Chapter Text
There were many wrong things with their new apartment, Yelena had noticed. And she didn’t like them much.
She didn’t like the general idea of moving away from home, but her parents’ new job had given them an opportunity they couldn’t pass on, and they had agreed to move their entire lives into a different country with a new promise for their family.
Yelena had been adamant since the beginning, crying her lungs out the first night they were told and staying in her mama’s arms the entire time the trip from one country to another took. After their arrival, Yelena had noticed the big differences in an instant.
Their house in St. Petersburg was much better. It was a small farm house with very little rooms but with big common spaces and more nature around. Yelena could see the trees from her window and she could walk outside and follow her mama in the mornings while she tended to her pigs.
In the apartment she couldn’t go out, first because her mama didn’t, since it didn’t have a place for pigs or an outdoor area to drink tea in the mornings, and secondly because the corridors were supposed to be quiet as to not bother the other neighbors. Instead of a natural view outside her window, she had a view to a big metal stair she was told was a fire escape, and beyond that, the loud streets under them that were constantly distracting her from anything else. But if she balanced herself perfectly on the edge of it and looked around the building, she could see the beginning of a green park in the corner, too distant to go alone, as said by her parents.
The kitchen view was a brick wall, and the only thing she could save from that was the way her mama would still make tea in the morning for her, with herbs from a tin they had brought from home that had already started to run low, making Yelena’s chin wobble every time she took a look at it.
The light in the corridor would flicker a few times before turning on entirely, and the worst part of it all was the radiator, that would make her jump every morning at six am when it made sounds as if someone was knocking on the wall from the inside.
The neighbors upstairs were loud, walking heavily around their apartment at strange hours and dragging chairs along the floor constantly. The elevator smelled like cigarettes even if there was a sign that said not to smoke, and the man standing in the lobby receiving people never smiled back at her.
She was trying to be fair about it, because her papa had told her to. Give things a chance before you decide, Yelena.
So she was trying.
That morning her mama had laid down her school outfit and had braided her hair before breakfast, neat and tight enough to make it last the entire day without loosening around.
And in the quiet of the morning, she had crouched down in front of her, and had held her face with the softest hands and the smile she saved only for her, talking in a soft Russian hush.
“You are going to be wonderful. You are the smartest person I know. And if anyone is unkind to you—”
“I will not cry,” Yelena had said, with a small crease between her eyebrows and trying to sound convinced.
Her mama’s face had twisted momentarily before answering. “That wasn’t what I was going to say.”
“But I won’t.” Yelena had said. Even if she was also trying to convince herself of it. “I just want you to know.”
Her mama had pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head, holding her for a moment longer than she usually did, but Yelena let her, because she also needed the hug.
Her papa had walked her to school that morning, because he didn’t have work until ten and she knew he was trying to make up for the fact that she had not been given a choice in any of it. The move, the city, the place they lived in. None of it had been something her voice had been heard in, and so he walked her to the school gates, lowered himself down to almost the same height as her, and straightened her clothes out, even if it wasn’t needed, with the gentleness of a giant.
“You’ll do great.”
Yelena hadn’t answered, because she was trying very hard not to let her lower lip tremble in front of anyone, so she only nodded, accepting the words.
He stood there with her for a moment longer, looking into her eyes with a look that swirled with worry and pride before kissing her forehead. He stood up, and she walked through the gates without looking back at him, because she knew she would just beg to go back home to the farm, and ask to stay there.
She knew she could do it. She had crossed an ocean with her family to start a new life in a different country.
She could do a new day of school.
The school was a big block of white painted bricks that Yelena thought was maybe a tad more different than she had expected. There were drawings in the windows made by children, handprint paintings, paper cutouts that were probably made by teachers and crayon drawings displayed all over the halls. The entrance had a mural of many children painted with all the colors of the rainbow holding hands in a circle, and it made Yelena quietly feel more comfortable.
