A meticulous volunteer had fanned out the books on tables, auditorium seating, and rotating racks, the paperbacks like wordy peacocks splashing their bright colors for attention. Cheery signs poked up from displays, marking genres and reader levels. On massive walls, posters bloomed—those were for sale too—and there by the cash register sprawled the table of tchotchkes: light-up pens, metallic pencils, sparkly rubber balls, iridescent rulers, beaded bracelets, neon slinkies, and more.
In minutes, the kids—one classroom at a time—would bluster into the auditorium and rip through the oh-so-neat arrangements of early childhood literature. Within seconds, those little readers would touch every last thing—I could guarantee it, or I wasn’t a parent of a few of them myself. We all knew at their ages they saw with their hands and not with their eyes.
Three of us parents took a quick cash register lesson from a capable member of the Parent Council, a book fair volunteer just like us, before the next wave of shoppers entered. We learned enough to get us through our shift; fingers crossed I wouldn’t have to do a return or make change from a $100 bill as fifteen squirrely ones dropped rubber balls and freed slinkies while waiting in line to give me their parents’ money.
The next class entered the auditorium in a more orderly manner than I expected, the train of them bookended by the main classroom teacher and an assistant. The primary leader dispensed reminders and instructions, and off they went. Some of the little consumers would be avid readers one day, gulping down New York Times bestsellers faster than water. Others, not so much. But these were the days of memories anyway, when the smell of new stories mingled with notable illustrations to carve forever notches in the brain.
But I was about to gather my own indelible memory of spoken words—not written ones like the kids were chasing that day—that would live more than a decade and a half in vivid color in my own mind.
I guided a kid or two to books they wanted, pointed to where they could check out, and returned displaced merchandise to its rightful spot. Another volunteer mom, seemingly charmed by the flurry, leaned into me.
“I can’t imagine sending a blank check with my kid to school,” she said, “but some parents do it.” Her eyes glinted with the same joie de vivre the kids carried, and I imagined her heart dancing with her first library card or trip to the bookmobile back in the day. Her smile eased off, though, and she slipped into mom mode. “Hold on.” She hustled a few steps away to a little boy poised at the trinket table, a bill of some denomination clutched in his fist, his gaze drinking in the inventory.
The woman spoke Arabic to the boy, telling him he shouldn’t spend his money on the junk he was eyeing. His mama wouldn’t be very happy about it if he brought home anything like that instead of a book, she said, and whatever he got would most likely end up breaking and going right in the trash.
The kid’s mouth flatlined, and he sauntered away from the table, empty-handed. The woman returned to me.
“I just told him he shouldn’t spend his money on the junk on that table. His mama wouldn’t be very happy about him coming home with those things instead of a book. Plus, any of that plastic stuff will break and end up in the garbage,” she said, translating the interaction for me.
“Oh,” I said, but I had understood her every word the first time—no translation needed. And I didn’t know Arabic.
I think the woman spoke with me about the next school-related topic, I likely used the cash register to ring up purchases, and we probably tidied up after that classroom’s visit, but I couldn’t focus. I hadn’t just made a good guess at the woman’s words to the boy; I had understood Arabic when I knew nothing of it.
My mind scrolled through possible reasons for that singular moment when I knew a language I didn’t. I recalled reading a story about a young man in a remote village in Africa suddenly speaking perfect English, a language he had never learned. Another story came to mind about a global worker who had witnessed a terrible accident involving children who were bleeding and struggling to live. She instantly spoke flawless Haitian Creole, an unknown language to her, to tell them she would help. And then there was the story in the second chapter of Acts where the people spontaneously broke out in new-to-them languages so others could hear their message.
No Rosetta Stone, Super Duolingo, Busuu, or Memrise. No language institutes, no semesters of classroom instruction, no lengthy tutoring sessions. Just sudden language acquisition because of dire circumstances. But my situation was far from dire. There was nothing urgent in an elementary school book fair and nothing of importance in talking about cheap knickknacks.
What happened that day in the school’s auditorium never happened again. So, what was the point of it?
What do you think?
*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo) or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.