Sarah In Kindergarten – part 2
Lori took Sarah’s hand as they walked the three blocks from
their house to the bus stop. Lori was wearing a pair of
sweatpants and a loose-fitting sweatshirt. In the pocket of
her sweatpants were a fresh pack of Marlboro Reds and her
lighter. As they started down their driveway, Lori reached
into her pocket and pulled out her cigarettes. She shook a
cigarette loose and plucked it out of the pack with her
lips. She tucked the pack back into her pocket and pulled
out her lighter as her cigarette dangled from her lips. She
flicked the wheel on her lighter and held the flame near
the end of her cigarette. Repeating a ritual she had
performed hundreds of thousands of times in her
smoke-filled life, Lori sucked hard on her filter and drew
fresh cigarette smoke into her tar-encrusted chest. She
held the smoke deep in her lungs and felt the tar soaking
into every one of her lungs’ badly damaged air sacs. With
her cigarette still dangling from her lips, she dragged
again. As she inhaled her second drag down into her lungs,
she exhaled her first drag through her nostrils. She
repeated this process several times, keeping a constant
flow of smoke going from mouth to lungs and from lungs to
nostrils. Lori continued to smoke her dangling cigarette,
hands-free, as she and Sarah walked down the street.
“Can’t I have some of your smoke, Mommy? Please!”
“Sarah! How many times do I have to tell you?” said Lori.
“You can’t smoke out here where other people can see you.
They wouldn’t understand. Other families are not like us,
honey. If other adults saw you smoking, they would be very
angry with Mommy and Daddy. It’s too bad others don’t
understand how wonderful smoking is, but it’s something
you’ll just have to learn to put up with. Until you get
older, you mustn’t smoke around anyone but Mommy and Daddy.
OK, honey?”
“OK, Mommy,” said Sarah with a disappointed look on her
face.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I know how much you love your smoke,”
said Lori. “I have an idea. Walk on the other side of me. A
breeze is blowing in that direction. I’ll try to exhale my
smoke into your direction so you can breathe it in.”
“Oh, goody,” said Sarah. “I like your smoke, Mommy.”
Sarah positioned herself and Lori took a huge drag from her
cigarette. She only inhaled about half of it, leaving the
rest of the smoke in her mouth. She carefully blew a long
stream of smoke out of the corner of her mouth in such a
way that it went directly into Sarah’s face. Sarah tried to
breathe all of it in. She inhaled as much smoke as she
could and held it deep in her tiny lungs. It wasn’t quite
the same as a real drag from a cigarette, but the smoke
still felt wonderful in Sarah’s lungs.
“Try to hold the smoke in, honey,” said Lori. “I don’t want
the neighbors to see you exhaling.”
Sarah was only too happy to comply. She loved holding smoke
in her lungs without exhaling. It felt so good and it was
the best way to make her lungs blacker. Something suddenly
occurred to Sarah. “Mommy, what happens to my smoke when I
don’t exhale? Sometimes my smoke never comes out.”
“Well, it gets absorbed right into your lung tissue and
becomes part of your lungs,” said Lori as she took another
long drag from her cigarette.
Sarah waited for Lori’s exhale, breathed it all in, pulled
it deep down into her lungs, and said, “Awesome! My lungs
are made of cigarette smoke?”
“Well, yes. Partly, anyway. I guess you can look at it that
way,” said Lori. “The part of the smoke that makes your
lungs black is called tar. That’s what we want to fill our
lungs with. That’s what makes us feel so good inside. Every
time you smoke a cigarette, some of the tar from your
cigarette stays in your lungs. The more deeply you inhale,
the more tar you leave in your lungs. And the more tar you
put into your lungs, the blacker they become. Do you
understand?”
“Yes, Mommy. What do my lungs look like?”
“You know how the bottom of your ashtray looks after a
while, when you forget to clean it out?”
“Yes. It gets all black,” said Sarah.
That’s what it looks like inside your lungs, honey.”
“I love the smell of my ashtray, Mommy.”
“Me too, sweetie. That’s what our lungs smell like inside.”
“Awesome! Please give me more tar, Mommy.”
Lori took another drag and, without inhaling any of it,
blew all of her smoke into Sarah’s face. She made a nice,
long, thin stream so Sarah could take most of it in. Sarah
breathed in all of her mother’s second-hand smoke. She felt
the smoke filling her lungs and held it there. Very slowly
she exhaled. Nothing came out. “Mommy, your smoke is part
of my lungs now,” said Sarah excitedly.
“I know, honey. Isn’t that wonderful?” said Lori. “That
makes us even closer than most mothers and daughters.”
Sarah smiled contentedly as she and Lori continued their
smoke-sharing walk to the bus stop.
Half a block from the bus stop Lori took a big drag from
her cigarette and exhaled once again in Sarah’s direction.
