{"id":7523,"date":"2022-12-15T11:21:42","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T19:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/?p=7523"},"modified":"2022-12-15T11:31:06","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T19:31:06","slug":"clubius-contained-part-3-dinosaurs-november-1960","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/15\/clubius-contained-part-3-dinosaurs-november-1960\/","title":{"rendered":"Clubius Contained Part 3 – Dinosaurs (November 1960)"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was Saturday and mom took me over to Molly\u2019s new house like she did last Saturday. We drove to the end of our street to where the giant high school was, and then turned left on the \u201cStadium\u201d street. We drove by the stadium, over a bridge, by the \u201cgrocery\u201d store and that \u201cSunoco\u201d store that had the gas machines. The wind blew the leaves that had fallen off the trees across the street. Then we turned left on this street with big houses and trees, all the houses had that upstairs part. Finally we turned left on Molly\u2019s street, which had more big trees and big houses, like Molly\u2019s new house.<\/p>\n

David was mad when I got out of the car and ran to Molly\u2019s front door, but he didn\u2019t get to. I brought two \u201cshoeboxes\u201d with me, one full of dinosaurs and one full of soldiers. I had three more dinosaurs that mom and I had gotten at the museum that I didn\u2019t have last week when I brought my dinosaurs over. Dad said we should have \u201cbought stock in the company\u201d that made the plastic dinosaurs, though I didn\u2019t know what that was. I had the same soldiers as before, and I only brought the green goodguy ones, because the other \u201cteam\u201d would be the dinosaurs and not the badguy soldiers.<\/p>\n

I had trouble trying to hold both boxes with one arm so I could push the doorbell. But before I could push it Molly opened the door. She saw the boxes I was carrying.<\/p>\n

She put her hands on her sides with her elbows out and asked, \u201cSo what did you bring this time?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI brought soldiers\u201d, I said, \u201cCuz you don\u2019t have any.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know\u201d, she said, \u201cMom won\u2019t let me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I brought ALL my dinosaurs\u201d, I said, \u201cI have three new ones. I\u2019ve got an Ankylosaurus, a Pteranodon, and a Plesiosaurus. The Pteranodon flies and the Plesiosaurus swims in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got FOUR new ones\u201d, she said, \u201cAn Ankylosaurus and a Pteranodon too, but I also got another Tyrannosaurus and a Brachiosaurus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have two Tyrannosaurus\u2019?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYep\u201d, she said, \u201cI think that\u2019s the best one to have two of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWow\u201d, I said, \u201cSo with mine we have three of them, they can be in charge of the other dinosaurs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know\u201d, she said, \u201cThat\u2019s why I got another one. They\u2019re the best, the Tyrant Lizard King, so they should be in charge of the others.\u201d<\/p>\n

I heard a horn honking, and I looked back and saw mom standing by our car. \u201cI\u2019m going to head off\u201d, she said, \u201cHave a good time, Coop. Molly, tell your mom thanks for me, okay?\u201d Molly and I both nodded. Mom got back in the car and drove off with David.<\/p>\n

\u201cMolly, is that Cooper?\u201d, I heard her mom ask but I couldn\u2019t see her, \u201cI\u2019m coming out to say hello to his mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly looked at me and said quietly, \u201cUh oh, you better go up stairs and put the soldiers in my room. She might not want us to play with them.\u201d I nodded and tried to run up the stairs, but it was harder holding the two boxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis mom already left\u201d, Molly said to her mom, talking louder, \u201cWe\u2019re going up to my room and then we\u2019re going to play in the backyard.\u201d Then she ran up the stairs behind me.<\/p>\n

Molly\u2019s new house was really big, but it wasn\u2019t as neat as her old one. Molly\u2019s bedroom was upstairs like her old house, but it was a regular room, not that neat attic room with the low windows and the top \u201cceiling\u201d part that went up rather than flat. All you could see out her bedroom windows in this house was her backyard and the house next to her house. Also there were no stairs between the living room and the dining room or that neat fence thing like a pirate ship. The basement was neat, it was more like my basement with the hard gray floor and the furnace, washing machine and all those big metal things and tubes, but there was no TV. Molly said her dad had that big wood TV, and Molly liked to go to her dad\u2019s so they could watch it together.<\/p>\n

She also showed me her mom\u2019s bedroom, which was really big and had a giant bed. There was even another bedroom that her mom called the \u201cguest room\u201d. I think that was for people who came over to your house but then didn\u2019t leave when it was time to go to sleep. Molly said this friend of her mom\u2019s, who was a grownup man, sometimes stayed all night and slept in that room. Molly said her mom said it was her \u201cguy friend\u201d, which Molly said was like a \u201cboyfriend\u201d for grownups, because she thought they got kissyface at night when Molly was asleep. He lived in another city, but stayed with them when he was \u201cin town\u201d, and was thinking of moving here too.<\/p>\n

