by K. A. Holt
and she buys me a Coke
in a real glass bottle.
My eyes wide.
The girl said a swear right into the microphone.
No one seems to notice
except me.
A teacher in the night
at a table
in a coffee shop
like a regular person
is weird.
Like a tiger
at the grocery store,
buying ice cream
and toilet paper.
Dew drops on flat leaves . . .
I try not to groan out loud.
Glistening in the moonlight . . .
I roll my eyes. And then roll them again.
Gentle breezes spin the drops like marbles . . .
I can’t help a bored cough.
Unlike marbles, the drops evaporate . . .
I look at Mrs. Little. She is loving it.
As the breeze reveals itself to be breath . . .
Wait. What?
Of a dragon, long since thought dead . . .
Dragon? Awesome!
Everyone claps.
I clap the hardest.
Two muffins. More Coke. Five more poets.
Mrs. Little stands,
smooths wrinkles out of her skirt.
I stand, too.
Crumbs fall from my shirt.
A man walks over to her.
They hug.
This is my youngest son.
I am confused. I’m not her son.
But then I realize,
the dragon poem poet from the stage
is her son.
Maybe a little older than Patrick.
His teeth are whitewhitewhite.
He shakes my hand.
Nice to meet you, Kevin. I’ve heard so much about you.
I look at Mrs. Little.
She’s smiling. Her face is soft.
I think I’m smiling, too.
MONDAY
Best night.
It’s all I can say
because there are too many words
to sort through.
TUESDAY
Robin does not think I am
Talented
or
Smart.
But he does think I am
Fragile
A poet
especially after he made Giant John
sit on me at recess
so he could rub my old notebook in the dirt
and then in my face.
Who’s tough now?
The words, over and over, out of his mouth
like dirty flies.
Who’s tough now?
Who’s tough now?
Until the words turn red,
And drip on the dirt.
And there’s a cut on my hand,
from a tooth
attached to a mouth
that isn’t saying
Who’s tough now?
anymore.
For a minute I think a bird is attacking,
shrieking.
But then I see it’s Kelly.
The shrieking is coming from her face.
Her open mouth.
Her eyes, squinched and angry.
She flies at us, her wings wide,
and I’m afraid she’s going to hit me, too.
Instead, her sneaker connects with Robin.
A soft spot
under his ribs.
There is a slow-motion oooooof.
And we’re apart.
Until we aren’t anymore.
Robin’s moth face is dusty,
his teeth are pink from blood
with darker red parts
in the shadowy places
between each tooth.
And he’s on me.
And it hurts.
And I hit back.
And there is more shrieking.
And I can’t catch my breath.
And I scramble, kicking, because I’m on my back.
And I want to be standing.
And I feel like I’m drowning in dust and screams.
And a hand grabs my shirt collar
And a voice yells enough! ENOUGH!
And it’s not Mrs. Smithson.
And I see her through the dust, far away.
And my arms are swinging like puppet arms.
And are made of jagged rock.
And I don’t know what’s happening anymore.
TIME STANDS STILL (AKA: HARTWICK’S OFFICE) ((AGAIN))
Dirt and blood on her skirt form the same shape
as the stain on the ceiling.
I stare at her skirt.
Trying to forget her hands on my shirt, my arms,
her voice shouting,
Kevin!
Kevin!
Stop it!
Enough!
My heart beating so fast.
Just think of the look on Hartwick’s face
if my heart explodes
like a water balloon
smashed in a shirt pocket.
Every day I watch this nonsense from the window.
Mrs. Little is breathing fast.
Her hands clenched. Angry.
She is a dragon,
heating up the office,
growing bigger with every word.
This is not the answer, she says,
giving the hieroglyph eye to Mrs. Smithson,
who is here, too.
Having them sort it out Lord of the Flies style?
Not.
Working.
It.
Has.
To.
Stop.
The words are ten feet tall.
They are a fortress,
shielding only me
from the angry dragon breath.
Harry shakes on Mrs. Smithson’s face.
Obviously, the boy can stand up for himself.
There is spit in the corners of her mouth.
She is not a dragon,
more like a donkey.
His disciplinary file proves that.
I am afraid Mrs. Little
might burst into flames.
She looks at Hartwick.
Who is contacting the superintendent, then?
Shall it be you?
Or me?
I don’t know who that is, but it’s a magic word
erasing color from faces
just like a bleach pen
on a blood stain.
Clearly, this cannot continue.
Robin looks at the floor.
I look at the stain.
Hartwick gives his speech.
You boys need a truce,
RIGHT NOW.
We clear this up,
TODAY.
I shake Robin’s hand.
So small in my own.
I don’t mean it.
He doesn’t mean it.
Except I sort of do.
I’m sorry for what I’ve done.
I’m sorry I made him hate me.
I’m sorry he turned me into jagged rock.
I wonder if he is sorry, too.
As a sidenote,
I have composed an ode
to Hartwick’s tie:
[Clearing throat noise here]
O, Principal’s tie
Is this the last time we’ll meet?
That makes me super happy
Because you smell like feet
I hear them coming up the front walk,
talking in sandpaper voices,
whacking guitar cases on the door frame
as they come inside.
My homework is on my lap
but it might as well be on Mars
as much as I have seen anything on the paper
in the past hour.
A head peeks into my room.
It’s the boy who is
starting to not look like everyone else
and look like his own self
with his dark slashy hair
; and his always half-open eyes.
Got any more rhymes?
I stare at him as if he is on Mars, too.
Is he joking?
Teasing me?
I reach for a crumpled page.
This is about ugly monkeys, I say.
I wrote it about you.
