Chapter 7
It’s been two weeks since the lousy birthday weekend. It’s finally the last lousy day of sixth grade, but is that stopping our English teacher, Mr. Wistler, from trying to stuff one last thing into our brains? No. It is hopeless. Everyone ignores his voice.
I am restless at my desk, wishing I could just slide through the window glass and get started on my flip-flop tan line. Not that my summer is going to be so spectacular. A dull summer is still Problem 1. Same old Houston with the grandparents. Same boring life. Same. Same. Same.
Here are the ingredients of a typical boring Sarah Nelson summer:
- Drive straight to Houston. Do not stop for anything interesting, like World’s Largest Boot, Exit E, or Peanut Buster Parfait at Dairy Queen.
- Arrive at grandparents’ house and immediately check the Weather Channel.
- Observe Grandma standing at kitchen window for hours trying to match blue and black socks.
- Go to Mayor’s Meeting downtown because free dinner will be served and wouldn’t it be fun to hear a public official speak? (Answer: No.)
- Finally arrive at fun day, where Grandma pulls out sewing kit and together we make a stuffed animal such as a red camel with black fringe and she tells me how pretty I am. (Why can’t we fast-forward to this part of the summer?)
- Conclude summer with embarrassing shopping trip to mall with Grandma, who buys me little-girl dresses I will never wear, unless there is an awful-dress contest, which I would win, no problem.
That is all I have to look forward to. That and starting my investigation into Problem 2: the dreaded seventh-grade Family Tree Project.
In the meantime, Mr. Wistler keeps talking in that way adults do when they think they are doing you a favor by sharing their intelligence. It’s like their own voice is a favorite song. Mr. Wistler goes on and on about “our texting generation,” how we know how to think only with our thumbs, how technology is giving way to a condensed language our grandmothers wouldn’t recognize, devoid of vowels.
“Would you write this way when you’re in front of a computer?” he wants to know. “Or dare I say, have an actual pencil and paper in your hands?”
I inspect my toes, deciding which color I should paint them next, purple or light pink. I like purple better, but it shows all your mistakes if you color outside the lines of your nails, which I sometimes do.
Then Mr. Wistler writes on the blackboard:
Tht wus 2GTBT. OMG! NE1 can c she shrd WTMI ROTFL!!!!!!! GOT 2 GO MOS BCNU
And of course, seeing this written in chalk by a teacher is hilarious, so we have to laugh a tiny bit.
“So I challenge you to write letters to someone, anyone, all summer long. Write with actual words and vowels. Write a story. Write a book of poetry. Anything. It just has to include correctly spelled words. The way they spell them in the dictionary!”
Ha! I already know how to do that, Mr. W.
“Now before you start saying, ‘OMG, Mr. Wistler, are you serious,’ just hear me out. I can’t give you a grade, because I won’t be your teacher next year. So I am offering a reward. A prize!
“Anyone who shows me evidence of actual consistent writing at the beginning of next school year will receive an iPod Nano.”
He holds up a shiny plastic case with a green iPod inside. It’s possibility wrapped in plastic. I want it.
Someone in the class says the idea is stupid. Good, I think. One less person to compete with.
“It’s stupid,” Mr. Wistler says. “I wonder how you’d text your thoughts. Could you write a complete sentence? Or, is there an acronym for it?”
“Uncool,” says Dale Baker. “That’s what we’d say.”
“Interesting,” says Mr. Wistler. “Well, you see, we have a problem. I love to read, and I’m standing in a room full of the next generation of writers. Will I need a special English-to-text dictionary to figure out what your story is about?
“I want you to try this. You write texts to your friends and don’t even blink. I’m asking you to write letters, adding in events, things you noticed, how the change of season makes you feel, the scent of flowers. Imagine living in India with a monkey. Be happy just for lemonade on a hot day. Pretend you are a stranger in your own house and you just noticed a crack in the ceiling. Could it be a door to an unknown room? Write letters to someone you see across a restaurant. Maybe a famous person, dead or alive.
“Or even letters to your favorite characters in books or movies. Ask them questions about their life. Their choices. What if Harry Potter came to Texas? Tell him why you like him so much. Write about why he is interesting to you. Pretend you will meet him, or any other character, at the end of the summer. Let your mind be curious and blissfully acronym-free.”
I look around the room. You can just tell that every person in here is now going to write to Harry Potter.
Mr. Wistler says, “And if you don’t know anyone, you can write to me. Just be warned, I might write you back!”
“Do we have to do this?” Jimmy Leighton asks.
If you want to know, Jimmy Leighton is the one boy in the entire school who I wish noticed me.
By the way, he’s not really in a relationship with Emma Rodriguez. She was just writing fiction on her Facebook page, probably wishing it were so. I don’t blame her. Jimmy has the yellowest blond hair and is probably the best-dressed guy in the school.
When I see him, my mind pushes everyone else to the background and pictures him walking in slow motion. That is how nice he is to look at. He had his own Facebook page, and I used to go stare at him there because I could do it in private. But a lot of kids wrote stupid stuff, like he was gay, just because he wore a vest one day, so he took the page down. Seriously, I wish Lucas McCain could come to our school and talk sense to people.
