The Wrinkled Shirt

It was sometime around recess, every day, when all the other kids were rushing outside, that Nathan dallied in the hallway, pretending to wait for the bathroom, or fooling around with the water fountain, as if it didn’t work.
He would dally, hoping beyond all hope that the one girl who always wore yellow, who had smiled at him once when he was getting out of the schoolbus, would come out of her classroom down the hall. She was in a class one higher than him, wore a ponytail with a bright yellow ribbon, and liked ponies. He knew that because she carried a folder with a pony on it.
Nathan was a year older than His Girl, and two years older than most of his classmates, because his Daddy had an important job that took them all around the country. Nathan was very well prepared and pretty excited to tell His Girl all about being in the big mountains out west, called the Rockies, and to show her pictures of him and his mom at the Grand Canyon, which his Dad had taken. The pictures were fuzzy, but he was wearing his favorite shirt in one, and he’d wear the shirt the day he showed His Girl.
Her name was Charlotte, his friend told him, when he had asked. Later that same day Charlotte looked directly at him, for a moment, before running off to join her friends.

Nathan knew that she wanted to be his friend, maybe even sit with him at recess sometimes, maybe even hold hands, like he saw some of the other boys doing. That night, Nathan announced as he came in the door that he’d be needing his favorite shirt in the morning, but his Mom she was leaning up against the stove and crying, when he found her in the kitchen, and his father was sitting alone, in the dark, funny smelling living room.
Of all the houses they’d lived in, Nathan liked this one the least. He didn’t want to wake his father, so he crept over to hug his Mom, who hugged him back, into her belly. He loved the way she smelled, but her hands were weak as she held him, and he was scared, because he didn’t know why she was crying.
When he asked why she was crying, she shushed him, and sent him up to his room.

Sometimes, Nathan’s Mom would take him to the laundry-mat down the street, and he loved watching the clothes in the drier as they spun, and helping her fold some things, although he always got it wrong, and she would refold them.

Being very quiet, Nathan crept into the hallway, to the clothes hamper, to look for his favorite shirt. He found it, wrinkled, at the bottom of all the other clothes. It smelled damp, and of his father’s dirty jeans. He took it out, tried to smooth it, and hoped Charlotte would not ask to smell it, because didn't want to bother his Mom about washing it now.
Without brushing his teeth, but secretly hoping his Mom would come in and tell him to, he went to bed.

When he woke up the next morning, his father was already gone, but his Mom was in the kitchen quietly putting carrots into a pressure cooker. On the metal kitchen table, sitting next to two plates, silverware, and a half-glass of orange juice on the thin checkered cloth, was a square brown paper package.
Mom told him that the package was a special present for him, and that he shouldn’t open it until the bus got close to school. She told him she was sorry for telling him to go to his room the night before, and that they might have to move again.

He was so happy to talk to Charlotte, and show her the picture with him in his favorite shirt, that he completely forgot to open the package, on his way to school. Getting off the bus, he was sad because he suddenly realized he forgot his lunch. Nathan wondered if his mother forgot to give it to him, or if he forgot it when he left for the bus stop.

On his way to the main doors to his school, a sleek black car pulled up next to him, with bright wheels and dark windows. The rear door opened, and he stopped, stunned, as first one stockinged foot, then another emerged, pulling behind them a girl wearing a frilly white hat, dressed in a white dress that hurt his eyes in the sun. When he pulled his arm back from his elbow, which he had used to cover them from the glaring brightness, Charlotte was standing there, wearing the white dress!
He rushed up to her, babbling about something he had to show her, and searched frantically for the fuzzy picture of him and his mother at the Grand Canyon.
Nothing.
Did he forget it on the bus? He ran his hands over the front and back left pockets of his jeans.
Nothing.
Charlotte turned and began walking toward the doors. He shifted the package and shirt from under his right arm to his left, and, finally!, pulled the picture out of his pocket.

Nathan reached Charlotte just as she entered the door, and, when he called her name, she stopped and turned. Triumphantly, he held up the picture, and dropped the package, wrapped in its brown paper, onto the concrete, which hit with a hollow thud, so he could unfold his favorite t-shirt.

“See? This is me and my Mom, at the Grand Canyon. Can you see it’s me? I brought the shirt, this one right here, not the one I’m wearing, so you can see it’s me, cause the picture’s a little fuzzy. My Dad took it.” Nathan stood beaming proudly.
“It doesn’t look like you.” Charlotte said. Then she sniffed, and scrunched up her nose, and looked down at the wrinkled t-shirt he clutched in his right hand. “Why are you wearing those clothes? Your shirt has a stain on it, and your jeans are ripped. Didn’t your Mommy buy you something nice for school picture day?” Charlotte twirled. “My Mommy bought me this new dress. Don’t I look pretty?”
With that, Charlotte bounced off down the hallway.

Nathan stood, just inside the doorway, and watched her go. He looked again at the picture, and at the shirt, lowered his head, fighting back tears and not caring who saw.
Sniffling, he bent down, and two drops went slipping down his cheeks, splashing quietly on the linoleum. He reached out his hand to pick up his package, still wrapped in its brown paper wrapper, just as another kid came running past him into the school, who kicked the package with his foot, sending it skidding clear across the hall. It came to a rest, with a bounce and a hollow thud, against the far wall.
The other kid glanced back, laughed, and kept running, faster, down the hall, thinking Nathan would chase him.

Sitting in his first class, math class, which was easy for him so he got bored a lot, Nathan began quietly picking at the clear tape that held the paper wrapping together. Slowly, working with his hands while pretending to pay attention, he got all the pieces of tape off and was about to peek inside, when the teacher came walking down the row directly toward him!
Leaning forward, he tried hard to make it look like he was concentrating, but the teacher stopped directly next to his desk!
“Nathan, what is that in you lap? Why don’t you show the whole class what it is?”
All the kids in his class turned around, looking at him and laughing. He blushed a deep red, and felt like crying again. Then the teacher reached down, grabbed the package from his lap, and turned to face the rest of the room.
Nathan saw the brown wrapper fall to the ground, and strained to see what it contained.
“A lunch box! Nathan, you know there’s no eating allowed in class!” She showed the rest of the class the box, reminding them again of the rule. Without looking back at Nathan, she walked to the front of the room, placing the lunch box on the extreme corner of her desk, and the class resumed. His classmates snickered at him, but Nathan, he didn't hear a thing.

Seeing the lunch box, His Very First Own Dukes of Hazard Lunch Box, Nathan smiled, and thought to himself

This is the best day of my life