A Smile
By STEPHANIE HADDAD
Becca sat at her petite school desk, kicking her heels against the stubby legs of her plastic blue chair and twirling
her left pigtail around her fingers. She stared out the classroom windows at the early September scene. The leaves
had just begun to turn bright reds and oranges. She saw a gaggle of Canadian geese fly over the trees and fenced-
in playground of her brand new school. Inside the playground, bigger children swung on the swings, slid down the
slide and climbed on the shiny blue jungle gym. All of them were laughing and smiling, enjoying the crisp autumn
air. Becca could hardly wait for next year, when she too would be a first grader with the rights to play outside for a
half an hour every day. She could imagine herself swinging high above the school, high enough to catch one of
those geese when they flew over her. She could hide it in her jacket all day and take it home with her after school.
Maybe Mom would let her keep it as a pet. She could name it S!
quack or some other good goose name…
“Rebecca? Rebecca, are you still with us?” Her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Carl, stood at the head of the classroom,
tapping her foot impatiently. As Rebecca whipped her head around, still a bit dazed from her daydream, she heard
the other children in her class snickering and whispering about her. Embarrassed, she could feel her face getting
hot. Becca was painfully shy. It had taken a lot for Mom to convince her to even go to school. Now here she was on
her very first day, already drawing attention to herself!
Becca mumbled an apology to Mrs. Carl, slowly sinking deeper into her chair. She wished she could melt into a
puddle under her desk. In a moment of courage, she glanced around the room to see if her classmates were still
staring at her. There was only one who was, a young blond boy who sat in the back right-hand corner. She caught
his glance at her just as a big, bright smile crept across his face. His eyes lit up with the smile, a smile for her!
She wasn’t quite sure what to do. She’d never met any boys before, except for her little brother Timmy. He had
smiled at her hundreds of times. But Timmy didn’t count, he couldn’t even talk yet. This was a different smile, full of
life and happiness, all for Becca!
And this particular boy was much better looking than Timmy. Plus, he probably didn’t wear diapers any more. He
wore a white collared shirt and a kid-sized clip-on tie. Becca immediately recognized the figures of her favorite
Pokemon characters on his tie. She couldn’t wait to tell him they liked the same Pokemons, because then they could
be friends!
The heat on her face was unbearable now. Becca figured she must be as red as that shiny car in the garage that
Dad doesn’t drive. But the blond boy was still smiling at her. Now he gave her a little wave with two of his fingers,
obviously trying not to get Mrs. Carl’s attention. Totally stunned, Becca returned the wave with one finger, shot him
a split-second smile and turned back around to the front of the classroom.
Wow! She could hardly believe what had just happened. Becca didn’t have any friends at school yet; she’d only
been here for an hour or so. She had expected that she would have to actually become brave and make some
friends. Knowing herself, that wouldn’t have happened for a few days…maybe. She’d never had any friends.
There were no kids that lived on her street and she’d never gone to school before, so she didn’t know anyone her
age. Sure, she had plenty of stuffed animals and Barbie dolls to play with (and she still had a few secret imaginary
friends, even if she was five years old) but never any real people for friends. Mom said school was perfect for
meeting new friends. Becca smiled to herself as she realized that Mom was right about how easy making friends
could really be.
In a daze until snack time, Becca dreamed straight through learning about colors and shapes. This time, however,
Mrs. Carl did not call her back to reality. Maybe Becca was getting better at fooling her…that could be useful in
school, or so she assumed. At snack time, she opened her flip-top desk and pulled out her brand new Power Puff
Girls lunch box. Inside it was a shiny red apple, some cheese and crackers and a bright purple juice box. If Becca
could read, she’d have been able to know what flavor it was before she started drinking it, but her test-tasting
method had never failed her before. Mmm…grape juice was her favorite. Mom was really good at packing snacks.
Becca wondered what her Mom’s Mom had given her for a snack on her first day of school as she bit into her apple.
