Rebels at recess: hanging out with the "bad" kids with the biggest hearts.

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I was alway a tomboy. I would've rather spent my free time chasing my sister around with a pig's tail (don't ask...), and pretend to play basketball by hanging a rusted bucket on the fence. It shouldn't come as a surprise that I also liked to outrun the boys at recess and get into scratching fights with them over a game of tag. I was not into Barbies, I didn't even know what they were. It didn't matter, cause I had the best of friends, and they were the "worst" of kids. They were the right kind of company.

PK was my best frenemy. He was a straight "F" student, and I was the goody two shoes, and always got "As". It was not a good look to be seen with him, after all, it reflected on me as a person. Society tells us, "bird of a feather flock together", so how could I ruin my perfect image by seeing seen with the student that worked so hard to keep up his bad boy reputation?

We met in kindergarten, and lived on completely different sides of "town", the school was right in the middle. It is terrifying for any six year old to walk an hour to school, and feel like they have crossed the world, with home nowhere in sight. The separation anxiety is real.

On a particularly hard day, during the first week of school, I felt tears coming on, and then I started crying. PK ran across the room, didn't mind the teacher yelling at him, hoped on the bench to comfort me, and smacked himself right in the face. How could I not smile? Since that day, we were inseparable.

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Our friendship evolved into first grade, where he would spare me during the dead fly game. He'd pick dead flies off the window sills and taunt girls with them, while yelling across the class, "Don't worry, Oleńka, I won't get you." I could always count on him. PK had a rough home life. Even though he always kept a brave face, his actions spoke louder. On the best of days, when we had a later start, PK would surprise me, first thing in the morning, by showing up at the front door. He'd leave his house before sunrise, walk an hour and a half to my house, just so I wouldn't have to walk alone. And he'd carry my backpack, on our hour trip to school, just so I wouldn't have to struggle. He didn't even own a backpack, I don't think, or at least never carried one to school, unless it was mine.

My grandma would greet him with breakfast and hot tea, making do with what we had to eat. His favorite were bread, butter and ketchup sandwiches. The bread, sour cream and sugar sandwiches were a close second.

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Our friendship has evolved into adulthood, and over thirty years, even though I have only seen him a handful of times. Every time we see each other, it's like nothing has changed. We reminisce, laugh until we cry, and eat our favorite childhood foods. He still calls my grandma to check in on her, and considers her the grandma he never had. In return, worries when she doesn't hear from him.

His teachers were all wrong. He might not have been a straight "A" student, and no one could control him into submission. He spoke his mind and heart and made no apologies. PK taught me that your level of education and your status have nothing to do with the kind of person you are. Your grades don't define you as a person, your heart does.

I have made PK promise that as soon as Covid is over, he'll visit. He'll tell the kids embarrassing stories about their Mom, exaggerate like he always does. I'll make him pizza, an upgrade from the ketchup sandwiches.

I will finally tell him, even though he wasn't considered the best of students, he was the best teacher.

And then I will prove to him that I can still outrun him :)