I keep thinking about the bodies buried under the Bay Street mall.
I plan to tell Mr. Chen the truth pretty soon. Borrowing (stealing!) a heritage that isn’t mine is weighing heavily on my conscience.
Love,
Penelope
MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2015
Dear You,
Back at school. Mr. Chen said that only one person hadn’t turned anything in yet for our project, and that person knows who that person is.
Anyway, happy Sundae Monday. Caramel Cream Custard. Too sweet.
OK, I hereby vow in writing: IF THE WARRIORS WIN THREE MORE TIMES, I WILL TELL MR. CHEN THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH.
Love,
Me
SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 2015
Dear You,
According to What to Expect, you have already graduated from being an embryo to being a FETUS. Congratulations! Your legs are developing bones and little dents for knees and ankles. It is time to call you Feet instead of Speck. Get ready for jumping, Feet!
Also, What to Expect points out that you have increased your size 300 percent, from one half inch at eight weeks to one and a half inches at ten weeks. In just two weeks! If that happened to me, I would be almost thirteen feet tall! I would be taller than the tallest Warrior!
Again, it’s all relative.
You are working so, so hard to grow.
By the way, I’m not THAT superstitious, but there have been signs that it is time to tell Mr. Chen the truth.
SIGN #1: I have been searching high and low for my lucky plastic four-leaf clover for weeks and weeks. The other day, I found it stuck in a dust ball under my bed.
SIGN #2: Today, Mama said she could eat egg salad for the first time in weeks without feeling nauseated. Also, her heartburn is easing up.
SIGN #3: I saw two yellow banana slugs in the yard early this morning, side by side. It seems to me that banana slugs are solitary creatures and don’t usually hang out in pairs. By the way, banana slugs are not easy to love, but they are easy to draw, even for me, and especially with my professional-quality pencils:
SIGN #4: Well, actually signs 4, 5, and 6. Three more Warriors wins! Of course I am happy about that, because it means our team is back on track in a big way. NBA Finals, here we come!
But it is time to keep my vow, the one I put into writing on January 5. That’s the trouble with journals. Written vows are, well, written down.
I will confess the truth any day now.
Love,
Penny
TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015
Dear You,
Our class has been discussing Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. every day. MLK (that’s what we call him) led huge marches and had a dream for African American civil rights in the 1960s. He believed in using nonviolence and love to achieve his goals.
MLK: “The time is always right to do what’s right.”
He was such a good man.
Sometimes, I wish with all my heart that MLK could know that we have our first African American President, Barack Obama, now. MLK would be mighty FLABBERGASTED.
Here is a flabbergasted, joyful MLK meeting President Barack Obama:
I am guessing Martin Luther King wouldn’t approve of fabrications and stealing someone’s precious heritage.
Of course, MLK would have advised Fabricator PVB to tell the truth.
SO THAT’S WHAT I’M GOING TO DO!!!!!!!!!!!! TWO AND A HALF MONTHS OF FABRICATING IS LONG ENOUGH!!!
Tomorrow or the next day for sure.
Your older sib,
Penny
Another win tonight, 1/13/15. We beat the Utah Jazz, 116–105.
Another win Wednesday, 1/14. Beat Miami, 104–89.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 17, 2015
Dear You,
I couldn’t do it.
What happened was this:
On Thursday night, I was thinking about the beautiful Ohlone basket, so I drew it on a piece of cardboard, just as Great-Grandma Grace had described it. It was the best drawing I’d ever made, and I was EXCEEDINGLY proud of it. I think my professional-quality pencils made a huge difference! Unfortunately, my artwork can’t be reproduced in this journal to do it justice, and it is too big to paste in.
I’m sure Hazel Pepper could have drawn everything better than I did, but I still thought it was beautiful. I also used a glitter pen, twigs, Play-Doh, and two wren feathers. Then I got carried away a bit and drew some other things, too.