As she told me about her mom and her mom\u2019s friend, Molly and I sat in those two big puffy chairs in her room, which were now next to each other. She even had a little desk in her room, which was pretty neat. She said she wanted to play with dinosaurs and soldiers in the backyard, but we had to \u201csneak\u201d the soldiers out, because her mom might not like them. Her mom was in the dining room \u201cpaying bills\u201d. My mom did that too, but she did it on the kitchen table. Since the boxes I brought didn\u2019t have tops, Molly told me to put the box with my dinosaurs on top of the box with the soldiers, so you couldn\u2019t see them.<\/p>\n

So we went down the stairs. Her first, carrying HER box of dinosaurs, then me carrying my dinosaur box on top of my soldier box. As we went into the dining room with the big table, covered with papers, her mom saw us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere they are\u201d, she said, \u201cI\u2019m so glad you could come over Cooper. Molly always looks forward to when you visit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMOM\u201d, said Molly kind of loud, like she was mad that her mom said that. Molly\u2019s mom smiled and nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at all those boxes\u201d, her mom said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got all my dinosaurs\u201d, Molly said, \u201cAnd Coob\u2019s brought over all his too. He\u2019s got so many that he has TWO BOXES.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you taking them down to the basement to play?\u201d she asked, looking down at all her pieces of paper and not at us anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cNope\u201d, Molly said. I liked the way she said it with that pop noise at the end. \u201cWe\u2019re going to play in the backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell\u201d, her mom said, looking up at us again like she was figuring something out, \u201cI know you two are polar bears but I think you both need to put on your jackets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly wrinkled her nose and scrunched up her face. \u201cOkay\u201d, she said, \u201cBut we have our hands full with all these toys. We\u2019ll put them in the backyard and then come right back in for our jackets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s fine\u201d, her mom said, looking back down at the table, \u201cHave fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grownups said that \u201chave fun\u201d sometimes, usually when they didn\u2019t want to talk with you any more. I don\u2019t think I\u2019d ever heard a kid say that. Kids already knew you were going to have fun.<\/p>\n

We took the boxes out the door in the kitchen to the backyard. It had a garden way in the back like my house and a garage like her old backyard. Next to the garage was a \u201csandbox\u201d, which was like my dirt pile except it had pieces of wood around it and it had sand instead of dirt. There was a big maple tree in the middle of the backyard, but no spruce trees like my backyard. The rest was grass, but everywhere there were lots of leaves on the ground, mostly yellow and brown, though a few were kind of orange.<\/p>\n

We put our boxes down on the fallen leaves and they made a crunching sound. Then we went back inside to get our jackets because it really was cold. The wind was blowing which made it extra cold and made the leaves on the ground swoosh around, sometimes in circles. Back outside we looked over the whole backyard and how we would do our pretending in all its different parts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis should all be the dinosaurs\u2019 place\u201d, Molly said, moving her hands around to point at all the different parts of the backyard, \u201cThe soldiers are coming from over here.\u201d She pointed at the sandbox.<\/p>\n

I nodded and said, \u201cBut the dinosaurs don\u2019t want the soldiers to come, specially the Tyrannosaurus Rexes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u201d, said Molly, opening her eyes wide then doing lots of thinking, \u201cAnd the other plant-eating dinosaurs want the Tyrannosauruses to eat the soldiers so they won\u2019t eat them.\u201d I had to think about that for a minute but it finally made sense. If the Tyrannosauruses were busy eating the soldiers they wouldn\u2019t eat the other plant-eating dinosaurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should set up the dinosaurs first\u201d, I said, \u201cHow they are when they\u2019re just doing their regular stuff in their regular place.\u201d<\/p>\n

She put her arms around her chest and scrunched up her face and said, \u201cHmm\u201d. She sounded more like a grownup when they didn\u2019t like something but weren\u2019t sure why yet, but I guess she just had to do more thinking. \u201cI guess all the Tyrannosauruses should be in the same place\u201d, she said, \u201cBecause then they think they\u2019re more in charge.\u201d I nodded. That made sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you want to set up your dinosaurs and I\u2019ll set up mine?\u201d she asked, \u201cOr should we do them all together?\u201d When Molly lived across the street and I saw her all the time, I might have said we could each set up our own. But now that we only saw each other on Saturday, I wanted to do it together so we would do more talking.<\/p>\n