There was a group of what looked like teachers waiting there, and they watched her walk inside with smiles and a few words Yelena didn’t quite catch.
One of them had asked for her name in the midst of all the welcoming smiles, and had instantly passed her on to a young woman with red hair to attend to her when she answered. Her teacher, Miss Carolyn, as she was told, was already in the classroom and waiting for all of the children to arrive to start the day.
Her parents had told her a little about the place and what she could find there. She knew she was going to have a lot of classmates, and she also knew, without the need for anyone to point it out, that none of them were going to be able to understand her and vice versa, so she was not expecting to meet anyone interesting.
The walk down the hallway was probably the worst part of the building. Yelena could hear the voices, going from too high pitched in the younger areas to the scratching of chairs on the floors when they were dragged around the classrooms. She could hear the mess inside every one of them and how there was already a teacher waiting for the rest of the children to finish arriving.
Every step she took felt heavy instead of a natural movement, and the teacher’s hand was holding hers tighter as if to not let her drift away from her doom.
The classroom door had a paper with a red apple printed on it and the name of her teacher. Miss Carolyn, she had whispered to herself one more time after catching a glimpse of the apple on the door, testing the words and the intonation of every letter just to make sure she had it right. Then the red haired woman who had taken her there opened the door, and all the sounds hit her at once.
The first thing Yelena noticed was the strange smell in the classroom.
As her mama always said, she was always the first one to notice things around her, and the smell of the classroom was unavoidable. It was a mixture of destroyed crayons on the tables, disinfectant spray, whatever the other children had thrown in the back of the classroom floor, and how one would expect a place to smell when twenty two children had been locked inside since eight in the morning. The smell was a sharp contrast with the warm bread and wood smell of her old house, and, even if somewhat close, nothing compared to what their new apartment smelled like. Everything in that country smelled different.
She stood in the doorframe, looking around for probably too long already but without being noticed. The straps of her backpack were held tightly between her fists as she looked at the room full of loud children calling out words in English she couldn’t quite catch, understanding only one word every few minutes. The teacher was a young woman with brown hair pulled back and paint already on her sleeve despite it being barely past eight. She was paying attention to one of the boys who had already managed to make a mess with paint on his clothes, which meant no one was exactly looking at Yelena.
She had looked at Yelena a few minutes afterwards, when she had been standing in the same place for longer than she thought and had inspected every single corner of the classroom. “You must be Yelena! We’re so glad you’re here, I’ve saved you a spot at the blue table.”
There had been more, Yelena was sure, because she was the new girl entering her class a few days too late and it was a surprise she had arrived, but she hadn’t caught anything properly, and had guided herself with the different hand gestures the teacher made and with the way she had put a hand on her shoulder and guided her towards the direction she was supposed to go.
She ended up sitting down at the same table as two other children who paid no attention to her, a blue round table with a big amount of craft supplies in the center and close enough to the window that she could look outside to the playground.
She set her backpack in her lap, not wanting to get it dirty, and for a moment she looked around. The boy with the paint problem was still being consoled by the teacher, and a classroom aide was taking care of a girl standing next to the door crying about something Yelena wasn’t sure about, crouching and talking softly to her in words Yelena couldn’t hear.
She sat straighter than needed. Spine like a soldier, Yelena. Her father would say, and she had taken that to heart for most of her life, since him and her mother would remind her and her sister how it was bad to be slouching in any type of social situation or around any other person.
The space was new and, for someone her age, terrifying. Starting kindergarten was already a big step her parents had been preparing her for a long time, but doing it in a different country was even worse.
If she had to be honest, Yelena had cried the night before and had only been calmed down by the gentle words of her sister and the promises of a nice evening after she came back from school. So every time the tears would force their way towards her eyes, she would ignore them and try to look away until they disappeared.