He looks me up and down and then laughs,
a big donkey hee-haw sound that fills up my room.
You want to come watch? he asks.
Watch what?
He rattles the paper. The song. Are you brain-dead?
I will be when Petey finds me in his room.
But I go with this kid anyway.
Because, yeah.
I do want to watch it.
I do want to watch them sing my song.
WEDNESDAY
Enemy status dissolved?
Superintendent is also a word for
Robin’s dad.
Who knew?
Robin holds out my journal.
Dirty,
scratched,
torn in places.
Just like me.
I take it back.
Kelly oversees the exchange.
I’m sorry, you know.
My voice is crinkly. I cough.
Robin turns around
because he had already started walking away.
His lips are scrunched together.
A wadded-up-bubble-gum shape of a mouth.
He scratches at the scab over his eye.
Aren’t you sorry? I ask.
He doesn’t say anything.
He just walks away.
At lunch I sit with Kelly.
For the first time.
She has peanut butter and jelly
like a first-grader.
But I don’t say anything.
She slides a piece of paper to me.
It is a poem.
It has a unicorn in it.
I give her my best hieroglyph eye.
I have decided something.
Freckles are not like connect the dots at all.
They are like stars. Galaxies.
They hide stories of bravery.
They hide poems about unicorns.
Unicorns that eat teachers.
THURSDAY
Today I am thirteen.
The start of a new year.
I don’t feel that different
but I know I am.
Six presents on the table.
One from
Mom
Dad
Petey
Philip
Paul
and one with stamps mailed from Patrick.
I open them one by one.
They are all the same.
Six new notebooks.
I laugh out loud.
Mom says,
For our poet.
Dad says,
The next Hemingway.
I say,
Hemingway wasn’t a poet, Dad.
Petey says,
Nerd.
I laugh again
even though Petey just kicked me under the table,
and Mom is already checking her voice mail.
Petey grabs me by the shirt.
Hey.
His voice is low in my ear.
You know that blue notebook? The one with the skull?
I nod.
Maybe you should use that to write songs.
You know,
for the band.
I blink a couple of times.
You mean the Shrieking Tornadoes?
He looks at me.
Really looks at me
for a long time.
That’s our name, huh?
I shrug. Those are the sounds you make.
With your guitars.
Petey laughs. Yeah, then. Use the notebook for that.
For songs.
For the Shrieking Tornadoes.
I nod. Thanks for letting me in the band.
I almost whisper it. Can it be true?
Petey laughs again. You’re not in the band, turd.
He taps the notebook.
Just lay down some rhymes. Okay?
Oh. Okay. Cool.
Cool.
Paul walks me to school
even though it makes him late.
He tells me he’s proud of me.
He says he’s sorry no one else ever says that.
I swat at him with one of my new notebooks.
Paul is so annoying.
(But his words were nice.
Even when he was yelling at me to quit whacking him.)
811.6
The real poetry section.
This red book is new,
not bent or scuffed,
no plastic cover.
The author’s name is K. Jamison
just like me.
My heart speeds up, my eyes focus tight.
A hand rests on my shoulder, it’s a quiet smile.
Inside the book,
my poems.
The ones I showed Mrs. Little.
Bound together.
In a real book.
Like a real poet.
FRIDAY
Shelving books, just like every day.
No detention needed.
This is my job now.
A job that needs shining eyes and soft fingers.
Jagged stones need not apply.
I take deep breaths of the library smell,
the book smell,
the soft, shiny, safe smell.
A note from Mrs. Little says:
There’s another poetry night in one month.
You better get started, yes?
And the only easy prey
as far as my eyes can see
are a million words
on a million pages
just waiting.
I pull a pen from my pocket,
open up my notebook.
So many
words.
So little
time.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank my incomparable agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette, who gets all the credit in the world for seeing this manuscript and saying yes. (She gets extra credit for all the times she shakes her head at me and says, “Not quite, but keep trying.”)
I’d also like to thank the supportive and fiercely talented group of women I spent a lovely autumn week with at a Highlights Foundation workshop in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Extra sloppy kisses go to our faculty: Sonya Sones, Virginia Euwer Wolff, and Linda Oatman High. (And special thanks to Linda for saying, “Ooh, I like the band name parts of this manuscript, you should add more of that.”)
Thank you to my critique group, Bethany Hegedus, Vanessa Lee, and Sara Kocek, for not only knowing how to give a great critique, but for knowing when it’s time to just stare at the ceiling and quietly eat chocolate.
Thanks to my Spiderhouse coffee shop crew for not judging me when I eat breakfast tacos instead of writing. (And a high five to E. Kristin Anderson, who mentioned found poetry and how she thought it would improve the first draft.)
To everyone in the Austin, Texas, SCBWI, you guys are the epitome of awesome. (And a shout-out to Nikki Loftin, Donna Bowman Bratton, and Liz Garton Scanlon for reading early drafts and assuring me I wasn’t insane to want these words to be a book.)
Even though they hate my comfy writing pants, I will still thank my kiddos, Sam, Georgia, and Isaac, for dealing with the whims of a crazy mom writing a book. And an extra million billion thanks go to my husband, Steven, for knowing that sometimes I have to run away and write write write.
Last but most definitely not least, huge, huge thanks to everyone at Chronicle, especially Tamra Tuller, who has laughed and agonized and sniffled over Kevin just as much as I have.
K.A. HOLT is a writer
a mama
a bad (but fearless!) cook.
She has written three
(three!)
books for kids.
&nbs
p; Also?
She shelved books
in the library
during grade school.
Ms. Holt claims
(claims!)
she never had a detention.
Believe what you want.