When I was little and saw the movie "Peter Pan", I thought I was Wendy. After all, that was my name, or at least what everyone called me. I didn't know that it wasn't my real name, until I was counted absent for the first two weeks of first grade...
It was 1968, homeschooling was against the law, and if you weren't in school then you were in trouble. When the bell rang, the teacher would call roll, and when you heard your name you had to raise your hand and say "Present". If you didn't comply, then you were counted as absent. I never questioned why my name wasn't called. Looking back, you would have thought the teacher would have compared the number of kids in the class to the number on her roll, or perhaps asked the extra child what her name was. Instead, after two weeks, a truant officer was sent to my house to look for me. He wanted to know why Mom hadn't been sending me to school. She quickly informed him that I had been there every day, and wanted to know who they thought the extra kid in class was.
Imagine my surprise when I was taken to the Principals office and told my name wasn't Wendy. They then told me, that when I heard this other name, I was supposed to raise my hand and say "Present". I was very confused, but it got worse when Mom picked me up from school and said, "Hi Wendy, how did your day go?". From then on, during the day I was one person, and at home with family and friends, I was back to being Wendy...
