by Gene Fehler
“He let us read our poems out loud if we wanted to,” I say, “but he didn’t make us read.”
“You read yours, didn’t you?” Ginny says.
“No way.”
I like it that Mr. Gallagher doesn’t force anybody to read their poems. I mean, I don’t mind writing personal stuff, but I don’t want the whole class to hear it. That’s why I didn’t read my poem about getting the winning hit and Mama and Dad not coming to the game. I didn’t mind if Mr. Gallagher saw it, but no way was I going to read it out loud.
“You should read them,” Ginny says. “I thought everything you wrote was great. You should let the class hear them.”
“Some of them are too personal. I can’t read those.”
Mr. Gallagher said he was going to type some of our poems and make copies so we could enjoy the poems written by other class members and learn from them. He said he wouldn’t type the poems that had NO written at the top of the page.
I made sure that most of mine had a big NO at the top.
I tell Ginny how Mr. Gallagher had us write a lot of other things today. Some were three-line poems. He told us not to use rhyme. He said our poems were a kind of haiku, but that we didn’t have to use the 5 – 7 – 5 syllable pattern that a traditional haiku uses.
I wrote about a girl on the tennis court.
On the green tennis court
Yellow fuzzy balls skip
Into the twang of catgut strings.
The neatest thing was: when Mr. Gallagher came around to see our work he said he liked it! He said, “You have some good images—your colors, the sound of the ball.” He liked my verb ‘skip.’ He said, “Some writers would have said ‘bounce’; ‘skip’ is a more unusual choice. When you’re writing, try to come up with the unusual. Don’t always use the same words everybody else would use.” Then he asked me, “Do you play much tennis?”
“Some,” I said. “Mostly with my family or my friend Ginny. My mom played in college, and she taught me how to play.”
“Kate’s good,” Allison said. “She could play in tournaments if she wanted to.”
I like Allison a lot. She’s a year older than me and we go to different schools, so I don’t get a chance to spend much time with her, but we go to the same church. She’s been in the same youth group as Ginny and me for a couple years. It was nice of Allison to say that, but I don’t think I’m that good.
“Pretty impressive, Kate,” Mr. Gallagher said. “I hope you’ll write some more poems about tennis.” Then he said, “That’s something I hope each of you will do: write about the things that interest you most. You all have talents and interests that would be fun for others to read about. That’s what poetry is all about—sharing with others how you feel about things.”
Then some other kids read more three-liners. I wasn’t surprised at the poem Allison read. She titled it, “My Favorite Book.”
God’s word beside my pillow
Filling me with peace
God’s words of peace for me.
One thing about Allison, she’s not afraid or embarrassed to let people know how she feels about God. I wish I could be that open. I go to Sunday School and church every week. I’m active in all the church’s youth activities. And I love God. I really do. But I pretty much keep how I feel about him to myself. I admire Allison for being strong enough to let people know how she feels, especially when she gets teased by some people for being “goody-goody.” It doesn’t even seem to bother her when people say that about her.
Another thing about Allison, she never puts others down if they don’t believe the way she does about God.
Mr. Gallagher had us write a lot of other things, not just the three-line poems. Every few minutes he’d switch to something new, so class never got boring. He read some of his own poems, and he read poems by Robert Frost and Shel Silverstein and some other poets I’d never heard of. But the way he read made all of them sound good.
The final poem we worked on before the class ended for the day was what Mr. Gallagher called an Expansion Poem. We had to take one of our three-line poems and make it longer by adding details to it. We could describe the place in more detail or add other people or show more of the action. We could tell how the people were feeling. We could make it into a little story if we wanted to.
I’d written six different three-line poems, and the one I decided to expand was my tennis poem.
On the green tennis court
Yellow fuzzy balls skip
Into the twang of catgut strings.
We dance to the music,
My mother and me, together
On one side of the net.
Across the net my dad and brother
Stumble amid the sound of laughter
Trying to return our powerful shots.
Finally, they sprawl down in defeat,
Faces red and puffing on the green court,
While Mama and me, tanned and fresh,
Barely breathing hard at all,
Jump the net to congratulate them
For a good try.
Well, that’s not exactly how our tennis matches always turn out. Mama and I aren’t always partners, and I don’t always win. But Mr. Gallagher said a poem doesn’t have to be true. A poem is one time when it’s all right to lie, he said. Except he didn’t call it lying; he called it “changing reality.” The main thing, he said, is that you should just have fun writing a poem.
I had fun writing my tennis story poem, even though it wasn’t a “beautiful” poem like Mama suggested. Even so, I think it’s one she’ll like when I show it to her.
“Hey,” I say to Ginny, “I’ve been rattling on about my day. Tell me about yours. What was your class like?”
Ginny laughs. “Oh Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” she says in a real dramatic voice. Then, in her normal voice, she says, “I’m glad your class was fun. You know about Romeo and Juliet, by Shakespeare?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Well, this afternoon I got to play a scene as Juliet.”
She bus pulls up, and as we walk up the aisle toward the front of the bus, Ginny is already on stage: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
One of the girls up ahead turns around and smiles. “Go girl!” she calls out.
