Funny Girl

by Betsy Bird

  my focus is intense.

  My only chance of winning

  is a bold and brave offense.

  Soon, I’m checked and then I’m decked.

  A forward kicks my shin.

  Here comes a six-foot stopper

  with an evil, twisted grin.

  Dodge left.

  Dart right.

  I see an open hole!

  My heart starts beating faster.

  I’m almost at the goal!

  I’m tripped!

  Shirt rips!

  Someone call a foul!

  I scramble to get up again

  as fullbacks near me scowl.

  At last I’m there, with sweat-drenched hair

  outsmarting one last blocker.

  Every day’s a ruthless match

  when racing to my locker.

  Swimming Is for Other Kids

  By Akilah Hughes

  My only good experiences with water have taken place on the beach or in the shower. Swimming pools—in any form—are the bane of my existence.

  I was by far the smallest kid in third grade—under four feet tall—and I had the swimming ability of an Olympic rock. Liquid just wasn’t my thing. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to learn. I had even gone to swim class. I simply couldn’t master the kicking or the arm stroking, and when I tried to float, I sank to the bottom every time.

  “Must be genetic,” my mother said. She spent most of her pool time reading magazines and catnapping in the sun. I think I saw her walk into the water a total of once.

  One summer day at the Boys & Girls Club, I was put to the test.

  There’s this game called Chicken Fight, which requires neither legitimate fight training nor chickens. You just climb on your friend’s shoulders and another duo does the same, and the girls on the shoulders grab each other’s hands and try to rip them off of their wrists. The first one to fall into the water loses.

  Kasey had asked me to sit on her shoulders, and no way was I going to chicken out. (See what I did there?) Also, it would be interesting to see the world from the perspective of an adult, rather than basically a toddler.

  She waited in the water below for me to back my little butt over her head and onto her shoulders. Kasey was tall and broad, having hit puberty earlier than the rest of us. She got all the perks. Her body was basically that of a twenty-three-year-old. She was the only girl who could wear a two-piece without looking like she was playing dress-up in her mom’s suit. And, no, I wasn’t jealous. Kasey wanted me as her chicken partner, and I wanted people to associate her womanly finesse and bosom with my . . . less impressive body.

  “Are you getting in or not? We’re losing time, Hughes!” she yelled.

  Backing into a pool—backing into a pool and getting on top of someone’s shoulders—when you’re no better a swimmer than an anchor was daunting at best, and next-level horrifying at worst. I kept thinking about falling in, and then what I would do if we didn’t win the chicken fight. Would I be the biggest loser at the Club? Would Kasey let me drown because I’d embarrassed her? Would I live to fill an A-cup?

  I got on, grabbing Kasey’s hair for leverage.

  “Stop pulling my hair! Ow! What is happening?!” were the last words I heard before I hit the water.

  Then a whistle blew. Our pool time was up.

  Frantically, I tried to ascend to the surface and make it back to the wall, but sinking to death seemed to be my only true skill set. I jumped up and down in the water and screamed, “Help!” before swallowing another mouthful of chlorine. I had to do it at least four times before the lifeguard finally noticed, dove in, and towed me back to the side of the pool.

  I couldn’t stop crying. Partially from the near-death experience in the 4.5-foot section of the pool. Partially from shame; how could I lose at Chicken Fight before round one started? Why didn’t Kasey try to save me or, at the very least, wait to find out that I hadn’t drowned in the community pool? Oh, and why was I so absurdly short that no one would ever ask me to play any pool games with them ever again?

  After that I stopped venturing into pools. But it turned out that even being near a pool was dangerous enough.

  * * *

  By the time I hit fourteen, I had blossomed. Though I didn’t look like Kasey, I was a nearly normal-sized human. I wasn’t confident in my body yet (even though my little tummy from a diet of mostly chips was pretty adorable in hindsight), but when my friend Ali invited me over to “float on floaties” in her backyard pool, I wore a two-piece anyway, excited for my stomach to match the color of my arms for the first summer in my life.

  When I arrived on Saturday in my dazzling purple bikini, carrying an abundance of Doritos, at least half my classmates were there. This, I had not expected.

