The Classroom

A Story by quillofthoth

A child with autism struggles on their first day of school.

The Classroom

A story of undiagnosed Autism

By Kayla Speranza

I held onto my mom as she pushed me into an unfamiliar room. Kids were running around. Talking. Shoes squeaked on the ground. Voices filled the air. Chairs were dragged across the floor. I covered my ears to try to block it out. But that didn’t help with the many too bright lights that shone at me. I closed my eyes tightly, trying to block it out.

I heard my mom’s voice “Oh, please, Sweetly, not today. I’m late for an appointment.” But I didn’t stop. I didn’t want to be left alone in this horrible room.

Another voice spoke, “A lot of kids are like this on their first day, I guarantee you they’ll be happy when you pick them up.”

“Well, if you're sure. I’m really late.”

“Go on, we’ll be fine here.”

And just like that, I was left all alone in a strange place, I sat down and started to cry. I wanted to leave. Why was I being left here?

“Come on, let’s find a toy to play with until class starts. I bet you’ll really like the blocks.”

I just sat on the floor and cried and cried. Finally, I didn’t have any tears left in me. Then I sat up and looked around the room; the woman was telling everyone to sit down, and she came over to me. “Are you ready to join us?” She asked, holding out her hand to me.

“Oh, you still haven’t taken off your coat. Let’s do that now. ” I shook my head, I held on to the zipper of my coat and refused to let it go as she tried to take off my coat. She gave up quickly and brought me over to a table where I sat down. I took my six plastic bears out of my pocket and put them in order on my desk. Red, yellow, blue, Red, yellow, blue.

After the teacher introduced herself as Mrs. O. Everyone started to sing, so I covered my ears again. Still being able to hear their many loud voices “A, B, C, D…” I could see the teacher looking at me as she led them in the song. I closed my eyes again.

As the day continued I held on tightly to my plastic bears. It was the only thing that felt safe and familiar. After lunch, we were brought outside, and I went straight to the swings. I put my bears in my pocket and started to swing. Everyone one was screaming again running around but it didn’t bother me as much; the feeling of being on the swings was familiar and calming. Someone grabbed the swing and as it stopped they told me it was time to go inside. I shook my head. I wanted to keep swinging, but they brought me inside anyway.

There were paints and paper on the table and we were told to put our hands in the paints to paint. I shook my head. It looked slimy, but no one noticed. I put the paints in order - red, yellow, blue- and when everyone else was painting I reached out and touched a finger to the blue paint, then pulled it back and whipped it off; it was slimy! So I just sat there while everyone else painted. The teacher made her rounds and asked me why I hadn’t done anything, I shook my head to show that I didn’t like it. “Don’t you like art?” She asked. I just looked at the wall.

After art we were allowed to play quietly or take a nap, I grabbed some big multicolored blocks and started lining them up: Red, Yellow, Blue, Red, Yellow, Blue. Some other kid started putting blocks on my line, but all wrong. He was putting the wrong colors down. I pushed his blocks away and he started to cry; the teacher came over and told me that I had to share. But he was doing it wrong! I went back to putting everything in order: red, yellow, blue, red, yellow blue. Everything the way it should be. Red. Yellow. Blue.