Looking sullen, Kent scowls at the floor.
I do my routine again and make my basket.
“Kent three, Franny four,” Mr. Bazinet says into the microphone.
Time for the last round.
The gym feels like it is full of crackling electricity. The kids are standing in the bleachers. “Kent, Kent, Kent,” a few boys chant as Kent steps up to the line. His big hands take the ball; he bounces it once; he shoots.
Swish.
The crowd cheers, but their cheering grows even louder as I step up to the line.
With a scowl, Kent passes me the ball and then steps back. It’s four to four. All I have to do is make this basket, and I win.
I bounce the ball three times, not looking at the hoop. I can feel sweat prickling on the back of my neck.
I bend my knees, and the crowd falls absolutely silent, waiting . . .
I bounce the ball again and look at the hoop.
The round, orange hoop, framed by the white backboard. The rest of the stuffy, crowded gym fades away.
I take a deep breath.
I shoot.
The ball leaves my hands and makes a smooth arc toward the basket.
As the ball soars through the air, I think of Babe Didrikson. When Babe was challenged to punch Red Reynolds, he thought she couldn’t hit him because she was a girl. Well, Babe wound up and hit Ray so hard that she knocked him out.
The ball completes its arc.
Swish.
It goes through the hoop.
I win.
• • •
Everybody in the gym goes completely crazy, of course, whooping and stomping on the metal bleachers, and clapping and cheering.
Mr. Bazinet looks as if he’s swallowed a frog.
A bunch of kids surge out of the stands to give me a high five or a hug, or pat me on the back—or on the top of my head—and Pip stands nearby, grinning his face off.
Holding the ball, Kent comes up to me with Max at his shoulder. “Good job, Franny,” he admits.
I hold out my fist.
Max nudges him, and with his old half smile in place, Kent gives me a fistbump.
And then the final bell rings, and the Girl Project is over.
Or maybe it’s not.
I know that I’m one person, and I can’t change the world. But I can change a little piece of it. I can make a lot of noise when I see something that isn’t fair. Maybe I’ll be doing the Girl Project for my entire life.
Mike Winchell
LUNCH AND RECESS
Teachers giving you step-by-step instructions, every minute of each class period planned out. Principals and hall monitors watching your every move in the hallway, controlled by policies and rules. These are all important parts of school, but sometimes they can make you feel like you don’t have much freedom.
During lunch and recess, though, the way you spend your time is up to you. And as C. Alexander London, Vince and Nate Evans, and Varian Johnson show us, sometimes that’s a good thing—and sometimes that’s a bad thing.
C. Alexander London
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
A GIANT AMONG ANTS
When I was in fourth grade, I was a king among ants.
Literally.
There was this dirt patch next to the open blacktop where we had recess. There wasn’t much of a playground, and I wasn’t much of a player. Early in a brutal back-and-forth game of dodgeball one afternoon, I was eliminated (thankfully!) and took up my preferred place by the patch of dirt. On this particular day, my friend Eric and I found a piece of wood stuck in the dirt and we pried it out to see if it was anything worth playing with.
It wasn’t.
But by pulling it out, we revealed a canyon filled with ant holes and anthills swarming with big black ants. We’d uncovered an entire subterranean ant city! For days after the discovery, we would stand around this canyon and watch the ants bustling to and fro.
I made up stories about the ants and spent my free time (and a lot of class time) creating a newspaper based on the imagined happenings in the ant city. There was a mayor and a general who I placed in a heated public feud over expanding the colony, and there was a weekly column written by the ant queen. There was also an ever-present fear of the “Red Menace”—a term I believed I’d invented to describe the violent red ants that lived under the tree on the other side of the blacktop.
Soon, I grew bored with merely watching and imagining. I wanted to get involved in the life of my ant city. I placed a twig in a mound of dirt just above the canyon and called it a temple. I plucked a caterpillar from a tree and smashed its head with a pebble, letting its green gooey guts spill out. Then I impaled the unfortunate creature as a gift to the citizens, who ascended from the canyon to eat the generous meal I’d given them. One caterpillar could feed a hundred of these ants.
I wondered what the ants imagined about me, the giver of violent gifts from above.
My stories drew the attention of other kids. They gathered around to watch my caterpillar sacrifices, to celebrate the swarms of ant citizens that had come to feed, and the kids wanted their own chance to smash a caterpillar.
My rule was absolute, however, and I didn’t want to confuse my ant subjects: Only I could smash the caterpillars for my ants.
A boy named Agedi soon decided he’d had enough of my rule over the ant colony, and he started a second civilization with the red ants under the tree across the blacktop. He made up his own stories, sacrificed his own caterpillars, and ruled the red ants as I ruled the black ants. The busy blacktop sat like an ocean between us.
But history shows that oceans demand to be crossed.
Soon, my sacrifices moved from the temple. I would place a caterpillar to the left of the little twig, and the ants would devour it. Then another farther to the left, and they would go to that. I lured them farther and farther from their canyon every day. I lured them across the blacktop one caterpillar at a time. They’d gotten so used to the easy food, it seemed like most didn’t hesitate to follow in a long ant column. I lured them straight to the home of the red ants.
