It’s not so easy to know what you can and can’t say out loud here. Like yesterday I said “yikes” and Rob Watson looked at me funny, so I guess “yikes” is too old-school, but when Genevieve said she was feeling “fragilistic,” everyone was all “yup, yup,” and head nodding all over the place. And Lisa Trotter cursed in Advisory, way loud; I know India heard. Sometimes I think there’s a secret rule book that everyone but me has.
“I sent home the Service Learning program letter last week,” India says at the end of Advisory. “It was supposed to be signed by a parent or guardian and returned to me today.”
Oops, mine might still be in my backpack. I was so organized and on top of things in elementary school!
I raise my hand. So do a bunch of other people, which makes me feel better. India gives us a look that would normally be one of those You’re-in-middle-school-now-you-have-to-be-responsible speeches, but with India, the look is all we need.
One thing about middle school is that we have a lot of choices. I put Community Builders as my fall service project. We get to help out in second-grade classrooms, and that seems just little enough that I can be in charge, but not so little that they start crying over random things like Goldfish crackers touching carrot sticks at snack time. We had to write a “mini statement” about what we’ll bring to the project. I don’t have many opportunities to talk about the challenges of having a little sister, so I do. And since Community Builders’ main jobs are to help with book circles and writing stuff, I add how Momma is a school librarian and I play a big part in her work. Then I read it over and change that part to just say that I’m a book lover and have learned a lot from my mom, who is a school librarian.
I got Creative Writing for my elective, though. I put Computer Science first, Band second, Drama Games third, and Creative Writing last. How did I get Creative Writing? What’s the point of pretending we have choices if we get our last one, which is not really a choice, because obviously we didn’t want it?
I thought about protesting, which is something I have a lot of experience in, but after I saw the look Aunjalique got when she asked why she got her third choice for electives, I decided not to say anything. But then I think that maybe I can make it work for me. It’ll be a time to shine. I mean, it’s not like I don’t love to write; I was even thinking of starting a zine club in our new neighborhood. Naomi E. will be all up in it, once I talk her into it. Anyway, I write all the time, like
In my home journal
In my fake just-in-case-of-snooping-little-sisters journal
In the storytellers club at the library
In the digital storytellers club at the library
In my head
In my “family announcements” newsletter
In my Writer’s Notebook that I still keep even though Ms. Koshy isn’t my teacher anymore
And in my list notebook.
I had a feeling I wouldn’t get Band, because at orientation in August, Momma made a big deal of telling the music teacher about all the instruments I play and he started to get that I-need-an-escape look and wrote something down on his notepad, which is Always Bad. Sometimes Momma forgets all her own teacher rules when she’s being Momma and not Ms. Porter.
Computer Science would have been great, because I think I have a knack for that stuff ever since Girls Gaming the System. I wish I could still go to meetings, but now that we’ve moved, it’s harder to get to a lot of things, including my dad’s, and Shelly Ann’s. Sometimes I just want to say, No, BECAUSE I want to do the things that I already love doing with the people I already know and love especially now when everything feels wacky and weird and off balance.
Sigh.
I was thinking that maybe I’d be the Smart Computer Girl at this school, since I have experience with GGTS and can talk like I know a lot of stuff about apps and games. Plus I remember when Momma took me and Bri to see the movie Hidden Figures three times; it was so cool even though it had that part where that Al Harrison guy (who wasn’t even real!) took down the Colored bathroom sign. Momma said that never happened, but it’s the way society tries to put us on the sideline of the games we invented. She read us the Hidden Figures book so we knew all the things that Katherine Johnson did for herself. I can picture myself being like a Hidden Figure of digital games. I just have to figure out what we haven’t figured out yet.
That girl Gigi is in Creative Writing, and I really want to get to know her better, so that’s cool. I still think it’s weird that Naomi E. is in the same class too; maybe the school doesn’t think of us as real sisters. Sometimes I’m not sure either, and I can’t tell if it’s because we just became sisters, like, two minutes ago or if it’s because we see “life through a different racial lens,” which is what we talked about in one of the workshops. Sometimes it feels like both. Like when I told her about Jen’s comments and how yes, she did actually touch my hair without asking (I KNOW), Naomi E. just said that Jen is annoying and I shouldn’t let it get to me. Then we talked about how we both wanted purple combat boots like Kiranmala in The Serpent’s Secret.
“What did you get?” whispers Jen. She’s always talking to me, even though I try to avoid her. It’s hard, because I don’t want to seem stuck-up, but I also don’t want to encourage her to say stupid stuff. Which she has a habit of doing.
“Creative Writing,” I say.
“Oh, that’s weird. Did you put Dance first?”
Weird again. I nod just to make her stop talking, and keep my eyes on India so I don’t get caught talking.
“I’m in Creative Writing too. My mom says it’s pretty advanced. I won a national short story competition last year. If you need help, I can help you.”
I nod again. Jen reaches over, and when I realize that she’s about to touch my twists again, I lean away. Not today.
“Your hair is so cool; how do you get it like that?” she asks.
I look at her. “What do you mean?”
“Like it’s so fuzzy and soft and crazy looking. Like Medusa. I wish my hair could do that. It’s so weird that it just grows out of your head like that!”