She wanted the day to end as soon as it started, even if she would have to follow the same routine for almost the entire week for months on end, and she would have to work double to understand what was being said in the classroom, no matter how much her mama had reassured her that there would be someone helping her understand.
She didn’t like being treated differently, even if all she needed was help with translations.
“You have the same backpack as me.”
Yelena turned around slowly, only because she didn’t know if the voice was being directed at her.
The girl sitting down next to her without being invited to occupy that space was approximately the same height as her, probably a bit taller, which wasn’t saying much since Yelena was small for her age and deeply annoyed by it. She had dark hair coming out of a ponytail resting on her right shoulder, and some very small hairs in the front of her face that curled around her forehead, probably not long enough to be pulled back with the rest. Her smile was big enough for Yelena to see the gap where her left front tooth used to be, and she was pointing at Yelena’s backpack with the confidence of someone who had never been told it was rude to point at things.
“Same backpack,” the girl said again, slower, like maybe Yelena hadn’t heard. She held up her own, showing it off. Dark green with a star in the front, a little dirty in the bottom corners.
Yelena looked at her own. Same dark green and white star, although hers was clean.
She looked back at the girl, still showing the gap in her smile.
“Da,” she said, and then remembered it was not the correct word. “Yes.”
The girl’s face went from pleased to delighted in an instant, transforming in a matter of seconds. She didn’t waste a second in moving her chair closer, dragging it against the floor and making more noise than Yelena thought was necessary.
“I’m Kate,” she announced, now closely at Yelena’s side. “What’s your name? I haven’t seen you before and I know everyone because I came to the summer reading thing so I know all of them already, except for Tommy Chen because he moved here in August from California. Are you new? You sound different.”
Yelena understood almost half of it, if she was being generous. It was probably way less.
“Yelena,” she answered to the first question, because it was the basic one her sister had taught her when they first arrived.
“Yelena,” Kate repeated, confidently. She said it wrong, everyone she had met recently had said her name wrong, flattening it with an accent that was never supposed to be there. But the way Kate said it was slightly different, and it sounded more honest than the attempt most adults had made in the last time. “That’s a really cool name. Is it Russian? My mom had a Russian client once, I heard her on the phone, it sounded kind of like that.”
“Da,” Yelena said then. “Is Russian.”
“I knew it,” Kate said with enormous satisfaction written across her face. She then pulled her backpack to the front and started rummaging in it, taking out a big box of crayons and looking at Yelena with a smile. “Do you speak English?”
“Some,” Yelena said carefully, each letter too slow for the short word. “I am learning.”
“Okay,” Kate said, nodding and taking the information as important. “I’ll go slow.” And then, almost immediately, she continued. “Do you want some crayons? I have the big box, sixty four, I counted them at home last night because my mom’s assistant got me the wrong size first and I had to make sure the exchange was right. I was missing cerulean which is basically the best one—”
“Пожалуйста,” Yelena said. Please. Because she needed the girl to slow down and to give her a chance to catch up properly and understand the words, or at least understand the topic they were talking about so she could try to respond.
Kate stopped, and watched as Yelena’s hands made a slow down gesture that was simple and easy enough to understand. For a moment, Yelena thought that the next step Kate was going to take was to copy her words or be curious about them without actually understanding what she was trying to say. Thankfully, she went with the curious side.
“Does that mean slow down?”
Yelena considered it for a moment. “Пожалуйста is please,” she made the gesture with her hands then. “Please, slow.”
“Oh,” Kate’s face quickly corrected itself, eyebrows raised in understanding. “Sorry, I talk fast. My mom says it’s a problem.” She didn’t sound particularly troubled by the fact. “I’ll try again.”
And she did, visibly so. She kept starting sentences and catching herself as soon as she noticed Yelena’s head tilting to the side as if it would help her understand better, and instead of continuing, she adapted her words or pointed with her hands enough to make Yelena understand what she was trying to say.
