Ansley Stibbs 12, "Reckoning"

He was told the children understood English. It was the first day he realized the lie in this. Taking this job went against his usual logicality – he knew this. Back in the States, he had a stable existence, though usually monotonous and somewhat drab. His decision to leave took but a moment, when he found himself standing inside his house completely alone; the dazzling afternoon light through the windows mockingly illuminated him, taunted his personal shortcomings. He felt there was a thrill, a disorder to life he did not understand. So he left.

The school, located outside of a small, multicultural European town, needed a teacher. If they couldn’t find one, it would be disbanded. So they took whoever they could find, and who they found was him.

He gave a personal introduction, one he thought children may enjoy. Quickly, he understood the futility in this. He believed their expressions to be enrapturement towards his unfamiliar face and accent, but that wasn’t the case. They simply did not understand a word he was saying.

He panicked. Each wave of uncertainty he had suppressed for weeks bubbled up in his chest. He continued with arithmetic, which went less than smoothly, but nothing could have prepared him for the disaster of reading comprehension. Accepting defeat, he raised his arm towards the door, signaling lunch. When the last child exited, he realized he had sweat clean through his dress shirt.

He trudged into the courtyard, dizzy and perplexed. But then, the situation’s miraculousness struck him. Of course they had not understood me, he realized, watching the children play silent yet elaborate games of Pictionary. Of course they didn’t know what I was saying, as he watched their faces contort as if putting on a play. There were giggles and half-words, but no sentences. He looked at their features, the color of their hair, the movement of their limbs. He gaped at their stark dissimilarities. Fifteen different children, fifteen different cultures, fifteen different languages.

It got easier. He learned their language of pronounced movements and expressions. He became a far better artist than before. To the outsider, the children would have appeared simple. The directness of their communication is read as non-academic, unintellectual. Perhaps weeks before he would have thought this, but no longer. That was before he witnessed tears shift to fits of laughter through the deliberate movement of an arm, or the sworn seriousness of a pinky promise.

It was never meant to last forever; his bags were packed, his flight booked. As the children filed out of the room for a final time – grasping his shoulder, flashing him bittersweet grins – he turned to his desk with faint tears in his eyes. There was a large sheet of paper with a single heart on the front; he opened it. Inside was a portrait of the sixteen of them – him in the middle –drawn with such care and beauty that his breath caught in his throat. He found he was unable to speak.

Trick Marshall, 12, "Rosemary"

Daley Bowman, 10, Untitled