My age has always been an issue. Not for me, but for everyone else. I was nine at the time. On my first day of high school, my grandparents, and the press insisted on going along. I made them walk four paces behind me, since I didn't want to stand out.
The next morning I was ashamed to learn that the Associated Press picked up a photo of me on tippy toes trying to reach the top of my locker. The words on the photo read: "High school may not be a big stretch for nine-year-old Millicent, but her locker sure is."
In time things calmed down. I had a difficult start, though. It's embarrassing enough being a foot shorter and five years younger than your classmates, but then to have your grandmother cemented to you makes it even worse.
My grandmother, Maddie, and I made an odd couple, but at least it meant I had somebody to talk to while the other kids make it a point to ignore me. There, she was expected to hand me over directly to Gaspar, my late French instructor. We were well into the first week and waiting outside Gaspar's class when someone, I never did figure out who, made a remark of offence using the words "boring", "brainiac" and "Millicent" in the same run-on sentence (连写句).
Believing I was being laughed at, my grandmother warned my classmates that she knew kungfu and was not afraid to use it. To show how serious she was, Maddie did a series of complicated martial arts (武术) moves.
When she was done and the
applause gradually stopped 
Maddie was still in her leg-split position.
"Get up," I whispered, "Everyone's staring."
"No," she replied, "I appear to be stuck."
By then Gaspar had arrived. He asked several bigger boys to carry my grandmother to the school clinic as she waved goodbye to first-period French.