So first we decided that the Tyrannosauruses should be somewhere up high so they could see all the other dinosaurs. But Molly\u2019s backyard was all flat, so I figured out we could make a mountain, or at least a hill, with the sand in the sandbox where the three of them could be and see all the other dinosaurs and think they were in charge. We each also had Allosauruses, which ate other dinosaurs too, so we put them on the sand hill but in a different part.<\/p>\n

From the stories I saw on TV, people, mainly badguys, always thought they were in charge when by the end of the story they really weren\u2019t. Like the Professor in Felix or the badguys in those Westerns that dad liked. Even the Cat in the Hat thought he had everything figured out, but sometimes he didn\u2019t, even though he could always fix it. Molly and I tried to decide if the Tyrannosauruses and Allosauruses were goodguys or badguys. If they tried to protect their place from the soldiers they were goodguys, but if they ate other dinosaurs they seemed more like badguys.<\/p>\n

In other parts of the backyard we put the different plant-eating dinosaurs. If we each had the same one we\u2019d put the two together, because that made sense that they would be friends, because they were the same kind. We figured since they ate plants they could eat the leaves that had fallen from the giant tree way above them. The leaves also helped them hide from the meat-eating dinosaurs up on the sandhill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about my Plesiosaurus?\u201d I asked. It was my only dinosaur that lived in the water. Since she knew almost as much about dinosaurs as I did, she knew what kind of dinosaur that was, and that it lived in the water. Molly didn\u2019t have any water dinosaurs, so I guess she wasn\u2019t thinking about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHmm\u201d, she said, \u201cWe need to make a water place for that one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe the driveway could be the pretend water place\u201d, I said, \u201cLike an ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded but scrunched up her face like she wasn\u2019t sure. \u201cMaybe\u201d, she said, then her eyes opening up wide, \u201cOr maybe we could make a real water place on the side of the garden. We can use the hose.\u201d<\/p>\n

She went over to the back of the house where there was a hose hanging in circles on the wall. She took it off and brought the end of the hose where the water would come out over to the back of the yard by the side of the garden by the garage. Then she went back and turned the knob that made the water come out and it filled up a long line between the back part of the grass and the front part of the garden. It was neat because it looked like a river. I put my Plesiosaurus in the new \u201criver\u201d by where the hose was shooting out water and since the dinosaur floated the water pushed it down the river like it was swimming, though the neck and head part fell over into the water and two of the fins stuck up in the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s pretty good, right?\u201d she asked, and I nodded, \u201cBut does it eat plants or meat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt eats fish\u201d, I said, \u201cOr \u2018clams\u2019, whatever those are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom eats FRIED clams\u201d, Molly said, \u201cBut they don\u2019t look like animals, just brown things.\u201d She made a face like they were really yucky.<\/p>\n

With the Tyrannosauruses already on the top of the hill watching what we were doing and the Allosaurus climbing the hill and looking at them, we set up the rest of the plant-eating dinosaurs. When we went back up the steps to the backdoor, so we could see everything better, it all looked pretty neat.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we need the soldiers to come\u201d, Molly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can come to the dinosaur island from the ocean to explore\u201d, I said, \u201cAnd maybe take the giant leaves from the dinosaurs for food for the other soldiers back in the war\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we don\u2019t have boats for the soldiers to come in\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can pretend the boxes are boats\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh yeah\u201d, she said, \u201cWe used to do that when we were little in your backyard. Remember?\u201d We looked at each other and smiled, like that was a long time ago and now we were a lot older.<\/p>\n

Then Molly looked at me like she was trying to figure something out. The wind whooshed in the trees above us and some more leaves came slowly down, spinning as they fell. She said, \u201cWe\u2019ve been friends forever. I can\u2019t remember before that.\u201d I couldn\u2019t remember either, but I liked it that way.<\/p>\n

So we did our story with soldiers and dinosaurs. The soldiers came to the island from the ocean driveway on their boats. They came on land and saw all the giant leaves. It was just what they needed to take home on their boats so the other soldiers and regular people would have enough food. But first they would have to set up a base, because it was going to take a long time to get all this great leaf food. They decided to set up their base by their boats.<\/p>\n

We figured out that Molly could go inside to get her Tinker Toys and some sheets of paper and we could make sleeping places for the soldiers on the land. We put the Tinker Toys together in box shapes and then put a piece of paper on top of each box for the top part. But the wind kept blowing the paper off until we figured out how to put stones from the driveway on top of the pieces of paper on top of the boxes. If the stones were too small then the wind would blow the paper off anyway. If the stones were too big and heavy then the paper couldn\u2019t hold them up. But if the stones were just the right size in the middle, then the paper could hold them up but wouldn\u2019t blow away, at least most of the time.<\/p>\n