Mr. Wistler tries to explain what he wants to Jimmy Leighton, but I am thinking, Oh, you could write to me, Jimmy. Write to me! I like vests!
“Mr. Leighton, I cannot make you do this, but I hope you will try.”
Mr. Wistler paces the floor now, his hands deep in his pockets. The only time I ever remember him being this agitated was when we read The Giver. He then lifts up a big box and starts tossing out composition books to all of us.
“Now, open this book and begin. Write your first sentences of an actual letter or story, and show it to me on the way out the door so I will know I am not just talking to myself, PLZ.”
There are so many groans from the class you can’t even count them. “I don’t know what to write,” they all say again. “I can’t think of anything, Mr. Wistler. You’re killing me.” “Mr. Wistler, you’re such a buzzkill.”
And then Mr. Wistler says, “Most people don’t know what they truly think until they write it down. Don’t you want to know what you truly think?”
The composition book he tossed on my desk is green, which I take as a sign I am going to win the iPod. I can hear the music. This is easy. I already write more than I talk. I stare at the blank page. The pale blue lines scream to be filled. I bite the eraser on my pencil, wondering what in the world it would be like to live in India with a monkey who drinks lemonade while a tornado passes overhead. There is a giant crack in the ceiling of our hallway at home, and it leads to the attic and all sorts of spiders. There is a good story hiding up there.
Before you can say summer, I start writing. And what Mr. Wistler said is true. I didn’t know I had this thought.
Dear Mary,
I have a question for you. Does someone remind you it’s my birthday, or do you know the date by heart because I don’t think you do? And also I’m curious how you spend your own birthday. Do they have cake where you live?
Writing Dear Mary was smart, so no one will know what I am talking about. In crime movies, this is called hiding something in plain sight. The problem is, my body didn’t want my brain to think this thought, because my neck goes hot and red. I look up from my composition book. Mr. Wistler is smiling. At me. Does he know my secret? I sup
pose it’s possible. Or part of it. Today, however, I might have blown my whole cover, as they also say in crime movies.
I tear the page out, fold it in half, and stuff it in the back of the composition book. Hurry up, I say to myself. Write something else!
My hand moves as fast as I can make it go.
Dear Atticus Finch,
I am writing to you for a class assignment given to me by the greatest English teacher ever, Mr. G. Wistler. He had the idea that we should choose a character to write to. I can’t say for certain, but I think I’m the only one writing to you. That is good for me. Most of my classmates are writing to Harry Potter and Lucy Moon. Maybe you’ve met them at the library. When I was little, I used to think that when the library closed, all the characters came out of the books.
Anyway, I have to admit I didn’t read about you first. You probably know that a movie has been made from the book about you. I watched you late one night when my father was watching the movie To Kill a Mockingbird. He said it was a good story. Then he fell asleep halfway through, but I kept watching. This was about a year ago. There were so many things to like about the story. Then I found out we had a paperback copy of the book in the house. I read it in four days.
Mr. Wistler said we should tell you what we thought was the most interesting thing about the character we chose. He said we should think of one or two questions we’d ask you if we had the chance to sit with you at the breakfast table and talk. The biggest question that comes into my head is, Why did you decide to represent Tom Robinson? I know you said in the book that it was the right thing to do. People don’t always do the right thing, though. The way I know something is the right thing to do is if I write down all my choices and then circle the one that is the hardest. The hardest is almost always the right thing to do. But it is the one that can get you in trouble, too. I wonder if you did the same thing. I would like to ask you, Did you sit on your front porch and list all your choices about representing Tom Robinson? Did you know ahead of time that people would call you names and make fun of you? To me, you made the right choice. That is why you are so compelling to me. Also, I like the way you talk to your children, Scout and Jem. I would like to have breakfast with all of you.
Sincerely,
Sarah Nelson
The bell rings. Only a few kids let Mr. Wistler look at their first sentence. There will be a pile of empty composition books in the hallway trash can, you can bet.
Mr. Wistler reads my letter and hands the composition book back to me like it is something fragile. “Hmmm,” he says. “Now this is an interesting letter, especially the part about the great English teacher. I hope you’ll keep writing, Sarah. I like how you write.”
“Thank you.” I take the book, head toward the door.
“Hey, Sarah,” he says. I turn back and see him holding the iPod. He tosses it in the air, and I miraculously catch it. I’ve never caught a ball or anything in my life.
“Don’t tell anyone,” he says with a wink.
I say thank you, but it comes out like a whisper.
“Now go have the best summer of your life,” he says.
Ha! That’s the hardest assignment he could give me. At least now, my boring summer can have its own sound track.
I walk into the hallway, feeling weird. In the first trash bin, I spot a couple of composition books. I hope no one is looking, and I grab them, opening the first one.
DEAR HARRY POTTER,
I stuff them into my backpack along with the iPod.
I pack up my locker, gathering mostly junk and bits of paper, down to the last piece of gum. No evidence left behind. I consider the composition book again and pray I don’t die on the way home where some ambulance worker would find the Dear Mary letter hidden there. At least let me get home, God, so I can tear it up into a million pieces.