She went quiet then, and pushed the yellow box of crayons towards her with a big smile. Yelena didn’t waste much time and extended her hand towards the offering, taking the green crayon out.
“Thank you,” she said, words broken around the edges and slow enough to be understood.
Kate only nodded back, humming lowly and turning to take two white papers from the center of the table, extending one to Yelena afterwards.
“Пожалуйста,” the other girl whispered then, looking at Yelena with a grinning smile, the gap in her teeth very visible. She picked the cerulean crayon, and started quickly drawing something that could have been a dog, or so Yelena thought.
Her own paper stayed white for a long moment, and she could only look at the others pairing up and Kate next to her, very concentrated on her drawing.
She looked down at the green crayon for a moment. The girl was not bad, or maybe not as bad as Yelena had been thinking people were going to be with her.
She shrugged a little, and started to draw a long extended green field that brought her back enough memories to not pay attention to the rest of the loud kids around her. If only just for a moment.
At mid morning, after everything had settled down, Miss Carolyn had called up the time for drawings and told everyone to sit at the back of the class on the red rug settled between the seats and the playing area.
She proposed an activity to everyone with a bright smile, calling it circle time. It was, as Yelena quickly understood, an activity to learn more about the others, and a chance for the teacher to know a little more about them too. Yelena understood that she was going to have to present herself with her name and a fact about herself, which would have been a simple task if it wasn’t the most stressful thing of her short life.
She sat very still as she heard the words of her classmates, understanding most of it and learning names and useless facts in the process. I have a dog named Biscuit, I can do a cartwheel, I lost a tooth, I have a baby sister. She heard most of them, trying to connect the names and the faces while she quietly counted the amount of children that would have to talk before her, so she was prepared by the time it was her turn.
There were seven children before her. She needed to know how much time she had.
Six.
Five.
Kate Bishop was two spots before her, and was more than enthusiastic about talking and sharing about herself, which gave Yelena even more time to think about what to say.
“I’m Kate Bishop and I can shoot a bow and arrow.” When some of the other children looked back at her with skepticism, as Yelena noticed the faces and the frowns, Kate didn’t waste a second. “For real. I’ve been practicing since I was four. I’m very good.” She wasn’t bragging, but she was definitely frowning at the boy on the other side of her who was looking at her with a funny face.
Three children. Two.
The girl next to Yelena said her name and something about a cat that she couldn’t quite catch over the noise in her own mind. And when it was Yelena’s turn, the room suddenly felt quiet, or at least the most quiet it had been since the teacher had strictly said that everyone should listen when a classmate was talking.
She was gripping the fabric of her pants, trying not to let anyone notice enough to see.
“I am Yelena,” she said clearly and precisely enough to pass as if she had been living there for longer than a few months, if it wasn’t for the accent still sitting in every word. “I am from Russia.” She paused, and she considered that it was not good enough for a fact, and when she noticed the encouraging nod of the teacher, she continued. “I have…” she started, and whatever words she was going to muster out in English got completely lost in the middle when she found nothing to say or a way to say it.
She fell quiet, and suddenly all her classmates were looking at her expectantly. She made the mistake of catching the eyes of a boy in front of her, looking at her with a frown and a look that suggested Yelena was already taking too long.
“She has the same backpack as me,” Kate said then, two spots away, with complete calm and a smile too big for simply sharing a fact.
Miss Carolyn smiled brightly, and said some warm words to welcome Yelena into the class again.
Yelena looked back at Kate, finding that Kate was already looking at her with a small reassuring nod and bright eyes.
Yelena looked back at the rug, and slowly unclenched her hand from the fabric of her pants. Finger by finger.
The circle continued, and Yelena paid enough attention to remember most names, but not the facts. And by the time it ended and they were all sent back to their respective places, Kate had already found her way back and was happily waiting for her.
“Thank you,” Yelena said once she sat down.
“I just said something,” Kate shrugged, pleased with herself. “What were you going to say? The fact about you.”
