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by John David Anderson

  Wolf didn’t buy it. “It won’t be any different. Same kinds of kids. Just more of them. It’s still Branton.”

  I wasn’t sure what to tell him, what it was Wolf wanted to hear. I pictured my father, leaving late at night, heading south to the ocean that he later told me was calling his name. “I don’t think you can ever start over. Not completely,” I said. “You can’t stop being you.”

  “That’s what Rose says,” Wolf muttered. “Except she says it like it’s a good thing.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe she doesn’t know you as well as I do,” I joked.

  Except maybe that wasn’t even true. Just because you eat lunch with someone for two years and drink out of the same soda and drag them on a skateboard behind your bike, that doesn’t necessarily mean you really know them. There was a lot about Wolf that I didn’t know.

  One thing I was starting to realize, though: he liked Rose; maybe not in that way, but they had obviously clicked. And when you like something, you get upset when someone else doesn’t. You take it personally. I know how I’d feel if I asked Wolf to read some of my poetry and he hated it. Maybe that’s why I never showed him.

  “She is pretty smart,” I said.

  Wolf shielded his eyes from the sun and smiled. “I told you.”

  “Smarter than you, anyways,” I added. “At least about Star Wars.”

  Wolf laughed, shook his head, and leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head, staring past the streetlamps and the awnings up into a sky spotted with one brushstroke of a cloud. “Kind of strange when you think about it—how close they were to blowing each other up. One button away from wiping out the whole freakin’ world.”

  I leaned back next to him.

  “Yeah. But they wouldn’t really have done it. I mean, nobody’s that dumb.”

  Wolf looked at me and I knew he actually had some names of people in mind who might just be.

  But he was too nice to say them out loud.

  THE SWORD

  SOMETIMES, THINGS STICK. LIKE FROST ON A WINDSHIELD OR chewed-up pecan rolls to the roof of your mouth. And it’s annoying. Especially when you can’t get rid of them.

  Other times, though, they catch fire. Like a too-short fuse leading to a toilet paper roll full of gunpowder that you’ve sprinkled inside.

  And then they explode.

  It happens all the time. Stupid dances. Catchy pop songs. Videos of people acting like total fools. Things you wouldn’t expect. The right person finds it, likes it, favorites it, tweets it, endorses it, gives it four stars, two thumbs up, and then it just spreads. Like an avalanche. Like the common cold.

  Like a nuclear arms race. First one bomb. Then two. Then hundreds. Then thousands. Piled up in silos. It’s called “proliferation.” That was the fancy name given to the building of all those nuclear missiles sixty years ago—I know because I read all about it while sipping juice in the middle of a smoothie shop, sitting across from one of my best friends and somebody who looked to be on her way to becoming his best friend.

  That’s what happened with the sticky notes. They proliferated, went viral. In a matter of days they went from something only we were doing to the thing to do. By the end of the week, we knew it was big. And not just because every third or fourth locker you saw had a note attached. It was the color change. The notes weren’t all yellow anymore, which meant students weren’t using the ones they’d been forced to buy for school. They were going out and buying new pads of sticky notes. Blue and hot pink and neon green, the color of cartoon toxic waste. Different sizes, too. Long rectangles. Arrows. Some shaped like hearts. Apparently they make sticky notes shaped like poo. I saw one outside the gym.

  The notes jumped the social fences. Preps and nerds, goths and floaters, popular, not so popular, rich kids, poor kids, all the in-between kids, everyone was writing them. Literally overnight they were everywhere. ¡Viva la revolución!

  The biggest clue came as we walked into Mr. Sword’s class on Friday and saw the blank Post-its, standard yellow, sitting on our desks. There was also a quote on the board from Albert Einstein. It said: Two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity. And I’m not sure about the universe. I thought about Wolf and me sitting on the curb outside the smoothie shop talking about the potential end of the world.

  “Who can tell me what an ‘aphorism’ is?” Mr. Sword said once we’d all settled down in our usual spots.

