The Adventures of Adven Roux

Part I

Enter Advent Roux, your typical third grader with a twist. He arrived here from the land of Baguettes and funny gay-looking men. Being the wee moppet of four that he was, his French was as good as an autistic’s body language and his manners a poignant reminder to nurture’s edge over nature. In fact had his spelling bee cup depended on it, he’d still have misspelled his name.

A-d-v-a-n, and what do you have for us here?

Ironing out his nametag with his clumsy fingers still clenching onto the brown crayon he was quick to point out her mistake.

It’s Advan, miss.

 

A divan?! Funny, it looks like a big hat to me. Oh well, R-o-n-y and how about you, sweetie?

He too gave up on drawing.

Salvation in school takes many forms but regardless of the form, it never fails to keep the dubious company of the Ring; whether it’s a fire alarm, a phone call from home excusing you from class, a bell ring ushering in another break or simply a national duck-and-cover nuclear alarm sending everybody scuttling for shelter. It’s always a Ring that brings good tidings to the despondent student. And his salvation came at 12:30.

Ok, class dismissed! But I want you to prepare a story about the beautiful drawings you’ve prepared here today. Have a nice weekend! Shabbat shalom!

Packing his three underweight notebooks into his bag he scratched his head in an involuntary sign of nervousness and took a look around. A passing glance immediately caught the eyes of a cheerful newly found classmate accosting him from across the room.

Hey, Advan! I’m Roi, wussup. I saw you, you live in our building!

 

Rothschild 80?

Oh actually I’m 81.

Yeah I think I saw you around as well

Say, you wanna walk home together?

Sure!

And they walked together into the sunset babbling about their superhero heroes with the earnestness of being important.

Why do you sound funny? Are you Russian?

 

No, I’m French. Why do you say I sound funny?

My mama says it’s called accend. She says all Russians have that.

Well I’m not Russian!

I’m not saying anything. You just sound funny sometimes!

Advan was taken aback, deeply affronted to think of himself as a funny-sounding type but was short of words to strike back so he just frowned and glowered at him and scowled and grimaced and all those other things still available to a third grader before the advent of Botox.

Dude, don’t be a baby. I’m sorry. You wanna come over play monopoly together?

 

Sure. I’m good at this game!

And the friendship was thus sealed for another few hours interrupted by only half an hour of lunch his mom insisted he had at home alone.

Part II

As time passed Advan recharted previously known territories in the realm of child development with the swagger of an old timer. He measured his height and cut-n-pasted hefty locks of hair in his progress book every so often. Eventually his child development progress book took after a bolding man’s progress book as few of the hair strands made it safely between a scotch tape and the pages of the book. Try as he might to get as many of them under the tape his clumsy fingers were as loyal as an instinct in face of an oncoming truck. To give his progress book the final touch he’d contrive a little pin cushion flag for every place he’d read about or was read to. He came up with the idea after going to Barcelona with his mom one summer and imagined these pins should not be out of place in any cheap tourist kiosk.

Mom, can I have a small flag?

 

Why, what’s it cost?

Looking at the hand written price daubed on top of the pin cushion flag stand she grimaced from behind her big sunglasses.

Hon, them spics ain’t no good! For this price ya can get erself a full blown flag, coffin and funeral.

"But I don’t want a funeral", the boy thought to himself as he was yanked by the hand toward the scarf stand.

The world moved on and so did time.

At ten he was the proud owner of a moated castle where he fought invisible dragons marking the edges of his microcosm consisting for the better part of his tented bed. The tenting of one’s underwear in the morning may seem more professional than that but by God the little guy gave his best.

At eleven he was already a somber thirteen year old with pimples breaking on his face faster than he could spell ‘Doh!’ For a time there a truck braking on it instead seemed like a favorable turn of events.

His knowledge of Latin improved around this time with the acquisition of a few fat dead nouns like hormones and salary. Girls didn’t seem that annoying anymore, especially those with fat nipples budding timidly out of their blouses. They were the best. The makeshift sign at the entrance to his encampment on his bed was now changed to exclude girls from the list of personae non gratae. The sign still bestowed prominent figures like Mom, Early Mornings and Homework. He didn’t know how to spell mosquitoes so these were frequent habitués of the place.