Yelena thought for a moment. “I have…” she stopped herself, thinking. “Варенье.” She looked at Kate, trying to find the word she needed or expecting Kate to say it for her. “Jam. Mama makes it from…” she pointed towards the window and the trees outside, mimicking picking from branches.
“From berries?” Kate asked, frowning slightly but still catching what Yelena was trying to say.
“Ягоды,” Yelena nodded. “From Russia.” Her mama had learned from her grandmother, and had been teaching her sister a bit of how to make it, even if Natasha was not very interested in the making of jam. “We have in the apartment,” Yelena explained.
Kate looked at her for a moment, and then started laughing, not unkindly, a loud and open laugh that made Yelena frown at it. “That IS a good fact. Can I try some of it?”
“It is good,” Yelena said proudly, and then added just to be careful. “I don’t share easy.”
“Okay,” Kate said, not sounding offended at all. “That’s also fair.” She then propped her chin on her hand and looked at Yelena with unabashed curiosity. “What else?”
Yelena thought for a moment, then tilted her head to the side, because there was nothing else to tell about her mama’s very delicious jam, what she had told was what there was.
“What?”
“What other fact do you have?”
Yelena then thought about it, working out how to say the words she needed. “I can hold my breath long.” Her sister and her used to play in the lake during the summer to see how long each of them could hold their breath underwater. Natasha was always the one that lasted longer and Yelena always said it was because she was older, or because she was cheating.
“No you can’t.”
“Yes.”
“Prove it.”
“Not now.”
“Why not?”
Yelena took a little longer to come up with an explanation, but her pride and dignity were bigger than anything else. “We are in school.”
She was thankful that Kate accepted the fact quickly, nodding and settling back a little. “At recess,” she said then.
“At recess,” Yelena nodded, and turned back around to look into the crayon box Kate had left in the middle of their papers, open in her direction as an invitation to take what she wanted.
Of course, when the time came, Kate didn’t waste a second to take her outside and into the back side of the playground to make her fulfill her promise.
She had dragged her around the group of overexcited kids and into a corner while talking in rushed words Yelena couldn’t quite catch properly.
And Yelena, being the proud person she was, fulfilled her promise and held her breath for one minute and forty seconds, which was a new record for herself. She was sure it was pushed by the fact that Kate had been counting up with so much determination on her face that she didn’t want to let her down, or herself.
Kate had been ecstatic when Yelena finally let her breath out, and she had tried to copy the same time or at least close enough to it, lasting only forty one seconds before giving out, standing doubled over with her hands on her knees and breathing in hard.
“Okay, you win.”
Yelena grinned, not having realized they were competing at all, but waiting patiently until Kate finally regained her breath. Immediately after, Kate turned upright, and pointed Yelena towards the games on the other side of the playground.
“Want to go to the swings?”
The playground was fairly large even if it was filled with children and teachers standing close by. There was a set of swings half occupied in the far end, a big climbing structure in the middle that extended itself to the sides, a painted hopscotch grid on the asphalt floor next to the entrance to the classrooms, and many groups of children playing with each other and running around in patterns Yelena couldn’t follow.
Kate had already started walking towards the swings when she noticed the lack of a presence next to her, and instead of continuing, she turned around and looked at Yelena standing and watching the others play.
“You okay?”
“I am looking,” Yelena answered.
Kate came back and stood next to her, looking at the playground too and taking the task very seriously for a moment. For a short while they stood side by side, looking quietly as the others played and ran around.
“The swings on that side are better,” Kate said finally, having waited long enough to start a new conversation. Pointing to the set of swings in the right side. “The ones on the other side are a little squeaky and they are very noisy.” She pointed, as if giving her a tour of the place. “The climbing things are fun, but those boys are hogging the top part and the rest is no fun without it. And the hopscotch is fine but Cassandra and her friends really like to play it.” She paused, looking back at Yelena and confirming with her face that she had caught most of what she had said. “Also I called dibs on the good swings yesterday.”