Of course, I was planning to confess the truth about my fabrication right after I showed Mr. Chen my beautiful artwork yesterday.
But then Mr. Chen went BONKERS over my basket.
“Penelope! This basket is lovely! And it belongs to your family?”
“Uh, yes,” I blurted out. I left out the part about it being inside Great-Grandma Grace’s head.
Mr. Chen: “How extraordinary! I didn’t think any Ohlone baskets existed here. I thought they’d all been taken from the Ohlone and brought back to Britain and Russia by early explorers. This should be in our Oakland museum! There is a gorgeous basket there now, but it is a replica.”
My stomach went LURCHITY-LURCH. I didn’t want Mr. Chen contacting Great-Grandma Grace to tell her to take her nonexistent basket to a museum, so I blurted out, “Yes, the basket is on its way to the Oakland Museum ASAP!”
Mr. Chen: “Oh, wow!”
He was actually speechless for one whole minute, staring at my drawing. All of a sudden, I felt proud of that basket, even though it wasn’t really part of my own heritage.
But then I noticed he was also examining the other stuff I had done.
Mr. Chen: “It looks like you had some fun working on this.”
He said he loved the details and the glitter and how I’d filled everything with a “swath” of color using my colored pencils. He also liked the “3-D effects,” such as the beautiful tissue-paper ocean, colored sea-green with Magic Marker; the wren feathers in the Indian chief’s headdress; and the real sticks for the teepees.
Mr. Chen: “What are those black marks at the top? Storm clouds?” They were supposed to be bison stampeding in the distance, but I knew they didn’t really look like bison. Now I wasn’t even sure if the Ohlone ever met up with bison. So I said, yes, that’s what they were. Storm clouds.
Mr. Chen: “I think you need to rethink that headdress and, also, the tepees. You’ve got this tropical green thing going on. There’s none of that in Northern California. There were marshes and wetlands and groves of oaks. And you’ve drawn too much warfare. All those spears! You may have forgotten some of what you learned about the Ohlone in third grade. And, most important of all, information about your own heritage.”
Me: “Third grade was a long time ago.”
I hadn’t been listening that hard then either, I guess.
Then, all of a sudden, he excused himself and said he would be back in a jiffy.
Could he tell I was fabricating??????? Was he off to get the PRINCIPAL?
My hands got all sweaty. And my stomach did that LURCHITY-LURCH thing again.
Then Mr. Chen rushed back into the classroom carrying a few books he’d borrowed from Mrs. Rodriguez, one of the third-grade teachers.
Mr. Chen: “I think you will find these useful. Maybe you’ve read some of them already, but you should look at them again. You need to do more research.”
Mr. Chen loves research.
So I admitted that I had actually used my imagination quite a bit, and I also got some information from a few old movies to make my artwork fancy-schmancy. And that it was easier to draw palm trees than oak trees.
Mr. Chen: “That’s the danger of getting our history from the movies.”
Me: “Also, I know the teepees aren’t right, but it was fun gluing on those twigs.”
He asked if I’d shown my work to my parents. I said, “Oh, yes, we discuss the Ohlone all the time,” even though they hadn’t seen this artwork.
Mr. Chen: “They will be interested. And you will be surprised what
information you acquire from interviewing the people in your family. That’s the beauty of this project—firsthand accounts, memories, and stories.”
Me: “Oh, right.”
Mr. Chen: “I’m sure you will glean a lot from the interview part of the project.”
“I will see what I can glean,” I said.
I like the word GLEAN.
I asked Mr. Chen if my beautiful artwork could take the place of the paragraph I was supposed to hand in, because a picture says a thousand words. He said, in this case, yes. But he was looking forward to words from me, too, later on.
Of course, at this point, the story and the minor fabrication involve you, since you are a part of my family and I’m your older sibling. I feel bad because you are just an innocent fetus bystander. When you get to Pacific Beach Elementary School, I hope people won’t know you as THE FABRICATOR’S SIBLING. That sounds like a horror movie.
