First Day in School: Strange Bed

Posted By Les Conklin on Oct 8, 2015

By Manual Daniel Germano

Prologue

Germano and his family have arrived at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts. They have met a friendly Ms. Hancock. She will be Germano’s house mother. The go upstairs and with the help of his mother, he begins to discover the features of his room. There are windows that open in a different way, a light switch which is not like the one back in his home in Bristol, and different furniture in different places within the room. At one point, Germano feels his mother’s face and senses that she has been crying. Les Conklin, Editor

Part Five. Strange Bed

Then like Ma said, I found the bed; there was a round bar which served as the head of the bed. I then felt the pillow and the spread, which I could not describe but was different from our bedspreads at home. I reached under the bedspread and found kind of a thin woolen blanket. I had never felt a woolen blanket before. Ours at home were soft, I think they were called flannel blankets. I then felt under the blanket for the sheet. Again, this sheet felt different; it was kind of stiff and not as soft as ours at home. I guess Ma saw the concern on my face, and she said, â€œOur sheets are a lot older and that’s why our sheets feel lots softer and thinner.â€ I reached up to the top of the bed and felt the pillow. The pillow was different, along with the pillow case. My lower lip began to tremble and my voice sounded like a squeak as I said, everything’s different here! My Ma put her hand over mine and said, Sonny (for thatâ€™s what they called me at home) itâ€™s okay, santo querido, this pillow is much more expensive than ours at home.

Strange Chair, Bureau

Perkins School for the Blind

I turned around and just then my father and sister came into the room with the suitcases and boxes. My Pa said, â€œWhere do you want these suitcases?â€ My Ma told him to put them on the bed while she finished showing me around the room. Okay, Sonny, keep going, and so I moved to my left down the side of the bed and then my foot hit the chair which was just my size. Again, I had never seen a small kidsâ€™ chair like this. I kept moving and came to my bureau, and it came halfway up my chest. I felt it and the top was made of something like marble, I thought. Again, it was different from mine at home. I felt and it had four drawers.

Intriguing Window

I then came to the closet door. I opened the door and called in to the inside of the closet. It echoed, so I knew that the closet was empty, and I closed the door. I moved to my left and the wall came to an end, so I turned where there was a wall and then I put my hand on the windowsill. But my foot hit what I felt was a radiator, but its bars, or whatever you call them, were lots bigger around than ours at home. My Ma came up behind me and put my hand on the screen and to a little knob on the frame, and she told me to pull it toward me and, to my surprise, the screen came toward me like a door, it even had hinges. Ma said, thatâ€™s right, Sonny, it opens like a door. I must admit, I sort of got interested. She then put my hand on a flat iron bar with little holes about two inches apart. I felt the bar and my hand finally hit a wooden frame with glass in it. There were two columns of glass side by side, three squares of glass tall. Ma kind of quickly explained the window to me because Pa was making his coughing sound, which meant he was getting impatient.

So I left the window and moved on to my left where there was a short wall and then a corner. I turned the corner and there was a closet, just like on the other side, but this one was the other boyâ€™s closet. I moved to my left and came across the bureau, the chair, the bed, and then the wall, which came to a corner, so I touched a short wall and the door frame and knew I had circled the room. My Ma began unpacking the suitcase, putting my clothes in the drawers and my Pa took me to the window so I could explore it better.

Learning the Bureau

Soon my Ma called me to where she was standing by the bureau. She moved me to the right end of the bureau. She pulled out the top drawer and asked me to feel from right to left and to tell her what I found. So I began, â€œOkay, first came my handkerchiefs, then a bunch of sockâ€™s sort of wrapped inside one another so the pairs would stay together, then came a pile of tee shirts, and finally a pile of underwear shorts.

Now Ma said, â€œI do not know how they will give you the clean clothes, but always put your things in the top drawer like you did at home.â€ I pulled the second drawer and it had three piles: one pile of jerseys, the second pile my Ma told me were my play-in shirts, and finally were my go-to-school and church shirts. In the third drawer were pants and shorts for church, school, and play. In the fourth and bottom drawer on the right-hand end were first summer pajamas, then winter pajamas, and the rest of the drawer was empty. At home, I had always gone to bed in my underwear, and I had doubts as to whether I would like these pajamas, another new thing for me.

â€œLetâ€™s Goâ€

Ma and I then went to the closet and went left to right on the hooks, the bar, and then on the floor: slippers, shoes, sneakers, and rubbers. My sister started saying letâ€™s go I am getting tired, and my Pa made a soft coughing sound, which meant he was getting tired too.