I can’t even begin to picture myself on stage speaking lines like Ginny does. I’m happier than ever I’m in Mr. Gallagher’s creative writing class.
Six
a change of plans
The bus stop is almost halfway between our two houses. Instead of going our separate ways, we both walk to Ginny’s. Mama has arranged for me to stay with her every afternoon until the three-week class is over. Mama and Dad both work until about five o’clock and they don’t want me and Ken home alone all that time. They’ve arranged for Ken to spend the day at one of several places: the ballfield, the swimming pool, or a friend’s house. Mama and Dad have a permanent arrangement with Mrs. Loden from across the street to be Ken’s “daytime mom.” Ken has his own cell phone and has to let her know where he is, even if he’s at home.
Ken doesn’t like that arrangement much, but Dad told him, “Think about it. It’s better than the alternative.” Which would be for him to have an actual babysitter. Ken realizes he has more freedom this way. And the thought of him having a babysitter makes him so mad his ears turn red.
Mrs. Loden is about my grandmother’s age. I don’t know if they’re paying her or she does it just because she’s a nice neighbor and hardly ever goes anywhere.
A few minutes after I get to Ginny’s I get a phone call from Mama.
“How was school?” she says.
“Great! Today was the most fun yet.”
“I’m glad,” she says, but her voice sounds kind of funny. Not funny funny, but different somehow. There’s something in her voice that makes me think something’s wrong. “I’d like you to come home now,” she says. “I would have called you earlier, but t
his was something your dad and I decided on at the last minute.”
“What’s up?”
“A picnic. The four of us are driving to the lake for a picnic.”
She means Corbin Lake. It’s only about ten miles away. We go there to swim a lot.
“Now? Aren’t you at work?”
“You dad and I both got off early today, just so we could have this picnic.”
It seems a little strange to me. They hardly ever leave work early. Yesterday she was too sick to come to my game, and today she leaves work to go to a picnic. That’s not like Mama.
“Can I bring Ginny?”
“Not today,” she says. “Next time, for sure.”
Things are getting weirder all the time. She usually doesn’t mind if I bring Ginny along whenever we go somewhere.
When I tell Ginny and her mom that Mama wants me at home, Ginny says, “Too bad. I was going to play my new Lisalette Krebs CD for you.”
I don’t tell her about the picnic. She might not understand why she’s not invited. Since I don’t really understand either, I decide it’s better not to even tell her.
I run home fast. Dad is tying a rope around the inner tubes we always take to the lake with us. They’re big—too big to fit inside our van. Mama is carrying out a cooler. I can guess what’s inside: hamburgers, hot dogs, tomatoes, relish, onions, jello squares, cans of soda. I would guess potato salad, but probably not today. If Mama just got home from work, she probably wouldn’t have had time to make it. Along with the marshmallows, Ken is carrying a bag of potato chips.
Dad must have seen the puzzled look on my face. He says, “It’s too nice a day to spend working.”
I’m not used to seeing Dad dressed like this on a weekday. He almost always wears a suit, or at least a pair of slacks and nice shirt and a tie and sport coat. Today he’s wearing faded blue jeans, sneakers, and a tattered t-shirt he picked up at a yard sale. The shirt is gray with the word DOGS in red print. On the front of the shirt are faces of four dogs. The back of the shirt shows the same four dogs from behind.
“Hurry up,” Ken urges. “I can hardly wait to get to the water.”
Dad laughs. “And that food, I imagine.”
“That, too,” Ken says. He says to me, “Come on, slowpoke.”
It’s a strange day. But all I say is, “Do I have time to go to the bathroom and get my swimming suit?”
Mama smiles. “Of course. The lake will wait for us.”
I go inside. From the living room window I see the three of them outside our van, and it looks like a normal family outing.
Except it sure doesn’t feel like one.
Seven
the picnic
Three things I like best about Corbin Lake: it’s close enough to home that we can go there a lot, it has a sandy beach and sandy bottom that makes it nicer than lakes with sharp rocks that poke your feet, and the water is almost the perfect temperature in the summer. On a hot day like today, you want to stay in forever.
What’s even better about today is it’s a weekday and we’re about the only ones here. We have the lake practically to ourselves. On summer weekends it’s pretty crowded.
We float for awhile on our inner tubes. Then Dad calls out, “Time for a game of Keep-Away Frisbee!”
We take the inner tubes up by our picnic table and divide into teams. Dad and I are on one team, Ken and Mama on the other. We’re all good swimmers, so the teams are evenly matched. In the shallow water I love to crouch and time my leap so I can shoot up over Ken’s back and snatch the Frisbee inches before he can grab it.
After fifteen minutes of Keep-Away and the joy of dunking Ken at least a dozen times, we all swim out to the raft.
“When do we eat?” Ken says. “That made me hungry. Especially with Kate landing on my back all the time and practically drowning me.”
“That’s just because you don’t have my strength and stamina,” I say. “You can’t keep up with me.”
“Yeah? Race you around the raft!”