  Ali was cool, sure, but she wasn’t popular. The fact that her crush (plus every potential object of freshman year infatuation) was there, splashing around, confirmed my long-held suspicion that one’s high school popularity was directly related to their house’s capacity for parties. Ali’s basically made her a shoo-in for prom queen, student body president, and eventually commander in chief of the United States.

  I dropped my chip bounty at the snack table and unrolled my towel on a beach chair near the water.

  “Hey, girl!” Ali yelled from a flamingo floatie. “Jump right in. The water’s fine!” But it wasn’t fine. I approached the side of the pool, flashing back to tiny, doofus Akilah playing chicken against an empty swimming pool and basically losing and dying back in elementary school.

  “I’m all good, Al!” I said, trying to sound chipper about the party, given that I’d thought today was going to be only the two of us hanging out.

  Just then, Ali’s older, unfairly beautiful brother Brad screamed, “CAN-NON-BALLLLL!” and at full speed and circumference turned into a human weapon, causing what is still the largest wave of my life. I was certain that everyone within a three-mile radius had been in the splash zone, and that the pool was completely emptied by his attack.

  Wiping my eyes to assess the damage, I heard, “WHOA!” followed by maniacal boy laughter. I started laughing, too . . . and then a sudden breeze hit me like a beach ball.

  My gorgeous purple bikini, which was only supposed to be seen by Ali and a handful of Cool Ranch chips, had become a monokini. That is to say, I was topless. In front of most, if not all, of the freshman class.

  I grabbed my towel and sprinted indoors, forgetting that my clothes were outside and my bikini top was still missing in action. I ran to Ali’s room, throwing on whatever T-shirt and cheer shorts I could find, and then started the short, barefoot walk home. By the time I got there, my mother had returned from work, confused about why I wasn’t at Ali’s anymore.

  “Wardrobe malfunction, Mom,” I told her, and given her neutrality about water, we changed topics.

  The rest of my summer was spent living down the incident, reading books on dry land, and watching Nickelodeon from the couch. I realized that that’s who I was. My best life will be lived warm and dry, away from parties, fun, and freshman boys.

  So, basically, pools are a death sentence. If you need me, I’ll be lying facedown on a beach towel, trying to forget everything you just read.

  Dear Bella and Rover

  By Deborah Underwood

  Dear Bella and Rover,

  I am a parrot. My name is Polly. My people keep asking if I want a cracker. My cage is full of crackers. I hate crackers! Please help. These guys are driving me . . . well, crackers.

  Love,

  Polly

  Dear Polly,

  Really? You don’t like crackers? I love crackers! I especially like the ones with sesame seeds on them. And the ones—

  Sorry about that, Polly. Rover doesn’t understand, because dogs will eat anything. A certain dog I know—AHEM—ate a shoe last night. But
I get it. I won’t even eat my favorite food half the time, because I like to keep the two-leggers guessing.

  I suggest you try negative reinforcement. Every time they ask if you want a cracker, make the sound of a dentist’s drill. “Polly want a cracker?”

  “BZZZZZZZZZZZ!”

  “Polly want a cracker?”

  “BZZZZZZZZZZZ!”

  I bet they’ll stop asking really fast. Any more advice, Rover?

  Yes! If you get more crackers, can you send them to me? Please?

  Love,

  Bella and Rover

  Desdemona and Sparks Go All In

  By Rita Williams-Garcia and Michelle Garcia

  “I-got-it-I-got-it-I-got-it!”

  I’ve been on the “What now?” end of this friendship since second grade. Forty-three mad schemes later, I still ask, “What now?”

  “Dez, I’ve got the answer to our problem. The solution to our X, that’s what!” Sparks is doing the awk-gly dance that makes her my eternal bestie. It’s. So. Embarrassing. And in the lunchroom, no less. The more I look on in horror, the more she cranks it up. Sparks just doesn’t care.