Becca scanned the room, still sitting at her desk, and noticed that other kids were getting up and sitting together in
little groups on the floor. In fact, Becca was the only one sitting alone, until another little girl came over to her desk.
“Hi!” said the little brown-haired girl. She smiled a huge grin, stretching the freckles on her cheeks.
“Hi,” Becca replied, not sure if there was a certain way you needed to talk to people to make them your friends.
“My name’s Kylie.”
“I’m Becca.”
“Hi, Becca. Do you want to sit with me for snack?”
Becca was stunned. So far, two people had made friends with Becca today, and she hadn’t even done anything at
all! She nodded enthusiastically at her new friend Kylie, grabbed her snack and stood up.
“I’m sitting over here,” Kylie said over her shoulder as she walked to a pile of naptime mats in the corner. She spun
around and plopped down on the mats, then smoothed her jean skirt before putting her own snack on her lap.
Becca took a seat next to her, far less dramatically, and noticed that she had the same lunchbox as Kylie, only in a
different color.
Becca held up her lunchbox to show Kylie. “Look, we have the same lunchbox!”
“Cool! That means we have to be friends!” Kylie giggled as she spoke. Becca couldn’t agree more. Besides, you
had to have something in common with your friends. What else would you talk about?
The two girls sat together, sharing their snacks with each other. For the first few moments, they sat silently, except
for the munching sounds of apples and carrot sticks. Then Kylie broke the silence suddenly, making Becca jump.
“So, how old are you, Becca? Is that your real name or is it short for something else? Which Power Puff Girl is your
favorite? Do you like broccoli?” Kylie batted her eyelashes, waiting for an answer. Becca wasn’t sure what to answer
first.
“I’m five,” she started.
“Me too!” Kylie exclaimed. She even jumped up and down on the mat a few times, knocking her juice box to the
floor. “Oops!”
With Kylie distracted by the spouting juice, Becca hurried to answer the other questions. “My name’s Rebecca, but I
like Becca better. My little brother can’t say my name yet, so he calls me Becca.”
“You have a baby brother! That’s so cool!” Kylie was hanging on every word Becca said, her eyes widening.
“Yeah. You can meet him sometime.” Becca was a little confused, but realized that she liked the attention. Even
though she was excited about her first real friend, Becca couldn’t devote her full attention to her. Every few minutes,
she stole a glance across the room at the blond-haired boy, sitting on a pile of mats with a little girl in a pink dress.
They were sharing their snacks too.
After snack time was over, which hadn’t seemed very long to Becca at all, Mrs. Carl called the class back to their
desks to learn numbers. All of this learning bothered Becca; she had thought school was for making new friends
and learning about people, not silly things like numbers. She sighed as she packed up her lunchbox and returned
to her seat, second from the front of the room in the second row from the left. Kylie took her seat, which just
happened to be the one right in front of Becca.
Just then, Becca noticed the girl in the pink dress sitting diagonally to her, just to the left of Kylie. She sat with her
hands folded, giving her full attention to Mrs. Carl and occasionally raising her hand to answer a question. Becca
couldn’t force herself to concentrate on numbers right now, so she glanced out the window again. The wind was
blowing the fallen leaves around the empty playground. There were no children swinging, laughing or playing.
During snack time, the sky had darkened and it was now raining in a steady stream. Mom definitely wouldn’t let
Becca stay after school to play on the slide now. Maybe she and Kylie could go tomorrow after school. That would
be nice.
Since the rain had taken away all excitement of the playground, Becca turned back to Mrs. Carl, who was holding up
giant flashcards one at a time, each proudly displaying a bold red number. She tried to get interested. She even
raised her hand to identify the number “2.” Mrs. Carl smiled at her when she got the right answer and said, “Very
good, Rebecca.” Becca took that as a sign of forgiveness after this morning’s embarrassing episode. With a sense
of satisfaction, she had finally worked up the courage to glance around the room again.
