What they don't understand about
birthdays and what they never tell you is that when
you're eleven, you're also ten,
and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four,
and three, and two, and one. And
when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you
expect to feel eleven, but you
don't. You open your eyes and everything's just like
yesterday, only it's today. And
you don't feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten.
And you are—underneath the year
that makes you eleven.
Like some days you might say
something stupid, and that's the part of you that's still ten.
Or maybe some days you might need
to sit on your mama's lap because you're scared,
and that's the part of you that's
five. And maybe one day when you're all grown up maybe
you will need to cry like if
you're three, and that's okay. That's what I tell Mama when
she's sad and needs to cry. Maybe
she's feeling three.
Because the way you grow old is
kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk
or like my little wooden dolls that
fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one.
That's how being eleven years old
is.
You don't feel eleven. Not right
away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes even
months before you say Eleven when
they ask you. And you don't feel smart eleven, not
until you're almost twelve.
That's the way it is.
Only today I wish I didn't have
only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin
Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was
one hundred and two instead of eleven because if I
was one hundred and two I'd have
known what to say when Mrs. Price put the red
sweater on my desk. I would've
known how to tell her it wasn't mine instead of just
sitting there with that look on
my face and nothing coming out of my mouth.
"Whose is this?" Mrs.
Price says, and she holds the red sweater up in the air for all the
class to see. "Whose? It's
been sitting in the coatroom for a month."
"Not mine," says
everybody, "Not me."
"It has to belong to
somebody," Mrs. Price keeps saying, but nobody can remember. It's
an ugly sweater with red plastic
buttons and a collar and sleeves all stretched out like you
could use it for a jump rope.
It's maybe a thousand years old and even if it belonged to
me I wouldn't say so.
Maybe because I'm skinny, maybe
because she doesn't like me, that stupid Sylvia
Saldivar says, "I think it
belongs to Rachel." An ugly sweater like that all raggedy and
old, but Mrs. Price believes her.
Mrs Price takes the sweater and puts it right on my desk,
but when I open my mouth nothing
comes out.
"That's not, I don't, you're
not . . . Not mine." I finally say in a little voice that was maybe
me when I was four.
"Of course it's yours,"
Mrs. Price says. "I remember you wearing it once." Because she's
older and the teacher, she's
right and I'm not.
Not mine, not mine, not mine, but
Mrs. Price is already turning to page thirty-two, and
math problem number four. I don't
know why but all of a sudden I'm feeling sick inside,
like the part of me that's three
wants to come out of my eyes, only I squeeze them shut
tight and bite down on my teeth
real hard and try to remember today I am eleven, eleven.
Mama is making a cake for me for
tonight, and when Papa comes home everybody will
sing Happy birthday, happy
birthday to you.
But when the sick feeling goes
away and I open my eyes, the red sweater's still sitting
there like a big red mountain. I
move the red sweater to the corner of my desk with my
ruler. I move my pencil and books
and eraser as far from it as possible. I even move my
chair a little to the right. Not
mine, not mine, not mine.
In my head I'm thinking how long
till lunchtime, how long till I can take the red sweater
and throw it over the schoolyard
fence, or leave it hanging on a parking meter, or bunch it
up into a little ball and toss it
in the alley. Except when math period ends Mrs. Price says
loud and in front of everybody,
"Now, Rachel, that's enough," because she sees I've
shoved the red sweater to the
tippy-tip corner of my desk and it's hanging all over the
edge like a waterfall, but I
don't care.
"Rachel," Mrs. Price
says. She says it like she's getting mad. "You put that sweater on
right now and no more
nonsense."
"But it's not—"
"Now!" Mrs. Price says.
This is when I wish I wasn't
eleven because all the years inside of me—ten, nine, eight,
seven, six, five, four, three,
two, and one—are pushing at the back of my eyes when I put
one arm through one sleeve of the
sweater that smells like cottage cheese, and then the
other arm through the other and
stand there with my arms apart like if the sweater hurts
me and it does, all itchy and
full of germs that aren't even mine.
That's when everything I've been
holding in since this morning, since when Mrs. Price
put the sweater on my desk,
finally lets go, and all of a sudden I'm crying in front of
everybody. I wish I was invisible
but I'm not. I'm eleven and it's my birthday today and
I'm crying like I'm three in
front of everybody. I put my head down on the desk and bury
my face in my stupid
clown-sweater arms. My face all hot and spit coming out of my
mouth because I can't stop the
little animal noises from coming out of me until there
aren't any more tears left in my
eyes, and it's just my body shaking like when you have
the hiccups, and my whole head
hurts like when you drink milk too fast.
But the worst part is right
before the bell rings for lunch. That stupid Phyllis Lopez, who
is even dumber than Sylvia
Saldivar, says she remembers the red sweater is hers! I take it
off right away and give it to
her, only Mrs. Price pretends like everything's okay.
Today I'm eleven. There's a cake
Mama's making for tonight and when Papa comes home
from work we'll eat it. There'll
be candles and presents and everybody will sing Happy
birthday, happy birthday to you,
Rachel, only it's too late.
I'm eleven today. I'm eleven,
ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one,
but I wish I was one hundred and
two. I wish I was anything but eleven, because I want
today to be far away already, far
away like a runaway balloon, like a tiny o in the sky, so
tiny tiny you have to close your
eyes to see it.
