Outrage Series: An Appropriated Sugar Plum Fairy

Grade 4. Catherine Nichols Gunn elementary school, Huntington Hills, Calgary.

Grade 4. Catherine Nichols Gunn elementary school, Huntington Hills, Calgary.

My parents bought a house. Their first one since we moved to Canada four years prior. It was a big step, and with it, came a change in neighbourhood, and in school. I was once again, the new kid.

Autumn time. We are preparing our class play of The Nutcracker for Christmas. A small children’s army of toy soldiers fighting a terrible Mouse King. That was me. My first theatre role cast as an abominable rat, intended to be defeated by the group. I could never figure out if my teachers were trying to single me out, or to empower me in my difference (I wondered if they knew I was born in the year of the Rat).

Lacey was a precocious 8 year old in class of 9 year olds. Her bouncy blonde hair and dazzling blue eyes made her instantly popular with the teachers, the children, and most of all, the boys. I had met many snotty brats up to that point in school, but I had never met a diva. Lacey would pout and cry at the most random of things – no big deal, most kids did at that age. But while most other kids would cry at indeterminate times, whenever they were upset, whether they were by themselves or with other kids, Lacey never did this. Lacey would cry only when a teacher could see her. Her tears were never visible, nor did she get splotchy like other kids did when they cried. She would whimper and put her hands in her face and tremble when something upset her. But it was never the full bodied shaking that other kids would have when they were truly letting it out. And as soon as she got what she wanted – be it attention, reassurance about failing a spelling test, or getting to sit where she wanted to, her face-in-hands trembling would instantly be replaced with smiles and giggles.

Lacey was a born manipulator. It was striking that at 8 years old, she already could wrap adults around her tiny little fingers. I tried to stay away from Lacey. That kind of controlled volatility felt dangerous to me.

Wintertime. Art class. I sat with one of the many Nutcracker books, the page turned to a Sugar Plum Fairy spinning on pointed toe, resplendent with tutu and hair in a ribboned bun. Like many little girls, I had an obsession with ballerinas. My family taught me to practice drawing figures by copying what I saw in books. This one was on brown craft paper and in coloured pencil. It had started out well, but I wasn’t able to finish it in the time we had, and it went into the drawer underneath my desk to be kept good company by many other half finished art pieces. It did not take me long to forget about it.

Gymnastics unit in gym class. We were challenged to create our own choreographies. Most of us could do little but walk down the mats with a turn, and jump, and maybe a cartwheel. I felt the excruciating attention of everyone’s eyes, and did as little as possible to attract any additional attention to me. Lacey’s turn. She jumped up with enthusiasm, eager to perform. At the beginning of the mats, she balanced herself extravagantly, her face full of focus, to walk in a straight line. From there, she placed her hands on her waist, and again with a focus of someone computing math problems, took pivoting steps that brought her to a few steps before the end of the mat, where she fell dramatically to her knees, her arms raised in victory, and a look of ecstasy on her face. The class cheered, and I was confused.

Did Lacey do anything that was actually different from just walking? Did she truly believe that she had done something to feel ecstatic about? Was I just being judgemental? If she did indeed believe she had done something special, how did she convince herself? Was she a tiny delusional 8 year old? Were my teachers crazy to not see through it?

Springtime. Spring cleaning time. Everyone had to empty out their desk drawers, those recesses of dried apple cores, wads of Saran Wrap, pencil shavings, and crumpled papers.

I dug up my scraps of half finished drawings – owls whose beaks weren’t sharp enough, buildings whose perspectives weren’t just right, and the Sugar Plum Fairy. I looked at her for some moments. Her leg wasn’t quite straight or elegant enough, she looked like she would topple over mid-turn. I didn’t get her face quite right. Her tutu was too frizzy. And I could still see the sketch lines I had tried to erase when I was setting her up.

Not good enough, I decided, and in the spirit of Spring Cleaning, I added her to the pile. Thank God I hadn’t put my name on it. No one would know who made this below-standard thing. Thank God for Spring Cleaning.

