered if maybe I was more like her “boyfriend” and she was more like my “girlfriend”. I was kind of happy that she wasn’t around anymore, or going to my school, because if she was, when other kids saw us together, they would say we looked like boyfriend and girlfriend. Then the boys, and probably the girls too, would tease me, and that would be really really bad. I wanted everybody to like me, and I didn’t want to worry that someone didn’t like me or would want to tease me.

Gabe said he’d see me in the park and then we could go play at each other’s houses too. He said he wanted to build that super giant fort with me. Jake, who lived farther away from me than Gabe did, said he would ask his mom if I could come over and play. Amanda said she didn’t usually play with boys when she wasn’t at school.

“Because they’re stupid, right”, Gabe said. He was strange sometimes, because he would even tease people he liked, specially Amanda.

She looked at him with her fierce face, even though I think she liked him too. She said, “Well, you guys aren’t as stupid as the other boys.”

“So why don’t you play with Mary and the other girls?” asked Jake.

“Cuz they’re all silly”, said Gabe, “Specially Mary.” Then he looked at Amanda and said, “Because you told me you don’t like Mary.”

Amanda’s eyes got really fierce and she even wrinkled her nose. “That is none of your business Gabriel”, she said, saying the words kind of slowly.

Gabe did a laugh through his nose. Jake and I didn’t say anything.

After recess we went back to our room and our teacher had cookies we could eat to “celebrate our last day together.” As we ate them she went around and talked to each of the kids in our class to say goodbye.

When she came over to the four of us she said quietly, I guess so other kids couldn’t hear her, “I really appreciate you guys…”, she looked at Amanda, “and girls, working hard to learn as much as you could. I think you inspired your classmates to do the same.”

“What’s ‘inspired’?” Amanda asked.

“Inspired is when you see someone else doing something and it makes you want to do it yourself”, our teacher said. Amanda pushed her lips together and nodded. Gabe, Jake and I nodded too.

Regular school had been better than I thought it would be, because our teacher, Miss Z, was so nice. But still, I was glad she wasn’t going to be in charge of everything that we did, and what we had to think about anymore. It had been okay learning some things, like reading and writing, but it hadn’t been fun sometimes with other stuff that I just wanted to figure out by myself, like numbers.

The bell rang. I knew it was going to ring but it still scared me. But the good thing about the bell was that, before lunch or at the end of the day, when it rang you could go home.

“Well”, said our teacher, looking sad. “It’s time to say goodbye.”

She went and stood by the door, so no one could go out without saying goodbye to her. I watched her look at each one of us at the door and talk to us, before she let us go out. Finally it was my turn.

“Cooper”, she said, “I think you did quite well, considering you’re a year younger than most everyone else.” I nodded. “And I really enjoyed your mom inviting me and Miranda to your birthday party. I wish I had a mom like your mom. Tell her thank you again and have a great summer. Keep reading and learning.” I nodded. I would at least keep reading, and figuring stuff out.

Then I was out the door, into the big school hallway. Gabe, Amanda and Jake were standing there waiting for me.

“No more school”, said Gabe, “Until second grade.” I nodded. Jake and Amanda didn’t say anything, but looked like they were thinking about that too. Jake looked a little worried.

The four of us walked through the doors at the end of the hallway and went outside to the sidewalk by the street that went up one way to Gabe’s house, Allmendinger Park, and my house across the park. And that Jake and Amanda would walk down the other way to go to their houses. So this is where we had to go different ways.

“We gotta go this way”, Jake said, pointing down the street and looking sad. Amanda nodded, looking sad too.

“I hope you guys can come over to my house”, he said. Gabe and I nodded, and looked at Amanda for what she was going to say.

“Again”, she said, “You’re boys. So I probably won’t see you until school starts in the fall.” Gabe shook his head like Amanda was being silly or stupid. Gabe and Amanda were always doing stuff like that to each other.

She looked at Gabe like she was mad at him, but also still liking him too. “Remember Gabriel”, she said, “I’m not a tomboy like Cooper’s friend Molly. I’m a regular girl.” Then she thought about what she had said and said, “Well, not a REGULAR regular girl. Not a silly cutesy one like Mary.” Then she thought some more and said, “Maybe I’ll invite you guys to my birthday party, since Cooper invited me to his. Mine is August 15th and I’ll be seven. That might be okay. You could meet my other friends, though they’re mostly older than I am.” Gabe, Jake and I all nodded. Gabe didn’t try to say anything funny or silly, or that would make Amanda mad.

She looked at Jake and blew air out of her mouth. “Come on Jacob, let’s go”, she said, then looking at Gabe and I, “Bye bye guys. Don’t be stupid while I’m not watching.”

I figured Gabe would say something funny because she said that, but he just said “bye”, and looked sad. I said “bye” too and felt sad like all three of them did. She and Jake walked away from us down the sidewalk. I wondered if Gabe would say something to me about Amanda, but he didn’t.

Gabe and I walked up the street the other way towards his house but didn’t say anything. Other older kids were around us talking about school being done and what they were going to do. Camp or playing in the park. Going to the lake. Playing baseball, if they were boys. They were so busy talking to each other it was like they didn’t even see us. That felt strange. Older kids in the park might not talk to you but they would at least look at you and do something so you knew they saw you.

When we walked up Gabe’s street and got to his house, his mom saw us from the kitchen window and came to the front door.

“Gabriel”, she said, sounding mad, “There’s a huge mess in the basement and a yellow stain on the rug down there. What in God’s name were you doing down there?”

“An experiment”, Gabe said. His mom shook her head.

She looked at me and said, “Hi Cooper. Congratulations on finishing first grade!” I nodded. “Congratulations” was this big word that grownups used a lot when somebody did something really good, but I’d never heard a kid say it. I nodded. I’d been over to Gabe’s house a lot, but I’d never really talked with his mom. I really didn’t talk to grownups very much like Ricky did. I talked to mom and dad some, but mostly to answer their questions or ask them my questions. Though most grownups seemed to like me, I WAS on the other team.

“I’d invite you to stay for lunch”, she said, “But this one and I have to sort this ‘experiment’ and that rug stain out.”

Gabe turned to me and said, “Bye. See you in the park tomorrow”, and ran to his front door and into his house.

“Tell your mom hi”, she said, making a pretend smile. Then she closed their front door, but I could still hear her loud voice being mad at Gabe. I wondered if she was going to spank him.

I walked by myself back to the park. I was still feeling a little bit sad that I wouldn’t have school anymore because I wouldn’t see Gabe, Amanda and Jake everyday. But I also felt really good that I didn’t have to get up and go to school, do all those things that my teacher said we had to do, but instead could figure out every day what I wanted to do and no grownups would tell me. And I had lots of other kids to play with. Though I only saw Molly on Saturdays, there was still Paul, and all those other kids in the park, like Gabe even, to play with.

As I walked across the park and saw all the kids playing with no grownups around, it made me think that the best thing about school being done was that grownups weren’t in charge of me or all these other kids anymore, at least most of the time. A couple of those older kids from my school, who earlier walking home had not even noticed Gabe and I, saw me. One of them had one of those little radios like mine, and he had it turned up so it was loud.

It sounded like one of those “Motown” songs, with an older girl, not a grownup, singing. She sang…

He took me to a show
He said he wanted some more
I said kiss me please
He said after I eat
I said what do you like
He said you know what I like
I like…

While she sang all those different words the other older girls singing the song with her were just singing the same words, “buttered popcorn”, over and over again. That kid from school looked at me and nodded his head to the music. I nodded back at him to the music too.

The park was our place, and we kids were in charge here. That felt good. I was really glad it was finally summer.