  We’ve been plotting our way into Prep, the passport to our dream schools, for the past sixteen months. Our task? To make our applications stand out in a school of standouts, where every person is vying to be among the 35 percent. Our middle school is the unofficial sister school to Prep, but that doesn’t guarantee an “in.” It doesn’t take much to crack the admissions matrix: Out of an incoming class of ninety, they take 35 percent from our school, 30 percent from the parochials and charters, 15 percent homeschoolers, 10 percent public schoolers, and 10 percent celeb brats. All we need is one ridiculously outstanding thing to both put us in and make us rise above the likely 35 percent. The solve-for-X factor’s hard to come up with when our entire graduating class has pretty much the same application: 3.89 GPA or better, athletes, mathletes, first chair violin—or musical equivalent—and being really close to ending world hunger with an ethical but great tasting globally satisfying grain. Extra points if you have your own .org.

  Sparks stops awk-gly dancing in mid flap. “Behold,” she says, framing her head. “In here lies the answer to our problems.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Ellen,” she says. Then hops. “Ellen!”

  “Ellen?”

  “Ellen.” She nods like I know this Ellen. And then the lightbulb clicks on.

  “You mean Ellen, of The Ellen DeGeneres Show?”

  “What other Ellen matters? Don’t you see? It’s perfect. Ellen will get us into Prep.”

  I shake my head no, no, and no—tight, no-nonsense no’s so there’s no miscommunication. She shakes hers yes, many yeses with all-out loosey-goosey up-and-down swan neck action. Suddenly, the thing I love most about Sparks flies out the window. I grab her shoulders with both hands. “Stop it. Lunchroom!” But it’s Sparks Freeman, and she doesn’t care.

  “We go on Ellen, list our appearance on our ‘Special Talents and Citations’ section, and we’re in. Think, Dez! Who else will have that on their application?”

  “How is that even a plan? We somehow get on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, hope Prep’s selection committee watches and worships Ellen, and then hope they remember us for doing, like, who knows what, and then we’re in Prep? Really?”

  “And yet, that’s how it’ll all go down! Let’s move on this and make it happen.” Her face is deadpan serious.

  I pick up my phone and fake hit up some numbers. “‘Hello, guest booking person for Ellen? You know how Beyoncé and the pope are booked for next week? Can we bump them for Desdemona and Sparkle from the Middle School for the Gifted? . . . That’s right. Just five minutes . . . Tuesday? I’ll see if they’re available.’”

  “What you sound like is a crazy person. What I’m saying makes complete sense.”

  “Sure it does, and for our special talent we’ll break down some geometry problems on daytime TV.”

  “Or,” Sparks says calmly, to make me sound like the crazy one, “we’ll perform our champion birdcalling talent.”

  “Our bird—WHAT?” I leave out champion. It’s as nonexistent as our birdcalling talent.

  She gives me a disappointed look and blows a puff of canned cling peaches breath in my face. “For such a nerd, you’re being really dense right now. Look, the national birdcalling competition’s coming up. We enter. We win. We’re invited to go on Ellen. We add it to our application, and we’re in.” She says this like she’s saying, “Let’s get burritos.”

  It doesn’t matter. Mad scheme number forty-four will have to be mad without me. “No.”

  Now she starts flapping and hopping. In the lunchroom. People still eating. Now definitely gawking. “Caw-caw-cawmon. C’mon, c’mon. Caw!”

  It works. “Will you stop?”

  “If you say you’re down,” she says. “And the best part is, Ellen’s always booking viral acts. She asks fans to submit their talents.”

  True confession: on Fridays Sparks and I skip lunch to watch Ellen in the media center.

  I roll my eyes. A weak yes. “I guess if we’re going to do this, we’d better start researching,” I say.

  “Research? We’ve got this! Find some cool birds on YouTube. I’ll take the high pitch. You take the low.”

  I just stare. She stares right back, like, why aren’t we watching bird clips already?

  This is a waste of time. We should be finding a cure for pinkeye or something impressive. I’ve scoped out the competition. Gina Two Nose Jobs (separate lacrosse incidents) got written up in the free local papers for her fruit fly genome thing. She’s in. Eduardo spent his summer building mold-free homes in Guatemala. He’s in. Irma Krishnaswami’s mother is on the board at Prep. In. And our grand plan to get in? Birdcalling. On Ellen.

