Here the Whole Time(13)

After almost an hour on the bus, we finally arrive at the community center. It’s basically a two-story house with a very humble design. As soon as we walk in, we’re welcomed by a tiny woman with a colorful scarf over her hair.

“Good morning, Rita! Your class is already waiting for you,” the lady says, hugging my mom.

“I brought my son along today, Carol,” my mom replies, and Carol looks at Caio right away.

“What a good-looking fellow!” she says, hugging him. Carol is definitely a hugger.

“Ah, no. I’m not her son, just the neighbor,” Caio says, a little embarrassed.

“Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Felipe,” I chime in, bracing for the hug.

But Carol only offers her hand to shake mine, a tight smile on her face.

I don’t have a lot of time to analyze the situation, because my mom is already pulling us down the hallway. The center is way bigger than it looks from the outside. The hallway is full of doors, and each one has a little sign indicating a different class. Ballet, music, jujitsu, drama … They have everything in this place. But I’m relieved when I find the door I’ve been looking for since I first set foot in this place—the bathroom.

“Gotta go to the bathroom, see you in the classroom,” I say, making my way toward the door with a sign that says BOYS.

“Last door on the right down this same hallway,” my mom says, moving on to her first class of the day. Caio goes after her.

The bathroom is small, but it has what I need. A stall. Putting jeans over my shorts was, by far, the worst idea I have ever had. And I have a pretty big collection of bad ideas.

I go into a stall, drop my pants, and take a relieved breath. I have a heat rash on my legs (sorry to throw this unexpected information at you, but hold tight because this is an important bit of the story), and I just sit on the toilet for a while, trying to figure out how to bring the shorts with me to the classroom and hide them in my mom’s purse. Then I hear the bathroom door open and some boys walk in, making a racket. I sit there in silence because I don’t want to be caught with my pants down. Literally.

“Stop—please! I didn’t do anything to you!” I hear a kid’s voice say. The boy can’t be more than eight. Or maybe ten. I’m not an expert on kids.

“Gonna cry, little girl?” I hear an older kid answer while a group of boys laughs.

“Why don’t you face me yourself, then?” says the younger one, braver than I was when I was his age.

“Because you’re fat! We need more than one to handle all of you!” another older boy answers, and the others start laughing harder. Then one by one they start launching attacks at the younger boy:

“Jabba the Hutt!”

“Tub of lard!”

“Land whale!”

And for a second, it feels as if they’re talking to me. Like I said, I’m used to it, but hearing these words being said to a child, one after the other like a reflex, makes my blood boil.

I’ve never been brave. I’ve always been the kind of person who takes it in stride and pretends nothing ever happened. But this time, I pull my pants up (now without the shorts) and open the stall door with a bang to scare the boys. I find the younger boy pressed against a corner of the bathroom and surrounded by five older kids. They must be around thirteen.

“What’s going on here?” I say, making my voice as serious as I can. I think I can make myself seem like an adult, at least enough to frighten them.

“Nothing!” one of the boys says. At the same time, all of them get away from the younger boy and run out of the bathroom. I am overcome with relief, because walking out of the stall and confronting them was my only plan.

“Thanks, mister,” the younger boy says in a very low voice. His eyes are full of tears, and it breaks my heart.

I smile to show him everything is fine, and also because I think it’s funny that he’s calling me mister.

“You can call me Felipe,” I say, stepping closer to the boy and crouching next to him. “What’s your name?”

“Eddie,” the boy says, still shy. “It’s Jo?o Eduardo, but they call me Eddie.”

Eddie is a bigger boy, and his clothes don’t fit him anymore. His old T-shirt is tight, and it lets a good chunk of his belly out.

“How old are you, Eddie?” I ask, because I don’t know what else to say.

“Nine.”

I was so close!

“You were brave, standing up to those boys. They’re jerks!” I say, and then regret it immediately, because I don’t know if it’s appropriate to say the word jerks to a nine-year-old.

“They always do that. I’m used to it by now,” Eddie says, then punches the wall.

I can feel the anger in his words, and more than that, I can identify with him in a way I’ve never identified with anyone before. It’s as if, at nine years old, Eddie is already fed up with the world. All of a sudden, I understand how my mom feels when she says she wishes she could keep all her students safe.

I try to change the subject. “Which class are you taking here?”

“Art. With Ms. Rita,” he says, and it makes me happy that I get to help make this kid feel safe for the entire day.

“I’m going to the art class, too! Shall we?” I say, then put my hands in my jacket pockets because I don’t know if I’m supposed to hold his hand.