Yours,
Penny Liar Pants on Fire
A loss to Oklahoma City last night, 115–127, Friday, 1/16.
Tonight we beat Houston, 131–106.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015
Dear You,
We are learning about METAPHORS in class. Sometimes, words paint a picture by comparing one thing to something else. But it’s not always a pretty picture, You.
Here’s me, spinning a WEB of lies.
And here I am digging a HOLE for myself.
Too late to climb back up. And the hole is deep. So I guess the only thing to do is try to make it a very, very interesting hole.
I have begun reading some of the books Mr. Chen lent me.
And tonight, I read something very cool.
THE OHLONE INVENTED BASKETBALL!
They liked to throw spears through a hoop. That’s not exactly basketball, but it’s close. The Ohlone really loved games. Racing games, games with sticks and pucks, and games throwing dice. It made them feel better after a tough hunting season. Their teams were mostly cheerful, and winners didn’t brag.
The Ohlone made their home in California for thousands and thousands of years before the Europeans came. They have lived here longer than anybody. The Chochenyo, the Ohlone who lived on the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay, are Sammy’s ancestors.
I close my eyes and try to imagine THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF YEARS. I get slightly dizzy thinking about how long that is.
First, the Ohlone spent their time hunting small animals and gathering seeds and nuts. But when the bow and arrow were invented, they didn’t have to use spears anymore. Then they could hunt bigger animals, such as deer, antelope, and large birds.
But I keep thinking about those bodies under the mall.
And so I have decided that I will make my presentation extremely interesting and informative about the Ohlone past, but I also vow to educate my classmates about the desecration of the Ohlone sacred burial sites in this modern day and age!
Love,
Penny
MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 2015
Dear You,
It is a long weekend because we have today off from school for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Mama and Sammy and I volunteered to get rid of invasive weeds and trash at the Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Park in his honor. INVASIVE means “taking over.” Ugly weeds with ugly names to match (STAR THISTLE! STINKWORT!) grow where native plants have died during our drought.
Here is a drawing of MLK meeting PVB. You can’t really tell from my drawing, but I am making my vow to educate my classmates about the desecration of the Ohlone sacred burial sites in this modern day and age.
Love,
Pen
FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 2015
Dear You,
“Hey, Happy Draymond Green Day!” Hazel said when she saw us in the schoolyard this morning.
Me, privately to Gabby: “How come you told Hazel Pepper about our special Dubs greeting?”
Gabby: “How come you always call her Hazel Pepper instead of just plain Hazel?”
Me: “I do? Maybe because it’s fun to say?”
Gabby: “Hmmf. Maybe you just want her to be ‘Hazel Pepper, the new girl’ forever?”
Yes, Feet, Gabby can READ MY MIND.
She’s right. Hazel Drop-the-Pepper isn’t so new anymore. She’s one of us. I do not feel merry about that.
Good news, though: We beat the Houston Rockets on Wednesday, 126–113. The two teams really don’t like each other. Gabby said Mike said the Houston coach doesn’t think the Dubs are that good. Well, we sure showed him!
Love,
Penny
We beat the Sacramento Kings tonight, 126–101. Klay Thompson scored thirty-seven points in the third quarter! AN NBA RECORD!!!!
MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 2015
Dear You,
Mama snores at night lately. Maybe it’s because she’s pregnant, or maybe it’s because we are having the driest January in Oakland on record, according to Mr. Chen. I hope her snoring doesn’t keep you up, You. I want you to be as healthy as can be. So hold on, hold on.
Love,
Penny
PS. Dubs beat the Boston Celtics last night, 114–111. Gabby said that Mike said they could have won by much more but they didn’t have the legs. They were tired from ALL THEIR WINS!
But YOUR legs are growing!
Chicago beat us 111–113, 1/27/15. Andrew Bogut had the flu and didn’t play.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2015
Dear You,
Today, we didn’t have school again. It was a Professional Development Day. I suppose that’s an extra day for teachers to hone their skills. HONE means improve. But Mr. Chen’s skills are fine just the way they are. They don’t need honing.
