The Day I Wore Purple

1.1 Dust to Dust

1999

April

Out of thirty-one children in Ms. Fleming's fourth-grade classroom, not a single kid paid attention to Ben the Nose Picker as he gave a show-and-tell speech about the frog he found in his back yard.

Hannah Lasker sat in the back corner of the classroom, tongue pressed against her upper lip, eyes narrowed on the paper before her, fingers bracing the yellow stub of a #2 pencil. With tremendous focus she drew a circle on the page. Then another. And another.

The lines were wiggly. One of the circles looked like an egg. None of them were right. None of them were perfect.

She crumpled the ugly shapes, ripped them to pieces, and sprinkled them in her backpack right between A Wrinkle in Time and the tiny blue urn.

That gave her an idea.

She removed the fancy blue jar, placed it on the paper, and carefully traced her pencil around the base. The ridge around the bottom of the urn made it hard to keep her pencil straight, and while the circle was much better than her freehand circles, it still wasn't perfect.

Ben the Nose Picker finished his presentation and Ms. Fleming clapped for him as if he was retarded (prolly 'cause nobody ever clapped for Ben the Nose Picker). "Did anyone else bring something to share?" the teacher asked.

Hannah dropped her pencil and raised her hand. Ms. Fleming saw her, but kept scanning the room for other hands. She's worried, Hannah thought. I always make Ms. Fleming worried.

Finally, the teacher looked at her. "Miss Lasker? Do you have something for show-and-tell?"

Without a word, the nine-year-old tucked her strawberry hair behind her ear, adjusted the skirt of her uniform, wrapped her fingers around the fancy blue jar, and plodded to the front of the class. She set the urn on a stool and captured the full attention of all thirty-one kids. "Let me tell you a story," she began.

Ms. Fleming had that look she got right before writing a naughty kid's name on the whiteboard, but Hannah didn't care. (One time, Ms. Fleming was so mad at her that she accidentally used the permanent marker. Now, Hannah's name was always on the whiteboard.)

"Way back before I was born, my mom and dad had a boy named Arthur. I guess he was my brother, but I wasn't alive yet, so I never knew him." Hannah folded her hands behind her back and paced around the stool. "Arthur was sick in his lungs. Lungs are what make you breathe, and if you don't breathe, you die. And that's what happened to Arthur."

"Alright, Miss Lasker—"

"Mom and Dad didn't bury Arthur like most people. Instead—"

The teacher leapt from her chair like a crocodile attacking a zebra. "Hannah Lynn!" she yelled, but it was too late.

"—they burned him up!" Hannah lifted the tiny urn for the whole class to see.

The girls went "Eww" and the boys burst into laughter. Jenny Thomson cried.

Ms. Fleming snatched Hannah's arm, yanked her into the hall, and made her sit in the desk reserved for bad kids. Behind the door, the class went, "Oooooo!"

The teacher sighed. "That's three strikes, Hannah." She looked down the empty hall, then sighed again. "I'd send you to Mr. Tanner's office, but that won't work, will it?"

Hannah traced her finger around an almost-perfect circle carved in the desktop. "Are you gonna call my Dad?"

Ms. Fleming shook her head. "We're going to try something new."