I know there’s something amiss as I sit in the very back of the middle school classroom with my notepad and pen, taking notes. The teacher with a braid of long, frizzy red hair is gesturing and talking about The Giver. I can hear nothing she says. It’s not that I’m deaf; she just seems like a mime. I can hear everything else it seems, but it’s all echo-y. The heater behind me is rattling, clicking on higher and lower speeds while blowing air on my neck. I glance around and the kids in front of me are watching her and a few nod. A brunette with a ponytail and in a pink hoodie bounces her knee rapidly and her shell-toe shoe is making a tiny squeak.

The floor itself is a sea of off-white with muted colored specks in the tiles. I think it looks oddly like clam chowder. The floor gently vibrates, and I wonder if I am on the same floor joist as her.

When they write, as they are supposed to be taking notes, I can hear the scratching of each utensil: a muffled drag of a dull Ticonderoga pencil on paper, four sheets thick of name brand type and a blue ballpoint pen on a thin sheet of government–issued lined paper–sort of cream colored with light blue lines. A kid in the second row is clicking his retractable pen; I can see the red heart on its side like a laser pointer. There’s a door in the hallway whose hinge is in need of grease; it creaks whenever a visitor enters the building. 

I blink a few times, put down my own pen, and give my head a little shake like I’d do if I got water in my ear. I begin hearing a little about Jonas and the Elders. It’s like a broken connection. I watch the teacher walk to the board–her shoes clacking against the tiles–and write something about family. White dust particles cascade down the blackboard that is green and covered in words of various sizes and angles in yellow, white, and pink chalks. 

****

Then I’m back clapping erasers outside of my elementary school. The task was both an honor and a punishment depending on which teacher was dolling it out. On this occasion, I was here for being a fidget, the teacher allowed me to leave class to smack the thick, wooly erasers against each other. She reminded me not to bang them against the rough surface of the building. The sound of the erasers, a muffled whoof, whoof, whoof with each smack, was like music underwater. I’d smack them three times in quick succession, then pause while the milky cloud dissipated, then bang, bang, bang again. Then wait again, wondering where the particles will go and how far they will get.

Then I brush them against each other and feel the smooth, clay-like dust in my fingerprints and under my nails. From this angle, I look ghost-like to my elbows. Then I am nearly a ghost.

****

“Dayna, get down from there.” 

“Oh my god, Dayna, what did you do?”

“You’re going to give me a heart attack climbing up there like that,” my mother would yell at different decibels depending on how close I was to the stove. Eventually, my mother signed me up for dance classes, telling her sister that I was too young, but that she would just say I was five but small for my age. 

“I mean, Di, she needs to get her energy out or she’s going to drive me insane. She’s a constant fidget–and a nudge to boot,” she told my aunt as she chatted on the phone.

“She’s so smart and mature for her age, she will do fine,” she told her. 

I remember the studio was so close to our house that we could have walked, but we didn’t. My mother and I pulled into the parking lot then walked down the rich brown indoor-outdoor carpeted stairs with light brown paneling into the studio below the antique’s shop. In the hall, the dim light above gave off a yellow glow like a bug light at camp. My mother opened the door and a wash of bright light came over me. I stood there with everything whitewashed, like an overexposed photograph. Everyone’s skin looked pale, even if they weren’t in real life. The white tights on little bodies that wiggled and jiggled reflected in the mirrors that lined three sides of the room. Disorienting.

I planted myself firmly by the door, but my mother pulled my hand gently and guided me into a room with white tile floors like the ones in our church basement. I was in white tights, under my pink leotard. The silky bodysuit rubbed against the tights, and my butt felt electric when I moved. I stood stiff in line with the other girls of various sizes. I felt glad I was not too tall, not too short even though I wasn’t old enough for this class. I chewed my finger, then I saw myself in the mirror and stopped. 

The dance instructor came in to lead us. After she welcomed me to class, said she liked my sisters, and then she organized us, by putting two cold hands on our shoulders, gently pushing us forward or back until we were mostly in a line. She talked about making pie with our feet, bending our knees, but keeping our arms streeeeetttched out, and she opened her arms like Christ on the crucifix. She looked up, arms rising from sides to ceiling. The other girls mimicked her moves, one girl did so so enthusiastically that she fell back on her tailbone. The teacher asked if she was alright, was by her side, and scooped her up to her feet in one swift motion, and they commenced stretching and stomping in rhythm left to right.

