by Bruce Ingram
Put it down right now that Caleb will be good for four touchdown passes this Friday night and at least two of them will be to me. And we'll just be getting warmed up on what we can do. By those last two games, we will be unstoppable, and the whole school will be talking about us. I'm ready to dominate.
Chapter Eight: Mia
I'm almost late for school on the first day. Our car won't start, and I have to wake up and cook for Isabella and Emma while Mama and Poppa are trying to decide what to do about the car and who they are going to call if Poppa can't fix it, and how they are going to get to work. I wanted to wash my long, black hair—it comes down to my waist—but there's no time for that now, and by the time I get my sisters on their bus and me on mine, I haven't even had time to comb it. I didn't even have time to gather eggs from our henhouse. It's a good thing I set out all my clothes to wear last night.
I finally get a chance to catch my breath when I get to first period English Honors. I feel like my hair is greasy and messy, and Mama still won't let me wear makeup. I know almost everybody in class. Elly smiles at me when she comes in and Paige waves. The chairs are arranged in a circle and all the boys clump up next to each other, just like they did in middle school. They are so immature; it's like they're afraid of us or something.
Ms. Hawk seems really nice. she starts the class talking about her basic rules, and I write them all down. Then she says she is going to start reading "A Christmas Memory," and each of us is going to read in turn. I love the expression in her voice and when my turn comes, I try to read just like she did. I love the story, I can relate to the little boy in it. ..not because the adults in the story are cruel to him. ..my parents are wonderful...but because he feels out of place. If things were like they were in middle school, there will probably be only about twenty Hispanic kids at this school, and some of them aren't as well off as my family is. And I know that some of the students in middle school looked down on us. Every day, I'm going to work hard to show that I belong here, that we belong in this country.
After we finish reading, Ms. Hawk gives us a paper to do on the short story and says it is due tomorrow. I love to write and I love the assignment about analyzing the symbolism. I'll start on it as soon as I get home. Then she says we are going to do PowerPoints on historical events in the 1930s, shows us her PowerPoint instructions and rules on her website, and the topics. I'm impressed that she already has all of our names on little scratch sheets of paper, and she has Mary draw names from a bucket to see who gets to go first. When my name is drawn, I choose Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of the television. I'll work on that after I take care of the chickens and help Mama cook dinner.
My next class is French I, and the first thing the teacher Mrs. Aldridge does is give us out a list of twenty vocabulary words to learn by Friday for a quiz. I already can figure out what all of them mean, what with my Spanish background and Mama making sure from the beginning that I could speak proper English and know all the grammar rules. French is going to be really easy.
Then I go to honors World History I, and most of the same kids from first period are in the class. I see a seat open next to Luke, and I go sit next to him. He is so cute, but he doesn't know that he is...do you know what I mean? He is so shy. Last year, we were in the same vocabulary study group in English 8. When the teacher assigned the words, he and I were the only ones that knew all of them. We didn't even bother to look them up, it was so cool. Luke never talks in class unless the teacher calls on him. I didn't know he was so smart before that day last year.
I know Poppa probably won't let me date this year, and I don't know how he would feel about me going out with a white boy, but I'm going to try to spend some time this year working on Luke...trying to get to know him better and showing him that I like him. He may be too shy to get the hint, though...lots of boys are like that, or at least they were in middle school.
Camila and Hannah and I had all planned to meet at lunch and go over our day, but I was a little late getting there. The first thing Hannah says is that she got a text saying I walked by and talked with Luke a little bit, is that why I was late? That news surely spread fast. What's up with that, she giggles? I try to play it off and change the subject, but they both are having so much fun with it, that I just let it ride. Sooner or later, they'll make a play for some boy and then it will be my turn to analyze all that boy's little flaws in front of them.
I don't have a cell phone; Poppa says they are too expensive and I'm too young, maybe next year when I get a part-time job and can pay for it myself, and he will have to be called to pick me up from work. I must be one of the few kids in school that don't, but I understand why. We're not poor; we're not lower class. But we don't have money to throw around, either. I'm going to succeed and have a good life, I just know it. I have a bright future, all my teachers last year told me that.
Week Two
Chapter Nine: Luke
I checked my grades online when I got back to school on Monday. I've got a middle C in English, an F in math, a low B in history and a low C in everything else...so things are going about like they usually do. I got an A on my symbolism paper on "A Christmas Memory." Ms. Hawk wrote all these compliments all over my paper, it made me feel good. But I got a low C on my PowerPoint and a 0 on a homework worksheet on sentence diagramming.
