241/365 What?

"What do you mean they're Gypsies?" I ask with a laugh. I'm envisioning decorated wagons and violin playing 19th century men. But Terri and Joey are serious.

"Roma. Ben said they're too dark to be Bosnian."

I think about the family standing in the office doorway just a few minutes before. They did have dark complexions, but so?

"He said the language was funny, too," she adds, and this sounds more realistic. I go home that night and look up gypsies. Roma. I go to the library. I find a few children's books in Bosnian (which is essentially Serbo-Croatian but with our alphabet) and a language book on Romani. I approach Drina during math class the next week with both books. I open the Romani book and say something akin to "Do you speak Romani?"

She looks at me with a practiced blank face. Now 10 years later I look back and know what that meant. It meant "an authority figure is trying to trick me and she's not going to win."

Then I opened the children's book in Bosnian and read a bit. Her face brightened and she said something to me in Bosnian. I don't know Bosnian--I took Russian in college and so bits are similar. So I handed her the book and asked her to read some. She shook her head and put the book down.

I went over to my desk and got a pencil and paper. I wrote "Drina" on one side of the paper and the same name, in Cyrillic letters, on the other side.

"Drina," I pointed to each of them.

She shook her head.

I wrote, in both scripts, "My name is Drina."

Nothing.

I stepped out in the hall after thanking her with a smile and taking the book with me. Often right before class changes, teachers stepped out to chat a moment and catch up on what was going on with kids.

"I don't think Drina can read," I tell Cynthia, the English teacher.

"She doesn't speak English, Bridgett," she points out.

"I don't think she can read her own language," I clarify.

We both stand quietly waiting for the bell. We know this isn't a good sign, at her age, having to start from scratch.

"Let me think about it," Cynthia says finally.