Chapter 8
I have to be careful with Lisa. You could say she is my best friend, but when you hardly have any friends, best is relative. She is a friend and she is there, and if I didn’t have any girlfriends, I would stand out like a blue sunflower. She says she can tell things about a girl by the way her neck is tilted.
So when she comes up to me and asks, “What’s up with you? You’re blushing. OMG, did you get a note from a boy?” I have to straighten out my neck and say, “No way.”
Lisa’s smile is accessorized by supershiny pink lip gloss today, her hair pulled away from her face by a neat plaid headband. I’ve never seen her unhappy. I like that about her. If Lisa were a color, she would be yellow.
Also, she gave me a pair of earrings for my birthday.
Earrings. For pierced ears.
She is such a teaser.
She said, “Now he’ll have to let you get them pierced.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Just try.”
What she doesn’t know about my dad could fill a book. A book Lisa would never read.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” she says in the fast and breathless way she has. Another thing about Lisa is she usually wants to be at the next place, not where she actually is.
So we sprint out of the school, talking fast about her fun plans to go away to camp and would I write her and “don’t forget our pact to have French-kissed a boy by the end of the summer, text me as soon as it happens.” She is set on this kind of kiss for some reason, as if it will change her life. She thinks it will show on the outside after it happens, make her seem older, hold her head differently.
I’m not so sure this is so, and even if it is, why would you want the world to know your business? Personally, I would rather have a boy notice the book I was reading and tell me he liked it, too. That seems like a better sign of caring about someone than a kiss some French guy invented.
Mr. Wistler, my new favorite person on the planet, says giving characters a lot of experiences makes them interesting. What I think is, this must be so in real life, too, so I’m going to try to add variety to myself this summer, and a French kiss would sure be different, which is the reason it’s on my list. It will be hard to do. How I will find someone to kiss while I’m banished to my grandparents’ house for the entire summer, I have no idea. They don’t even have a lawn boy.
Lisa meets her mother at the car line, and I head for the bus line.
It’s a party on wheels inside the bus today. Well, it’s the last day, after all. And the last bus ride, which if I were a person who says “Thank God!” all the time, I would say “Thank God this is the last day I have to ride a bus!” I would rather walk the whole way home, but no, that will never happen, because of my dad and his “concerns about my safety.” He should ride on the bus, and then he would have real concerns about my safety.
For example, people usually smell bad and are not nice to new kids, especially if you are a lowly sixth grader. When you’re a sixth grader, kids don’t have to have any good reason to bother you other than your age. The good thing about being me is I’ve learned how to find the Darts on the bus before they get me. Darts is a private word I made up.
Darts n.: kids who find a person’s weakness and go out of their way to be mean
I can use this word and insult them without them knowing. Besides, it fits. I picture their mean words flying through the air and stabbing the person they’re hurled at. Darts are not hard to pick out. They like to have an audience, and they come in sets of two or three. They have whatever is the New Thing before anyone else. They talk loudly. They think they know everything. And they don’t bring their lunch, which makes me want to ask, Where is your mother? But I don’t. I stay invisible like always.
Especially today.
There are two Darts on my bus: Mark Medina and Daryl Land. They would love to steal my iPod or make fun of my letter to Atticus or both if they knew about them. It is a good thing these are hidden in the supersecret compartment of my backpack. Daryl is the leader of a whole group of Darts. He has a green camo backpack, and his shoes don’t have laces, which I guess he thinks is cool. I think it’s
kind of dorky, but I would never say this out loud.
At the beginning of the year, there was a new kid named Russell. I could have told Russell his clarinet case with a Boy Scout sticker on it was going to get him pinged with darts, but I didn’t say anything. Daryl Land called him a doofus and a wuss. Russell stood there for a moment and then pushed his way past, but Daryl shoved him right into a seat and threw his case down. Russell tried to talk, but whatever he was thinking took about an hour to say because he stuttered. This was bad for him because Daryl drowned him in insults.
It got so bad I got mad at Russell for not defending himself, for not just finding another way to go home, another ride. But I guess the difference between me and Russell is, I have a garage full of packing boxes ready to fill if we need to leave. Plus, I am a coward. I see Russell getting hurt and I do nothing because I’d rather it be him than me.
Today, Russell isn’t on the bus. You have to wonder if Russell loves summer and being off a bus more than anything in the world.
I live two blocks from where the school bus lets me off. I want to take off my sandals and walk on the newly cut grass, feel the start of summer under my feet, maybe follow the warm tar lines in the middle of the street. Plus, this will be the last time I will get to be completely alone for a while. I am tired of fighting with my dad about being sent away all summer. It is no use.
This is what happened last night.
At dinner, he’d said, “We need to start making our summer plans.” He didn’t look at me when he said it. He’d just stared at the menu. We’d gone out to eat because somebody forgot to go to the grocery store and no one wanted a can of soup.
“I guess so,” I said, trying hard to think how I could convince him I was old enough to stay at home. Since my dad is a professor, he is trained to find the holes in arguments. You have to be careful, say short sentences that don’t give too much information.
Sure Signs of Crazy Page 3