by Sally Warner
I wouldn’t mind a few of those silver stars on my ceiling.
Alfie is sitting cross-legged next to a tangled heap of dolls in front of the long mirror on her closet door. She’s watching herself play with one of the dolls. Alfie waves a pale, skinny doll arm in the air like it’s saying “Hi.”
“Come in, EllWay,” she tells me, not sounding very happy to see me. She can’t say my name right, but I know who she means. She goes back to watching herself play in the mirror.
“Watcha doin’?” I ask, collapsing next to her onto the shaggy rug. I can see Alfie’s new pink jacket stuffed way back under her bed. “Didn’t you like your tacos?”
“They were okay,” Alfie says, shrugging.
Alfie just puts cheese in her tacos. No meat, just cheese. But that’s her decision, and you should get to choose how boring you want to be in life.
“Look,” Alfie says, staring into the mirror as she waves her doll’s arm again. “It’s almost the same over there.”
“Over there” means in the mirror, I guess.
“It’s exactly the same,” I say. “Only it’s opposite, because you’re seeing a reflection in a mirror.”
“That’s not true. It’s not the same,” Alfie says, scowling. “Because this is my left hand, right?” she asks, holding her left hand up in the air. “Mom put a red rubber band around my wrist once, so I’d always memember.”
That’s Alfie-speak for “remember.”
“Right. I mean, correct,” I tell her, so we don’t get mixed up.
“But over there, for the mirror girl, it’s her right hand,” Alfie says.
“Correct. It’s opposite,” I chime in, only now I’m trying to sound more sure of myself than I’m feeling. Because—how could left suddenly turn into right like that? “And the mirror girl is you, by the way,” I add.
“But that’s not the only thing that’s different,” Alfie informs me, ignoring what I just said about the mirror girl. “Sometimes things move a little over there, or they change, and you can barely notice. You have to look real hard.”
“Huh?”
“In the mirror,” Alfie explains, her voice patient.
“No. Things don’t change,” I tell her. “Everything there is exactly the same as here, in real life.”
“Nuh-uh. It’s better,” Alfie says, still staring at herself in the mirror. “Because no one’s invisible over there.”
“Nobody’s invisible here,” I say, wishing again that I could kick Suzette Monahan—in the shins or something, only kicking is girly. And like I said before, boys don’t kick or hit girls. Not in my family. It’s wrong, and my dad would freak. He has very old-fashioned—and strict—manners. He likes everyone to behave.
If Dad knew Alfie was being picked on at day care, for example, he would go nuts. And then he’d start an official Oak Glen committee to investigate the matter. I’m sure my mom hasn’t told him yet. I’m positive.
“They’re invisible at day care, though,” Alfie says, not backing down. “I’m invisible at day care. Suzette says so.” She looks down at her golden brown arm like she’s making sure it’s still attached to the rest of her.
“Suzette Monahan’s not the boss of the world,” I tell Alfie. “You should tell those other girls she’s just wrong. Who else is your friend over at Kreative Learning?” I think my friend Corey’s little sister goes there, and Jared’s brother does, too.
“Mona is my friend, kind of,” Alfie says, giving her arm a couple of experimental pokes. “And Arletty. But Suzette is my best friend there.”
Mona and Arletty are probably those other two girls I saw that day. “Why do you keep saying Suzette’s a friend?” I ask. “She’s mean to you.”
“I wish Suzette would start picking on someone else,” Alfie says, ignoring my question. “Then we could all start picking on someone else.”
“No! That’s a terrible idea,” I tell her. “Why do you guys have to pick on anyone? I mean, how would Suzette like it if kids started picking on her?”
I wish they would! Just to teach her a lesson about leaving Alfie alone!
“Mona and Arletty would never do that, EllWay,” Alfie tells me, her eyes wide in the mirror as she meets my gaze. “They’re nice. Anyway, bullying’s not allowed at day care. There’s a poster next to the sink and everything.”
“What do you think this is?” I ask, trying not to shout. “Saying you’re invisible?”
