The crossing guard had frizzy mouse-brown hair that came down to her shoulders. She was pudgy and short with wire frame glasses and a big smile, but not so big she'd let any of them kids get away with something. Not on her watch.
She acted like she owned that crosswalk at the intersection of a busy road that had old trucks and sedans driving to the left and fancy sports cars going straight ahead to the country club houses. Didn't matter to her where any of the kids lived. Except me. I think she took a liking to me more than most. It was on accounting of my unfortunate circumstances I heard her whisper once to Mr. Tuvvy's secretary. I was standing in the door to the office trying to get a whiff of the ditto machine ink one more time before I went to class. The popular girls, Martha and Vicky, got to work the machine around and around, cranking it to make flyers for the parents. I wished I could do that, but I didn't think to ask.
I'll admit, it made me a little sad when I heard them talking about me. The secretary was looking up from her cat's-eye glasses on a pretty chain at the crossing guard who was leaning in close over the secretary's desk. The worst part is when the secretary looked out of the corner of her all-knowing eye and saw me. She froze like a robot and that made me freeze and then I was so scared I wet my pants. Only I was wearing a dress and the pee dripped down right into the doorway.
I didn't have an extra panties at school and cause I was bigger than most all the other girls, no one had any extra clothes they could lend me. The crossing guard went to the janitor's supply closet and got out an easel that he must've been fixing cause it was wobbly on one side and she told me to sit down while she aired out my panties.
I should have been more embarrassed but I was so happy to be in the office listening to the clicking and zipping of the secretary's dark green typewriter. It had a funny ball on it with letters that moved in jolts while she put in the words she was reading from a steno pad. At least, that's what I think it was called.
The crossing guard said she had an idea and that she would be back before the end of school. First she gave me a shiny dark apple with only a couple of bruises right off of Mr. Tuvvy's desk! Then she got me a carton of milk from the lunch ladies and, when the secretary was putting a master onto the drum of the ditto machine, she slipped me a 100% authentic butterscotch candy. I giggled as quietly as I could and then only unwrapped it when the secretary was sharpening pencils and lining them up in her special desk drawer.
When Mr. Tuvvy came back he looked at me kinda strange-like, but then his secretary pinched her pretty lips together and shook her head at him and he just walked right into his office like I wasn't even there! Right before the first last bell rang, she even let me turn the drum myself onto pale green paper - it was a flyer about the school holiday arts and crafts fair. I felt so proud that I got to do it all by myself!
I did get kinda worried when it was almost time to go. I could tell because the big hand on the clock started freezing and jumping like a cricket being stalked in tall grass. But I shouldn't have thought twice about it because do you know that lovely crossing guard came back in with a pair of genuine purple polyester pants that she said were her granddaughter's outgrown? She even put on two heart patches, one on a knee place that got worn down, she said, and one on the backside just cause it was pretty.
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