And I watched. Left feet, right feet, both feet. Images popped into my head from Dr. Seuss. They were stomping, the floor shaking slightly. Feet everywhere, in front of me, in back of me, my feet, their feet, feet doubled, tripled in the mirrors, and I opened my mouth and wailed. 

I wasn’t fine. Not in this class, not the next, and by the third class I simply wouldn’t do any pie steps, no sashays, even though I liked the way the move felt. 

“They told me to bring her back next year when she’s a year older and more ready, more willing to follow directions,” my mother said into the phone wedged between her ear and her shoulder as she stirred a pot of sludge we were having for dinner. 

“Yeah, I know, I don’t know either.”

I sat at the table swinging my feet waiting for her to give me my plate. When she served our meals and sat, she pointed at me with her fork from across the table. 

“I don’t know why you can’t just listen, Dayna. Really? Is it that hard?” 

****

Dance didn’t work out. So she signed me up for gymnastics where I could get out more energy. At the gym, the fluorescent lights were up high and the room cool when we walked in for a placement test.

The test went like this: walk up and down this beam. My feet naturally gripped the leathery surface since I’d been walking along the edges of sandboxes and along stonewalls since I was old enough to walk. I was asked to “tuck my head and roll.” I tucked and landed flat on my back with a thump, knocking the breath out of me. I stood up, brushing myself off as if covered with dust. He demonstrated and offered me the mat again. I tucked and rolled and was immediately on my feet at the end of the mat. I felt like I could have rolled forever.

Next, he demonstrated a cartwheel. It was like magic. I tried, and my skinny arms held my weight but my legs swung out in a little squat. My mother interjected that I was left handed, and when I followed the steps on my left-side, I stood up proudly after successfully completing my first trick. The coach then helped me learn a back handspring. He said, “sit, fall back, jump, strong arms, land.” He repeated, then he slipped his hand against the small of my back and he helped flip my legs over my head. After this, he hung me on the high bar where silky chalk coated my palms. He then showed us the best part, the trampoline. He jumped on the apparatus nearly reaching the rafters and ceiling fans. By the end of the test, I was sweating, my face was hot, I felt a little queasy and excited. 

After this, Mother began speeding home to get me after school then driving back to the gym. And soon, I was there on Saturdays and a second night, and then in dance class and choreography. My dance teacher, dressed like Cheryl Tiegs in shiny tights and a high cut teal leotard, floated through the room dramatically swinging her arms. 

“Today, Dayna, we are going to fly,” she said and made her way across the room in three leaps. Her legs, long, toes pointed. She beat out counts with her whole body, clapping and stomping and moving up and down. I followed her rhythm, tapped my feet or swung my arms or cartwheeled at the exact moment she instructed. I imagined an upbeat routine, but she kept playing music that made me feel like a static electricity ball, my head the center and my hair extending outwards. I put my hands over my ears and told her it was giving me a headache. But we pressed on knowing we had to choose one, then finish the routine. As soon as I heard a song that didn’t make me feel like my head was a balloon on a string, I said, it’s perfect. It opened with a staccato drum, then some electric sounds, and had even a motorcycle roar near the end, no screeching violins or musicians banging on piano keys.

****

There’s a click, empty air, and some rasp comes on the PA system next to the clock. The teacher in the classroom where I’m sitting pauses while a nasally, high-pitched voice pages a child to the office for early dismissal. There’s crackling, ringing of phones, and chattering of staff in the background when the announcer doesn’t hang up the intercom right away. In the classroom, kids shuffle in their seats. A student with dark curly hair, freckles, and braces, asks a question about a due date. I wonder what assignment he’s referring to. I scan the board for clues among the chalk scribbles now looking more like hieroglyphics rather than English words. There’s a few boxes outlined on the left of the board. It reads: Essay due March 17. But what is it on exactly? 

I begin to pack up my materials and am waiting for the students to leave the room when the final bell rings for the day. And when it ding-ding-dings, I hear the end of all the school days that came before, echoing from the past, scouring the sounds, obscuring the view, blocking the present now.

I nod to the classroom teacher, something I aim to be, and I walk out of the room with my chalky ghost who is still cartwheeling through time.

By the end of the grade 8 school year depicted here, I’d be hospitalized for attempting suicide then put in alcohol and drug rehabilitation. There’s much more to tell. Thank you for reading to the end.