“She’s not hitting me,” Alfie points out. “Or even calling me names. She’s just teasing me sometimes. And saying I’m not there.” She pokes herself again.
“You should tell her to stop,” I say. “Or I will. Want me to call her?”
What am I saying? How did I suddenly get so involved in this mess?
“What would you say?” Alfie asks, curious.
“That it’s mean for her to treat you like that. Or you could tell her,” I say, sounding eager, because it would be better coming from Alfie, wouldn’t it? What does Suzette Monahan care what I think?
Anyway, Alfie should be the one who’s mad at Suzette, not me. Why doesn’t Alfie have the same getting-mad ingredient in her that I do? What’s wrong with her?
“I guess I could ask Suzette to make it stop,” Alfie says, like the idea just POPPED into her brain with no help from me. But whatever.
“Good idea. Why don’t you do it?” I say. “Tomorrow?”
“What day is tomorrow?” Alfie asks, picking up another doll and waggling it really close to the mirror, watching carefully for any random changes “over there,” I guess.
“Thursday,” I tell her, thinking about the now-banished pink jacket.
“Hmm,” Alfie says, like she’s really thinking. “Maybe I’ll do it Fwiday.”
Which is Alfie-speak for “Friday.”
“Promise?” I ask.
“I promise I might,” she says.
“You should at least hang up your new jacket,” I tell her.
“Maybe I don’t like it anymore,” she says, not looking at me.
“Huh,” I say. And that’s about as good as it’s gonna get, I tell myself, jumping to my feet and making a quick escape from Alfie’s extremely frilly, pink and purple room.
That’s enough Alfie Jakes for one night.
4
BUSY BEES
“Stop buzzing, all you busy bees,” Ms. Sanchez calls out to get our attention. It is now the next day, a cold Thursday morning, and pretty soon we will go outside for nutrition break. My nutrition will be raisins and little square cheese crackers, but mostly I just want to run around with my two best friends at Oak Glen Primary School, Corey Robinson and Kevin McKinley. My legs are already itching, and I just sat down!
“BZZ, BZZ,” Kry Rodriguez says with a big smile on her face as she settles back into her seat.
Nobody ever gets mad at Kry, not even Ms. Sanchez, who is the prettiest teacher at Oak Glen. I can prove that, because the kids in my class voted once. Kry is the nicest person in our class. She came in late, way after September. Maybe that’s why she has never been in the middle of any of our battles. Kry’s shiny black bangs go almost all the way down to her big brown eyes.
“No last-minute buzzing,” Ms. Sanchez says, still sounding playful, but about at the end of playful, if you know what I mean. “We have work to do. Language Arts, to be precise.”
Ms. Sanchez is always precise. That means exact, with no messing around.
“Settle,” she says in a different voice, and we do, because you can’t push it with Ms. Sanchez. If you really goof up, which Jared Matthews did just once, the whole class has to copy out an article from Fascinating Facts for Young People. Word for word. And those facts aren’t all that fascinating, believe me.
So even Jared settles down, because he doesn’t want everyone to be mad at him again.
Next to me, Annie Pat Masterson lines up two sharp pencils, in case pencil number one breaks, I guess. But she’s okay. She likes fish—alive ones—and has bouncy red hair.
Her best friend is Emma McGraw, the second-littlest kid in Ms. Sanchez’s class.
Guess who is number one? Me. EllRay Jakes. But I’m gonna start growing pretty soon, and then watch out! I might even be a Laker some day. The tallest one.
“We will be writing a personal narrative today,” Ms. Sanchez says. “That means you will tell a story in writing, but in an organized way.”
She says “in an organized way” as if she doesn’t really think it will come true, but she has her hopes—like when Mom tells Alfie, “You’ll finish those peas and you’ll like them, young lady.”
“We’ll start with a helpful worksheet so you can stay on track,” Ms. Sanchez says, looking for someone to help her pass stuff around. Two hands shoot up into the air: Cynthia Harbison and her friend Heather Patton, who says she’s allergic to coconut.
