Then they had to take molds of my teeth. I crawled into the cold, pleather seat and swung my feet back and forth while I waited. The dental assistant came in and asked me what flavor I wanted. I told her cherry. Cherry sounded like a good idea. It wasn’t. She spread a heaping gob of pink putty into a mouthpiece, and then told me to open wide. The cold slime sunk into the cracks between my teeth, gushed over my gums, and threatened to crawl down my throat. I thought I was going to throw up. “Don’t move,” she walked out of the room and shut the door behind her. I laid back and waited. Minutes passed like hours. I couldn’t swallow, so my mouth slowly filled up with cherry spit; it slid down the back of my throat. I was drowning. My fingernails dug into the arm rests of my chair. I clenched my eyes shut and tried to think of something else—braces, I’m getting braces, that’s nice, my teeth will look so good, I’m drowning, maybe I’ll get pink ones, or blue ones, perhaps green, I’m drowning, where is that lady? Is she coming back? I’m drowning, she needs to hurry up, I’m drowning, I’m drowning. The door! Thank goodness! As soon as the assistant took out the mouthpiece, I swallowed everything that was in my mouth—spit and bits of cherry goo. My stomach heaved, but I managed to keep it down. “Okay, now we’ll do the bottom row.” I started to yelp, but covered my mouth. I couldn’t wait to start fourth grade. The week before school started, I went to orientation. I bounced down the halls, looking for my name on the lists on the doors, to see which class I would be in. “Hi, Sarah!” Said a pretty girl with long blonde hair. My head whipped back, searching for another Sarah. There must be another one behind me that this girl was talking to. She was the girl everyone liked, the girl everyone wanted to be. She never talked to me. All I saw was an empty hallway. I turned back to the girl. She was looking at me.
42