Selected Excerpts

Allegiance

Aryn Kyle
Ploughshares

On her first day at the American school, Glynnis's class dissects earthworms. At her old school, the fourth-graders dissected cow eyes that came delivered in a plastic jug. But here, the worms aren't delivered. After lunch, the class has to find their own worms in the mud outside, then rinse them off in the bathroom sinks. Glynnis's new teacher partners her with Leora Faust, a girl with crooked teeth and patchy brown bruises on her knees. Everyone else already has a partner.

That morning, Glynnis's father drove her to the new school on his way to work. Her mother had refused to come along. "American children bring guns to school," she said, and kissed Glynnis on the top of the head. "So try not to piss anyone off." Her father grew up in this town, and along the drive he pointed out things he remembered: a tire store that used to be an ice cream shop, a small park that used to be a big park, a bank that has always been a bank but
used to have a different name.

Glynnis got to sit at her desk while the rest of the class stood to say the Pledge of Allegiance. She told her teacher that it would be treason for her to say it, that if they found out in England, they could have her head chopped off. Miss Glen cocked her head to one side and said, "Well, we wouldn't want that, would we?" Until Glynnis was paired with Leora Faust, no one else had spoken to her. Glynnis stands to the side, watching as Leora reads the directions from her science book. At the desk behind hers, a boy uses his knife to lift a sliver of guts from his worm. "Hey, Mary Poppins!" he says, and thrusts his knife toward Glynnis.

Two girls with matching Princess Leia buns in their hair laugh as Glynnis darts sideways. "Jer-e-mi-ah!" they squeal, and Glynnis tries to smile, tries to take the joke. At her old school, the disturbed children had their own classroom in the basement, and even in there, Glynnis is pretty sure they weren't allowed to hold knives.

It's a mess, this new school, a dirty scab of a place with orange carpet in the hallways and soggy hamburgers at lunch. Because the rain made the playground muddy, the class has to take their shoes off when they come inside and pile them up next to the door. Glynnis has spent the whole day feeling cold and grubby in her socks. In England, they always got to wear their shoes inside.