Yelena turned to look at her, curiously. “Dibs,” she repeated, trying to make it sound the same way Kate did.
“It means I said I wanted them for me. So they are mine.”
Yelena nodded, quickly understanding and getting serious at the revelation. “Ah. I say забиваю.” It was the closest word she could think of that meant practically the same thing. She would yell it at her sister in the mornings when her mother would make homemade pastries, to get the best one in the basket.
“Забиваю,” Kate tried, accent poor even if she was trying. “За-би-ва-ю?”
Yelena giggled slightly, but without wanting the girl to feel bad about it, she sent back encouragement. “Better.” It was a lie, really, but Yelena was mostly trying to be kind and to make Kate keep trying.
Kate smiled back at her sideways, appreciating the compliment, and then extended her hand and waited for Yelena to grab it. “Come on.” Yelena wasted a second extra looking at the extended hand, but eventually reached back and was pulled around the playground and into the other side of it.
Kate walked over to her already designated swing, and Yelena was almost pushed into the other one with ease. Once she had gotten on, Kate was pushing herself back and forth with force, trying each time to go higher. Yelena, for her part, tried to go at a normal pace to keep herself in movement without the brute force.
“You’re not going very high,” she heard Kate say as she passed by, her voice coming out funny from the movement.
“I am good,” Yelena replied, looking at the blur Kate was.
“You can go higher.”
“I don’t.” Yelena had once seen her sister push herself so high that when it was time to get off, she had jumped and landed badly and hurt herself so much she had cried for at least thirty minutes, accompanied by their mama the entire time. Yelena did not want to go through the same.
“Why not? You can!” Yelena considered what to say, because telling the story was going to need much more words than she knew how to say, and she was not up to making gestures with her hands mid flight, so instead she settled with what she knew she could manage.
“Later maybe.” She wouldn’t go higher, but Kate didn’t have to know.
Kate assessed her with a simple look once she was on the downswing, and nodded quickly before sending back her answer. “That’s okay.” She then pushed herself back up again, pulling her body forward at the same time she extended her legs on the higher side. “Забиваю!” she copied again, and Yelena couldn’t help but laugh at the mispronounced word said loud and into the open air, noticing how little Kate cared about how it sounded.
In the end Yelena, against her better judgment and her own fears, went up a little higher, catching the shining eyes of Kate in the process.
When lunch time arrived and they were all moved into a different room with longer tables all around, Yelena had moved slowly and carefully as to avoid hitting any of the other children already getting into groups at the tables. She had gotten separated from Kate the moment they were called to form a line, and had lost her in the process of getting into the new room.
She ended up spotting her, body turned towards the door and looking around trying to find her, and when she did, Kate didn’t waste a second to move her bag off the seat next to her, inviting Yelena to sit beside her with the simple movement.
Her mama had packed her lunch that same morning after checking the menu the week before and realizing that it was much better to wake up earlier and prepare her something than to let her eat from there. She had packed a container with cold kotlety, little meat patties seasoned the way Yelena liked, and a piece of black bread with some of the jam they had brought from home, which was running lower than the ones her mama had made since their arrival with different fruits instead of the ones she liked.
“What’s that?” Kate asked, looking over at the container on Yelena’s side.
“Kotlety,” Yelena said. “It is meat.” She pointed, letting Kate take a look at it and the rest of the food she had been given. “My mama made it.”
“It smells good,” Kate said, with a tone honest enough for Yelena to take as real.
Yelena looked around, noticing the difference in everyone’s lunch. Most of them had sandwiches or the hot food from the school menu.