  “Isn’t that when the blood in your brain explodes?” Samantha Bowles guessed. I had seen her reading a note when I walked in, eyes wide at whatever gossip was scrawled on it.

  “That’s an aneurism, but thanks for playing. Yes, Marianna?”

  “It’s a bug that eats trees.”

  “You’re thinking of aphids. But again, nice try.”

  Mr. Sword was already out of hands to call on. “An aphorism is a pithy or witty saying,” he continued. “Like a little kernel of wisdom wrapped up in a single sentence. We might think of them as quotes, except they are designed to say something deep and true about the world, and not all quotes do that.”

  “Like ‘Life sucks and then you die,’” Noah Kyle suggested.

  “Or ‘Girls drool, boys rule,’” someone else chimed in.

  “So lame,” Amanda Shockey said. Her hair was purple today.

  “How about ‘May the Force be with you,’” Max Conners offered. I kind of liked Max.

  “Even more lame.”

  “It’s ‘lamer,’” Mr. Sword corrected. “And no. Aphorisms go a little deeper than that. They speak to something universal about the human condition. They can be humorous, and often are, but they should always make you think. They should be true in some way.”

  “So they’re like memes,” someone said.

  “I guess. In a way. Though most of what you’ll find on the internet is obnoxious or downright cruel.”

  “The truth can be cruel sometimes.”

  I glanced over at Wolf, a little surprised. He wasn’t much for speaking up in class. He fiddled with his blank note, sticking it to his desk and then peeling it off, over and over again.

  “And that,” Mr. Sword said, pointing at Wolf, “is much more like an aphorism.” Then he went to the board and started writing furiously. “I’ve noticed that you all have taken to posting little messages for each other—no doubt in response to our recent change in cell phone policy. I’ve actually read a few of them. And while ‘Liam Hemsworth is hot’ may sound to some of you like universal truth, I hardly think it qualifies as a profound thought that requires sharing. Therefore I think it’s worth taking a time-out from Caesar’s plight in Ancient Rome to think about the power that language can have. After all, the Romans ate aphorisms for breakfast.”

  “Eww,” Marianna said. I’m pretty sure she was still thinking of aphids.

  “So here’s your assignment,” Mr. Sword continued. “You have ten minutes to think of your own original aphorism—some witty little revelation that you can fit on that three-inch-square sticky note in front of you. Write it down and I’ll come around and approve it. Then, after class, I want you to find someplace in the school to leave your message. Someplace where your aphorism will get the attention of the people who would benefit most from reading it. This is your chance to change someone’s perspective—to teach them something about the world in twenty words or less.”

  A hand went up behind me. Mr. Sword pointed.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Cameron said. “No offense, Mr. Sword, but this is kind of stupid. Doesn’t matter what we write, somebody else is just going to come along and toss it in the trash. What’s the point?”

  “The point, Mr. Cole, is that all of us have something meaningful to share,” Mr. Sword shot back. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe most of these notes will simply be thrown away, but if just one of you writes something that strikes a chord and gets another person thinking, then I think it’s worth it, don’t you?” He turned back around and took up his chalk. “I’m putting a few more examples on the boa
rd—just to get your pistons firing. But don’t just quote something you’ve heard your grandmother say. Tap into something you know about yourself, something you’ve realized about the way the world works. Don’t make it too personal—I don’t want to see anybody’s name on any of these—but they can come from a personal place.”

  There was another chorus of protest. I watched Mr. Sword continue writing for a minute, scribbling one saying after another in his sloppy script, covering the board.

  He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know.

  Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

  The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

  The pen is mightier than the sword.

  “Unless you’re trying to slay a cave troll,” Deedee murmured. I instantly conjured an image of writing-utensil-wielding hobbits plunging Sharpies into the backs of orcs, except instead of blood the bodies spilled ink. Mr. Sword snapped me out of it.

