It was the first day of school and even though I had no one to look forward to at school, I couldn’t help but be excited. My mom was shuffling through my drawers.

“My jeans are on the top, remember, so I can’t reach them” I groaned.

“Uh yeah… but don’t you have like, anything black” she said in a raspy voice.

“May I remind you, my least favorite color is black and today is the first day of school” I giggled as I shifted my legs to dangle off the bed. “Is dad going to give me a call before I leave?”

“Not today” she murmured. 

“Why not is he too busy holding drywall up to the ceiling again” I laughed.

I watched her struggle and mumble through my drawers until she just stopped, put her hands on her hips and wiped her under eye. She turned around and said, “well what do you want to wear for your first day”.

“Mommy where’s your makeup,” I asked her as I laughed. She never woke me up without putting on makeup because then she wouldn’t do it later.

“I- just not today hunny, what do you want to wear?” she said staring at the ground.

She started to dress me and then sent me down to the kitchen. I waited for her sitting quietly at the table shifting my plate to get it exactly in the middle of the placemat. She came down still with no makeup just with a more fragile-looking body. She pulled out a frozen waffle from the freezer and poured a cup of milk. She always made me breakfast from scratch on my first day to anything but I guess today she lost her turner. I didn’t say anything and neither did she.

“Alright, time for you to start heading out,” my mom murmured as she pulled me up and tugged at my backpack straightening out the straps. She always sent me on my way a little earlier because she learned from last year that a couple of worms stop me on my walk to school.

I started walking towards the door and I stared at the phone through the corner of my eye, timing my steps hoping the phone would yell, “Hey, bud!” I gave my Mom a soft hug and she gave me a hard one.

“Tell the worms Donna said hi,” she said quietly as she always does.

I hopped over the porch steps exactly how my Mom told me to stop doing and I threw two upside-down peace signs behind my back. 

I merged onto the sidewalk and she came out from the third house down to mine. In front of me flashed the biggest blue bow I’ve ever seen in my seven long years of living. I could tell we were going to be friends. I ran to her with my backpack shifting me left to right like it was trying to stop me. I always kept it unzipped a little from the top just in case any baby bird fell from the nest, my backpack would surely catch it.

“Hi, I’m Denis Ernest Flockwood” I grinned extending my arm as my Mom had shown me.

“Arizona Bellda Crushart, nice to meet you, sir. Have you ever played worm plow?” she squeaked.

“Hm, yes” I giggled. We started running our fingers through the blades of grass and picking at the sidewalk cracks until we both found one. I picked my two worms up and pointed one to Arizona and said, “I’m Deni” in my worm voice. “Me, you can call me Deni” I gestured to myself, and we continued our walk to school. 

“Your backpack’s open” she pointed.

“I know I keep it like that in case any baby bird falls from its nest,” I said staring at today's worms, “my dad’s on a business trip, he has been for a week”.

“Oh! My dad goes on business trips all the time and when he gets home, my Mom starts arguing with him and calls him a player, I never know what they’re playing” she giggled, “my dog once went to a farm and I haven’t seen him since, my mom says he lives there now but we are forbidden to visit him”.

“Mm, and how long does he take, playing this game?” I said.

“Sometimes one night or sometimes three days. I don’t know,” she said as she sped up to not be beside me as we walked, always in front.

We both almost crashed into the school doors because we were too busy staring at our new shoes. My jeans were brown at the knees and so were her tights and I had a streak of dirt on my cheek. In class, she was always ahead of me. Arizona sat right in front of me, was half an inch taller than me, could read better than me, was quicker at math and the worst part, she was three months older than me. She had beat me in every game we played in recess. She just couldn’t beat me at worm plow and I held onto that.

It was time to go home and all I could do was imagine my dad hiding behind the coffee table, ready to pop out and scare me when I got home. I gave my new teacher, Mr. Gribson, a high five. His eyebrows were so thin they turned into slimy worms sliding off the sides of his face. I guess I was staring at them too long because he said “Okay, bye!” twice.

Arizona was already waiting for me at the door, I had forgotten about her. We walked on the colored carpet and I let out a big hop that led me in front of her and sure enough, she sped up. The walls were a deep navy color that made them look heavy. I blasted through the doors passing the loud scratches of the teachers' walkie talkies at the entrance. Our walk home was quiet. We were both listening to the wind and the sun entwine. I was staring at her sparkly backpack shimmering in the light and unzipped a slit for the birds.

“What are you doing?” she twisted like she was chasing her tail.

“It’s for the birds!” I laughed. 

Silence.

“I always keep my backpack half unzipped and propped out just in case a baby bird falls from its nest,” I grinned sideways. 

“That’s stupid” she walked behind me and slammed the air out of my backpack and zipped it simultaneously. A piece of notebook paper inside my backpack got caught between the two zippers. 

“Is this your diary” she giggled pulling the folded paper out.

“No! I never fold my papers hamburger style” I said staring at her read the red fancy words.

“What does it say let me see” I snatched the paper from her hands after waiting for a while. 

“I think… you should give that to your Mom,” she mumbled.

I tried reading it but all I could read was “wasn’t an accident,” “sorry,” and my dad’s name, “Julius Flockwood”. Our walk the rest of the way was quite she didn’t want to talk. Every time I’d say something she’d just shrug and groan. We got to her house and she looked at me and in the paper.

“Bye, Deni, see you tomorrow,” she said.

I just looked at her and back at the sidewalk. I got to my front door and I stretched to the offwhite doorbell. My Mom opened the door with the same smile she’s had since my dad had gone on a business trip. 

“Hey, Deni,” she crouched down to give me a hug and quickly backed off to ask me about the paper in my hand. “What’s that? homework, already?”.

“Arizona said I should give it to you. She can read and I think she read all of it. It has Dad’s name on it.” I handed her the paper. She stuttered and levitated the stale dense paper out of my hand.

“Is it a note for my first day?” I asked.

She scooted my back toward the hallway and shut the door behind me. We walked to the kitchen and sat across from each other and I sat on top of my right leg. I glued my eyes to her waiting for a response. I slowly saw her face render to gravity and blue little tears walked down her cheeks.

At this point, I had given up on asking what the note said.

“He wanted to. He wanted to. He wanted to,” she said with her face all unraveled. Her nail scratched the paper where her tears had fallen making a hole. I stopped looking at her and just followed the streams on the wooden table to the paper and back to my hand. 

Later that night, I went to go say goodnight to my sniffling Mom in her room. The lamp on her nightstand stood dim. I didn’t say anything and neither did she and gave her a hard hug and she gave me a soft one. I slid off the corner of her bed where she was sitting on her deep blue fluffed sheets. I ran my toes through the carpet slowly as I headed to my room, waiting for her to tell me to tell the worms in my dreams that Donna said hi, but she didn’t. I creaked the door open receiving the twilight of my room. I rolled into the middle of my bed and tucked myself with my forearms. I lost grip of the masses of silly thoughts that lived in my head every night. No ladybugs having tea, no spiders playing rock, paper, scissors, no beetles going shopping, no grasshoppers doing pushups, only one silly thought. A fallen baby bird in my dark blue backpack sitting around a wooden table in front of a smiling worm. I tapped my pointer finger on the bed and mouthed with my dry lips, “he wanted to, he wanted to, he wanted to, he wanted to”.