Sure enough, sitting in the back right corner, the blond boy was smiling at her. He must’ve thought Becca was really
smart now, after she’d gotten the right answer. She realized that he hadn’t answered one question yet at all. Maybe
he would want to be friends with her now that he knew she was smart. She smiled back at him, to let him know that
she accepted his offer for friendship.
Similar to their previous exchange, he began to wave two little chubby fingers at her again. But this time, his glance
seemed to go straight through Becca. His wave was sent a little to the right, just past her. Becca didn’t feel the
warmth and happiness from his smile this time. In fact, she wasn’t even sure he was waving and smiling at her any
more. Confused, she turned around in her seat, thinking someone might be outside the window, waving and smiling
back at the little blond boy.
It was worse than that. As she turned, Becca saw the little girl in the pink dress sneaking glances behind her at the
little blond boy. Her heart sank. He had been smiling and waving to her the entire time. He never wanted to be
friends with Becca, just the little girl in the pink dress. If Becca could read nametags, she would’ve known her name.
But it didn’t matter now. She felt silly and stupid. Her face reddened for the first time since before snack. That little
boy’s smile had given her hope and a little bit of courage. Becca had really thought he liked her; in fact, she had
really started to like him too.
Accepting her situation, Becca straightened in her chair, facing directly in front of her. She considered answering all
of Mrs. Carl’s questions so she could show the little blond boy that she was smarter than the girl in the pink dress.
She thought about wearing a little pink dress to school the following day. She thought about twirling her pigtail just a
little to the right to block his vision of the other girl. She thought about putting her mat next to his at naptime. She
even thought about introducing herself to him after school.
Instead, she just sat still at her desk, resting her chin in her hands. She finally decided to just mind her own
business and forget about the smiles and waves traveling across the room and straight through her oblivious
pigtails. Maybe she wasn’t quite ready to make friends with boys- they were a bit harder to figure out than girls. For
now, Becca decide to work on making best friends with Kylie. (After all, Power Puff Girls were more fun to talk about
than Pokemon.) Her mind made up, she promised herself that she would switch seats tomorrow.
By STEPHANIE HADDAD
Becca sat at her petite school desk, kicking her heels against the stubby legs of her plastic blue chair and twirling
her left pigtail around her fingers. She stared out the classroom windows at the early September scene. The leaves
had just begun to turn bright reds and oranges. She saw a gaggle of Canadian geese fly over the trees and fenced-
in playground of her brand new school. Inside the playground, bigger children swung on the swings, slid down the
slide and climbed on the shiny blue jungle gym. All of them were laughing and smiling, enjoying the crisp autumn
air. Becca could hardly wait for next year, when she too would be a first grader with the rights to play outside for a
half an hour every day. She could imagine herself swinging high above the school, high enough to catch one of
those geese when they flew over her. She could hide it in her jacket all day and take it home with her after school.
Maybe Mom would let her keep it as a pet. She could name it S!
quack or some other good goose name…
“Rebecca? Rebecca, are you still with us?” Her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Carl, stood at the head of the classroom,
tapping her foot impatiently. As Rebecca whipped her head around, still a bit dazed from her daydream, she heard
the other children in her class snickering and whispering about her. Embarrassed, she could feel her face getting
hot. Becca was painfully shy. It had taken a lot for Mom to convince her to even go to school. Now here she was on
her very first day, already drawing attention to herself!
Becca mumbled an apology to Mrs. Carl, slowly sinking deeper into her chair. She wished she could melt into a
puddle under her desk. In a moment of courage, she glanced around the room to see if her classmates were still
staring at her. There was only one who was, a young blond boy who sat in the back right-hand corner. She caught
his glance at her just as a big, bright smile crept across his face. His eyes lit up with the smile, a smile for her!
She wasn’t quite sure what to do. She’d never met any boys before, except for her little brother Timmy. He had
smiled at her hundreds of times. But Timmy didn’t count, he couldn’t even talk yet. This was a different smile, full of
life and happiness, all for Becca!