Not all survived the journey. It was recess, and many were stomped and crushed beneath the uncaring sneakers of boys at play. But for those ants who survived the journey all the way across the blacktop, I was sure glory would be theirs.
“WAR BREAKS OUT! INVASION OF THE REDS BEGINS!” read the headline on the newspaper I drew in my notebook during social studies that day. I couldn’t wait for recess to see what had happened now that I’d led my ants to war. Agedi was curious, too, and we raced outside to witness the battle.
It was over when we got there. A few black ants remained, but they were scattered all around the roots of the tree, and for every single one of them, there were a dozen red ants. The red ants had swarmed and destroyed the black ants without mercy. I saw columns of tiny red ants carrying my black ones away on their backs, vanishing into their holes in a straight line, grim victory marches after a war well won.
I ran across the blacktop, dodging balls better than I ever did when I was actually playing dodgeball, and I found that my canyon was now empty. One or two stray black ants skittered around the temple twig, and another two or three wandered in the ruins of their colony, but the spark of life was gone.
Across the blacktop Agedi and his friends had moved on, but I stood a minute longer over my once mighty city, and it broke my heart. I knew I was responsible for its destruction, but I didn’t know exactly why. I’d led my ants to slaughter and I hadn’t even witnessed the battle. There’d be no point in even drawing a newspaper after recess, because what ant was left to read it? (As if the ants had ever read it at all.)
Soon, Eric stood beside me.
“The ants are gone?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” I told him.
“Oh, well . . . tag!” he yell
ed, slapping my shoulder. “You’re it!”
And then he ran, and I didn’t hesitate to run after him.
I was “it” and had “it” responsibilities to attend to.
I wasn’t king of the ants anymore and never would be again.
C. Alexander London
THE STORY
ANTPOCALYPSE NOW
Antonio followed the Drone in front of him like he always followed the Drone in front of him. The Drone behind Antonio followed him the same way. They carried crumbs on their backs like they always carried crumbs on their backs.
For an ant with Antonio’s job, it was a day like any other.
Until one of the News Ants stood in his way, right in the center of the tunnel, and cried out a headline as loud as he could.
“Feast from the Skies! Food for all! The Great Giant has given us another gift!”
The ant in front of Antonio stopped short, so that Antonio smacked into his back, and they both dropped their crumbs.
“Sorry about that,” Antonio said.
“Oh don’t worry one bit!” the ant in front of him said, his antennae bouncing cheerily atop his head. “Who needs to carry crumbs when the Great Giant above gives us caterpillars? It’s a sugar-sweet day, my friend!”
Antonio didn’t like how the other ants called him friend when they didn’t even know his name. That was something about the ant colony that had made Antonio uncomfortable for as long as he could remember. Everyone assumed that he was just like them, that he thought the same way and talked the same way, and was content to do the same as everyone else did no matter what.
But Antonio felt different.
He wasn’t like the other ants in his colony, and he didn’t want to be. He wanted to be more than just a Drone, destined to carry food on his back his whole life, as if that was all he’d been born for. He didn’t feel bad about feeling different. He wanted to be different. He liked being different.
And that was the danger.
For a colony ant, being different was dangerous. Every ant was supposed to be the same and want the same things and like the same things.
And all the ants liked the caterpillars that the Great Giant kept leaving for them to feast upon.
Antonio didn’t think the Great Giant who brought the caterpillars was to be trusted. He had seen so many ants trapped under the feet of giants that he had to wonder: What made this one Great Giant want to feed the ants rather than crush them? Was the Great Giant different from all the other giants, merciful and generous to those much smaller than he?
Antonio doubted it. His own uncle had been crushed beneath a giant’s feet two seasons ago, and ever since, he didn’t trust any giant as far as he could throw him. And although he could carry one thousand times his body weight over his head like every other ant, he could not throw a giant. Not at all.
“Let’s go to the temple!” the other ant cheered and raced off for the surface above the colony. The ants behind Antonio also wanted to get to the surface where the caterpillar had appeared, impaled on a stick, and they charged forward. Antonio was swept up in the great surge, carried into the sunlight by the sheer excitement of his fellow ants. It wasn’t until they’d burst from underground and stood at the edge of their great canyon that he could step aside and let the others rush to where the caterpillar lay.
The caterpillar was a plump green beast, taller than three ants standing atop one another and longer than a dozen standing end to end. Its hairy back lay flat against the dirt with its belly pointed to the sky. Its head had been smashed so that the pale green goo of its guts leaked out. From that goo, the ants feasted. Some simply shoved their jaws full of the stuff, while others tore off chunks of the monster’s belly to carry on their backs into the colony, where babies in the nursery cried to be fed. Somewhere in the tunnels, the Queen herself sat upon her throne and waited for the choicest cuts of caterpillar to be brought by her Royal Tasters.