Since arriving, Yelena had noticed the differences between the people in this country and her own. It was probably going to take her a long time to get used to the frowning or the strange looks she got when she talked in Russian, no matter how hushed it was, and the way some people would instantly turn to look at them with inquisitive eyes when they heard her broken English and the way her mama would pull her closer when someone looked at them for far too long. She was supposed to be different, she had been raised differently to start with, and she couldn’t help thinking about how vulnerable she could have been to that same treatment with everything that had happened that day. Except that Kate had taken everything and treated it with curiosity and more understanding than she had received from anyone before.
“It tastes good,” Yelena said firmly, and opened her container.
Kate made a face at her own food, a packed sandwich, that suggested she didn’t have the same opinion about her own lunch. “My mom’s assistant makes my lunch and she always forgets I don’t like mustard.” She peeled back the bread to investigate, showing Yelena that there was indeed a trace of mustard in the middle, only sighing and letting the bread fall back. “My mom and dad work a lot,” Kate said easily, shrugging her shoulders. “So she does most things in the house.” She took the mustard smeared bread and pulled it aside from the rest of the sandwich with enough ease that Yelena could tell she had done it before. “My dad used to do it, but he’s been more busy and can’t.”
Yelena watched for a moment as Kate analyzed her food, grimace on her face and a wrinkled nose to accompany it. She looked back at her own food, and slowly moved to grab a few pieces to place in front of Kate.
Kate only looked at them. “Are you sure?”
Yelena nodded, smiling slightly. “It is good.”
Kate tried it with full commitment, and Yelena watched as her face went through different stages until landing on the last one. “Oh, it tastes really good.” She looked back at Yelena, already picking up her next bite.
“Da,” Yelena said, and felt the ease in her chest as her nerves settled, watching Kate eat happily.
Yelena started eating at her side, enjoying the moment as she watched Kate keep picking up food.
“Kotlety,” she heard her whispering eventually, and turned to see her testing the word under her breath, trying it with an accent that wasn’t close to the right one at all. “I’m gonna ask my mom to make this,” she eventually said, interrupting herself and turning to Yelena with a big smile. “Kotlety, is that right?” It sounded better, not drastically better but good enough to relay the message.
“Yes. Kotlety,” Yelena nodded.
“It sounds much better when you say it.” Yelena didn’t answer, but watched as Kate kept using the word a few more times before going back to her food.
At three pm Miss Carolyn called them all to form a line towards the exit of the classroom with their backpacks and jackets ready after finishing the day. Yelena had ended up last in line after the rest of the girls in her class got to the front, and Kate had materialized behind her the moment she stopped and waited for the line to move.
“Do you live far?” Kate asked.
“West 84th Street,” Yelena had answered quickly, after being taught during the first days what to say to that question if someone ever asked her or if she accidentally got lost.
“I live on West 79th,” Kate said with excitement. “That’s very close. My mom’s driver brings me in the mornings but she’s supposed to come for me at the end of the day. But my dad promised to come pick me up and walk home every day after I turn seven, which is in December.” She delivered the information quickly as she did with everything else, and Yelena only listened as the other girl tried to go slow for her. “You could walk with me.”
“I walk with my papa.” In the mornings, at least, and her mama was supposed to come for her in the afternoon, as said that morning.
“We can all walk together. Your dad, you and me and my dad.” She paused. “Do you have a driver too?”
Yelena shook her head. “No.”
“Oh. That’s better probably, you can have your dad walk with you every morning.” Kate accepted and looked towards the front instead of at Yelena, noticing how the teacher was already walking and taking the rest of the children behind her in quick succession.
They followed, walking outside through the open doors. The outside was colder and the sky a little brighter than it had been earlier. Yelena scanned quickly around, looking for her mama and spotting her quickly in the dark blue coat she liked the most.
“Yelena,” Kate called behind her, and she quickly turned and motioned for her mama to notice why she was taking a little time. “Your name is Yelena.”
“Yes,” Yelena nodded but frowned at the words, not quite understanding where she was going with it. She had said her name earlier.
“Yel-ena,” Kate practiced, and Yelena finally understood what she was trying to do. “I’m practicing it.”