The Captain in charge of the soldiers sent out small teams to explore the island and see how many giant leaves there were. All the teams were finding lots of leaves, and got excited that they could bring back so much food to other soldiers and regular people back in their place across the ocean. Molly and I took turns figuring out the next part of the story.<\/p>\n

Lieutenant Cord\u2019s team, he was always my favorite soldier, found some of the plant-eating dinosaurs, the Brontosauruses and the Stegosauruses. Some of his team got scared and started shooting at them, which didn\u2019t hurt them very much but made them mad, and the Stegosauruses attacked and wounded some of the soldiers with their spiked tails. Lieutenant Cord told his team to stop shooting and they had to carry their wounded soldiers back to the camp and take them to one of the boats where the doctor guy was. Then Lieutenant Cord told the Captain about the dinosaurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s impossible\u201d, said the Captain, \u201cAll the dinosaurs died a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe where we are\u201d, said Cord, \u201cBut not on this island. And the giant leaves are the food for the dinosaurs too.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Cord took the Captain to where the Stegosauruses and Brontosaurus were, so he could see them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose sure look like dinosaurs\u201d, the Captain said, \u201cBut we still need to get all these giant leaves and take them back to feed our other soldiers and the regular people.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the Captain told the soldiers to go out in small teams to different parts of the island to get the leaves and bring them back to the boats. They were supposed to try not to bother the dinosaurs and not to shoot at them, unless the dinosaurs attacked them. Lieutenant Cord was in charge of going around to each team and making sure they were doing what the Captain said. All the teams worked hard to \u201cgather\u201d leaves, that was the word Molly used. I had heard it before but didn\u2019t really know what it meant until now.<\/p>\n

But while all the teams did their work, up on the sandhill that soldiers hadn\u2019t gone to yet, the three Tyrannosauruses and the Allosaurus were watching what was going on down below them on the rest of the island. These new \u201canimals\u201d, the soldiers that is because mom had told me that we were animals too, \u201chomo\u201d somethings, were taking all the food from the plant-eating dinosaurs. If all the plant-eating dinosaurs didn\u2019t have their food, they would die, and then the meat-eating dinosaurs wouldn\u2019t have their food either. So the Tyrannosauruses and the Allosaurus decided that they should start eating those new animals so they wouldn\u2019t cause any more trouble. At least eat a few of them and maybe scare the rest of them to leave the island.<\/p>\n

So when it got to be pretend nighttime, all the soldiers came back to their base and most of them were sleeping, except for the guards. Then the next pretend day, the teams went out again to get more leaves. One team was far from their base and near the sandhill with the Tyrannosauruses and the Allosaurus. While the team was worrying about the plant-eating dinosaurs and trying to \u201cgather\u201d leaves, the meat-eating dinosaurs attacked them. The soldiers tried to shoot the dinosaurs but the bullets didn\u2019t hurt them very much and the dinosaurs killed and ate two of the soldiers, and only the third one, who was wounded, was able to get away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat should we do with the soldiers that got eaten?\u201d Molly asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell they shouldn\u2019t just lie there dead\u201d, I said, \u201cBecause they got eaten, so I\u2019ll just put those two in my pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded, and we went back to our story.<\/p>\n

That wounded soldier found Lieutenant Cord and told him what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cDammit\u201d, Cord said. Molly and I both figured that soldiers did swearing, and that was a swear word we both knew and had said before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know there were dinosaurs that ate people!\u201d Cord said, \u201cI have to get you back to the base and to the doctor, and then tell the Captain that there are dinosaurs on this island that want to eat US and don\u2019t just eat plants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back at the soldier\u2019s base Lieutenant Cord told the Captain about the dinosaurs killing and eating two of their soldiers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a big problem!\u201d said the Captain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Captain should have a name too\u201d, said Molly, \u201cNot just \u2018the Captain\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked at Molly and thought about her idea. \u201cWhen I have more than one captain then I give them names\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell\u201d, she said, \u201cDo you have more than one lieutenant?\u201d<\/p>\n

She was right, it was just that Lieutenant Cord was my favorite plastic soldier. He had a pistol in one hand and his other hand was pointing with a finger. \u201cSo what should the Captain\u2019s name be?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cCaptain Large\u201d, she said. I nodded. That seemed good.<\/p>\n

