by K. A. Holt
JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!:
0BenwhY: im mad at u now too
BenBee: can everyone zip it?
BenBee: did you see the thing about Ghost Season?
BenBee: maybe we should do something to protect our avatars.
BenBee: for when Ghost season gets here.
BenBee: ghosts. coming. melting. everyone.
BenBee: devs r cleaning house, archiving avatars that get melted during ghost season.
BenBee: u’ll have to pay real actual money to get unarchived.
BenBee: we have this cool server all to ourselves.
BenBee: we could make a pyramid out of diamonds so we can hide there.
BenBee: we need the pyramid to survive. well, to keep playing for free.
BenBee: and i know for sure my parents won’t pay a monthly fee so i can play sandbox.
BenBee: no way, no how.
0BenwhY: wow. all of that, and no chat infraction??
JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!:
BenBee: guys, come on! is anyone gonna give you money so you can play?
0BenwhY: don’t call us guys.
jajajavier:): ugh I gotta jet. ill help with the pyramid 2morow after school
jajajavier:): I’ve been hiding in the bathroom with the laptop
jajajavier:): my mom thinks im pooping myself to death
jajajavier:) HAS EXITED GAME
BenBee: dang dang dang moms coming up the stairs.
BenBee: im supposed to b practicing handwriting, barf.
BenBee: shes gonna kill me.
BenBee: i gotta jet 2.
BenBee HAS EXITED GAME
0BenwhY: looks like its up to us to get this pyramid started
JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!:
0BenwhY: im still sort of mad at u, but not as mad at u as i am Javier, so fine
0BenwhY:
JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!:
0BenwhY: okay okay don’t get too excited.
JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!:
0BenwhY: r u gonna haul those diamonds over here or what?
0BenwhY: also, whos gonna be the one to ask ms j?
0BenwhY: about the setup homework?
JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!:
0BenwhY: mmm hmm great of course
JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!:
0BenwhY: glad to see ur into building this thing cause i gotta go. dinner time.
0BenwhY HAS EXITED GAME
JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!:
JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!:
BEN B
You’ve done thirty minutes?
Of handwriting practice?
To earn your fifteen minutes
of Sandbox?
Mom leaned around my doorway
just as I clicked off the monitor.
Uh, I reversed it.
Fifteen minutes of Sandbox,
then handwriting, here I come.
I held up a pencil,
tried to smile.
Dad curled around Mom,
filling up
my whole
bedroom doorway.
That’s not how it works, pal.
You can’t take advantage of your mom that way.
No screens.
One week.
What!
Dad!
Mom and I had a deal!
And I was just about to—
Jim . . .
Mom twisted her face up to look at him.
I don’t th—
Keep talking to me like that, Benjamin,
Dad interrupted Mom,
and you’ll make it two weeks
no screens.
But Dad!
I was just about to start!
Mom said—
Benjamin.
What did I say?
Don’t use that tone with me.
Now it’s two weeks.
DAD!
Three weeks.
Want to make it more?
I hate how Dad doesn’t yell.
I hate how the angrier he gets,
the calmer he acts.
Mom pushed her way
away from Dad,
stomped off,
leaving me
with three weeks
no screens.
Dad ran his hand
through his hair,
down his face,
said,
I bet,
in three weeks,
your handwriting will be better
than mine.
Then he pointed finger guns at me,
smiled,
walked away.
Come on, Jenny,
his voice drifted into my room,
from down the hall.
Come out of the bathroom.
You’re too easy on him.
That’s when I put in my
earbuds,
shut
my
door
and
here I am.
No screens.
Three weeks.
Three weeks!
Now there’s nothing fun
waiting for me
at the end of my days
of nothing fun.
I am a boring snake
eating my own boring tail.
Three weeks.
Might as well be
three forevers.
At least there’s Sandbox at school.
But not really.
Not like I thought it would be.
Ms. J gets to play
on that one rickety
old computer,
that one
beard-growing
old man of a machine
while we watch her
finally decide
after a hundred and fifty years
she wants purple hair
for her avatar
with no gold.
We need more screens,
so she can watch us and learn,
so we can all teach her together.
That’s how it has to work,
that’s how she’ll figure it out.
Computers for everyone.
It only makes sense.
Just like a book for each of us.
It’s the best way.
The only way.
And I’ll get to play.
Every day.
Take THAT, no screens
for three weeks.
More computers?
Ms. J shakes her head.
Tall order, Ben B.
An impossible feat.
But . . .
My voice sputters as my brain spins,
no way she can say no that easily,
no way this question is already answered.
But . . .
I hear my voice winding up,
louder, with a begging edge.
We each have a book to read—
we should also each
have a screen.
Right?
So we can teach you better.
You know?
Ms. J shakes her head.
Books are curriculum, Ben B.
And I’m not even sure this—
she flings her hand back and forth
like she’s waving away a stink—
even counts as a book.
Ben Y yells, HEY!
Ms. J ignores her.
Computer allotments aren’t the same as books.
Requisitions, paperwork, grants . . .
it’s a process.
Three weeks, no screens.
Three weeks, no screens.
It’s burned into my brain,
the only thing
on repeat.
So it’s just No?
That’s it?
You can’t even try?
I’m arguing with a teacher,
my voice a whine
even I don’t like,
pushing my luck, I know,
but three weeks no screens.
Three weeks no screens!
; We’re trying so hard.
Every day.
Reading out loud.
Summer school.
The FART retake looming,
a shadow over
every day
and yet here we are
doing this thing we hate
so we can teach you to love
a new thing.
Come on. . . .
Can’t you meet us halfway?
Halfway!
Ben B!
What do you call this?
She waves the book at me.
This isn’t literature.
It barely has sentence structure.
This is floof,
fun.