Cynthia is the bossiest—and cleanest—girl in our class.
“Okay, Cynthia,” Ms. Sanchez says with a very small sigh, and she hands Cynthia the papers. Cynthia passes them around like she’s handing out parking tickets.
I look at the paper. It has five questions on it.
What happened?
When did it happen?
Where did it happen?
Can you give us some details about it?
How did it end?
She left out “Why did it happen?” which I think can be the most interesting part of anything, even if sometimes you don’t know why something happened. For instance, I don’t know why that mean dragon Suzette Monahan is picking on Alfie. But it’s happening anyway.
“Are you listening, EllRay?” Ms. Sanchez is asking, which means—I guess—that she’s been saying something.
“DOINK! DOINK! DOINK!” Stanley says under his breath, and Jared smirks.
“Uh, sorry. No,” I say, because I have learned the hard way that it’s better to tell the truth when this happens, or else your teacher might ask you to explain things again to the whole class, since you’ve been listening so well. And then what?
“I was telling the class that I want you to think of something that happened in your life recently,” Ms. Sanchez says. “Not a huge event, just a small one. And then use this worksheet to write about it. And use your friend the comma correctly, please.”
Heather’s hand shoots up into the air once more. I think she was born that way. “Can I put unicorns in mine?” she asks. “Real ones, not stuffed animals?”
Okay, now that’s just goofy, because—real unicorns?
“Bogus,” Jared Matthews cough-says into his big freckled hand. Jared is the boy version of Cynthia in my class, meaning he’s bossy. Not that he’s like a girl.
Ms. Sanchez taps her foot. She always wears fancy shoes. My mom says she doesn’t know how Ms. Sanchez can stand in them all day, especially the ones with pointy toes, but the girls in my class love them. I’ve actually heard them talk about it. Which is also goofy.
Ms. Sanchez clears her throat. “If you’ve had a recent, real-life experience involving a living, breathing unicorn, Heather, and you can use your commas correctly, I’m sure we’d all like to hear about it. So pick up your pencils, ladies and gentlemen,” she says to us all, “and please begin.”
And even though our stomachs are growling with starvation, we do.
5
MY PERSONAL NARRATIVE
Writing this wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, and I was the last one finished, but there was only one real-life thing I could think to write about for my personal narrative. My spelling, punctuation, and even my words were a little worse than what you are about to read, but here goes. My personal narrative is called “Alfie’s Problem.”
1. WHAT HAPPENED?
My mom said my sister Alfie was sad.
Five minutes later, Alfie told me her best friend at day care was mean to her. So that is Alfie’s problem.
2. WHEN DID IT HAPPEN?
My mom told me Alfie was sad when we were washing the dishes.
Alfie told me about her problem five minutes after that. This happened last night. If you wanted to know when was the girl mean, it was yesterday. But I also know she was mean to Alfie longer ago than that.
3. WHERE DID IT HAPPEN?
My mom told me about Alfie being sad in the kitchen. That is where we wash the dishes in my house.
Alfie told me about her problem in her bedroom, when we were sitting on the rug.
If you are asking where was the girl mean, it was at day care, like I said before. It is called Kreative Learning and Playtime Day Care. (Please do not mark me down for spelling “creative” wrong. That is how they spell it over there. My dad already complained.)
4. CAN YOU GIVE US SOME DETAILS ABOUT IT?
Yes! Our kitchen is mostly white. My mom washes the dishes before she even puts them in the dishwasher. That is just like her, my dad says.
Alfie’s bedroom is purple and pink and has lots of dolls in it. Alfie was playing with one of them the whole time. The rug is pink.
If you want details about why was Alfie sad, the girl who was mean is named Suzette Monahan. She messed up my room once. Alfie likes her and thinks she is a friend, but she is not. One time she threw paper in Alfie’s hair, and Alfie didn’t know it, and some kids made fun of her. Yesterday, Suzette told the other girls in day care to act like Alfie was invisible, and they did. That made Alfie very sad.