And this particular boy was much better looking than Timmy. Plus, he probably didn’t wear diapers any more. He
wore a white collared shirt and a kid-sized clip-on tie. Becca immediately recognized the figures of her favorite
Pokemon characters on his tie. She couldn’t wait to tell him they liked the same Pokemons, because then they could
be friends!
The heat on her face was unbearable now. Becca figured she must be as red as that shiny car in the garage that
Dad doesn’t drive. But the blond boy was still smiling at her. Now he gave her a little wave with two of his fingers,
obviously trying not to get Mrs. Carl’s attention. Totally stunned, Becca returned the wave with one finger, shot him
a split-second smile and turned back around to the front of the classroom.
Wow! She could hardly believe what had just happened. Becca didn’t have any friends at school yet; she’d only
been here for an hour or so. She had expected that she would have to actually become brave and make some
friends. Knowing herself, that wouldn’t have happened for a few days…maybe. She’d never had any friends.
There were no kids that lived on her street and she’d never gone to school before, so she didn’t know anyone her
age. Sure, she had plenty of stuffed animals and Barbie dolls to play with (and she still had a few secret imaginary
friends, even if she was five years old) but never any real people for friends. Mom said school was perfect for
meeting new friends. Becca smiled to herself as she realized that Mom was right about how easy making friends
could really be.
In a daze until snack time, Becca dreamed straight through learning about colors and shapes. This time, however,
Mrs. Carl did not call her back to reality. Maybe Becca was getting better at fooling her…that could be useful in
school, or so she assumed. At snack time, she opened her flip-top desk and pulled out her brand new Power Puff
Girls lunch box. Inside it was a shiny red apple, some cheese and crackers and a bright purple juice box. If Becca
could read, she’d have been able to know what flavor it was before she started drinking it, but her test-tasting
method had never failed her before. Mmm…grape juice was her favorite. Mom was really good at packing snacks.
Becca wondered what her Mom’s Mom had given her for a snack on her first day of school as she bit into her apple.
Becca scanned the room, still sitting at her desk, and noticed that other kids were getting up and sitting together in
little groups on the floor. In fact, Becca was the only one sitting alone, until another little girl came over to her desk.
“Hi!” said the little brown-haired girl. She smiled a huge grin, stretching the freckles on her cheeks.
“Hi,” Becca replied, not sure if there was a certain way you needed to talk to people to make them your friends.
“My name’s Kylie.”
“I’m Becca.”
“Hi, Becca. Do you want to sit with me for snack?”
Becca was stunned. So far, two people had made friends with Becca today, and she hadn’t even done anything at
all! She nodded enthusiastically at her new friend Kylie, grabbed her snack and stood up.
“I’m sitting over here,” Kylie said over her shoulder as she walked to a pile of naptime mats in the corner. She spun
around and plopped down on the mats, then smoothed her jean skirt before putting her own snack on her lap.
Becca took a seat next to her, far less dramatically, and noticed that she had the same lunchbox as Kylie, only in a
different color.
Becca held up her lunchbox to show Kylie. “Look, we have the same lunchbox!”
“Cool! That means we have to be friends!” Kylie giggled as she spoke. Becca couldn’t agree more. Besides, you
had to have something in common with your friends. What else would you talk about?
The two girls sat together, sharing their snacks with each other. For the first few moments, they sat silently, except
for the munching sounds of apples and carrot sticks. Then Kylie broke the silence suddenly, making Becca jump.
“So, how old are you, Becca? Is that your real name or is it short for something else? Which Power Puff Girl is your
favorite? Do you like broccoli?” Kylie batted her eyelashes, waiting for an answer. Becca wasn’t sure what to answer
first.
“I’m five,” she started.
“Me too!” Kylie exclaimed. She even jumped up and down on the mat a few times, knocking her juice box to the
floor. “Oops!”
With Kylie distracted by the spouting juice, Becca hurried to answer the other questions. “My name’s Rebecca, but I
like Becca better. My little brother can’t say my name yet, so he calls me Becca.”
