Red--Isabella

His hair wasn’t a subtle sunset kind of red it was more like a burning flame. Its strands
seemed to go in every direction and it looked similar to what one would classify as “bedhead”. The first day I met Red was in mid July this past summer vacation. Like every other summer weekend I was at a softball tournament. The sun was scorching and the unbearable heat hindered my breathing. Our team had just finished our first game and had a small break, so I went and sat in the shade of an old oak tree and ate some cold sliced watermelon beside the group of parents. Red, age three, was there too. From the first moment I saw him I knew he wasn’t like the other youngsters who played in the compact playground and ran around endlessly in the burning sun. Red was prodigiously intelligent. 

Rather than play with the other kids his age Red spoke with the adults. I watched as he went around the group asking each parent “What’s your favorite tool?”. After each new response his eyebrows would scrunch together just a little, he would look into the distance and repeat the foreign word. Once he had processed the new term he would more onto the next adult and repeat the process. When he asked me the question I responded “a screwdriver” and just as he started to proceed to the next person in the group, I asked him what his favorite tool was. He seemed rather stumped by my question. Nobody had inquired about his favorites, rather they had just given quick superficial rejoinders. It was as if I could see the gears of his little brain grinding together to configure a response. Feeling pressured by my waiting he answered “an excavator”. I nodded and pretended to know what that was but inside I felt ashamed that this three year old was smarter than I was. After that we went on to play what felt like twenty questions. He was very curious to know as much as he could like a sponge that just wanted to absorb as possible. 

After what felt like an interrogation, he sat back in his stroller and grabbed his tablet. I had expected him to open an app like “Disney Jr” or “World of Peppa Pig” like most kids his age would, but instead he opened “My Spelling List Words”. Not surprised, I watched as he spelt “shark” with the five scrambled letters. I sat in amazement as this three year old was intellectually ahead of his time. I questioned what I was like when I was three. After the spelling list became redundant he opened a math practice app. Unsurprisingly he breezed through that too, quickly adding numbers that I had to process one second longer. As we continued to cool under the sap-dripping tree I watched the mirage on the field right in front of us. I was so zoned into the mirage that I hadn’t heard the “Heads Up!” warning from the field behind us. What looked like a bird in my peripheral was a foul ball that had flown over the two story high fences surrounding the field behind me. I re-entered reality when I saw the foul ball bounce right next to Red and then into the bushes beside us. I thought to myself: “Protect this kid at all costs”. 

I admired Red’s curiosity to learn because it was a reflection of my own. I have always genuinely loved learning and his personality reminded me a lot of mine. Seeing him took me back to my childhood: my mom would read to me each night before bed (the same Halloween book I was obsessed with), in the day I learned at school and at grandma’s I became bilingual. I have always excelled in school and many people have asked me how I have managed to handle the rigor of the classes that I take. But there isn’t a specific formula to being a good student rather I have just always had a genuine passion for learning new things. School has never a burden or a “chore” for me because my passion to acquire new knowledge motivates

me to continue to strive forward. Being the nerd of the family, I love to come home with some random fact that I can share. So, when I met Red we instantly connected because he reminded me a lot of myself. We both had the same goal and that was to grasp as much knowledge as we could.