“Naomi Marie, Jen, please stay focused,” says India with a frown.
“Crazy looking”? “Medusa”? I want to ask her what is so “crazy” about twists and WHY IS EVERYTHING ABOUT ME “SO WEIRD”?
I take a deep breath. I don’t want to get in trouble with India. Ignore. Just ignore.
I walk into Creative Writing at the same time as Gigi; Naomi E. is already at a table. We wave and smile at each other; then I see that Gruber is at my table. In between laughing really loud every time someone says the word period, he taps the table with his pen. A lot. I’m not the first person to tell him to quit it, but when I do, he acts all dramatic. Then he farts.
“Excuuuuuuse me,” he says.
“Today we’re going to start with six-word memoirs,” says Katherine. “They are like poetry, and you’ll be surprised by how much you can say about your life in only six words.”
I raise my hand. “I can’t write poetry.” It’s true. Even in fourth grade when Ms. Koshy gave up and handed me one of those word grids that she hated using because she “didn’t believe in stifling our creative spirits,” I just filled it in with my vocabulary words. I got a hundred on the vocabulary test. I can’t write poetry, so I don’t. Why waste time doing things I’m bad at when I can just be the best at the things I’m better at?
“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘can’t,’” says Katherine, raising one eyebrow, and the seventh graders giggle. They know Katherine well already. Electives can be taken by anyone in middle school, and you can repeat if you want, which seems totally opposite to the whole TRY-NEW-THINGS philosophy that is on a lot of posters around the building.
“I mean, um, I don’t . . . I’m not good at . . .” I trail off. The things that I used to say in fifth grade don’t sound the same now. And I can tell by the way Katherine’s other eyebrow rises up to match the height of the first one, I’m not getting away
with a vocabulary list.
“This is a good moment to review our community guidelines, folks,” says Katherine. I really want to sink into the floor, but I just sit up straighter and try to smile like I wrote the community guidelines. “In this class, in order to grow as writers, we . . .” she trails off, and seventh graders yell out stuff like “try new things” (see?), “listen without prejudice” (yeah, okay), “respectful dialogue” (um, Gruber?), and I get the picture.
“I’ll try,” I say, and she smiles at me and nods. Thankfully, she moves on. I do not want to make a fool of myself with bad poetry in front of seventh graders.
Katherine puts up her own six-word memoir on the Smart Board. “Write, rewrite; living thankful for revision.”
I see an opportunity to redeem myself, so I raise my hand. “It’s like you’re talking about the writing process . . . and life,” I say. Katherine smiles even bigger, and the seventh graders give me snaps, so I can tell it’s a good answer. Which I already knew.
We get the rest of the period to work on our own memoirs, and I try to look busy. I keep staring at the Smart Board until I think of something like Katherine’s memoir. I hope she doesn’t think I’m copying. Katherine walks around the room making suggestions and comments. When she gets to me, she crouches down close.
“How’s it going?” she asks.
I almost shrug, but hand her my paper instead. I figure she won’t mind my doodles of KrazyKat Wilkins in the margins. He’s the cartoon character I made up when I had my Drawing Cartoons for People Who Aren’t Allowed to Watch TV Club, and I still draw him when I’m thinking things through.
“‘Same old me; whole new world,’” she reads aloud. “I like that! I would love to see you expand on this thought in your Writer’s Notebook. And we’ll be stopping a few minutes early to allow for anyone who wants to share their work with the class . . .” She trails off.
“Mmm,” I say, trying not to officially agree to anything.
“And look—you do write poetry,” she says. “This feels like a poem to me!” She’s smiling at me in that Look-at-How-I-Inspired-You way that teachers sometimes do. And I feel kind of tricked, but I smile back a little. Because she’s the teacher, and okay, I guess we can kind of call it poetry. But no way am I sharing this, even for extra credit.
“I actually love to write,” I say to Katherine, just so she knows. “It’s just that I’m not the best poet.”
“Doing your best and being the best are two different things,” she says. “What’s more important to you?”
I know what I’m supposed to say, but I’m not going to lie, so I don’t say anything. I start writing again.
“You seem like such a school nerd,” whispers Gruber after Katherine leaves.
“Whatever,” I whisper back. Not the best comeback, but . . . whatever.
Taliyah raises her hand. “Gruber’s being annoying,” she says, like it’s a thing that’s been happening her whole life. Katherine just crooks a finger at him, and they go outside.
When they come back a few minutes later, Gruber sits at the one-chair table that every classroom has—kids call it “The Island”—and turns to stick his tongue out at me. I look over at Gigi, and we share an eye roll and go back to our writing. When I look up again, Naomi E. is looking out the window. I know she hates “personal” assignments like this. She kind of hates assignments, period. I’m used to talking about heritage and culture and history, but when we were in the Blended Siblings: Old Selves into New Identities workshops, she never took the Talking Stick. We joke about the workshops sometimes; I’m starting to wonder what she really thought about all of it. And if she didn’t take the Talking Stick because she had nothing to say, or if she thought that what she had to say would be something nobody wanted to hear. Either way, that made me a little sad. I probably talked too much in those workshops. I could relax because there were three other Black girls in my group who were nodding at almost everything I said. I know “misery loves company” doesn’t exactly mean that, but during the snack break the four of us got to laugh and compare notes a little.