Yesterday, he wore his Punctuation Tie.
Even when he teaches us about punctuation, it is fun. He likes to remind us that “Let’s eat Grandma” is different from “Let’s eat, [COMMA] Grandma!!!!!!!!!” He also says I am the Queen of Punctuation Marks, and so he always crosses out most of mine with his red pen when I use too many!!!!!!!
Gabby is interviewing her mother today about her childhood in Jamaica. I suppose I could conduct an interview with Sammy, but the trouble with Sammy is that she is so, so wise, I’m afraid she will glean that I’m fabricating.
I feel a bit sick thinking about it.
Dubs lost again tonight, to the Jazz. 100–110. Bogut played, but not too well. I guess he’s still not feeling better.
Maybe I feel sick myself because of the basketball losses.
Anyway, HAPPY STEPH CURRY DAY to all. Love, Pen
SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 2015
Dear You, Dubs won against the Phoenix Suns tonight, 106–87, but I still feel sick.
Love,
Penny
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2015
Dear You,
You are the size of a peach and about three inches long. You are now working on your vocal cords, which are useful for crying. Unfortunately, no one will hear you. That worries me a lot. I can’t stop thinking about that.
That is all I can write. I have the flu.
Love,
Penny
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2015
Dear You,
I didn’t go to school today. Gabby phoned to see how I was. She was impressed by my fever: 101.4. She said it sounds like a radio station.
Gabby told me “a very special thing about Hazel.” Those were her exact words. Hazel Drop-the-Pepper told Gabby she has a GOAT in her backyard.
Actually, that IS kind of special. I’ve seen cats and dogs and chickens in backyards in my neighborhood. Sometimes even a wild turkey or a hungry deer.
Goats, hardly ever.
This is a goat:
Disregard the above goat. I won’t bother erasing it, but as you can see, it’s hard for me to replicate. My professional-quality pencils aren’t helping with goats.
I can’t draw like Hazel, but I know words such as REPLICATE, which Hazel probably doesn’t know, and I feel good about that.
&nbs
p; I just read what I wrote to you above, Feet. If you said I sounded like a person with a heart full of envy and darkness, not love and light, you would be right. It’s probably because of the flu.
I read that the Ohlone people were afraid of envy. They thought it was dangerous. So they acted kindly to one another, sharing sage and mustard seeds after harvesting their seed meadow, for instance.
Is my envy dangerous?
Love,
Pen
PS. I never did get around to interviewing Sammy. I didn’t even feel like having Sundae Monday today. A very Blue Monday. I was even wearing blue pj’s.
Tuesday, 2/3/15, we beat Sacramento, 121–96. Wednesday, 2/4/15, we beat Dallas, 128–114.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2015
Dear You,
I had the flu all week. But I feel much better. Mama and Sammy prescribed Magic Tea (honey, warm water, lemon, and cayenne pepper) and rice pudding and lots of rest. I will be returning to school on Monday.
Today, Gabby came for a visit. We talked about the Warriors’s wins on Tuesday and Wednesday, but mostly about last night’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks, 116–124. It was an important game between the two teams with the best records in the NBA this year.
Gabby said Hazel Drop-the-Pepper told her she’s not worried about that loss. Well, Gabby and I agree that she should be! VERY worried! Atlanta looked pretty good to us true Warriors fans.
It felt great to be with a Dubs fan who understands that every game counts!
Gabby brought me a Get Well card from Hazel Drop-the-Pepper, and wasn’t that kind of her?
I guess so, but big deal.
Gabby stayed to watch the game. We felt better because the Dubs beat the Knicks, 106–92! Gabby said that Mike said that Steve Kerr almost decided to coach the Knicks before he decided to coach the Warriors. I’ll bet Coach Kerr is happy he chose OUR TEAM!
Love, Penelope Page 4