Where everybody knows your name

I was proctoring the ELA exam yesterday when a girl looked up at me and said curiously, "Are you Miss Bray?"

"Miss Brave," I corrected her.

She smiled. "Oh!" she said. "My brother Phillip keeps talking about you!" Phillip is one of my favorite (see Item #6) first graders, and he also happens to talk nonstop about his sister, who is clearly his Hero, so it was great to finally meet her.

On Monday, Yovary gazed up at me, looking fairly pleased with himself, and announced, "I saw you on the subway yesterday!"

I wasn't on the subway on Sunday. "Maybe somebody who looks like me," I said. But Yovary seemed pretty insistent.

"Maybe the day before," I acknowledged, and his eyes lit up. "Yeah! I saw you. You were walking up the stairs and talking to your brother."

My brother? Hmmm. I don't have a brother, but I was on the subway with a boy. Curious, I tried to pump Yovary for more information.

"What did he look like?" I asked. He shrugged helplessly.

"His hair was...up," he said, motioning near his forehead.

"And do you know where you were?" I asked.

"I was sitting down. You didn't see me! I was behind you, and you were walking up the stairs with your brother."

"No, I mean, like, do you know if you were in Queens, or Manhattan...?"

"I was going to Mass," he said confidently.

"You were going to Mass?" I repeated.

"No, my daddy said he would buy a mask, so we was going to buy the mask at the place where we buy the mask and I saw you."

If I ever meet Yovary's dad, you can bet the first question I ask him will be, "Were you by any chance on the F train with your son on January 5?"