We jump off. Ken gets the inside track. The only thing that keeps him from winning is that I grab his foot on the final turn, pulling him under. While he gasps for air, I swim to victory.
“Not fair!” he protests. He pleads his case to Mama and Dad. “You saw it!”
Mama smiles. “Do you need an umpire?”
I know how an umpire would have called it. “I guess not,” I say. “I guess you might have won, little brother, in a fair race.”
“Might have? I was so far ahead, it was awesome!”
“Well,” Mama says, “after that awesome victory, I guess you deserve some dinner. I’ll swim back and get it ready.”
“I’ll help,” I tell her.
“No, that’s okay,” Dad says. “I’ll help your mother. I know about your help. You’d help by eating all the marshmallows. Untoasted. And not have any room left for hamburgers.” He winks and dives off the raft.
“There’s always room for hamburgers!” I call after him.
Ken and I sit on the edge of the raft, dangling our feet into the water. The water seems cooler at the raft’s edge, but not cold. Just right. I watch Mama spreading food on a tablecloth. Dad stands next to the grill.
“What do you think’s wrong?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“You saw them last night. And this morning. Mama seemed…different.”
“Different? You’re crazy.” Ken lifts his right foot and slaps it down onto the water, splashing drops upward into a miniature fountain.
“Maybe,” I say. “But I’m worried about them.”
“You always worry too much. Everything’s cool. We’re having a picnic. I mean, they got off work early just so we could come here.”
“That’s what I mean. Doesn’t that seem strange to you? Have they ever taken off work before so we could go on a picnic?”
Ken’s only answer is a shrug.
Mama waves to us, and we dive from the raft and swim to shore. We learned to swim almost before we could walk. We’ve always done athletic things together as a family—softball, tennis, swimming, golf. I have good friends I like to be with, but my favorite times are when our family does things together. I’m lucky. Not many of my friends can say that about their parents, except maybe Ginny.
I know it’s silly to worry when there probably isn’t anything wrong, but I still can’t shake the feeling that things aren’t right.
Eight
the talk
After we finish eating, we all sprawl out on a big blanket Dad brought, one big enough for all four of us with room still left over. I’m stuffed from all the burgers and marshmallows. I don’t know what I was so worried about. The day has been great. I can’t imagine how it could be better. For one thing, class was really fun. The weather is perfect. We had the lake to ourselves earlier. Since we got out of the water a few others have come, but it’s still not very crowded.
Today’s picnic was something I didn’t expect, but it’s nice that Mama and Dad came home from work early so we could all come here. Ken has the right idea. Why worry when there’s nothing to worry about?
I haven’t written my new poems for Monday yet, but I’m not worried about that, either. I have the whole weekend and I know I can get at least two or three new poems out of what’s happened at this picnic. I already have one in mind, how a big army of ants dropped down on our food. That didn’t happen, but I think it will make a good poem. I think I’ll write another one that is true, about my race with Ken.
Dad interrupts my thoughts. He clears his throat and says, “Kate. Ken. We have some bad news. We’ve wondered about the best way to tell you.” He pauses. Then he says, “But there isn’t a best way.”
I suddenly feel chilled all over, like somebody poured ice water over me. That great feeling I had a few seconds ago is gone. It’s like somebody just flicked a switch. There’s something in his voice I’ve never heard before. Something that scares me.
I look at Dad, but I can’
t make eye contact with him. His eyes don’t stay on any one thing. They move back and forth from the ground, the lake, the picnic table. Everywhere but us. I try to imagine what the bad news is. How bad can it possibly be? It can’t be a divorce. A lot of my classmates’ parents have gotten divorced, but I know mine never will. They love each other too much.
I hope we’re not going to move. I’ve lived in the same house practically forever. All my good friends live close by. I wonder if something’s happened to Grandma or Grandpa.
“We don’t know quite how to tell you, and we thought being together here at the lake might be the best way…”
Now I’m really scared by the way his eyes look, by the trouble he’s having trying to talk. I see Mama’s eyes meet Dad’s, and I see her give a quick nod of her head.
I can only stare at her. I feel Ken beside me. I can’t see his face, but I can hear his silence. It’s like he’s stopped breathing. Or maybe it’s me who has stopped breathing. I feel almost like I’m a dream. I wait for someone to say something. Maybe when somebody finally speaks again, I’ll wake up and whatever Dad had said about bad news will be nothing more than the end of a bad dream.
I’m surprised to hear my own voice: “What bad news?”
Mama’s body seems to stiffen. “I have cancer.”
The word pounds me like a tidal wave. I feel myself drowning. I take a deep breath, trying to stay above the water.
I can’t even force myself to speak. Then I hear Ken’s voice. It seems far away. “Hannah, from my class at school—her dad had cancer last year, and he’s fine now.”
Silence seems to grow into an ocean, and I feel myself in the middle of it, surrounded by waves twenty feet high.
Mama is sitting on the blanket now. She’s leaning against Dad. His arm is around her shoulder. She looks the same as she’s always looked. She doesn’t look sick. How can you have cancer and not look sick?