As Sarah hungrily sucked down her mother’s smoke Lori said,
“That’s it, now. No more tar for you, young lady, until you
get home from school. OK?” Sarah, holding her breath so as
not to release any of the glorious smoke she had just
inhaled, simply nodded. Lori triple-pumped the remainder of
her cigarette with a deep cheek-hollowing drag and dropped
the glowing butt to the sidewalk. As she crushed out the
cigarette with her tennis shoe she exhaled two long, thick
streams of smoke from her nostrils.
Lori and Sarah arrived at the bus stop where several
parents and their children were already waiting. Lori said
to Sarah, “The bus will be here in just a few minutes. Now,
do you remember where your classroom is? We saw it at
orientation last week.”
“Yes, Mommy, I know where to go.”
“And, after school today, I will pick you up at the front
door. Don’t get on the bus, OK?”
“OK, Mommy.”
“You will probably really need a cigarette by then, and you
can smoke in the car with me on the way home.”
“Oh boy,” said Sarah. “I can’t wait.”
Just talking about needing a cigarette was making Lori
fidgety. She took out her cigarettes and lit one up. She
took a deep drag and exhaled a long stream of smoke
skyward. Suddenly every eye in the group of people gathered
at the bus stop was on Lori. There were disapproving looks
from the mothers. Several of the children held their noses
and made comments like, “Mommy, that lady is so gross,” or
“Ewwww, that stinks, Mommy.” And, of course, there were a
couple of fathers who suddenly couldn’t take their eyes off
of Lori.
Lori took Sarah by the arm and stepped back away from the
corner so she could enjoy her cigarette in peace. “See what
you’ll have to put up with when you start smoking in
public?” she said to her one-and-a-half pack per day
smoking daughter.
“Why were those people looking at you like that, Mommy?”
asked Sarah.
Lori took a cheek-hollowing drag from her Marlboro and
said, “They don’t understand about smoking, Sarah. They
don’t know how good it feels. They think smoking is bad. We
know better, but there are many people who don’t. That is
why I don’t want you to start smoking around other people
yet, honey. When you’re older it will be OK.”
“How old will I have to be, Mommy?”
“I didn’t get to smoke in public until I was sixteen,” said
Lori. “Do you think you can wait that long?”
“Sixteen? That will be a long time,” said Sarah. “Do I have
to wait that long?”
“We’ll talk about it with Daddy tonight,” said Lori. “Here
comes the bus.”
The smell of the exhaust from the approaching bus brought
back fond memories for Lori. She had always loved that
smell. She took a long, deep drag from her cigarette and
inhaled it along with a large dose of exhaust fumes. She
started feeling a little aroused as her mind wandered back
to her school days. It was on her old school bus that she
had first met Mark. She remembered sneaking cigarettes on
the bus nearly every day. She wondered how long it would be
before Sarah would start doing the same. Knowing Sarah, it
wouldn’t be long. A smile crossed Lori’s face as she
thought of her daughter smoking on the school bus. She knew
that, before long, Sarah would be smoking in the girls’
restroom, on the playground, and in any other place she
could sneak a cigarette. It excited her immensely to think
of her daughter experiencing all the smoking pleasures that
Lori herself had enjoyed as a girl. She envied Sarah for
all the undiscovered joys yet to come.
Lori waited for all of the other kids to get on the bus.
Then she leaned over Sarah, using her own body to shield
the bus driver’s view of Sarah. She pretended to be
straightening Sarah’s clothing. “Here, baby,” said Lori,
extending the filter of her cigarette to Sarah’s lips. Take
three or four real deep drags. Sarah gladly and willingly
obeyed. She sucked down half of Lori’s cigarette in four
long, deeply inhaled drags. The tip of Lori’s cigarette was
glowing brightly as Sarah finished her last drag. “Be sure
to hold it all in. Don’t let the bus driver see you
exhaling anything.”
Sarah nodded, still holding her breath.
“OK. Go get on that bus,” said Lori. “Wait a minute! Here!
Take one more drag.” Lori just couldn’t stand the thought
of her daughter going without a cigarette for four hours.
Sarah kept the tip of Lori’s cigarette glowing bright-red
for nearly ten full seconds. The filter was starting to
burn. She sucked all the smoke deep into her wonderful,
dark, little lungs.
Lori gave her smoke-filled daughter a kiss and helped her
step up into the bus. “Bye, bye, honey. I’ll see you after
school.”
Sarah said good bye to her mother, being careful not to
release any smoke, and started walking to the back of the
bus. Sarah immediately recognized a familiar aroma. At
first she thought it was because she had just been smoking
herself. But, no, there was something in the air. Someone
had recently been smoking on the bus. Sarah looked
carefully at each of the children on the bus as she passed
them. Two seats from the back she saw two older girls. They
appeared to be about nine or ten. On the seat between them
was a pack of cigarettes. It was a pack of Kool 100s. Sarah
recognized the cigarettes from the magazine ads in her
father’s extensive collection. She often looked through the
ads with Mark and told him that she would love to appear in
an ad for her own Marlboro 100s some day. Not
coincidentally, Mark had similar dreams for his daughter.
