Fall at school smells really good. The playground has dry, crunchy, swirly leaves all around the edges and wet, mushy ones are stuck to the seats of the swings. The grass on the soccer field still gets cut every week and the chilly breezes of October carry the smell of fresh cut grass up and down the hallways when a door is propped open by a custodian or an unruly kid.

We can’t decide if we need coats or not. Actually, we know we don’t need coats but our teachers aren’t sure they should let us go to recess without them. We don’t notice the slimy snotty crusty noses wiped on our long sleeves or the deep, hacky coughs that we bring back in from the chilly fall weather after lunch recess.

The hallways are lined with class projects. Mrs. Burke’s Kindergartners have decorated leaf cutouts with crayons that are lined along the hall next to their classroom. Mrs. Gredy’s 3rd graders have bug collections while the 4th graders build birdhouses and miniature log cabins that line the opposite hallway – The Big Kid Hallway.

The bus drivers give us little treat bags full of Tootsie Pops and Pop Rocks tied with orange ribbons. The lunch ladies find ways to fancy up apple slices with caramel and cider. Mr. Simon teaches us Christmas songs already because we’re practicing for our big Christmas concert at the end of the semester. Sometimes on nice days, we’ll sit outside under the trees while he plays guitar and teaches us a brand new song.

Our hot, foggy breath on the bus windows is smeared with initials and hearts and tiny footprints made from the side of your curled fist pressed into them. The floor of the bus is hot and we can feel the heart burning against the backs of our feet under the seats. Everyone’s nose runs and everyone coughs in the hot, closed air of the school bus. It is not wonder we’re all catching the same colds.

We take fieldtrips to farms and pastures and historic places, tying our sweatshirts around our wastes at lunch while the hood of it drags the floor behind us. By the time we get on the bus to head back to school, we’re all wearing our sweatshirts again as the sun already begins to dip in the sky.

When we get home from school, we carve pumpkins with our parents and start asking for hot chocolate and watching “13 Nights of Halloween” on ABC Family. We go shopping for our Halloween costumes weeks in advance but forget to get Trick-r-Treat buckets until the day of. We have Fall Break Sleepovers and you can start to see smoke rising from more and more chimneys on the way to school in the mornings. We forget all about Thanksgiving between the excitement of Halloween candy and the Christmas Kleenex commercials that have been playing for weeks.

The hot blowing air of furnaces that have been still and silent all summer tells us that Winter is almost here, with its own set of treats and activities. But I really like Fall at school. It just smells really good.

Back to School

I got a letter! It’s from my new teacher. She writes to tell me that she hopes I had a good summer and she’s looking forward to meeting me and this is the list of supplies I’ll need for the school year. I am ready right now! Let’s go to the store! I need notebooks and markers and an extra box of Kleenex.

The night before school starts, I’m a wreck. I can’t sleep and I keep thinking about my First-Day-of-School Outfit and if we’re going to miss the bus. I lie awake most of the night, watching the clock and counting down the minutes until the alarm goes off.

I can barely eat. Cereal tastes like wood shavings this morning. I get dressed way too quickly and now have nothing to do until the bus comes. My new backpack smells like plastic and possibility. I tug the zippers nervously, killing time, waiting.

Morning cartoons have changed a bit in the past three months. They have a new line up. Hercules then Saved by the Bell then VR Troopers. I see them but I’m not watching. My mind is elsewhere. My mind is wondering where my desk will be and if there will be any new kids and what we’ll play at recess.

The afternoons still feel like summer, but the mornings have grown chilly and damp with dew. We trek outside to the porch, Mom with her camera in hand. We stand by bushes and trees and sit on the porch swing as she snaps photo after photo. We aren’t trying to be models. We are trying to wait for the bus.

Finally, someone spots it coming around the bend. My stomach does flip flops and I think I might lose those Cheerios I ate a half an hour ago. I’m excited! I’m nervous. I’m itchy in my brand new Back-to-School outfit. I’m getting on the bus.

At recess, we’ve been training for Track and Field Day. Mrs. Klinger makes us run relay races around the playground and hosts sprints that the same people win every time.

Only fifth and sixth graders get to go to Track and Field Day. It’s in Nashville at the high school. Mom says they did Track and Field Day when she was in fifth grade too. The Nashville Elementary kids always win because they get to practice on the real track. Lucky ducks.

