extra credit

In one of my Elementary Education classes, we are given extra points for volunteering for any event or cause related to teaching. I participated in a Curious George themed reading event held at the Palookaville Public Library. Upon arrival, I found the other participants preparing the room. There were eight tables. Each table had a bunch of primary colored balloons anchored by bananas. I was given a colorful nametag necklace and put to work taping construction paper signs with the name of each activity to the tables. The activities were as follows;
· Make a Curious George Puppet
· Make a Curious George Mask
· Reading Picnic
· Face Painting
· Dream Drawing
· Make a Boat
· Color A Curious George Scene
· Make a Book

As I started to punch holes into nametags for the guests, one of the facilitators of the event asked, “Katherine, are you artistic?”
“Yes!” I replied enthusiastically.
“Then you get to be the face painter!” She said this with just a hint of sarcasm in her voice. I had face painted before. Ten years ago, Palookaville Elementary hosted a “Fun Fair” with many activities. I painted faces for several hours. The most popular request was the Chicago Bulls logo. By the end of the day, I could paint that stylized bull head blindfolded and comatose. The most difficult request was a tiny girl who simply said, “May-shun.”
I looked at her mother for help with the translation.
“A DAL-MAY-SHUN.” Her mother clarified, speaking very loudly. I looked at her pleadingly. She didn’t take the hint. “You know the dog…with the spots.”
“Yes, I know what a Dalmatian is…I will do my best, but that’s a hard one!” I said with a big smile. Hint. Hint. The mother stood firm. I painted the most pitiful looking white blotch with black spots you have ever seen on the tiny cheek. The mother inspected it.
“Well, it sorta looks like a dog.” She said and led the girl away by the hand.
Um…You’re Welcome.
I took my place at the table and started to open up the supplies. Somebody brought me a Curious George template and my first victim; a seventh grader who was there helping her mother with the event. I painstakingly followed the template. It came out great. I was pleased. My next practice face came in the form of one of my classmates’ children. My classmate is a formidable woman whose mouth is always hanging slightly open, exposing her tongue and top teeth. She recently stated to the class that she thought creationism should be taught in public schools because, "We're Christians!"
I went on a rant about seperation of church and state that halted the entire discussion and left the room so quiet we could hear our breath rustling through our nose hairs.
“HI!!!” I greeted her a little too enthusiastically, still buzzing from my first face art triumph.
She stared straight ahead and did not answer. She was a large girl. Bigger than me. Her head was the size of my ex-boyfriend's, who is a former Division 1 lineman. Her eyes were kind of dull. Like her mother, her jaw hung slack, exposing her tongue and bottom teeth.
“Do you want a George?” I finally asked.
She continued to stare straight ahead and nodded almost imperceptibly. I followed the template again with great results. She rose silently from her chair and floated away. At no time did she smile or utter a word. This shouldn't surprise me. Many kids don't know simple social skills, and are not confident enough to employ them.
Some of the other volunteers noticed my Georges and complimented me. Two tiny sisters came over. I asked the bigger sister’s name.
“Ka-Lee-Ya” she said and presented her itty bitty cheek. This was more difficult, but I managed to pull it off. Then it was her little sister’s turn. I asked her name.
“Jush-ush.” She said.
“Justice?” I asked, remembering the name of a character portrayed by Janet Jackson in a popular movie of the 90’s. She nodded her tiny head. Ah, Palookaville. During my substitute teacher days, I encountered names such as Luxury Shatoya, Paradise, Juwanna, many variations of Jasmine, and countless versions of Jamal. I struggled to scale the size of the George face down to fit her miniscule cheek.
“Thank You.” said Kaleah.
“Shang Goo.” said Jush-ush.
Most of the children wanted George heads as well. I no longer had to refer to the template. I was keeping the line moving fairly well. A kid would sit. I would say, “Do you want a George?” They would nod complacently. The Pavlovian-behaviorist model of face painting; ask a loaded question, get the expected response. Cake!
“What do you want, Buddy?” said Cute Dad.
“A Zebra!” announced Buddy. Ah…a kink in the plan. I knew I had seen zebras somewhere in a Curious George book. I picked up a copy of The Complete Adventures of Curious George and thumbed through the pages. Oh Yes! The alphabet story! The letters were drawn to look like animals. I copied the Z-zebra as closely as possible. Cute Dad was pleased. My line had grown. Long. A younger child of the same classmate sat. “I want a butterfly.” She was a smaller version of the large child. This one was more aggressive.
I started on a monarch. I made a lovely pattern of orange markings.
“Why are you using black?” she asked.
“Why are you using orange?”
“Why are you doing that?” “Why aren’t you making it blue?”
“Why are you using yellow?”
Oops. I should ask more questions. I should let the children pick their colors. I was dictating what their objects should look like. They should be expressing themselves to me. They would learn more by trying to describe what they envisioned. I finished her butterfly. “Now I want a zebra on my hand.” She said.
I looked at the line of patient kids and parents. This would require a bit of diplomacy.
“Will you be a good sport and let somebody who hasn’t had a turn go? You have a painting and some people haven’t had a chance to get one.” This was a gamble. How would she react? What if she told her slack-jawed fundamentalist mother I had been mean to her?
She rose from the chair and left. Did she roll her little eyes at me? I think she might have. Now that the kids had seen some of the non-conformist non-George designs, they started to get creative with the requests.
“…a star that has yellow on the outside and green on the inside.” from one of my professor's children, Harry, age 5, who recently completed construction paper flags of all of the Olympic participants and presented them to the class with a factoid for each nation. Five. Five years old.
“…a goldfish and then, underneath the goldfish, in writing, I want it to say, ‘Goldy’” from the little girl with 3 siblings who were all home-schooled and quite precocious. It was a tribute to her deceased goldfish that was just ceremoniously flushed that very morning.
“A princess crown.” said a girl of about 11 who rode the Municipal Coach alone to get to the event. She proved to be my best customer of the day, returning 3 more times for different requests; a George, a flower, the crown and her initials.
“I would like a dinosaur with big teeth and blood coming out of his mouth like he just killed something!” from one of the home-schooled siblings, a brother.
At one point, I looked up to find two tiny rock stars staring at me. One wore a short sleeved tee-shirt over a long sleeved tee shirt, baggy jeans and a knit “skully” hat adorned with a hipster logo pulled down to his eyebrows. The other one wore a black hoodie with a flame design down both sleeves, and hair gel in his short spiky coif. I looked around to see if these were indeed the progeny of Tommy Lee or Jesse James.
“What’ll it be?” I asked the first one. He rolled up his sleeve and produced a bare forearm. “A snake…curled up…with fangs.”
“Alrighty!” I went to work.
“How’s that?” I asked. He gave a curt head nod. I now knew what it felt like to work in a tattoo shop. It was “Skully’s” turn.
“I want ‘NO FEAR’ in red and black. On my neck.”

My faith was restored with the remaining children of my professor.
“Pink. Pink George.” said Madeleine of the enormous eyes.
“If there’s time,” allowed the gracious Betsy, “I would like a rose in this color,” indicating a perfect shade of blue based red, “with a stem in this color.” pointing to an as-yet unused shade of green that was much more appropriate than the tealish green I had been using for foliage.
Why hadn’t I thought of that?
I was still painting away as the other tables were being cleared. Finally, another adult came to the rescue.
“Well, that’s it! You’re the last customer!” She announced.
I would have stayed the rest of the day. I gratefully went home and took a nap.