243/365 Clothing Drive

"Bridgett," Sr. Agneta breathlessly says my name at my doorway. It's a half hour before school begins, the quiet moments before students invade my pristine classroom and wreck it like every day.

"Hi," I wave at her. She comes in pulling a large white trash bag.

"Clothes," she points. "For Drina. I got her some things, too, but I want to present them when she comes up for ESL."

"Did you buy things?" I ask, a bit dismayed. I'd started to note that things were missing from my room, too, and I knew it wasn't That Frank.

"Well, just a few things. She has so many needs. Her mother, you know, is about to have that baby--she's so thin! And Drina and her siblings just have nothing. Their father," she shakes her head. I don't ask.

"But I thought you could give her these things," she points at the bag, "since this is homeroom and all. No reason for me to drag it up another flight just for her to drag it down."

"Indeed," I agree. She leaves and I drag it into the cloakroom. Poverty is common at our school and few kids have new things across the board. But I'm not going to present Drina with a trash bag of discarded clothing in front of her classmates.

I have Robert take my kids out at recess and I keep Drina behind. I show her the bag and she goes through it, sorting it into two piles.

"I take," she points to one pile. And then she shakes her head and points to the other.

"Uniform," I pick up a pair of relatively unattractive navy blue pants out of the reject pile. "For school. Skola."

"No, I not take."

And she doesn't. She shows up the next day in new clothes from the acceptable hand-me-downs and nobody says a word to her or her family. But Jillian and Beth, two of the girls in my room, start to notice and ask me why Drina doesn't wear a uniform. I try to explain best I can, but frankly, it comes down to language barrier. They both get a set to their jaws.

"Drina isn't very nice," Jillian starts to explain. I tell them to go back to their seats, that this is what being in a classroom with lots more people means. They do. But they're not happy.