Somewhere Over the Sea by Halfdan Freihow Page B

it’s one thing to stand in front of classmates, or in pairs in front of the bedroom mirror, or in the living room in front of Mom and Dad. To stand on stage, on the other hand, in front of all those many others, in front of unknown adults who live elsewhere, to be a debutant, even if it’s in the gym — because tonight it ­doesn’t look like a gym at all — is another story altogether. It’s now or never, it’s one single chance to succeed, to remember
all the verses, all the steps, to look good in the dress, in the ­costume, the hairstyle — or to forget, stumble and stutter, and be a complete disgrace, to lose face and honour and never be able to look people in the eye again.
    No, to be in second grade and perform at a school festival in front of a hundred, perhaps a hundred and fifty people, is no joke.
    AT FIRST WE THOUGHT it had to be a joke, Mom and I. But your teacher was serious.
    â€” This is something he’s chosen himself and he can do it, she said firmly, with the sort of authority that only comes with a long life in teaching.
    She’s a wise and sensible woman, your teacher. She and the others who look after you at school, the Head Teacher, the Deputy Head, the Special Needs Teacher, and the Welfare Assistants. You are lucky — we are lucky. Every day we send you off to school, confident that you will be surrounded by people who wish you well, who stretch their patience and their budgets as far as they can in order to give you eventful, meaningful days. And if their patience runs out, as it does from time to time, they check themselves, take you outside and explain why, and you come home and explain to us what happened and why, and perhaps you’ve learned something about how even the grown-ups at school can be impatient and make mistakes. And if their budgets run out, as they always do, then they improvise and dip into their own pockets rather than miss out on a two-day course in another town to learn more about the difficulties faced by this boy who’s been placed in their care.
    A “splendid,” a “lovely” boy they tell us in your daily report, a “wonderful boy.” Even though you sometimes bite them, hit, kick, throw stones, run off . . . when they don’t get it right, no matter how hard they try. When you’ve had “not a good day,” as they discreetly put it.
    A couple of days before Christmas break you came home glowing with pride. You carried an enormous cup that looked remarkably like silver. This was after an autumn during which, in the course of a single week, you had acquired two skills that you’d persisted in persuading both yourself and the rest of us you would never learn to master: the art of reading and writing, and biking without training wheels. Your classmates had been doing both for a long time, and suddenly you became their equal. It happened so quickly that you could scarcely believe it, not until everyone in the schoolyard had seen you biking, and the whole class had heard you read. In recognition of these twin triumphs your teachers had chosen to buy a huge trophy, which now towers over the other treasures in your room.
    I don’t know which you were more proud of — your newly acquired skills or the trophy itself, the visible proof that you were valued as a winner by the adults at school. But I do know, Gabriel, that they all deserve a medal. Unfortunately, that won’t happen, because the world isn’t like that. People who do so much more, but say that they’re only doing their job, don’t mention it, it’s a pleasure and we won’t give up — people like that never get any medals. On the other hand, our gratitude is brightly polished and shining, and that they have. I know that they have yours too, which you express in your own way, with a hug and an unexpected smile, and with the greatest accolade of all: never once do you dread going