To my granddaughter, about my own kindergarten experience

Can you imagine me as a child, even younger than you?

Let me tell you a story about something that happened to me when I was in kindergarten, and then maybe you might be able to imagine me as a little girl. I probably didn’t look much different than I do now, except I had brown hair and no wrinkles, and was pretty skinny!

My teacher was Miss Seely. I really loved her. She was tall and thin with big brown eyes and a beautiful voice. She was calm and peaceful, too. When we sat on the mat at her feet for her to read us a story, we all stopped wriggling and stayed quiet listening to her reading as she turned the pages and showed us the pictures.

One day I was eating an apple. It was a big apple and I had only had a couple of mouthfuls when I decided I’d had enough.  I dumped it in to the rubbish bin which stood in one corner of the classroom. I want you to visualise the bin, It was very tall, almost as tall as you. It was  square-sided and made of metal, with a not very wide opening. 

Miss Seely must  have been standing quite close. She came over to me and said ‘ I think you should pick that apple out of the bin, don’t  you?’ 

I looked at her in surprise, and then at the bin, which was only a little bit shorter than me. How could I do that? She just nodded and repeated what she’d said, in a voice that was quite soft, but very silvery, almost like steel. I knew she meant what she said.

I went over to the bin. It seemed impossible. But I would try. I could see that the bin wouldn’t fall over as it was up against the wall on two sides. Somehow I hoisted myself up on to the rim so that my top half was leaning into the bin, with the metal rim of the bin pressing into my tummy. My feet were completely off the ground. I could feel them kicking against the side of the bin as I tried to keep my balance and they  made a metal drumming sound – a bit like beating a drum. 

My heart was beating almost as loudly as I leant right down into the bin and stretched out my arm, feeling for my apple. I shut my eyes, because it was black inside the bin and I couldn’t see anything anyway. There was a peculiar smell of chalk and old paper and other unknown rubbish that wasn’t very pleasant, so I shut my mouth and tried not to breathe. 

I scrabbled around with one hand, the other was holding tight to the side of the bin in an effort to stop myself from falling in.

At last I felt the shape of the apple, and closed my hand around it. Then I pulled my top half out of the bin. I wriggled back until I could touch the ground with my feet. And hey presto! I was out of the bin, red in the face, with my apple.

Miss Seely smiled at me, a big smile of approval. ‘Good girl,’ she said very quietly. But I knew she was pleased, and I felt proud of myself that I had done what she’d told me to do even though it had been a real challenge, and I wasn’t sure I could do it. I also knew that she meant me to eat the rest of my apple, which I did.

I have to say I never eat an apple without thinking of that incident. However, I think the main lesson she wanted to teach me was that I shouldn’t waste food, and I have never forgotten Miss Seely and that lesson.

With lots of love from your everloving Grandma Sarah

PS I wonder if you could draw a picture of me upended in the bin?

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