The Principal’s Daughter: Chapter 1

Moments before the bell rings the girls in Rivky’s class all look the same. They are tucked into tidy blue blouses and pleated skirts their tights hidden beneath the rickety desks. Pencils fly across lined paper as Mrs. Schwartz speaks and paces the classroom her arms waving in the air as she rushes to make her last point. The skinny hands of the clock inch slowly toward the twelve and the six and Rivky watches out of the corner of her eye. She’s the only one wishing that the fateful meeting of the minute hand and the six will never happen that the ticking clock will suddenly skip backward or suspend itself indefinitely.

But the hand reaches its destination the bell rings and everything changes.

The girls leap up from their desks and reclaim their differences. Malka’s uniform is cinched by a belt bearing a designer emblem at its center and her tights lead to shiny loafers Rivky recently learned were special ordered from Italy. Aliza who has been forced to sit in the front now joins Malka and the two lead their group down to the lunchroom. Rivky has no choice but to follow; once when she tried to eat in the classroom she was caught and scolded.

“Mrs. Schwartz made no sense today” Goldie says stepping over binders and notebooks along the floor of the hallway catching up with Malka and Aliza. Rivky sees a bob of headbands form a tight circle in front of her large flowers and feathers like costumes in a parade.