5. HOW DID IT END?
It ended when I left Alfie’s room and went into my own room to play Die, Creature, Die. It is my favorite game! I am already at Level Six!!
If you mean how did the problem end, it didn’t. It is still going on. I told Alfie that she should tell Suzette to quit it, because how would Suzette like it if someone did that to her? Alfie said maybe she would tell her on Friday. That means tomorrow, but I do not know if she will do it or not. Alfie is only four years old. She is not very organized yet, or very brave.
The End.
“Very nice, EllRay!” Ms. Sanchez wrote at the bottom when she handed the worksheet back just before lunch. “I’m sorry Alfie is having this problem. When you correct your narrative, however, please make it more your story, and tell us what it’s like being Alfie’s big brother. Okay?”
And of course I’m not about to say, “No, it’s not okay!” am I?
Because Ms. Sanchez is the teacher, and I’m just a kid.
And—we’re working on it again? We already did it once!
I wish I’d kept my big mouth shut—even though I didn’t say a word.
But you know what I mean.
6
MR. NOBODY
“Dude,” my friend Kevin says when finally, after about a hundred hours, Ms. Sanchez lets us loose for lunch. “What took you so long this morning? You missed part of nutrition break.” It is still cold outside, and the wind is blowing. But at least it isn’t raining yet.
Some kids have chosen to stay in the cafeteria for lunch, but not us, and not a few of the girls. You’re not allowed to run around inside, and my legs want to run.
“Yeah,” Corey chimes in as I reach into my bag for a sandwich. “You wrote a ton, EllRay.”
“I was telling about my little sister,” I say. “Why? What did you write about?”
“I wrote about spraining my ankle yesterday,” Fiona McNulty calls out from the other lunch table, even though I wasn’t asking her.
See, there is a boys’ table in our lunch area at Oak Glen, and a girls’ table. But they are pretty close together, and sometimes we can hear what the girls are saying.
“You’re always spraining your stupid ankle,” Stanley Washington says, after chomping down on a big sandwich in a hamburger bun that makes my mouth water just to look at it, even though Stanley and I are not exactly friends lately. You can see pieces of sandwich in his mouth as he talks, but even that doesn’t shut the girls up.
“She is not,” Cynthia says back. “Anyway, you know she has weak ankles. Poor little Fiona,” she adds, patting Fiona’s skinny back.
And F
iona smiles like anything. She holds out a pipe-cleaner ankle for evidence. It has a stretchy tan bandage around it, the kind that is always called “flesh-colored,” only it’s not. Not my flesh color, anyway. I’m brown, and so is Kevin, and two of the girls in our class who are friends from church. And so are a lot of people. Maybe not all that many in Oak Glen, California, but Oak Glen isn’t the center of the universe.
Kevin clears his throat, which is a signal that he’s about to say something. “My personal narrative was about learning to swim really far last summer,” he says.
“Huh. I can already swim far,” Cynthia announces from the girls’ table.
“I wasn’t writing about you,” Kevin points out. “I was writing about me. Anyway,” he adds, “Corey can swim farther than everyone in our class put together. So, ha ha.”
It’s true about Corey. He is already a champion swimmer. He sometimes smells like chlorine from his early morning workouts. He has trophies and everything.
“I wrote about cleaning out my aquarium,” Annie Pat says. She is the second-smallest girl in the third grade. Like I said before, Emma McGraw is the first-smallest girl. “I was so scared,” she adds, shivering from either the wind or from being scared, who can tell? “Because one of my tropical fish jumped out of the little bowl I put it in while I was scrubbing the aquarium.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t hold innocent animals captive,” Cynthia says, her snooty nose high in the air. I guess she figures that she’s so perfect, she can start in on correcting all of us, now.
And is a fish even an animal? I don’t know, but Annie Pat gasps. She would never harm an animal or a fish. In fact, she wants to be a fish expert when she grows up. I forget the exact name of the job.