  “You are going to put this out in the world for others to see. You can write something provocative. Something challenging. Something passionate and opinionated and even, potentially, dangerous. But keep it clean. Don’t write anything that would get you in trouble.”

  I watched Deedee furiously erase what he’d already written. Mr. Sword went back to his board.

  I stared at my sticky note. Something deep. I thought about the notebook tucked under my mattress at home, full of secret poems written over the past three years. There was probably something in there that would work. In the course of fifty verses surely I’d said one meaningful thing.

  As soon as Mr. Sword’s back was turned I felt a kick in the back of my chair.

  “You should be good at this, right, Frost?” Noah Kyle whispered, snickering.

  “Yeah, Frost. Let’s see what you’ve got.” Jason Baker arched up out of his seat, trying to look over my shoulder. I covered my note with both hands even though I had nothing written yet and cursed my fifth-grade teacher all over again.

  “Back off,” Wolf said in a hushed voice, turning and glaring at both of them.

  Jason cocked his head to the side. “I’m sorry, was I even talking to you?” He leaned in close to Noah. “I think I offended his boyfriend.”

  A stern whip-around look from Mr. Sword was enough to drop Jason back in his seat. “Eight minutes,” he warned. I entertained a brief image of Jason and Noah being mauled by a pack of starved lions in the middle of the Colosseum in front of a cheering crowd—too much Roman history, I guess—then turned back to my blank note.

  Around the room there was a lot of pencil tapping. Sitting by the door, Rose had both fists clenched around clumps of hair. I looked at Wolf’s desk. He seemed to be finished already, his paper flipped over so I couldn’t read it. I stared at my own blank square and tried to think of something worth sharing with the rest of the world. Something profound. The world had plenty of problems—like people who kicked the back of your chair and wouldn’t leave you alone—but nothing I could say was going to change any of them. Mr. Sword called two minutes. I scribbled something down.

  He who laughs last laughs longest, but he who farts loudest gets the room to himself.

  Maybe true, but not exactly insightful. I erased it. Pressed the end of my pencil to my nose. I glanced behind me in time to see Cameron Cole attaching his Post-it note to his forehead. It said I’m with stupid and had arrows pointing in every possible direction.

  “All right. Time’s up,” Mr. Sword said. “Make sure it’s legible. There’s no point in sharing your wisdom with the world if the world can’t read it.”

  I had nothing. So I just wrote the thing that seemed most true to me at that moment. Something I’d been thinking about for the past couple of days. It barely fit on the yellow square and I had to scrunch the letters at the end.

  “Okay. Go ahead and share what you’ve written with one other person in class. Ask them what they think. How does it make them feel? Angry? Wistful? Optimistic? Meanwhile I will come along and make sure everyone’s nugget of wisdom is appropriate. Mr. Cole, I can already tell you that yours is not.”

  Cameron peeled the “stupid” note from his head and started to erase it. I gave Wolf my note with a shrug. “I couldn’t really think of anything,” I told him.

  He read it, then stuck it back to the edge of my desk. “It’s good,” he said. “In fact, I can think of a few people in this room who should read it.” He didn’t need to name names.

  Mr. Sword appeared beside my desk and held out his hand. He read my note, whispering to himself. “‘If you only listen to what others say, you’ll never hear yourself think,’ That’s pretty good, Eric.” Then he looked across at Wolf, who held his note up, half folded, as if he were embarrassed to share it. Mr. Sword’s expression changed as he read it. He frowned slightly, then nodded thoughtfully and handed the note back to Wolf.

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  Wolf took his note, then gave it to me. We had both been thinking kind of the same thing. But Mr. Sword was right: Wolf had said it better.

  Deedee leaned over and showed us his. It said, The truth is just a lie we all agree to believe in.

  “What does that even mean?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” Deedee said. “My first one was about floaters, though, so this is a definite improvement.”

  Mr. Sword finished his inspection, giving almost everyone his stamp of approval, and went back to the front of the room and told us it was time to get back to Shakespeare, so that we could appreciate someone who really understood how to use language.

