Being Blossom

I'm involved with an agency that operates reading programs for kids. Once each week, I head to a public elementary school and spend two hours reading with 2 children. My first hour is with J, a fifth-grade boy who's not overly fond of reading, but he politely indulges my weekly intrusions. My second hour is spent with S, a second-grade girl who smiles sweetly while telling me EXACTLY what we'll be reading, who will be reading and how long they will be reading. S doesn't much care for leaving things to chance.

This past Tuesday, while S and I were reading about her favorite girl superheroes, the subject of birthdays came up. "When is your birthday?" I asked. "December 20th." She replied. And then she asks, "When is yours?" I answer, "Mine happens to be the day before yours, December 19th." And then of course, since S is such a logical child, she asks a logical question. "How old are you?"

And we're off.

I know that S is 7 years old. So I try to get away with saying "Oh, I'm seven." This does not fly with S who knows nonsense when she hears it. She doesn't say a word. She doesn't have to. It's all in her eyes which she has fixed on me with a don't-mess-with-me-just-because-I'm-a-child stare. And since I can't pull the wool over those glaring brown pupils, I answer truthfully. "I'm forty six."

Her mouth drops open in what can only be described as utter horror. She has clearly never been near anything as ancient as the man sitting with her here in this school library. She's wide-eyed and fascinated, but not in a good way. You can tell by her face that she's wondering how this human relic managed to survive the ice age that killed the dinosaurs. And I'm convinced that she's forming an exit plan in her head, figuring out the quickest route to escape since my aging heart is probably going to give out at any second. She signed on for a reading program, not for being caretaker to this horribly old piece of flesh that apparently refuses to pass on even though he's well past his prime and, at this point, is just taking up space.

And then, as kids do, she quietly accepted the fact that I had reached a totally unimaginable age and moved on. She smiled, showing the gap where her front teeth used to be and said. "That's OK, you can still be a Powerpuff girl. Do you want to be Blossom?"

Absolutely, I did.