This Is How It Always Is(30)

“But he’s so little.” Ben looked helpless.

“Little like he can’t fight back,” said Roo.

“Little like you could tell him what to do and he’d do it,” said Ben. “Tell him what to wear to school and he will. Tell him he’s a boy and not a night fairy.”

“You can’t tell people what to be, I’m afraid,” said Rosie. “You can only love and support who they already are. But thank you for coming to talk to us. And thank you for trying to protect him. That’s sweet and brotherly of you.”

“I am nothing if not brotherly,” said Ben.

“Not true,” said Roo. “You’re also smelly.”

“You’re the one who has to leave your shoes outside at night so you don’t slip into a coma in your sleep.”

“You’re the one even Jupiter can’t stand to smell in the morning. And she likes the smell of dog ass.”

“Don’t say ‘ass,’ Roo,” said Rosie.

“Bedtime,” said Penn. “Past bedtime. Thank you for your concern. We’ll take it under advisement.”

Now Rosie and Penn were sitting in the principal’s office feeling altogether less sure of themselves than they had pretended to the boys the night before. They’d made the meeting with Dwight Harmon only, but the indefatigably perky Miss Appleton was there as well, along with the district representative (representing what or whom was not made clear) Victoria Revels. Victoria Revels sounded like she’d be a lot of fun, but that was only the first of many erroneous assumptions Rosie and Penn made that day.

“Will Claude be changing his name?” Victoria Revels asked when they came to the end of their carefully prepared speech. Rosie and Penn looked at each other.

“I don’t think so,” said Penn. “Why?”

“Then we can table all name and pronoun adjustments for the moment.” She was looking at a checklist that seemed to run on to several pages. “If that should change, please let us know right away.”

Dwight Harmon looked up from all the printed-in-quadruplicate paperwork to two blank and petrified faces. “Relax, guys. Claude’s not our first child with special needs. And Claude’s not the district’s first transgender child. We’ve got everything under control.”

Penn felt the bees in his chest turn into something hopping. Crickets, maybe, or frogs. “He just wants to come to school in a dress for the moment,” he fumbled. “That doesn’t make him…”

He trailed off, and Rosie took the baton. “He’s not … we haven’t settled on the label ‘transgender’ per se.”

“You may not have,” said Ms. Revels, “but paperwork-wise, that’s what a boy coming to school as a girl is. Transgender. That said, it is not necessary to officially change his name. Many school districts in this country require an official court order or change to the birth certificate. We are not one of those districts, so faculty and staff will be able to call your child whatever you decide, but you have to let us know, and you should be advised that change is not instantaneous.”

No. As far as Penn’s frogs were concerned, it seemed quite a bit faster than that.

“Now, Claude will have to use the bathroom in the nurse’s office,” she continued. “He can’t use the staff restroom due to legal considerations. He can’t use the girls’ restroom due to safety considerations. We can’t make him use the boys’ restroom if he is not comfortable doing so.”

“The nurse’s office is right next to the kindergarten classrooms anyway,” Dwight assured them. “I learned long ago that kindergarten is where you want the nurse to be able to get as quickly as possible. So it shouldn’t be too isolating or inconvenient. If in the future that poses a problem—Claude transitions fully to a girl, say, and feels shut out of the social role the restroom comes to play in older girls’ lives—you’ll let us know, and we’ll figure out a different arrangement.”

More blank stares, faces paling to a whiter shade of Wisconsin winter sky.

“Ah, that’s right!” Dwight grinned. “You guys don’t know anything about the social memes of girls. Aren’t you in for a treat!”

They had no idea, but they were starting to doubt it.

“Now, Miss Appleton here”—even the district representative could not call the woman by her first name—“will talk about what this is going to look like at the classroom level.”

Miss Appleton smiled at them like five-year-olds. “We’re very excited to work with Claude. He’s such a special b … uh, child. But I do think we should all expect that there might be some questions at first.”

“You think?” Penn was starting to see that Miss Appleton’s default tense was conditional: Now, children, let’s decide whether or not it’s good decision making to feed crayons to the hamster. Boys and girls, should we have a cookie party this afternoon, or would we perhaps prefer to continue talking to our neighbors when I have two fingers clearly raised for quiet and have already sung the listening song?

“We don’t want to discourage the other little boys and girls from asking questions,” she patiently, so patiently, explained. “We must prepare Claude for how he will answer them. Curiosity is natural. It comes from the children’s desire to help their friend. I know Claude doesn’t want to hurt their feelings by refusing to answer them or by choosing to interpret their innocent questions as being unkind.”