We rolled out of the school parking lot through the typical mid-May haze of sunlight and heavy

pollen. Richard Brown Elementary School, a pearl nestled in the southwestern bend of the

Arkansas River, slunk out of view as the dingy school bus turned and was swallowed by a

gauntlet of magnolia trees.

I gazed indifferently out of the dirty window and adjusted my skirt, which had bunched up

between the leather seat and the bottom of my legs. A yellow slip peeked conspicuously out of

my backpack--a receipt from the unpleasant transaction that had taken place in the principal's

office an hour prior.

Fights were not uncommon at Brown. With the ambulance of the river and subsequent expansion

of Maple Junction, there came a steady intermingling of attitudes and personal policies that

governed civil conduct (or the lack thereof) among its citizens, and, by extension, their children.

Moreover, as an aggressively idealistic nine-year-old girl, I had a particular knack for sniffing

out the very ideological foxholes in which I was most unwelcome; today's exploits had included

a scrap with the principal's son, a ruddy-faced tank with a penchant for sending smaller boys into

the drainage ditch behind the school. Following a lesson about the Pacific War, the boy had

remarked that if he were the president, he "would've bombed the rest of Japan--you know, just to

make sure." This, of course, was no less than an intentional, direct attack upon my own moral

code, and I took it upon myself to teach him about world peace--a discourse I delivered

meaningfully with my fists.