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F-L-A-G Burning
By Stephanie Kemp
F-L-A-G Burning
By Stephanie Kemp
It is a miracle I am still standing. Not because I am not a good speller, but because my mom made me wear the itchy dress with the buttons. And Tracy’s old shoes that are already too small for me, even though no-one believed me. (She is a year older than me.)
I do look nice.
It is the day I fall in and out of love with Brad C.
We are the last 2 left.
5 hours in.
We are enemies but connected, in a bigger way, for life.
I am sure we both know this.
It is my word.
“May I have that in a sentence, please?”
“They raised the flag.”
“Flag. F-L-A-G. Flag.”
“Stephanie, the word was ‘raised’. You spelled flag.”
Silence.
Brad can’t look at me.
I can’t breathe or look at my mom.
I am grateful that my dad is not here.
After a lengthy consultation with several grown ups, including our principal and people I don’t recognize from the local newspaper, Brad’s teacher, Miss D announces the verdict.
Am I going to go down on FLAG?
My life flashes before my eyes, landing on its final image of Brad, who still can’t look at me and won’t be able to be my friend now, no matter what.
“Thank you, Stephanie. You may step down.”
My teacher, Mrs. K is very sad, but it is her first year at our school. Plus she wouldn’t have won anyway. Miss D is fierce even on a regular day.
We have to go out on the playground and tell everyone who won.
And why.
It is the worst kind of playground humiliation.
5th grade.
Shame.
Everyone runs to us. Even Tracy, who was worried about my feet until she hears what happened.
Tracy, who just the year before, won the 5th grade spelling bee on the word “business,” after her (then) boyfriend, Tim J, added an extra s.
Brad is being carried around the swing set by his whole class.
My whole class already only remembers that I couldn’t spell flag.
It is even worse than when I broke my hymen on the jungle gym the year before.
At least I could hide that.
And at least it was the truth.
I will go on to largely recover from that day of shame only to fall back in love with Brad C forty years later, during a Thanksgiving in Lake Tahoe over my ruined mashed potatoes with my cousin and husband.
They are making fun of anyone (specifically, me) who could ruin mashed potatoes while also doubting my retelling of this trauma.
My cousin (who was in my 5th grade class and apparently never believed my side of the story) calls Brad C, all the way across the country, at dinner time on Thanksgiving to bust me, never imagining:
A. That Brad might be eating dinner.
or
B. That Brad would retell the story as I had, verbatim.
I haven’t spoken to Brad in several decades, but he vindicates me. Our bond was never broken after all.
As an added bonus, all of my other stories are now validated by association or shame, this time not my own.
Sometimes stories are terrible until 40 years later.
I try not to throw them away* and hold onto the people who help me keep them.
I am trying to get better with all of it: humiliation, shame, potatoes, storytelling, family dynamics, friendship.
Everything but the spelling, which I am (still) very good at.
*It’s a good thing I didn’t throw this one away. It occurs to me only with this trillionth retelling, that I will never know what the actual word was that I was meant to spell.
Was it R-A-I-S-E-D or R-A-Z-E-D? This matters in 2021. And proves that Miss D was also (possibly) evil, as she cared more about my losing than making sure that Brad and I knew which words we were up there trying to spell.
(Or maybe she just made a mistake, too…)
I do look nice.
It is the day I fall in and out of love with Brad C.
We are the last 2 left.
5 hours in.
We are enemies but connected, in a bigger way, for life.
I am sure we both know this.
It is my word.
“May I have that in a sentence, please?”
“They raised the flag.”
“Flag. F-L-A-G. Flag.”
“Stephanie, the word was ‘raised’. You spelled flag.”
Silence.
Brad can’t look at me.
I can’t breathe or look at my mom.
I am grateful that my dad is not here.
After a lengthy consultation with several grown ups, including our principal and people I don’t recognize from the local newspaper, Brad’s teacher, Miss D announces the verdict.
Am I going to go down on FLAG?
My life flashes before my eyes, landing on its final image of Brad, who still can’t look at me and won’t be able to be my friend now, no matter what.
“Thank you, Stephanie. You may step down.”
My teacher, Mrs. K is very sad, but it is her first year at our school. Plus she wouldn’t have won anyway. Miss D is fierce even on a regular day.
We have to go out on the playground and tell everyone who won.
And why.
It is the worst kind of playground humiliation.
5th grade.
Shame.
Everyone runs to us. Even Tracy, who was worried about my feet until she hears what happened.
Tracy, who just the year before, won the 5th grade spelling bee on the word “business,” after her (then) boyfriend, Tim J, added an extra s.
Brad is being carried around the swing set by his whole class.
My whole class already only remembers that I couldn’t spell flag.
It is even worse than when I broke my hymen on the jungle gym the year before.
At least I could hide that.
And at least it was the truth.
I will go on to largely recover from that day of shame only to fall back in love with Brad C forty years later, during a Thanksgiving in Lake Tahoe over my ruined mashed potatoes with my cousin and husband.
They are making fun of anyone (specifically, me) who could ruin mashed potatoes while also doubting my retelling of this trauma.
My cousin (who was in my 5th grade class and apparently never believed my side of the story) calls Brad C, all the way across the country, at dinner time on Thanksgiving to bust me, never imagining:
A. That Brad might be eating dinner.
or
B. That Brad would retell the story as I had, verbatim.
I haven’t spoken to Brad in several decades, but he vindicates me. Our bond was never broken after all.
As an added bonus, all of my other stories are now validated by association or shame, this time not my own.
Sometimes stories are terrible until 40 years later.
I try not to throw them away* and hold onto the people who help me keep them.
I am trying to get better with all of it: humiliation, shame, potatoes, storytelling, family dynamics, friendship.
Everything but the spelling, which I am (still) very good at.
*It’s a good thing I didn’t throw this one away. It occurs to me only with this trillionth retelling, that I will never know what the actual word was that I was meant to spell.
Was it R-A-I-S-E-D or R-A-Z-E-D? This matters in 2021. And proves that Miss D was also (possibly) evil, as she cared more about my losing than making sure that Brad and I knew which words we were up there trying to spell.
(Or maybe she just made a mistake, too…)