Pinwheels

In second grade, I announced to my mom that I was going to ride a service to school. In the metro, I see school services painted yellow and black to differentiate them from the normal jeeps, but in the province where I lived, they were one and the same. I wanted to spend more time with my best friend, who rode the same jeep. My mother and my papang were the only ones who would drive me to school before then.

Riding the service was fine . It felt nice having more time with other kids (barring my infant brother, my only company at home was adults), and it was fun to talk about the important topics of the time like the latest local TV shows.

It was the pinwheel that changed everything. A few vendors had set up shop on the street in front of the school. Maybe unknown to them, their wares became the arbiters of cool at my school. When they sold tiny boxed spiders, all the boys started playing death matches with the poor eight-legged creatures. When they sold jumped out while I slept.

That month, it was the pinwheel. Kids all over the school had the little axle toy. They would spin them around to see where they the service, and we would spin these little sticks while we waited for the rest of the passengers to arrive. someone pointed out that there was something wrong with the pinwheels while we were in the jeep. A pinwheel spun from the front of the jeep would somehow boomerang back to the front. A pinwheel placed on the right seat would be found on the left without anyone spinning it. There would be more pinwheels at the end of the trip than there were when we started, or sometimes there would be less. My friends and I would look at each other, wide-eyed, thinking, “Is there a ghost in here?” No more talk of pop culture. Instead, we would talk about the haunting in hushed whispers, afraid to anger the ghost.

I don’t think anyone truly believed it, though. I didn’t. But now, thinking about my last memory of the service, I’m not quite sure.

The school day just ended, and barely any of my servicemates were in there. The driver was out of sight, so I took the chance to see the front at the front. I set my eyes on all the religious paraphernalia adorning that side of the jeep—a rosary hanging on the rearview mirror, pictures of saints on the dashboard, a small sticker of the Virgin Mary stuck on the windshield. Mother Mary was staring into my eyes when I felt blood gushing from my knee. Did I bruise my knee when I was running with the other kids? (I don’t recall playing.) Did I accidentally graze myself on a sharp piece of shrapnel while sitting? (I don’t remember feeling anything bump against my leg.)

Maybe. Or maybe not. Shortly after that, I told my mother I was going to ride with her again.