15. Can't wait till we get out of the two-digit numbers...

My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Love, read us Wayside School Is Falling Down by Louis Sachar. She had a thing for kid stories. She read us Matilda, and it just so happened the movie came out that year. Every other day she'd take us out to play kickball for the last hour of school. Sometimes she even participated in the game. We would play against Mr. Mullally's class, and they often cheated. But I think Mr. Mullally did it only to create drama in our legendary fourth grade soap opera.

The previous teacher that year was a young, first-year teacher named Ms. Johnston. She left to teach at Summerdale. She hated me. I can't figure out why. She wore those baby doll shorts and at the beginning of the year she showed us a book she had written about Seattle, where she was from. Mrs. Love came in when Ms. Johnston left us. She was a much better teacher. I remember the first day she had shared that she was from Washington State and she was divorced, but she had decided to keep the bastard's last name. She had two sons and one day she called home and her son was there and she made us all shout "Hello" because she said he didn't believe she was a teacher. I wondered how that could be.

Mrs. Love. I always thought that was a funny last name.

Fourth grade. The year I got my glasses. I started to read out of leisure. I wore those boots that everyone else wore and those baby doll dresses. I remember. I remember it as the best year of my elementary school life.