  Little-known fact: Sparks’s mom named her Sparkle after both the paper towels and this movie about an R & B girl group. Her mom laughs at Sparks’s fund to legally change her name to Ann, the most Sparkle-free name she could think of. Not even an e on the end. What Mrs. Freeman doesn’t know is, Sparks plans to sue her for personal injury and for ruining her future career possibilities with a name like Sparkle. She’s citing her favorite read, Freakonomics.

  I’m not worried about being Desdemona Brown. At least the admissions committee will know my mom read Othello.

  “Now that you’re in, really in,” Sparks says, “we have to draft a third member. The standout birdcalling groups come in threes.”

  “You mean get someone else to risk their application, go on national daytime television, and—”

  “Lock in their spot at Prep?”

  I feel her forehead for a fever. She sidesteps my hand. “Stop it, Dez. People will think we’re weird.”

  “Too late.”

  “Will you be serious?” How do I respond to that? But she means it. “Who can we get as our third? Someone who’s down, but won’t steal the spotlight from us. She’s got to be good. Good enough to help us win, but without deflecting attention from us.”

  “You mean a utility birdcaller?”

  “Exactly.”

  We take a minute. While I fantasize about pulling out of mad scheme forty-four, Sparks racks her brain for a possible third. Her eyes light up and then narrow conspiratorially.

  “Irma Krishnaswami.”

  I shake my head. “And risk . . . risk . . .” I stop myself. Lightbulb! She’s right. Irma’s already in. She’d risk nada. And Irma’s always easing her way into our circle of two.

  * * *

  We commit to the plan and enlist Krishnaswami. We actually prepare to be talented birdcallers. Together, we huddle, plot, and mimic birdcalls we find on YouTube. We look for a bird to mimic in our hood, but dirty pigeons, sparrows, and the occasional crow are too cool to sing for us. When they do sing, it’s not impressive. I suggest we com
e up with a different talent. But then—

  “I-got-it-I-got-it-I-got-it!”

  Oh, good. “What?”

  “We use the sounds of the neighborhood to create our own bird. And then we give it a super ridiculous bird name, like the . . . urban gray-breasted . . .”

  I add, “Plover . . .”

  Krishnaswami adds, “Jay of prey!”

  “But shouldn’t it be a real bird?” I ask.

  “Look, Dez. This is our shot.”

  Krishnaswami backs Sparks like crazy. “It’s crea-tive, and Ellen will get a kick out of it. Besides. Who’s going to check? The birdcalling police?” She and Sparks fist-bump, ending in two hands flying away.

  * * *

  So here is what happens.

  We do an analysis of the types of talented fans that Ellen has picked to appear on her show. From there, we create a prediction matrix to better guess which talents she’s likely to book on her show as each week goes by.

  Sparks opens an Instagram account for our urban gray-breasted plover jay of prey. We get hits. We Photoshop our jay of prey’s natural urban habitat. (The UGBPJP prefers the Key Food and Trader Joe’s roofs for nesting. More chances to dive for free samples.) Most importantly we study the art of making ugly faces, as well as the timing of unpredictable bird sounds. In no time, our UGBPJP sounds like the Mister Softee ice cream truck song, a volunteer ambulance truck, and the phlegm-clearing old guy across the street who is also my 6:45 alarm. We practice like maniacs. All together, we create bird pandemonium.

  After two months of dedicated practice we compete for the national birdcalling championship. Our entry is swiftly disqualified.

  That’s okay. We move on to phase two of our grand plan to get into Prep. We shoot this incredible submission tape and send it to Ellen. According to our talent prediction matrix, we should get a call from Ellen’s producers within the next three weeks. Tops.

  The producers from Ellen do not call.

  Still, it turns out our matrix was pretty good. We know this because we snuck out to the media center and turned on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and who are Ellen’s special talented fan guests? A group of local amateur birdcallers. How local? One block south of the street where we live. No doubt we inspired them. They’re boring though. They just make pigeon noises.