The day after. We are on a scavenger hunt around the classroom. I didn’t really get the concept – walk around and look for things, and write it down on a sheet of paper? What was the point? As with many scholastic things, I figured it was this white people thing that didn’t have to make sense to me, like bingo, mini-golf, and macaroni necklaces. I just followed the other kids from station to station, reading my book and writing things down occasionally.

We came to a station beside the art wall, where select work was featured every month. Not paying attention to what we were supposed to be scavenging, my eyes wandered to the board. With a jolt, I recognized the tottering leg of the Sugar Plum Fairy on the board. I was shocked, and then elated. One of the teachers must have picked it up out of the pile of discarded papers and decided it was good enough to feature. My heart jumped, and I wondered which magnanimous teacher had done it. My eyes flickered around the brown craft paper. But something was different. The paper was signed messily in abominable coloured marker, completely clashing with and overshadowing the coloured pencil.

“Lacey”

My little brain reeled. What? Did she also draw the exact same picture as I did all those months ago? Including all the erased lines, and the too frizzy tutu? No, it was impossible.

I looked closer, my eyes running over all the lines so familiar to me. It was my Sugar Plum Fairy.

Then, I got hot and angry. My heart raced, and I wanted to scream. How could this be possible? That not only was my art actually good enough for the art board, but that Lacey had fished it out of the discarded pile, to claim not just for herself, but to declare to the world that it was her creation?

What kind of 8 year old was this?

My mind raced again. Now it turned to asking which of the teachers could possibly have believed this was Lacey’s work. This girl was charming and dramatic, but could barely write her name on a straight line. Just looking at the mismatch between the meticulous lines in coloured pencil, and the name scrawled in messy marker would have made it obvious the work didn’t come from the same person. She hadn’t even tried to make it look like it could have been plausibly her work.

I didn’t know what to do. Who could I approach about this? I didn’t know which teacher to ask “Did you put this girl’s work up? That’s actually MY work, that I thought was fit for the recycling bin, so I didn’t bother to put my name on it. And this girl took it and the credit for it. Now I want you to take it down, or put my name on it. Do you believe me?”

I thought about Lacey’s easy collapse into tears. I thought about how easily the teachers caved to her whimpers. I thought about how her talentless gymnastics routine had made her the star of the gym class. And I decided that this was a battle I would lose.

While the rest of the class shuffled along to the next scavenger hunt item, I trailed behind, fuming, book clutched to my chest. I resolved that every single thing I produced from now would be signed and kept away in a folder, and never disposed of in a place where anyone else could see.

But a question lingered in my mind. Beyond the Sugar Plum Fairy, a mere hour of work lost, what was my understanding of what was ‘good enough’? What I had considered garbage-worthy was actually seen as valuable enough to be stolen, and then displayed. What did that mean for how I was evaluating myself?

What else of myself had I unduly thrown out? What else of my work had I grossly undervalued? And how could I relearn how to align myself more closely to what was considered valuable in the world?

My upbringing had taught me to consider anything less than perfect to be worthless. I had learned to only submit things that were flawless, and if they were not so, to keep making version after version after version until it was. My culture had taught me that to put my name on anything with mistakes on it was an insult to my teacher and to my parents.

It was a hobbling script to live. As a result, in my childhood, I didn’t take risks. I didn’t know what it meant to be creative. I always coloured inside the lines. I followed instructions to the finest detail. I never gave myself license to do things differently. I didn’t feel free to think for myself, or to disagree with the prevailing powers.

What message did dramatic little Lacey have for me, in this system that contained us both, but favoured people like her? How was I to think about what was value to the world? How was I to present my work to the world in a way that was as successful as how Lacey presented things that she didn’t even create?

What are the Lacey situations in our lives today, that may be terribly aggravating, but are in their own way helping us to recognize that what we do is actually valued? It is a question I am still living into an answer.