I already kind of hate running, so I sign up for one race and all of my other events are field events. High jump. Long jump. Shot-put, which is really a softball throw since they don’t want to injure our little muscles.

We all get matching t-shirts to wear that day. It is easy to spot the Nashville kids when we get to the track. They are walking around like they own the place. I’ve heard about them. Their parents run shops in Nashville and they are bit more citified than the rest of us at the elementaries on the outskirts.

I know some of the girls from basketball teams. Natalie B. goes to Nashville and she’s as tall as me. She has her long dark hair pulled back in a pony tail too. It is no surprise that we are two of the top contenders for the high jump. We tie for second, she and I. I’m excited. I know that everyone gets a participation ribbon just for showing up, but the first three places get special ribbons awarded to them at assembly on Friday morning.

The relay race is the last event. We all gather in the middle of the track and watch our teams duke it out for the title. Our boys put up a good fight, but of course Nashville wins.

Nonetheless, we are all abuzz on Friday morning, sitting in our class rows on the gym floor, waiting for assembly to begin. We all stand and face the flag, and you can hear Mrs. Donovan’s wobbly voice louder than all the others as we sing the National Anthem. Announcements are made - special reminders for the Spring Concert and a Grandparents luncheon next week.

Finally, the ribbons! They are all displayed on a rolling cart that Mrs. Klinger pushes to the center of the gym. Into the microphone she begins announcing names and scores and placements. We clap and clap. It takes forever for her to get to the high jump. I know a second place ribbon isn’t blue, but it’s mine and I can’t wait to show it off to Nana and Papaw when I get home!

She announces the high jump winner, followed by Natalie B. in second place, and my name is called for third. What? I approach the front, puzzled by this turn of events. She tells me later that they could only award one second place ribbon, and since Natalie was alphabetically before me, I got third by default. “Congratulations!”

We sit in a circle in the morning and play a hand-clap game, counting the number of days we’ve been in school so far. We finger paint, which feels like something we should be in trouble for. Smearing colorful goo all over the table top surface? I would be in so much trouble at home. But it’s okay here. Actually, it’s wonderful here.

In the afternoon, we get to drink chocolate milk from little cartons. They bring it in to the classroom in brown, square crates stacked on a cart. Some days we have to do fluoride. Tiny cups of pink liquid stand in rows on a lunch tray. A line of tape runs the length of the room, and we stand on it in a row, waiting our turn. She checks our name off the list when we take a cup. I don’t like fluoride day. It smells funny and tastes funny and makes me feel all woozy, like my head is full of yarn and air instead of brain.

We have a substitute teacher at recess. It rained in the morning, and there are puddles scattered around the playground. One by the swings. One by the sandbox. The sand there is sticky and rough from the earlier showers. One under the monkeybars. We take turns climbing across the cool, slick metal bars, trying not to fall in the puddle. But we aren’t really trying that hard. Someone lands in the puddle.

Uh oh! Look around. Quick. Did she see? Did the teacher see? We’re going to be in trouble.

But she’s laughing. How fun! A grownup who likes fun, kid things? This is a miracle.

Suddenly, everyone is jumping in puddles. Splashing. Stomping. Dirty, brown puddle water spraying up the backs of our jeans and onto our coats. Little flecks of mud and rock stick to pink round cheeks and in the girls’ long ponytails. This is the best recess ever.

Suddenly, everyone freezes. Now, we’re in trouble. Here comes a real teacher. She teaches first grade. She’s tall, and has red hair and glasses, and her voice is sharp and straight like a razor. We’re all ordered to sit against The Wall. That’s where you have to go when you’re bad at recess. Go sit by yourself along The Wall and watch everyone else have fun. With my back to The Wall, the scratchy bricks pick at my coat and catch pieces of my hair, pulling it when I turn my head.

We are all in trouble, but it doesn't seem fair. The grownup in charge was letting us play there. She was okay with it, and she was the one in charge, so why does this other lady get to come out here and tell us we all did something bad? How can you be in trouble for something that you’ve been told you are allowed to do? Rules are supposed to be simple and constant, and I do not like it when they change. It is the essence of unfairness. My five-year-old self is offended and outraged.

Now, any time it’s rainy before recess, even if it stops in time for us to go play, we have to have Inside Recess. Board games. Books. The costume area and play place where we can play house or doctor or ride on the pony seesaw.

And each morning, we sit in a circle and clap our hands and slap our knees and add one more day to the count. These are the days we are in school.