You all need an extra life
when it comes to the assessment retake,
and this isn’t that!
But I press on,
making magic out of nonsense,
trying to cobble together extra lives
for all of you.
This is so much further
than halfway.
Farther! Ben Y shouts.
Ms. J ignores her.
All kinds of feelings boil up from my belly,
strong and steaming.
So when you said
Help me help you,
I guess I should have known.
No deal with a grown-up is a real deal, ever.
Is that what a divergent plan is?
Just a trick.
A stupid trick.
You were never going to play, were you?
Not for real.
You never cared about helping us help you, did you?
The words zip from my mouth,
darts toward a fluttering target,
finding a bull’s-eye
as Ms. J sucks in her breath
and for a tiny split-second
looks away
before she looks back,
with sparks in her eyes
and fire in her voice
as she says,
Enough.
ENOUGH.
And now we read out loud
so this day can win a prize
for being the worst day
in the history
of ever.
Javier shakes his head
no,
holds his palm
on his closed book,
like he’s swearing the truth
and only the truth
that he will never read out loud
in class,
so help him.
One more chance, Javier.
This is it.
Don’t test me.
I am already
in
a
mood.
But he does test her.
He tests her mood
tests her patience
and she earns a fire-breathing dragon A+
when she makes him move his desk again
next to hers again
so he has to face all of us
while he doesn’t read AGAIN.
Someone will have to read twice now.
If we want to hit our ten minutes.
If we want any Sandbox today.
Even if it’s stupid setup.
And it’ll be my only Sandbox, too.
Three weeks no screens,
still on repeat,
banging around in my head.
I hate this day.
Two minutes and thirty seconds
plus
two minutes and thirty seconds
equals
way too many minutes and seconds.
That’s just
simple math.
Unseen dangers lie ahead. To build a fortress and protect your village, go to page 15.
To forge ahead, go to page 20.
I look up.
My mouth is dry.
Am I in a desert?
These unmoving boulders
of letters and sounds and words,
tripping me until I move so slow,
I must be on the verge of . . .
I am going to die of . . .
word poisoning?
As the reader of the moment,
it’s your choice, Ben B.
To die?
I ask.
Her expression has not
changed
from earlier today,
when my words
were sharp
and she was soft.
No, Ben B.
Her voice hard and flat.
Fortress or forge ahead?
I look at Javier,
who doesn’t seem to care
he’s being forced to face us
as he doesn’t read.
He’s not even looking at me,
because he’s drawing,
always drawing.
What could he possibly be drawing
so much of,
all the time?
The grouchiness pushes through,
words flying from my mouth
that I couldn’t catch
even if I wanted to.
These choices are stupid.
Everyone knows you catch a fairy,
squish it,
use the dust to fly,
survey your surroundings from above,
THEN decide what to do.
You can see everything
while you’re safe in the air.
Duh!
What dummy wrote this thing?
Quietly, a voice behind me says: My mom did. My mom wrote it. She’s a great writer. The best. Why are you saying mean things about my mom, the smartest mom in the actual whole world?
Everyone’s head jerks up.
Even Javier’s.
Ben Y clasps her hands to her mouth.
The color drains from Ms. J’s face.
Then Jordan J busts out laughing.
Just kidding. My mom works
at a newspaper. She’s just a
regular mom.
I spin in my seat so fast,
an angry gyroscope.
Shut up, Jordan.
This isn’t a joke.
Some stupid person wrote this stupid book
and now we have to read it—
some of us have to read EXTRA—
and Ms. J can’t even play,
like she promised.
Aaaaargh.
Let’s forge ahead, stupidly,
to see what stupid choice
we have next.
So, yeah.
Now I’m sitting in the hallway.
While I think about
how to think about
my words
before
I say them
and the choices I make,
which,
agreed,
have been pretty stupid
today.
I think about:
extra weeks of no screens
if Ms. J calls my parents.
I think about:
that would be guts-meltingly terrible.
I think about:
what Dad would say about my tone today,
about my attitude today.
I think about:
if I say I’m sorry,
then Ms. J will not call my parents.
Sorry, Ms. J.
Yes, I have cooled off.
Yes, I know stupid is not a divergent use of vocabulary.
Yes, I know you’re doing the best you can.
Yes, I know we all are.
I still hate this day.
Ben Y reads out loud now.
She spits every word,
like she’s angry at it,
for ever being in her mouth
to begin with.
I don’t know what she’s mad about,
but right on.
She finishes her part,
looks up from her book,
catches me looking at her.
Thumbs up, Ben Y,
I like how yo
u spit your words.
She doesn’t look at me.
I don’t know where she’s looking.
Maybe she’s imagining this day is over.
I’m going to imagine that, too.
BEN Y
<0BenwhY>
I don’t like to rush.
I don’t like to hurry.
I don’t like to be home on time.
I don’t like to be home at all.
So I stay places.
As long as I can.
At school.
On the bus.
Wherever.
I’m
an
easy
sneak,
a shadow
bending
into quiet places.
Like today,
this old space,
storage
behind the gym,
full of boxes,
junk,
broken stuff . . .
now I’m part of its mess, too.
It’s quiet in here,
the wifi works,
I can surf
fashion blogs,
imagine
lines of clothes
I might design
one day
in another world
another place
far freaking away
from here.
And when the light
goes from fluorescent
to mauve
I know
it’s time to pack up.
Vacate.
Head home.
I can take the city bus.
Sneak into my room.
Move past the memories,
dark in their own shadows.
Except.
Today, I hear a rustle.
Today, I’m not alone.
There’s another sneak.
Uh-oh.
Ms. J.
She stands in the shadows,
a pushcart full of old
computers
in front of her
and a look on her face
that says
O Ben Why
and
O Ben How
and
O Ben I Wish You Weren’t Here Right Now.