“Yelena,” she nodded, and then went back. “Kate.” She pointed at her, again trying her best not to let the accent slip too much into the short word.
“Yelena,” Kate said then, with a finishing smile and a better, more practiced tone. “Can we be friends, Yelena?” she asked then, and Yelena stood still for a moment.
The little gap between Kate’s teeth showed as she smiled, trying to convince Yelena that being her friend was going to be the best option, and Yelena thought that maybe it could be. Being friends with someone was okay, and Kate was good, not like the other kids. Even if she spoke too loudly or too fast sometimes, she was good.
“Yes. Friends.” Yelena smiled back, and the big smile on Kate’s face was contagious enough to make Yelena giggle a little at the overexcitement.
When she turned around, her mama was coming through the gates and walking over to them, catching a glimpse of the moment at the same time.
She didn’t waste much time in meeting her halfway, hugging her mama once she came down to catch her and burying her face in the familiar scent of the fur collar of her coat. “Mama.”
She held her for a moment, and then Yelena remembered she had left Kate mid talk.
“Это твой друг?” her mama asked quietly, looking back at Kate who was standing a little way away, watching the pair with a shy smile rather than the one she’d had the entire day, holding the straps of her backpack with a light grip and her ponytail escaping a little more than it had that morning.
Yelena thought about it for a moment, and answered once she had the words.
“Da,” she said, giving her mama a moment to get closer and for Kate to skip a little into their space.
“Hello,” Kate said, once Melina’s eyes were focused on her. She extended her hand, walking a few more steps to reach her, and once Melina took it she shook it vigorously. “I’m Kate Bishop, I’m six years old and best friend of Yelena.”
Best friend. Yelena hadn’t agreed to that yet, but she could let it go while Kate was talking with her mama.
Melina let out a laugh at the presentation, and Kate was already beaming with the attention being given to her.
“Hello, Kate Bishop. I’m Yelena’s mama, it’s very nice that you two are friends.” Kate nodded, letting go of her hand and giving them a little space.
“Yes! She’s quiet, but she’s really nice, and she shared her food with me today. That was really nice and so delicious.” Melina nodded, catching up quicker than Yelena to the quick succession of words coming out of Kate’s mouth.
“That’s very nice of Yelena,” her mama said, looking at her with a smile. Yelena could feel the redness of her cheeks at the sudden praise from her own mother and the way Kate was so excitedly talking with her.
“It is!” Kate was then distracted for a moment, looking around at a car that had just arrived outside the gates, and her expression fell a little. “That’s the driver’s car.” She pointed, voice now less cheerful than before. Yelena looked around her mama and caught a glimpse of a tall man with a kind face coming out of the driver’s side and looking inside the gate, grinning at Kate once he spotted her. “I have to leave now.” She pointed to the man and the car. “But I’ll see you tomorrow, Yelena. Bye, Yelena’s mama.”
Yelena watched her run the few steps to the gates, being met by Miss Carolyn in the middle and getting accompanied to where the man had been waiting.
The scene was short, and Yelena was then pulled gently by the hand as her mama started walking.
“Как прошел твой день?” she asked, and Yelena relieved the day quickly in her mind, thinking about the bad first impression of absolutely everything and how she had felt for a moment that maybe her days were going to be more complicated, but Kate had taken to her quickly and hadn’t left her side after getting the chance to do so multiple times. Instead she had let her into her ownership of the swings, had saved a place for her to sit during lunch and shared her crayons the entire day.
She could describe the day now with all the words she knew, and talk at length knowing her mama would understand everything she said. But still, she settled for less.
“Нормально,” she said eventually. Fine. It had been a good enough day, even better than she had expected.
Her mama simply looked sideways at her but didn’t press, and let her walk until she had anything else to tell her.
She did, eventually, tell her about the rest of her day with less details than what she could remember, but still.