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"David Talamantez on the Last Day of Second Grade" San Antonio, Texas 1988
David Talamantez, whose mother is at work, leaves his mark everywhere in the schoolyard,
tosses pages from a thick sheaf of lined paper high in the air one by one, watches them
catch on the teachers' car bumpers, drift into the chalky narrow shade of the water fountain.
One last batch, stapled together, he rolls tight into a makeshift horn through which he shouts
David! and David, yes! before hurling it away hard and darting across Barzos Street against
the light, the little sag of head and shoulders when, safe on the other side, he kicks a can
in the gutter and wanders toward home. David Talamantez believes birds are warm blooded,
the way they are quick in the air and give out long strings of complicated music, different
all the time, not like cats and dogs. For this he was marked down in Science, and for putting
his name in the wrong place, on the right with the date instead of on the left with Science
Questions, and for not skipping a line between his heading and answers. The X's for wrong
things are big, much bigger than Talamantez's tiny writing. Write larger, his teacher says
in red ink across the tops of many pages. Messy! she says on others where he has erased
and started over, erased and started over. Spelling, Language Expression, Sentences Using
the Following Words. Neck. I have a neck name. No! 20’s, 30's. Think again! He's good
in Art, though, makes 70 on Reading Station Artist's Corner, where he's traced and colored
an illustration from Henny Penny. A goose with red-and-white striped shirt, a hen in a turquoise
dress. Points off for the birds, cloud and butterfly he's drawn in freehand. Not in the original
picture! Twenty-five points off for writing nothing in the blank after This is my favorite scene
in the book because . . . There's a page called Rules. Listen! Always working! Stay in your seat!
Raise your hand before you speak! No fighting! Be quiet! Rules copied from the board, no grade,
only a huge red checkmark. Later there is a test on Rules. Listen! Alay
ercng! Sast in ao snet!
Rars aone bfo your spek! No finagn! Be cayt! He gets 70 on Rules, 10 on Spelling. An old man
stoops to pick up a crumpled drawing of a large family crowded around a table, an apartment
with bars on the windows in Alazan Courts, a huge sun in one corner saying, Tomush
noys!
After correcting the spelling, the grade is 90. Nice details! And there's another mark, on this paper
and all the others, the one in the doorway of La Rosa Beauty Shop, the one that blew under
the pool table at La Tenampa, the ones older kids have wadded up like big spitballs, the ones run
over by cars. On every single page David Talamantez has crossed out the teacher's red numbers
and written in giant letters, blue ink, Yes! David, yes!
-- Rosemary Catacalos
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