After what seems like only a few seconds, Katherine rings the tiny chimes on her desk. She tells us that we’re doing a “Where I’m from” poem for homework, and at first I’m like Enough with the poems, but this one is kind of like a fill-in-the-blanks type of poem so it’s not so bad. So far, I mostly like Katherine. She understands that sometimes writing takes a lot of talking first. She gets really excited when we’re having class discussions, and she lets us get a little loud and we don’t always have to raise our hands. Katherine says that she wants us to “notice and note,” and be respectful of each other on our own. But if someone gets too interrupt-y, or if things get too loud, she shuts it down fast. She doesn’t even yell; she just holds up her hand and looks at us in this disappointed way. It’s worse than yelling. And when it’s time for quiet, the only sound we hear is the little electric waterfall that she plugs in.
“What did you write?” asks Jen, suddenly appearing at my side. I turn a little to hide my paper.
“Oh, I’m not trying to copy you,” she says. “But I was going to say, why don’t you try writing it like a rap? That might make it easier.”
“Uh . . . ,” I say. Huh?
Naomi E. leans across her table. “Jen, can I borrow a pencil?”
Jen slides over to her and offers her one with a pom-pom on top. “I need it back at the end of the period, okay?” she says.
I don’t write anything else for the rest of the class.
When the bell rings, I go over to Naomi E. and follow her out. “Did you hear her?” I ask in a low voice. “‘Writing it like a rap’?!”
Naomi E. shrugs. “Who cares what Jen says? She’s an-noying.”
I roll my eyes. “She just said rap because I’m Black. Like, does she think she can only talk to me in ‘Blackish’ or ‘Blackanese’ or something?”
“Whatever, don’t worry about it,” says Naomi E. “You’ll write something good—you always do.” She leaves. I wonder what she’d say if I told her about the Medusa moment. Probably that Jen was trying to give me a compliment? Not worth it.
It’s funny, writing a rap would have been a fun thing to try too, but Jen ruined it for me. I sigh. Now I’ll have to make it extra, like, Shakespeare-style or something just to prove that I care about other things besides hip-hop. Or not. I don’t know. I make my way to science and hope that we stick to the periodic table or something. And I am hoping that Jen leaves me alone, that Gruber will stay on The Island, and that Gigi doesn’t think series books are too babyish and loves SuperJenga and Adedayo’s latest song, and that I don’t say stupid stuff out loud.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Naomi E.
In Creative Writing, I’m glad the kid at Naomi Marie’s table, the one next to Gruber, asks a question I might ask if it wasn’t too embarrassing: “How many do we have to write?”
“‘How many’? ‘Have to’?” Katherine asks. “In writing, it’s not productive to think in terms of how many anything.” People start snapping. I don’t get it because she didn’t give an answer. I guess we’re supposed to magically write the correct amount, because before long, everyone is writing. Well, Gruber’s not. He’s in the hallway for a chat with Katherine.
I’m not sure I know how to do this assignment, but I don’t like the way Katherine uses questions to make the people who ask them sound wrong. Naomi Marie, you can too write poetry. (I’m sure Katherine is actually right about that.) We don’t count words, even though counting is a pretty important part of six-word memoirs.
Six words, six words, six words.
I like that one. It reminds me of “Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love,” from a Tony Awards speech Mom showed me on YouTube. But I have a feeling Katherine won’t like it. I cross it out.
I sit back. I think. Across the room, Naomi Marie is busy, her hand moving fast across the paper with that half smile she always gets when she�
�s writing.
School’s hard, home’s weird, life’s tricky.
Not exactly right, but it’s hard in just six words.
Two homes, three parents, one me.
Is it Peer Mediation time yet? Today’s the first day, and I’m excited!
Big family, new house, little privacy.
Wow. I’m kind of surprised by the truth in that. It’s hard not having my own place to be. I always did my homework in the quiet kitchen. And now, most times, everyone’s talking and it’s hard to concentrate.
But just thinking that makes me feel guilty. Everyone, maybe especially Naomi Marie, who has to share a room with me, must be feeling their own version of this: getting used to what’s different.
I should just write easy ones, get a bunch done so when Katherine gets to my table she doesn’t see a mostly blank page.
September garden, pumpkins growing, summer ends.
Those last two words are wrong—summer ends the day you step into school. But all of a sudden my brain gets drawn out of this classroom and into thinking about what I’m going to do in my garden next summer. I’m especially missing pumpkins right now. They didn’t always ripen, but growing pumpkins takes some skills I may still be developing. Even when the pumpkins rotted before they could be picked, I loved watching them grow. My garden was my quiet, happy place. I still go into the backyard of the yellow house with shears, cut back the rosebushes, trim the ornamental grasses; but it’s not the same.
I guess that stupid rotten tomato the other night really depressed me.
All of a sudden, Katherine is next to me. Or maybe she’s been there awhile—I was kind of lost in the plants in my head. “Are you stuck?” she asks.
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