So Captain Large said, \u201cDammit, we don\u2019t have any cannons or bombs to kill those dinosaurs. Maybe if we get all the soldiers to go shoot at them at the same time it might at least make them wounded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might just make them really mad and want to eat all of us\u201d, said Cord, \u201cWe should just stay away from that sandhill where the meat-eating dinosaurs live. But there are other dinosaurs that eat plants that could also get us with their tails or their horns, so we have to be really careful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Captain Large thought that was a good idea and he told Lieutenant Cord to tell all the teams to stay away from the sandhill and to watch out for those other dinosaurs too. So the teams all worked hard at their jobs and brought more and more giant leaves to the base to put in the boats.<\/p>\n

As Molly and I kept playing our pretend story the wind kept whooshing in the trees above us making more leaves fall and the leaves already on the ground move around. When the wind blew the paper roof off of one of the base houses, a team of soldiers would have to go get the piece of paper and carry it back to the base and fix the house.<\/p>\n

The Tyrannosauruses and the Allosaurus decided they didn\u2019t want the soldiers to steal all their leaves. Even though they didn\u2019t eat the leaves, they didn\u2019t want the plant-eating dinosaurs not to have any food. Even though they ate some of the plant-eating dinosaurs for food, they were still part of their dinosaur team. And they decided that the soldiers tasted better than other dinosaurs and this was their chance to have the best stuff to eat.<\/p>\n

There were more fights between soldiers and dinosaurs and some more soldiers got eaten. Captain Large had all the soldiers shoot at an Allosaurus and it wounded him, but that made the Tyrannosauruses more mad.<\/p>\n

\u201cLunchtime\u201d, Molly\u2019s mom called out from the steps in front of the backdoor. \u201cThis is quite a scene\u201d, she said, looking at all the dinosaurs and the soldiers, \u201cCooper I see you brought your soldiers over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly looked worried and then kind of mad. \u201cBut they\u2019re not shooting each other like they usually do\u201d, she said to her mom, \u201cThey\u2019re just trying to get giant leaves for food from the dinosaur island to bring back to other people, but the Tyrannosauruses and the Allosaurus are eating some of the soldiers. The soldiers shot the Allosaurus and he\u2019s wounded, but he\u2019s not dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly\u2019s mom held up her hands and wiggled them in front of her face and shook her head and looked worried. \u201cSuch gruesome mayhem you two. Aren\u2019t there more happy stories you can pretend?\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly put her hands on her sides with her elbows sticking out just like the Captain Large plastic soldier. \u201cMOM\u201d, she said with her fierce voice, \u201cThe soldiers are just trying to bring food back to the other people so they\u2019ll have enough to eat!\u201d Her mom nodded, and waved her hand for us to come back in the house.<\/p>\n

After lunch we went back outside and finished our story. The Tyrannosauruses, and the Allosaurus that wasn\u2019t wounded, ate some more of the soldiers, but Lieutenant Cord got most of the teams to gather leaves and bring them back to the boats. But all the dinosaurs got SO MAD that they all decided to attack the soldiers\u2019 base. All the soldiers ran back to their base and tried to protect it, shooting at the dinosaurs. The soldiers shooting wounded three of them and actually killed one of the Dimetrodons. But that made all the dinosaurs even more mad, and work together even. The plant-eating dinosaurs would wound the soldiers with their tails or horns, and then the meat-eating dinosaurs would eat them. Finally when even Lieutenant Cord got wounded by a Stegosauruses tail, Captain Strange decided it was time to retreat to the boats and leave the island with the leaves they already had gathered. They just barely saved Cord before a Tyrannosaurus ate him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s \u2018retreat\u2019?\u201d asked Molly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when you have to stop fighting and leave before all your soldiers on your team get killed or captured\u201d, I said, remembering what dad had told me about the real war.<\/p>\n

Mom finally came back and brought David out in the backyard with us while she talked to Molly\u2019s mom. While they talked, David helped us find and put all my dinosaurs and soldiers back in their boxes. Actually Molly and I let David do most of the finding things because we really liked that. Molly and I were too worried about making sure we each got the right dinosaurs back in our boxes. There was only one Plesiosaurus and I knew that was mine, but there was also just one Protoceratops, and we weren\u2019t sure if it was mine or hers. She thought it might be hers, so we had David put it in her box, but she said I could \u201cborrow\u201d it the next time we played dinosaurs together. We both knew about \u201cborrowing\u201d stuff now because we were going to the library to get books. We also went to the bookmobile, which we could do by ourselves, which was really neat.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