  When English was over we all filed out the door, sticky notes in hand, ready to cover the world in our bits of wisdom. Rose waited for us in the hall. She showed me what she’d written. A beautiful mind is worth more than a pretty face.

  “Tell that to Liam Hemsworth,” I said.

  “Or half the kids in this school,” Deedee seconded.

  “I plan on it,” Rose said. “In fact, I think I’ll stick it right outside the cafeteria for maximum exposure.” She looked at me. “Where are you going to put yours?”

  I shrugged, glanced around, then stuck my note above the water fountain just outside Mr. Sword’s room. It seemed as good a place as any. Deedee said he was going to stick his outside the gym, “To give people something to think about while they’re getting pummeled with dodge balls. What about you, Wolf? Where’s yours going?”

  But Wolf had already tucked his aphorism away.

  “I’m just going to hang on to it for a while,” he said.

  Throughout the day, notes continued to pop up everywhere. Not just on lockers. On bathroom stalls. On teachers’ doors. On windows and display cases. There was one on the fire alarm that said, In case of emergency, run like hell—though that one didn’t stay up long. There was another on the first stall of the boys’ bathroom that said, Toxic Waste Site, Proceed with Caution. There were dozens more. One posted outside Computer Lab A warned of a Nerd X-ing and had a picture of a stick figure in glasses. Another outside the band room said the same. The one outside he teachers’ lounge said, Warning: Zombies Spotted in Area. It didn’t stay up long, either. Cameron Cole was right (as much as I hated to admit it): a lot of the notes were removed almost as soon as they were posted. But not all of them.

  Some were clever. Others were just dumb. Then there were the ones from Mr. Sword’s class. You could tell because the words often filled the whole square and most of them made you want to vomit in your mouth. Things like A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet and There’s no Band-Aid for a broken heart. Per Mr. Sword’s instructions they were all anonymous, but you could sometimes tell who they were from, if not from the handwriting, then from the message itself.

  I recognized the one attached to Jason Baker’s locker instantly. I’d read it once already. I even stuck around long enough to see Jason show up and peel the note free, crumpling it into a marble-sized wad and dropping it on
the floor. I waited till he was gone before I went and picked it up and read it again to myself.

  Words are ghosts that can haunt us forever.

  I put it in my backpack, thinking the person who wrote it might want it back. That he might find a better place to put it. Getting a message through to some people was like trying to hammer a nail through a concrete block with your forehead. It would take something more than a few words penned on a sticky note to get Jason Baker’s attention. In his case, the sword would probably be mightier.

  I forgot all about the note by lunch, though, and it stayed in my backpack. Bench skipped out again, saying he had to talk to Coach Mallory about something; he didn’t say what and I didn’t ask. Instead I sat between Deedee and Rose and we played another game where we tried to see who could keep a corn chip in their mouth the longest without crunching it. I was the first one out.

  Rose won handily. She seemed to be in a good mood, smiling and laughing and teasing Deedee mercilessly, but Wolf seemed distant, mouth tight at the corners, his rectangle of pizza untouched. It wasn’t until just before the bell rang that I found out why.

  “Are you even going to show them?” he asked.

  Rose shrugged. “Show them what? It’s no big deal.” The suddenly serious look on her face—almost like a warning to Wolf to keep his mouth shut—suggested otherwise.

  “What’s no big deal?” Deedee asked.

  With a roll of her eyes, Rose reached into her pocket and pulled a Post-it free, sticking it to the middle of the table for the rest of us to see.

  “I found it inside my math book. Somebody must have slipped it in there while I wasn’t looking. It’s nothing. Seriously. There are so many worse things.” She stared at Wolf, who stared right back, the two of them silently continuing some conversation they’d already started.

  Deedee and I looked at the note. It obviously wasn’t one of the ones from Mr. Sword’s class. There were no words aside from her name. No signature. No way of knowing who wrote it. But the meaning was clear.