We said it out loud in the car so we wouldn’t wriggle out of it: one week in a Spanish school. Not a life decision. Not a manifesto. Just five mornings, two lunch tickets, and whatever our children will forgive us for later.
The director met us with the look of a person who has already solved three fires before 9. “Tranquilos,” she said, which is the national spell for parents. We had a plastic sleeve of papers like this was the border: passports, vaccination cards, a photocopy of the kids’ birth certificates, the padrón slip from the ayuntamiento that still smells of ink and hard chairs. Marta did the talking, because the woman in charge of the paperwork should always be the one with the good verbs. I nodded in that useful husband way. The director nodded back and produced two temporary name badges and a timetable written in blue felt-tip.
Class starts at nine and ends at two. Continuous day. If they stay for comedor it’s two-forty-five, and there’s an after bit that goes to five if we’re desperate. “Hoy lentejas,” the secretary added, deadpan, like the real test was lentils, not language.
The eldest went to Year 5, the little one to Year 2, both parked next to kids who already knew how to explain everything without words. The teacher tapped a poster and said “Valencià” like you’d say “seatbelt.” Two lines in the timetable were shaded pale green. Marta squeezed my hand and whispered you’ll be fine like I was the one starting school.
I stood at the rail outside and watched the first patio break. Chaos, obviously, but disciplined chaos. Ten minutes of pure noise layered over the Montgó wearing its cloudy hat, and then a whistle and they all flowed back indoors like a trick involving magnets. One boy tried to smuggle in an orange and was caught by an abuelo on gate duty, who pocketed it and winked. I decided this was the kind of discipline I could get behind.
The eldest came out at two with a face that said he had opinions and would release them in stages. “They do long multiplication differently,” he announced, as if reporting a crime. “Also they speak three languages at once and no one dies.” He said “bon dia” with the slanted confidence of a person who practised it all day in his head and finally let it out. He liked the science teacher, who shows diagrams with her hands, and he hated the fact that you cannot swap your seat unless you are told by a sovereign power.
The little one handed me a paper crown he had made and refused every question that wasn’t about the crown. He had eaten lentils and then decided he had not eaten lentils and would never again eat lentils. He had a new friend called Pau or maybe Pao; we have not clarified this because it doesn’t matter and also matters more than anything.
Day two we were late because the hot water decided to explore a new career. In the sprint along Passeig del Saladar I learned that scooters multiply when you’re stressed. I passed four cafes where men argued gently with lottery tickets and a shop that sells only baskets, and the kids sang the months in Spanish to show me they were ahead of me. In class the teacher sent a note home asking if we wanted them in the Valencià line or the mixed line, and Marta and I sat on the steps in the sun and pretended to have a policy. “Mixed,” we wrote, because that is how we live: a foot in each place and a hope the legs learn to agree.
By Wednesday the eldest had discovered dictado and decided it was a conspiracy to make wrists ache. He also discovered the magic of the libreta—one notebook for everything—and came home proud of a page that was neat in a way I have never been. The little one learned the word “patinet” (scooter) and used it thirty-two times before dinner. In comedor they served arroz al horno and an apple. The monitor wrote “muy bien” on a slip of paper with a green smiley. We put it on the fridge like tourists.
Thursday we had our first tutoria, a small serious word for a small serious chat. The teacher was honest in the way that lands softly. The big one understands everything, she said, he answers too quietly and then too fast. The small one is a sponge with legs, he does not like sleeves that touch his wrists, he lined up the coloured pencils in a way that made three other children join and that was the rest of the lesson. “Todo bien,” she said at the end, and I believed her because my chest stopped trying to be a drum.
The practical nonsense you never see in brochures: you sign up for comedor on a sheet by the office that looks like it was printed in 1998, and you pay for lunches with a QR code on a noticeboard that takes you to a website that was definitely built last Tuesday. Shoes must be closed, hats optional, sunscreen on your own time. The bell is not a bell; it’s a ringtone. The man who fixes the gate does it with a screwdriver he wears like a pen. The AFA (we knew it as AMPA once upon a time) sells raffle tickets for a trip to Terra Mítica that our eldest declared too rollercoastery and our youngest declared perfect even if he does not know what a rollercoaster is.
Friday morning the eldest didn’t want to go. He leaned into the old chestnut about missing his friends and missing his maths, which is a first. I sat on the kitchen step and said we’re not replacing, we’re stretching. He rolled his eyes in the international language of ten-year-olds and put on his trainers anyway. The little one did that bored-when-nervous clap and then ran circles until we left. At drop-off the abuelo bodyguard returned the contraband orange to the boy from Monday with a flourish, as if all discipline exists mainly to set up a joke.
At two o’clock the playground turned into a reunion. They came out different. Not solemn, not transformed, just a notch more sure where their feet go. The eldest asked if we could buy a plumier like Pau’s (Pau, not Pao, we have now confirmed). The little one said he had lentils again and survived and could we please have patatas fritas to celebrate the survival. I told him that was not how nutrition works and then immediately bought him patatas fritas because that is exactly how our family works.
On the walk home they both did the thing where they switch codes like it’s a game. Hola Dad can we have water por favor and do you know what “vesprada” is, because it’s afternoon but not like afternoon at home. Marta looked at me over their heads with that tiny smile that means she is already three steps ahead, planning the next form, the next call, the next piece of furniture we still don’t need. She said, very carefully, “Un trimestre?” and my mouth said “let’s talk” while my head tried on the shape of it. A term. Not a move. Not a declaration. A term where the eldest complains about dictation and then gets good at it, where the small one learns to keep sleeves that touch his wrists if the sleeves belong to superheroes, where we remember dinner is at nine if you want to have neighbours.
We promised ourselves not to decide on a Friday when everyone is hungry and heroic. We walked past the Mercat and bought tomatoes that tasted like tomatoes and a bag of flat peaches that tasted like elbows and summer. The Montgó hat had slipped to a scarf. The house was the same half-finished box we claimed to love last week. We cut bread, we made a mess, we laid out two little name badges on the shelf with the screws that will one day hang a picture.
Just a week, we said. Then we started talking about book lists and a second-hand uniform that isn’t a uniform because public schools here don’t do uniforms, but the class has matching tracksuits for excursions and now the youngest wants one so badly his eyes shine. Five mornings. That’s all. Plus two lunch tickets, a QR code, three new words, and one quiet thought that wouldn’t leave: maybe the “trial” is the life, and the life is just a longer trial with better shoes.
We are not deciding today. We are writing it down so future-us can’t pretend it didn’t feel like this. Monday we go again, unless we don’t, and either way we’ll be at the gate with the abuelo and his orange and the cloud over the mountain deciding whose hat it is.