It was Monday and I had to go back to school. It would have been okay if I only had to go sometimes when I felt like doing that school stuff, with our teacher telling us all the time what to do. But I had to go every day except for Saturday and Sunday which was the \u201cweekend\u201d. And after that \u201cweekend\u201d doing what I wanted to do, it would be Monday again and I\u2019d have to go again every day, nothing was ever different. I felt like I had to keep thinking about school more than I wanted to. It felt like I would have to go to school forever, but mom said there would be a \u201cwinter break\u201d for two weeks when it was Christmas time, another one week \u201cspring break\u201d, and school would be all over in the middle of June. So I kept going because I guess I had too, and all the other kids were doing it too. I didn\u2019t even want to ask mom or dad if I REALLY had to, because both of them liked school. Dad liked it so much that he was STILL going to school even though he was a grownup. But at least it was helping me figure out how to read, and now I could read a lot of stuff, even if I didn\u2019t know what some of the words meant.<\/p>\n

I had to get up when the small hand on the plastic clock in my room pointed at the \u201c7\u201d, if I remembered to wind it up the night before. But mom or dad would come in and wake me up anyway. Sometimes I didn\u2019t want to get up, but I also didn\u2019t want mom and dad to treat me like a little kid and keep telling me what to do. So even if I didn\u2019t want to, I would get dressed and eat some cereal, and then I had to start walking to school when the little hand was between the \u201c7\u201d and the \u201c8\u201d on our clocks.<\/p>\n

If it was raining, mom or dad would drive me to school, but most of the time I walked. It took a long time and in the mornings it felt really cold sometimes. But I wanted to do it to keep showing them that I was a big kid that could do everything myself. I figured it was working because mom or dad sometimes would look worried and ask me, \u201cAre you sure you\u2019re okay doing this by yourself?\u201d. I would ALWAYS nod when they asked me that question. Then they would say, \u201cGood for you Coop!\u201d and would be happy that they didn\u2019t need to worry about me because they had so many other things they were worrying about. Like David, paying bills, fixing the car, dad\u2019s \u201cdissertation\u201d, and not having furniture in the living room.<\/p>\n

And when I got to school, sometimes it was okay that our teacher told me and all the other kids what to do, because I liked what she wanted us to do, like reading or going out to \u201crecess\u201d. But other times it wasn\u2019t okay because we had to do things like \u201cspelling\u201d, which I NEVER liked doing. Other kids could read what I wrote even if I didn\u2019t \u201cspell\u201d the words the regular way. My school friend Gabe said spelling was \u201cboring\u201d, which meant that it was okay to do it a few times but not over and over. But our teacher always wanted us to write words the \u201cright way\u201d. Also when I was reading or doing \u201crecess\u201d I usually didn\u2019t want to stop when our teacher said it was time to do something else.<\/p>\n

But a while ago I had brought my box of dinosaurs to school, and Amanda, Gabe, Jake and I had all played with them at recess. Amanda and Gabe had dinosaurs too, and they started bringing theirs. We knew all the dinosaur names and even the regular words for those names. My favorite was \u201cTyrannosaurus Rex\u201d, which was \u201ctyrant lizard king\u201d in regular words. That was Gabe\u2019s favorite too. Amanda said that a \u201ctyrant\u201d was a really bad guy who was in charge. We also knew which ones were plant-eaters and which were meat-eaters. Gabe, Jake and I all thought the meat-eaters were the best, but Amanda said that was because we were boys. We had all read the books about dinosaurs at the library at school, and had our own dinosaur books that we got from the regular library where they let you take books home if you got a \u201clibrary card\u201d. We had fun trying to know everything about all the different dinosaurs and see if we knew the most. Amanda and Gabe were both pretty good at knowing the most. I knew a lot too, but Jake didn\u2019t know as much because he didn\u2019t have any dinosaurs at home, he only played with them when we brought ours to school.<\/p>\n

Other kids in our class asked to play with us and our dinosaurs at recess. We would tell them what each one was named and what the regular words for that name were. Also whether they ate meat or plants. And some of the other kids were figuring out all about them from the books in the school library or the regular library. But today, our teacher came over and said she wanted to talk to us about dinosaurs too. I was worried, because I figured since she didn\u2019t tell us to play with or read about dinosaurs, she would say we shouldn\u2019t bring them to school, but she didn\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n

She said she wanted to do a \u201cunit\u201d on dinosaurs, because she saw that we were so interested in them and the other kids were too, and it was making us do more reading, which she really really liked. I wasn\u2019t going to, but Amanda asked her what a \u201cunit\u201d was, and our teacher said it usually was something that the school told her to teach kids about, like plants, or families or adding numbers. We were supposed to do a \u201cunit\u201d on regular animals, like cats and dogs and cows and stuff, but the school said she could do a unit on dinosaurs. She wanted us to help her make it more fun so all the kids in our class would like learning about different kinds of animals and do more reading like Amanda, Gabe, Jake and I were doing.<\/p>\n

