Astronaut Training

I was in second grade, getting ready to make the big move down the hall to third. It was lunch recess and I had wandered away from the throng that clustered around the "little kids' playground." I knew where the big swings were, and I was eager to try them out. It wasn't the first time that I had crossed that line between cultures, big and little. There had been plenty of weekend afternoons when my friends from the neighborhood rode our bikes down to the school and had our run of the entire yard, from the merry-go-round to the backstops at the far end. We were free from the school day restrictions, and we took advantage of all the equipment and space. It was one of those times that I had discovered the thrill of the big swings.
There were swings up on the little kids' corner of the yard, but the frames were much shorter as were the chains, allowing only a small range of motion. The swings just down the way were much more impressive and, it so happens, were mostly empty during the lunch recess at the end of the year, since big kids tended to have more pressing social matters to attend to than swing endlessly back and forth.
When I arrived at the swing set, I had my choice of six rubber seats, and chose the one in the middle on the left hand side. This was the one that offered the greatest possible area in which to hurl myself, if I chose to leave the swing abruptly. But sitting and simply swinging wasn't what I had in mind on that day. Instead I chose to lay down with across the seat, facing the ground. It was important to position the seat squarely on my diaphragm to get the proper balance. I was attempting to simulate weightlessness. I could be underwater. I could be in outer space. Breathing shallowly to compensate for the pressure on my chest, I wiggled my arms and legs to set myself in motion. I was off on an adventure, and I left the playground for a world of my own imagining.
"Hey, Cindy," a voice broke my other-worldly reverie.
"Yeah, Becky?"
"We've got a worm-spitter here."
I looked up. Two sixth grade girls, impossibly developed amazons who I had only seen across a crowded lunch room were standing just a few feet from my head. I leaned back until my feet rested on the ground and looked at them quizzically. "Worm-spitter?"
"Yeah, look," the one called Becky was pointing. "In the sand, where you were drooling. It made little worms in the sand."
"Look at that," marveled an apparently astonished Cindy.
For a moment, I felt proud of my absent-minded saliva drippings. Then the two girls burst out laughing. They squealed and snorted and patted each other on the back. At my expense.
I peeled myself off the seat and back on my feet, wishing that I was climbing the jungle gym or sitting alone on a teeter-totter. Anywhere but here. I started to wander back to where I belonged.
"Don't go!" called one of the two older women. "We need more worm-spitters!" More gales of derisive laughter. If they said anything else to me, I didn't hear it. I was already gone. Back to the relative safety of my own demographic.
The next fall, third graders were allowed to use the big swings, and I spent some time there over the next few years. Mostly sitting, and always with my mouth closed.