This caterpillar was several lengths away from the usual spot at the temple stick. Although none of the other ants seemed concerned, Antonio kept his distance, unsure what it meant that the giant had brought this caterpillar but had not put it near the temple.
“Hey!” someone shouted. “There’s another one!”
All antennae shifted, and indeed, several more lengths away, another caterpillar had been given to the ants, just like the first, with its head bashed in and green goo spilling out. It lay on its side, just at the edge of the great desert, where the giants’ shoes stomped and the heat shimmered up from the endless expanse of smooth black stone.
“A feast day for the ages!” the ants cheered, and a new line raced to feed on the second caterpillar. Some of the ants caught the scent of a third, out on the black stone itself, and a line had begun to zig and zag toward it. There were no giants around—they’d all gone inside to their great brick castle, where bells rang all day long.
“Hey, Antonio, what’s wrong? Not hungry?” His best friend, Antioch, stood beside him, chewing on a juicy piece of caterpillar. “It’s good,” he added, taking another bite. Pale green juice dribbled down his chin.
Antonio shrugged.
Antioch chewed loudly and spoke with his mouth full. “The giant who brings this food is super nice,” he said. “Look how much he brought today!”
A fourth caterpillar had been discovered, even farther across the blacktop, and more ants were pouring from the canyon to devour it. At this rate, every ant in the whole colony would be out on the blacktop, feasting.
Antonio feared the giant’s gruesome gifts.
“I don’t trust the giant,” Antonio told his friend.
Antioch dropped the plump green blob of guts, and his sharp jaws hung slack and open in shock.
“Shhh!” he scolded. “How can you say such thing?” He looked over his shoulder. “Don’t trust? No . . . you mustn’t say you don’t trust!”
Antonio shook his head. “I don’t think you should trust the giant, either. Look how far from home he’s leading everyone.”
Antioch glanced up and saw that the line of ants stretched to a sixth and then a seventh caterpillar, over halfway across the blacktop.
Even the Queen herself had come out, carried on her royal travel throne by her entourage of Royal Travel Throne Carriers.
Antioch looked back at Antonio and shook his head. “It’s not about trusting the giant,” Antioch warned him. “It’s about you. It’s about the colony. You can’t say you don’t trust the giant. Everyone trusts the giant.”
“But I’m different,” said Antonio.
“But your mistrust doesn’t hurt the giant, Antonio . . . it hurts us. It hurts all antkind.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“No it isn’t,” Antioch protested. “All of ant society relies on trust. Marching in a line takes trust that the ant in front of you knows where he’s going and that the ant behind you is following. Digging tunnels in the dirt takes trust that other ants are also digging so that the tunnels meet. All these tiny acts of trust from one ant to another add up to create our civilization. That’s all civilization is, anyway. Just tiny acts of trust from one ant to another over and over and over. Millions of acts of trust. So you saying you don’t trust the giant is like saying you don’t trust all the other ants who do trust the giant. Once ants stop trusting, well, it’ll all fall apart.”
Antonio shook his head. “We don’t have to think the same way to get along,” he said.
“We do,” said Antioch. “And I’m going to get some more caterpillar, just like everyone else. I hope you’ll join me.”
Antioch turned to go, but Antonio didn’t follow.
“Suit yourself,” said Antioch sadly. “Though I guess you always do.”
When Antioch had crossed the blacktop and disappeared into the swarm of other ants, Antonio turned and went back into the tunnels to wait for the strange f
east day to end.
He ground his jaws together; he grumbled to himself. His friend had no right to criticize him for being different. So what if he was different? The world wasn’t going to fall apart just because ants disagreed with each other once in a while, was it?
He heard shouting from above, almost as if the heavens were answering his unspoken question. There were cries and screams, too. His antennae prickled in the air. He sensed the vibrations of his colony, smelled the scent of their great feasting line, but he smelled another smell, too—the smell of blood. Ant blood.
Lots of it.
He raced back toward the surface, running through empty tunnels, turning this way and that, until he popped back into the sunlight and caught another smell with his antennae, a third, powerful smell that he had never smelled before yet knew immediately from instinct: Red Ants.
Elders of Antonio’s colony told the young ones nightmare stories about Red Ants:
If you don’t clean your tunnel, the Red Ants will carry you off while you sleep!
If you don’t bow to the Queen, the Red Ants will steal your food while you sleep!
If you don’t carry your load, the Red Ants will eat your head while you sleep!
Red Ants were smaller than Black Ants, but they were supposed to be stronger, and their jaws were sharper, their bites more ferocious, and their colonies warlike and terrible.
Antonio had always thought Red Ants were just stories used to scare children into behaving, but he knew now they were real. The Red Ants had come.
When he reached the edge of the great expanse of blacktop, he saw a sight for which his sense of smell could never have prepared him: A Red Ant colony pouring from the ground on the opposite side of the blacktop had met his Black Ant colony in battle beneath the scorching sun.
A few News Ants remained close to the edge of the blacktop, and one of them cried out what Antonio had feared: “WAR BREAKS OUT! INVASION OF THE REDS BEGINS!”
Been There, Done That Page 9