Kammerer Middle School

I walked to school my very first day, my skinny legs itching in the khaki twill pants. Twill pants and gold colored shirts is what I think of when I remember Kammerer middle school. Kammerer is the only school that I have ever gone to that has required a uniform, you know, to equalize the students and whatnot. I was a West coast girl turned military brat, and brought to Louisville, Kentucky, and I was a new sixth grader.
It was not a hallway that I entered when I walked through the front door; it was frenzy, a mob, a crushing ocean of shrieking kids, backpacks, and flying paper-wads. I pushed and fought my way to the classroom and flopped my giant backpack onto the floor by a desk near the front. That is when I met Ashley. She was ten feet tall and had smooth black hair. Her shirt was rumpled and untucked, and she slouched in her chair all sprawled out and relaxed like she had done this sixth grade thing a thousand times before. “Hey girl, what’s your name?” She asked me.
Caught by surprise I answered shyly, “Heidi. I’m new.”
“All right, that’s cool. I’m Ashley.”
Well, if Ashley was ten feet tall, then her reputation was even taller. She was the queen bee of the class, and luckily she decided that I could stick around. I tried to keep it that way. I saw what happened when someone wasn’t on Ashley’s good side. She’d get loud and mean and respond to everything they’d say with a sneering, “Whatever heifer.” I never wanted to be called a heifer.
I eased through my next classes like a camera lens, observing my new environment but not quite sure how to interact. Being a lens can work for class, but at lunch time you have to be a real person if you are going to survive. I froze as I stepped into the chaos of the cafeteria, my homemade lunch dangling in a plastic Kroger bag at my side. I didn’t know anyone, and sitting alone would be the worst thing ever.
I took a deep breath of relief when my eyes caught sight of one familiar face, one person that would know my name, Ashley. I approached the table carefully like a half-scared kitten, and was about to grab a seat when Ashley looked up at me. She was surrounded by a dozen friends that also had smooth black hair, and she boomed at me, “girl, what you doin’? You gonna sit at the negro table?”
Sound drained from that side of the cafeteria like someone had pulled the plug.
I looked around and noticed what I hadn’t before. I was the only white girl there. The rest of the white girls and boys were sitting three tables away. “I just came to sit by you.” I answered quietly, making it obvious that I wasn’t going to cause any trouble.
Ashley looked me up and down, and then a smile hit her eyes and worked down to her lips. “Sure girl, you can sit here. Welcome to the negro table.” And there I was, a military brat from the West coast, a new sixth grader in itchy twill pants, and the first white girl to eat her sandwich at the “negro table.”