“The blocks fit together easily, like this, girls.”

Each of us, cross-legged, listened with the innocent fascination at ordinary things that came with being five. We had not yet experienced many wonders to compare to the small attachable blocks. I could hold one between two of my fingers, three in the palm of my hand. In our seats in the smallest Kindergarten classroom, we practiced fitting together the plastic pieces to make a row, clumsily mimicking Mrs. Bragdon’s silent example.

The classroom was utterly chaotic in a way that seemed organized at first glance. Each labelled and marker-scratched box was arranged along the shelves above the cubbies, every tiny coat––always navy, following the uniform––was hung by the hood. Colored pencils fell mostly lead-end facing out of the plastic cups across the middle of the tables. Puzzles, half-completed, were pushed to the side of the carpet to make room for the circle of fourteen small girls in plaid dresses, wide eyed. Each face fixated first on our assistant teacher, rigidly lying on the carpet, and then on the list of numbers on the board. Mrs. Bragdon stood copying down the numbers we called out as we guessed how many stacked blocks, when arranged on the floor next to her, would extend the length of Mrs. Taylor. She lay planklike on the carpet as we measured up her height, squinting. “Seventy-five,” “forty,” “ninety,” girls shouted and Mrs. Bragdon wrote. I twisted the white plastic button on the front of my dress. “Eighty-five,” “seventy,” multiples of five, easy numbers. I twisted a bit slower, distracted and wondering how Mrs. Bragdon’s handwriting could look like it was typed. Scattered all over the place, we had no idea even what the range should have been, just shouted a number that sounded nice. The string attaching the button to the plaid fabric withered away with each twist. I watched the string as I only slightly considered what my number estimate should be. After the whispered guess, “sixty-five,” of the blonde girl next to me in the circle, it was my turn. The button I was twisting, third from the top, popped off. Looking up for the first time in minutes, I felt my tongue begin to form the word “one hundred,” quietly, to match the general mood of the room. I didn’t want to sound overexcited or hopeful because I knew I would probably be wrong. “One hundred” balanced precariously at the place before it became a word spoken and I almost said it, I almost did. But an inexplicable part of me suddenly wanted to be different from the rest of these girls in a small way, and I felt the “one hundred” be replaced with one that felt weirder. Our dresses and shoes and eager attempts to impress our teachers were the same but my number would not be a multiple of five like the rest. “Ninety-nine,” I said, raising my voice at the end like a question so I didn’t seem confident, my ponytailed self couldn’t handle failure that it wasn’t prepared for. Mrs. Bragdon printed the number beautifully, perfectly printed in green dry erase pen, “ninety-nine, alright, Zoe,” in the supportive way in which kindergarten teachers eliminate doubt. My impulse decision to toss out a number almost unheard of was followed by a couple more, the next girls in the circle, encouraged, “twenty-seven,” “fifty-six,” “ninety-one.” The list filled up completely and it became time to carefully press the plastic blocks together until they stuck, creating a line of colored squares in no particular pattern, a line of colored squares that would break into pieces if held in the air and not lain on the floor.

“We’re getting closer,” Ms. Taylor said from the floor, eyes to the ceiling of long white lights.

“I wonder who will wii-iin,” Mrs. Bragdon replied in a sing-songy voice, “I wonder how many it will take.” She sat looking on from a perch on the windowsill as we pressed together more blocks. My eyes were directed out the window at the crossing guard, wondering what he did at 1:30pm when no students were crossing the street. I was unaware of the block-line progress, when Mrs. Bragdon announced with an air of finality, two words, one number, “ninety nine!”

She carried herself, pink shirt and white smile, to the board, circled the place she had written my guess, and prompted “who guessed ninety nine, Zoe, was that you?”

I whirled around and realized it was I who held the attention of the class. The number I had tossed to my teacher, offhandedly, more as an attempt to stand out than to be right, was circled and it was mine. Up until that moment nothing had felt more exciting. Nothing had felt more honorable, encouraging, my heart had never fluttered as it did then. I had never felt smarter, more intuitive. Every single face turned to me in awe and I didn’t mind.

I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted to win until I won. With the random guess came a certain sense of validation, a small internal voice that chanted encouragements: “Zoe, you are smart because you were right,” “this moment is the greatest success you will ever have,” and “for that you should be grateful.” Amidst Bingo and Field Day,  I had never won anything, been the only winner, simply second-to-last or tied-for-third.

“Zoe?”, she repeated.

“Yes! Yes, it was me––ninety-nine was me.”