Kate got goosebumps the first time she heard “motherfucker” coming from the mouth of a seven-year-old girl, but that was dignified compared to the other things the kids called one another. The baggy-pants look began for boys in the first grade. The girls wore gaudy spandex and had sopping infections from DIY pierced ears. Spot checks uncovered cigarettes, bullets, condoms, even a handgun in her third-grade class—her most prized student, Keneesha, kept a hunting knife in her lunch sack. Protection from what or whom, it was never clear. The child didn’t want to say, and the school shrink gave up.

There was a boy named Marco in her class, a six-year-old Filipino Mexican, slight even for six. He did his homework on time, never called her any names and stayed out of trouble. His mother sold fake Louis Vuitton purses at a swap meet downtown, his father had worked construction until a falling scaffold took off his arm. Like many of the kids at the school, he spoke mainly Spanish at home; his English came dented by the barrio, and he tried hard to shake its imprint. Then things got strange. Often when Kate would be writing on the blackboard, this kid would fix his eyes on her. She would feel him watching her every move, staring at her breasts, her hips. It wasn’t a crush, that much she knew. The boy was six. She could tell that he didn’t like her, didn’t trust her and was sussing her out for some other possibly criminal opportunity. In looks and manner, he reminded her of somebody from the past but she couldn’t quite place who.

One day as she was driving out of the school parking lot, she saw him waiting for the bus. His eyes met hers, but instead of flinching or smiling a hello, he kept on staring. It was like a contest. She had to look away. When she stopped for kids at the crosswalk, Marco materialized, his palms pressed flat against her window.

“What are you, Miss Ireland?” he asked. “Who are you?”

She hit the gas. The nerve of the little prick.

The next day at school, Marco accosted her in the hallway. Again, he stared at her in his searching way.

“Miss Ireland?” A rosary dangled from his hand. “Did you come to save me?”

She gestured for him to walk ahead of her.

“My mother received a message from God,” he kept on, looking back at her as he walked. “She said there is an angel at my school. She said the angel will save me.” At the stairwell, he turned back to look at her again as he held on to the handrail and carefully descended the steps.

“Well, kid, that’s a nice story,” she said.