She sat down on the sand next to us, though it was hard for her, like it was for Amanda, because she was wearing a dress and we weren\u2019t supposed to see her underwear.<\/p>\n

\u201cAch\u201d, she said, \u201cI wish Mrs. Sanderson would let me wear slacks to school!\u201d Finally she was able to sit down in kind of a strange way with her legs together and pull her dress down over her knees.<\/p>\n

Amanda said, \u201cMy mother said that unless you want people to call you a Tomboy, you need to wear a dress or at least a skirt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell\u201d, said our teacher, \u201cThat would be the least of my worries.\u201d She brushed sand off of the bottom part of her dress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t wear a dress to school\u201d, Gabe said, \u201cAnd people don\u2019t call ME a Tomboy.\u201d He laughed through his nose like a grownup.<\/p>\n

Amanda gave him a fierce look. \u201cGabriel\u201d, she said, \u201cStop acting like such a CHILD!\u201d She said \u201cchild\u201d like it was something bad, like the way some grownups said it. It was supposed to be another word for \u201ckid\u201d, but some grownups said it like it meant you were stupid, though mom and dad didn\u2019t say it that way.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t believe that they were talking this way in front of a grownup, even though our teacher didn\u2019t always seem like a regular grownup. I would never talk that way around mom or dad or another grownup, though I kind of liked that my friends were doing it, and wished I could too.<\/p>\n

Our teacher shook her head. \u201cAmanda\u201d, she said, \u201cI bet you\u2019ve heard your parents or other adults use the word \u2018child\u2019 that way, like it\u2019s a bad thing. I really wish people wouldn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amanda suddenly got quiet and worried that she\u2019d said something really bad. Gabe, Jake and I got quiet too.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, no, no\u201d, said our teacher, looking worried and waving her hand in front of her, \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to scold you. I just don\u2019t like adults talking like that, it\u2019s so disrespectful of children. You guys just pick it up from them. You\u2019re just trying to learn how to express your strong feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m not a \u2018guy\u2019, I\u2019m a girl\u201d, said Amanda.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, I\u2019m sorry Amanda\u201d, said our teacher, looking more worried now. She looked up at the sky, puffed out her cheeks and blew air out of her closed mouth. \u201cOh boy\u201d, she said, \u201cI should\u2019ve stuck with journalism!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know\u201d, said Gabe, \u201cYou\u2019re not like a regular grownup!\u201d<\/p>\n

Amanda did a funny look and made a click noise with her mouth and shook her head while she looked up at the sky, like Gabe had said something stupid.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo\u201d, said our teacher, pointing her finger at Amanda and moving it up and down, \u201cIt\u2019s okay. That\u2019s probably the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amanda looked at her like she was surprised our teacher said that.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay. Okay\u201d, our teacher said, patting her hands on the sand in front of her, \u201cBack to what I came over here to ask the four of you before we got off track. She looked around at all of us and asked, \u201cSo what do you guys\u2026 and girl think?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d, said Jake, \u201cSome of the other kids might just want to find out about regular animals, because they have regular animals, like cats or dogs, at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u201d, said Gabe, his eyes twinkling, \u201cWe don\u2019t have cats or dogs at home, we have dinosaurs.\u201d Our teacher laughed, and Gabe did too. He liked it when he said stuff that made other people laugh. But I couldn\u2019t figure out what was funny. But then I wondered if Gabe was being silly and pretending we had REAL dinosaurs at our houses instead of a cat or a dog like some other people had, so I laughed too.<\/p>\n

\u201cHmm\u201d, said our teacher, putting her hand under her chin, \u201cI\u2019ll have to figure this out. Do some more thinking.\u201d Her mouth started to smile and she laughed through her nose and said, \u201cI should\u2019ve stuck with journalism!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy\u201d, said Amanda, \u201cWhat\u2019s journalism?\u201d<\/p>\n

Our teacher waved her hand in front of her face and said, \u201cI was just feeling frustrated, being silly. Journalism is writing stories that they put in newspapers, radio or TV news. I studied it in college.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that like being a reporter?\u201d Amanda asked, \u201cMy dad\u2019s a reporter. He works for the Ann Arbor News.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWow\u2026\u201d said our teacher, \u201cThat\u2019s exactly like being a reporter.\u201d She was going to say more but one of the girls in our class ran up to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiss Zimmerman\u201d, she said, \u201cRichie told me to shut up!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh dear\u201d, our teacher said, turning her head to look at the girl, \u201cDo you need me to come and sort it out?\u201d The girl nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cStay here for just a minute\u201d, our teacher said to her, \u201cAnd then we\u2019ll walk over and talk to Richie. I just have to finish up talking to Gabe, Jake, Amanda and Cooper.\u201d The girl pushed her lips together and nodded again.<\/p>\n

