Half the class raises their hands, one girl in particular trying to raise hers so high I think her arm might come out of its socket. She wears cat-eye glasses that are too big for her face, and her brown hair is tied into a ponytail so high it seems to sprout from the top of her head. Bobby pins poke out from where she’s tried to pin down the ends of her ponytail in an effort to create what I can only assume is a bun. I cough to cover a laugh.

“Oooohhh, Ms. Kiko, please!” the girl says. “I wrote a story, and I want to read it to her. Ooooh, ooooh, please pick me, please!”

Anticipation bubbles up. This is what I loved about teaching: kids and their exuberance for even the smallest things, like reading to a memory-addled ex-teacher.

Kiko raises her eyebrows, purses her lips, and waits. The girl lowers her hand and hangs her head between her shoulders. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I’m not supposed to yell out like that. I forgot and stuff, so—oops, sorry, Ms. Kiko.”

“Thank you, Maree. And yes, you may read to Ms. Claire today. I know how hard you worked on your story yesterday. After you, Izzie and then Leonora. Okay, class, you have fifteen minutes at your first station.”

The girl, Maree, hops to her feet and skips over, a small paper book held together by pink and green staples clasped in her hand. She throws herself into a smaller beanbag chair by my side, sliding her glasses up as she makes a big show of settling herself into the bag until her legs stick out in front of her. She points to her ankles. “Look! I have yellow socks on ’cause it’s Tuesday!”

I can only assume that I have told her about my sock system, so I smile and nod, pull up my pant leg to show her my own yellow socks. “That’s right!”

“Yeah, I decided to do that, too, ’cause I think it’s so smart, and now I always know what day it is unless I forget what the color means, which happens kinda a lot, so I wrote it down in a little notebook. I’m just like you now!”

“That’s so great, um . . .” Her name doesn’t come to mind, so I say, “Kiddo!”

She frowns when she tilts her head. “My name is Maree, like Mary with a y but with two e’s ’cause I love Anne of Green Gables, and she spells her name with an e. I’m writing a book, and it’s all about the adventures of my mom, and that’s also the title, see?” She holds out the cover, which reads the advntrs of Uki, my mom who is rely brav.

I lean forward, hands clasped in my lap. “I’m excited to hear all about your mom.”