The Prince and Princess

The sun shone beautifully, and the boy was happy. He sat next to a fifth grader, in the front of the bus, but by now, he was used to it. His mother had packed him a bologna sandwich for lunch, his absolute favorite, and he could not wait to see his teacher, Mrs. Reyes-Ruel.  He liked her.  

Jimmy wanted to be a cowboy. Or a fireman, or policeman, or a bus driver. This morning, though, as he headed down the bus stairs as they arrived at the school, he waved at imaginary throngs of adoring citizens, and pretended he wore a military uniform like the one he had seen at the wedding on TV he and his mother had watched earlier that morning.

He wondered if he would need a princess to be a real prince. The man on TV had one. His princess wore a really long dress and waited for him in the big church.  As he slid into his desk, having given Mrs. Reyes-Ruel a big hug, he decided: He would definitely need to a princess.

Maya sat next to him. She always gave him pencils. He liked her green backpack and she was actually really good at kickball. She’d make a good princess probably. No, maybe not. His best friend Michael didn’t like her. Maybe Lana would work.  Even though she cried a lot, she was really smart. Or Bekah and Suzie.  No…no.. he couldn’t tell them apart, and plus they had once made fun of him when he couldn’t figure out how to draw a tree in art class. Then there was Shanda.

She was very quiet, and sat in the back of the class. She looked kind of funny, like she was slow or something. She was taller than everybody in the class, because she was a year older; she’d been left back.  She was a bad speller, a shy reader, and had trouble with the simplest of addition and subtraction. The boy gazed at her for a minute, and then ducked away when she turned to stare back.

Jimmy spent the morning in a daydreaming fog. He completed his worksheets as best he could, and nodded his head as Mrs. Reyes-Ruel read them the pre-snack story. Lunch came, and the boy ate his sandwich, trading Gushers for Fritos with Michael, as he did every day. Still, his attention wandered for he could not choose.

When the end of the day came, the boy was exhausted. Princess searching was hard. As he went to his cubby, to pack his backpack, he was surprised to find Shanda there. 

“Hey,” she said, and she left the room in a rush, well before he could even respond.

On the bus he thought about her. It wouldn’t work. Couldn’t work.  She was taller than he was. She was older too. Plus…Plus…

She had brown skin and dark eyes.  She could never be a Princess. And though he didn’t know it, he would never be a Prince.