Sarah, excited to meet a couple of fellow smokers, smiled
at the girls and said, “Do you girls smoke?”
One of the girls looked at Sarah and said, “What’s it to
you? Have you got a problem with that?”
“No,” said Sarah. “I think it’s really awesome that you
smoke. You’re so lucky.” From what Lori had been telling
her, she had not been expecting to see any other kids who
smoked. Sarah started to tell the girls that she was also a
smoker, but quickly remembered her mother’s warning.
Instead, she said, “I want to smoke when I get older, too.
I wish I could smoke right now…but I’m too young.”
The two girls looked at each other and laughed. One of them
said, “Yeah, right. Whatever.”
There was an open seat across from the Kool-smoking girls.
Sarah sat down in it. She kept her eyes on the girls. After
the bus got going, Sarah saw the girls whispering to each
other. She noticed that the window beside them was opened a
crack. She heard one of the girls say, “OK, the driver
can’t see us.” The girl nearer the window reached into the
pack and pulled out a fresh Kool Super Long. Sarah gazed
enviously. It looked just like one of her Marlboro 100s.
Sarah started thinking about her own cigarettes and about
how much she would love to have one at this moment. She
continued watching as the girl leaned down and lit the
cigarette with the seat in front of her blocking the
driver’s view. Sarah could almost taste the sweet smoke as
she watched the girl take a long drag and inhale deeply.
She watched the two girls pass the cigarette back and
forth, taking alternating drags. They always blew their
smoke through the crack in the window.
Some of the smoke drifted Sarah’s way and she naturally
tried to inhale all of it. “Ahh, that smells so good,” she
thought to herself. “I wish Mommy would let me smoke in
public. Hmm, maybe I could do what those girls are doing.
Nobody would see me if I hid behind the seat.”
One of the girls saw Sarah staring at them and said, “You’d
better not say anything…if you know what’s good for you.”
“Oh, I won’t say anything,” said Sarah. She sat back in her
seat and thought to herself, “It’s going to be fun riding
the school bus every day.” A devious smile crossed her
face.
The bus finally arrived at school and Sarah dutifully
walked to her classroom. She found a desk with her name on
it and sat down. Her teacher, Mrs. Anderson, said, “Good
morning, children. I am Mrs. Anderson. I am sure you are
all excited to be here for your first day of school. I am
looking forward to a wonderful school year. I see you have
all found your desks. Very good. Now, each of you should
have received a list of school supplies you will need for
the year. Did you all bring your supplies?”
Most of the children raised their hands and said, “Yes,
Mrs. Anderson,” including Sarah. A few said, “I forgot,”
and there were a few blank stares.
“All right,” said Mrs. Anderson. “Those of you who brought
your supplies, please get them out and put them into the
storage compartment of your desk. If you lift up your
desktop you will see that you have lots of room to store
things underneath.”
Sarah lifted up her desktop and smiled. “My very own desk,”
she thought. She opened up her backpack and began pulling
out her supplies. As she pulled out her big box of Crayola
crayons, she accidentally dropped her pack of cigarettes to
the floor. It was a nearly full pack and it landed flat on
its front side. It made a rather noticeable clap as it hit
the linoleum floor. “Oops!” said Sarah. She had forgotten
about the pack she had instinctively placed into her
backpack that morning.
Mrs. Anderson turned around when she heard the noise. She
did a double take as she saw the cigarettes on the floor.
She bent down and picked them up. Looking at the name tag
on Sarah’s desk, she said, “Sarah…Sarah Polmoni…what
have we here?”
“They’re cigarettes,” said Sarah, innocently. “They’re
Marlboro Gold 100s…in the soft pack.”
“I can see that,” said Mrs. Anderson, not expecting such a
detailed answer to her mostly rhetorical question. “But,
whose cigarettes are they?”
Sarah knew she would get into trouble if she admitted the
cigarettes were hers, so she said, “Umm…they must be my
Mommy’s. She must have accidentally dropped them into my
backpack. I’ll just put them back and give them to my Mommy
when I get home.”
“We’d better take a walk down to the office, Sarah,” said
Mrs. Anderson. She took Sarah by the hand and said, “Class,
I will return to the classroom shortly. Please arrange your
supplies in your desks neatly while I am gone.” With
Sarah’s cigarettes in her other hand she turned to Sarah
and said, “Come along, Sarah.”
Sarah felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. What would
happen to her? What would her punishment be? What would her
mother say? Never before in her short, smoke-filled life
had Sarah felt such a craving for a cigarette as she had at
that moment.