The sound of foreign voices hit me from all sides. I heard a couple of words I understood but other than that, it was all gibberish. My mom told me in Hindi “It will all be alright. Don’t worry! I’m sure you will make many friends.” I, only half listening, nodded my head and clutched her hand tighter. She led me to a door at the end of the hallway on the left. A woman was standing at the edge of the door. She had short, blonde hair and big, blue eyes. She was at least two feet taller than me. When she saw me approaching, a big smile came across her face. She knelt down and asked me, “Hi, I’m Mrs. Jackson. What’s your name?”
I swallowed, paused and whispered my name. She looked at me, confused, and said, “Sorry, what was that?”

I whispered it again and she still couldn’t understand me. I felt my face getting red and my palms sweating. My mom finally said it for me. The woman, Mrs. Jackson, led me through the door and I saw a bunch of faces, all talking loudly. There were mostly all my height except a couple of taller women, which was probably some of the mothers of my classmates. Mrs. Jackson led me to a cabinet and told me something. I just stared at her.

“Put your backpack here, sweetie,” she repeated. I took off my backpack and put in the cabinet. She then led me to a chair with my name on the desk. Suddenly, my mom removed her hand and I quickly turned to her, wondering what had happened.

“Bye! I will see you after school ends!” she told me. She hugged me and then left. I felt like crying but nothing came out of my eyes. I just waved goodbye and quietly sat in my seat.
There was a girl sitting to my right and a boy sitting in front of me. The girl had short, red hair and pink glasses. She was scribbling something on a piece of paper. The boy was looking around nervously. He had dark, brown hair and brown eyes. There was another girl sitting next to him, staring right at me. I avoided eye contact and quickly looked around me. "By the door I entered, there were many cabinets to the left for all the students. To the right was another door. I didn’t know what it led to. There was a colored rug in front of the last of the cabinets with an easel next to it. On the easel, there were many colorful posters about alphabets and numbers. Behind the easel, there was a bulletin board and a whiteboard. There were jumbled words on the whiteboard of which I could not decipher at the time while the bulletin board was decorated with pictures and a calendar. On today’s date, it said something which I couldn’t read either. When I realized that I should be able to read this, I started panicking on the inside. Next to the rug was a round table, but none of the seats were filled there. A desk cluttered with papers sat to the right of the round table. In the middle of the room were four tables, filled with six students each. All of them had different faces but spoke the same language that I could barely understand – English.

Mrs. Jackson walked in to the center of the room after all the parents had left, and looked at all of our faces. She exclaimed, “Welcome to school, guys and girls! My name is Mrs. Jackson and I will be your teacher. I know we will have lots of fun in this class together! I mean, look at all of you. You’re all smiling and happy to be here just like me. I can’t wait to get to know all of you.”

“So first, I am going to make sure everyone is here and then we will all introduce each other to our tablemates, ok?” she asked. Everyone nodded their heads. She got a piece of paper and came around the room to make sure everyone was here. While then, everyone else started talking again.

The girl staring at me earlier looked around at us and said, “Hi, my name is Sally. What are all of your names?”

The girl next to me replied “My name is Hannah.”

“My name is Johnny” the dark-haired boy answered. They then all looked at me, waiting for my answer. I told them my name. Luckily, they didn’t ask my name for a second and third time, like the teacher did. They all started talking amongst themselves. I tried to follow the conversation but got lost halfway through it. I just zoned out and started tapping my pencil to a random rhythm.

The teacher called the class to attention and told use to write the alphabet. I smiled for the first time that day, since I actually knew what to do. I wrote it quickly and then started tapping the same rhythm again. Sally, Hannah, and Johnny all finished quickly too and so, the teacher told us to come and sit on the colored rug. I sat down next to Sally, but then the teacher told the both of us to line up at the door.

Another woman was walking down the hallway with a line of kids behind her. As I heard her click-clack of her heels approach, I got scared. I didn’t want to get into any trouble on the first day of school. I felt butterflies in my stomach. The woman told us to line up behind the other kids. Sally saw my scared face and calmly told me, “She is taking us to speech therapy. I lived in France my entire life, so I don’t know English very well.”