Our teacher turned her head to look back at the four of us. \u201cWell, back to work\u201d, she said, her eyes looking like she was doing a lot of thinking. \u201cOne quick thing\u201d, she said, holding up a finger. \u201cI make a point of calling each one of you by the names you want to be called. I would appreciate it if you called me by my name. I\u2019m Miss Zimmerman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of long to say that\u201d, said Gabe.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, well\u201d, she said, \u201cThe school says all teachers need to use their last names. Mine IS kind of long.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s your regular name?\u201d Jake asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you mean my first name, it\u2019s Hannah\u201d, she said, \u201cMy friends call me Hanny.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we call you Hanny?\u201d Gabe asked.<\/p>\n

Our teacher opened her lips but kept her teeth closed and sucked air in through them. \u201cI\u2019ll have to say no\u201d, she said, \u201cBecause of the school rules. But how about a compromise. You guys\u2026 and girls know what a compromise is?\u201d Gabe, Jake and I shook our heads, but Amanda nodded, and seeing that us boys didn\u2019t know and she did, she got a big smile on her face.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody gets what they want\u201d, she said, \u201cBut they get something so they aren\u2019t mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHmm\u201d, said our teacher, \u201cI might define it differently, but something like that. Anyway\u2026 how about you call me Miss Z?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabe, Jake and I nodded our heads. \u201cThat\u2019s good\u201d, Gabe said, \u201cI like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell\u201d, said Amanda, not nodding her head, \u201cI\u2019m still going to call you Miss Zimmerman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s great\u201d, our teacher said, \u201cJust don\u2019t call me late for dinner!\u201d We all looked at her like we didn\u2019t know what she was talking about.<\/p>\n

She saw that we couldn\u2019t figure that out. \u201cThat\u2019s just a funny thing adults say sometimes\u201d, she said, waving her hand. Maybe another time I\u2019ll explain it to you. But I\u2019m glad we could work something out. Now Rachel and I have to talk to Richie.\u201d She stood up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere is he?\u201d she asked Rachel. Rachel pointed and the two of them walked away.<\/p>\n

So pretty soon at school our teacher, \u201cMiss Z\u201d, said that for our \u201cAnimal Unit\u201d we could either do \u201ca pet, a farm animal, or a dinosaur\u201d. She said if you had a pet or farm animal, you could draw a picture of it and then write a sentence under the picture that said where it lived, what kind of food it ate and why you liked it. Or if you wanted to do a dinosaur, you could pick one out, draw a picture, and then write where it lived, what the name meant in regular words, and what kind of food it ate and why you liked it. She got books about dinosaurs and regular animals from the school library and the regular library and put them on the table in our room so we could pick which one we wanted to do.<\/p>\n

She said that she hoped that if we were doing a dinosaur that we\u2019d pick one that was different from what other kids were doing. Because Gabe, Amanda, Jake and I liked dinosaurs so much, a lot of the other kids decided to do a dinosaur too, and five of the other boys did the Tyrannosaurus like Gabe did. I did the Allosaurus and Jake did the Pteranodon. Amanda did the Diplodocus.<\/p>\n

When we gave Miss Z our sheets of paper, she put them all up on the walls of our room on these things called \u201cbulletin boards\u201d. They were pretty neat, you could stick things to them with these little round things with a sharp point sticking outy called \u201cthumb tacks\u201d.<\/p>\n

That Mrs Sanderson woman, who mom and I talked to on my first day here at school, came into our classroom to talk to our teacher, Miss Z, about something. Then she looked at all our pictures and words on the wall. \u201cVery good work\u201d, she said to Miss Z, \u201cBut I would have made each child do a different dinosaur so you had more variety.\u201d It didn\u2019t sound like she was saying \u201cchild\u201d as a bad word, but I wasn\u2019t sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was Saturday and mom took me over to Molly\u2019s new house like she did last Saturday. We drove to the end of our street to where the giant high school was, and then turned left on the \u201cStadium\u201d street. We drove by the stadium, over a bridge, by the \u201cgrocery\u201d store and that \u201cSunoco\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[1777,13,1774,1773,1799,1800,1775],"class_list":["post-7523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","tag-1960s","tag-ann-arbor","tag-autobiography","tag-childhood","tag-free-range-kid","tag-growing-up","tag-memoir"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7523"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7526,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7523\/revisions\/7526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}