“You have a baby brother! That’s so cool!” Kylie was hanging on every word Becca said, her eyes widening.
“Yeah. You can meet him sometime.” Becca was a little confused, but realized that she liked the attention. Even
though she was excited about her first real friend, Becca couldn’t devote her full attention to her. Every few minutes,
she stole a glance across the room at the blond-haired boy, sitting on a pile of mats with a little girl in a pink dress.
They were sharing their snacks too.
After snack time was over, which hadn’t seemed very long to Becca at all, Mrs. Carl called the class back to their
desks to learn numbers. All of this learning bothered Becca; she had thought school was for making new friends
and learning about people, not silly things like numbers. She sighed as she packed up her lunchbox and returned
to her seat, second from the front of the room in the second row from the left. Kylie took her seat, which just
happened to be the one right in front of Becca.
Just then, Becca noticed the girl in the pink dress sitting diagonally to her, just to the left of Kylie. She sat with her
hands folded, giving her full attention to Mrs. Carl and occasionally raising her hand to answer a question. Becca
couldn’t force herself to concentrate on numbers right now, so she glanced out the window again. The wind was
blowing the fallen leaves around the empty playground. There were no children swinging, laughing or playing.
During snack time, the sky had darkened and it was now raining in a steady stream. Mom definitely wouldn’t let
Becca stay after school to play on the slide now. Maybe she and Kylie could go tomorrow after school. That would
be nice.
Since the rain had taken away all excitement of the playground, Becca turned back to Mrs. Carl, who was holding up
giant flashcards one at a time, each proudly displaying a bold red number. She tried to get interested. She even
raised her hand to identify the number “2.” Mrs. Carl smiled at her when she got the right answer and said, “Very
good, Rebecca.” Becca took that as a sign of forgiveness after this morning’s embarrassing episode. With a sense
of satisfaction, she had finally worked up the courage to glance around the room again.
Sure enough, sitting in the back right corner, the blond boy was smiling at her. He must’ve thought Becca was really
smart now, after she’d gotten the right answer. She realized that he hadn’t answered one question yet at all. Maybe
he would want to be friends with her now that he knew she was smart. She smiled back at him, to let him know that
she accepted his offer for friendship.
Similar to their previous exchange, he began to wave two little chubby fingers at her again. But this time, his glance
seemed to go straight through Becca. His wave was sent a little to the right, just past her. Becca didn’t feel the
warmth and happiness from his smile this time. In fact, she wasn’t even sure he was waving and smiling at her any
more. Confused, she turned around in her seat, thinking someone might be outside the window, waving and smiling
back at the little blond boy.
It was worse than that. As she turned, Becca saw the little girl in the pink dress sneaking glances behind her at the
little blond boy. Her heart sank. He had been smiling and waving to her the entire time. He never wanted to be
friends with Becca, just the little girl in the pink dress. If Becca could read nametags, she would’ve known her name.
But it didn’t matter now. She felt silly and stupid. Her face reddened for the first time since before snack. That little
boy’s smile had given her hope and a little bit of courage. Becca had really thought he liked her; in fact, she had
really started to like him too.
Accepting her situation, Becca straightened in her chair, facing directly in front of her. She considered answering all
of Mrs. Carl’s questions so she could show the little blond boy that she was smarter than the girl in the pink dress.
She thought about wearing a little pink dress to school the following day. She thought about twirling her pigtail just a
little to the right to block his vision of the other girl. She thought about putting her mat next to his at naptime. She
even thought about introducing herself to him after school.
Instead, she just sat still at her desk, resting her chin in her hands. She finally decided to just mind her own
business and forget about the smiles and waves traveling across the room and straight through her oblivious
pigtails. Maybe she wasn’t quite ready to make friends with boys- they were a bit harder to figure out than girls. For
now, Becca decide to work on making best friends with Kylie. (After all, Power Puff Girls were more fun to talk about
than Pokemon.) Her mind made up, she promised herself that she would switch seats tomorrow.
New Hampshire Writers Short Stories
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