He felt as if he were extirpated and then without roots replanted in foreign soil; but at the same time as if he were something less than a boy and shrinking exponentially every moment he was in school. Like any kindergartner, daily he yearned for the mother he departed from and could not understand why he was ushered so much of the week into a bus that took him away from her. He didn't protest despite being tearful. He went like any semi-cognizant lamb and camouflaged himself shyly in the thickets and brambles of himself. Mrs. Graham told them to drink their pints of milk and eat their graham crackers, pledge allegiance to the flag, skip around her desk happily or not, draw the lines that were the parameters of form and create form by means of color, bang sticks and rattles rhythmically like African Pygmies, lace and tie shoes neatly, say their ABCs and the sounds they symbolized, listen to stories and articulate questions about them, obey calls for mandated naps on mats where one could never sleep, and try not to interrupt these activities with requests to go to the bathroom while at the same time not wetting one's pants. Two years went by. He was in his second year. Touch football, soccer, gymnastics, and all realms of movement in PE class helped to compensate for this institutionalized life. The discomforts of confinement were also assuaged with the help of homeroom mothers like his who brought in treats. Gabriele's cheese and cracker concoctions once each month were woefully inadequate in comparison to preceding days of cupcakes; and cognizant of this she all the more emoted a self-confident poise in the distribution of her crackers. She was certain that no one yearned for things but experiences; and by believing in the pleasures he and his classmates would get from her little efforts, she made it so. Her presence was a lesson on the quintessence of reality where successful emulation in superficial ways could be bypassed if done confidently. He was glad for anything that would stifle the unpleasant but pervading shadow of Mrs. Dinosaur who often forced him to stand under a coat rack with his nose against the wall as coats and the shortage of breathable air encased him. These episodes happened for letting his imagination stow away on passing vehicles he could see from the window. She alone was not the gravamen of his long list of grievances. He hated having to keep track of paper and pens, Little Orphan Annie with her preponderance of fat who aimed dodge balls toward boys' balls, and Shirley and her hitgirls who, during recesses, would often pin him down on the merry-go-round for the smothering of kisses.