The PowerPoint thing started off bad and just got worse. When we got to the computer lab, Ms. Hawk told Elly and me that we needed to coordinate our PowerPoints since she was doing hers on how the Holocaust got started and mine was on The Night of the Broken Glass. So we had to sit next to each other at the computers and work together. That made me so nervous that my stomach started churning again, and I could barely talk. Meanwhile, Elly was smiling the whole time and chatting away with me about what she was finding out about the Holocaust.
I've got a confession to make. I've had a crush on Elly since the eighth grade. Every time she would see me, she would smile, and she's still like that in high school. I know she's friendly to everybody, it's not just me. But that's why I like her. She's smart, too, and pretty, and she has the most beautiful green eyes and long eyelashes, and gorgeous curly hair, and she doesn't put people and their ideas down when we have class discussions. The whole working-together thing should have been a way for her to learn that I'm somebody worth knowing and that I'm not stupid. Instead, I blew it. The truth is I'm not ready to go out on a date with Elly or any other girl this year. How can I when I can't even have a conversation with a girl, and my stomach is always feeling like it's about to explode when I try to. I worry that Elly is out of my league anyway, even when I am older.
When I presented my PowerPoint to the class last Thursday, I just mumbled and rushed through it and didn't "expound" on any of the bullet points like Ms. Hawk told us we had to do. At the end of class when I was walking out, Ms. Hawk called me to her desk and gave me one of those teacher pep talks. She said she gave me an A on my PowerPoint creation, but an F on my presentation, for an overall grade of C. She told me to try to relax, that she could tell I was tense all the time, but that I had good skills. I appreciate her trying to make me feel better, but she doesn't know how hard standing in front of the room is for me. Then her voice turned sharp and she started in on me on why I didn't do the homework worksheet on sentence diagramming, that learning how to diagram sentences is the key to learning how to write better, that she wanted to know why I had not done the assignment and she was waiting for an answer.
Then I said did she want to know the truth, and she said yes, and I said that I thought I was a good writer, that was about the only thing in school that I was any good at, that I had never been able to figure out sentence diagramming, that it made me think of math, and that I thought that diagramming sentences was stupid and confusing and had nothing to do with being a good writer. It was the longest conversation that I've ever had with a teacher. She got this shocked look on her face, and then I was scared to death she was mad at me. That she thought I was being smart-mout
hed with her, and so I apologized for speaking that way. For a teacher, she's not bad.
And then Ms. Hawk said the strangest thing. ..that I had given her something to think about. Then she gave me an excused tardy to remedial math class, which I milked for everything it was worth, so I was five minutes late coming to class, which was just about the high point of my week in math. Everybody in there is as dumb as I am and most of them are guys. There are only three girls in the whole class and it seems like there must be 50 people in there but I know there are not. It only seems like it because most of the guys act up the entire time and it's just crazy—inmates running the asylum-type crazy. That's all I've got to say about that awful class. That's all I want to say about the whole awful first week of school.
I had an awesome weekend. Mom and especially Dad are big NASCAR fans, and this year they said that I didn't have to go with them to the races, as long as Granddaddy would come over or call and check in on me. I hate going to the races with all the smell and noise and not having time during the weekend to go off into the woods by myself and walking and exploring or fishing in the river. Dad knows somebody at NASCAR who is in charge of programs, so he gets some and sells them in the stands before he settles down with Mom and watches the race. Dad always says he makes enough money selling programs to more than make up for the cost of going to a race. Dad is always hustling to make money, he's good at it.
I spent Saturday in the national forest. It's about three or four miles from our house, and I ran all the way there. I run three miles before school every morning. I love getting up early in the dark and running when nobody is around and listening to the night sounds and looking at the stars. After I got to the national forest, I got on my favorite trail and hiked till about noon, then ate a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from my backpack, drank some water, and headed back. Granddaddy got me tree and bird field guides last Christmas because I asked him to, and I'm trying to learn how to identify every species of songbird and tree that I come across. Saturday, I finally figured out the difference between scarlet oaks and pin oaks and that we have scarlet oaks here. I heard or saw about twenty-five species of birds when I was up in the mountains, including this American redstart...the first one I've ever seen. It was awesome.
Sunday morning, I rode my bike to the river. I tucked my two-piece rod (that I asked Granddaddy to get for me the Christmas when I was nine) under my arm and put my best lures in a creel over my shoulder. I caught this huge 15-inch smallmouth bass on a Rapala minnow and a 14-incher on a Cordell Big O crankbait. That's good fishing, really good fishing. I'm going back to the mountains and the river next weekend, especially if Dad and Mom go to the races again.
I hope this week in school is not as bad as last one. Fat chance of that happening.
Chapter Ten: Elly
I had a fantastic first week in school, a really fun time at the football game Friday night with Mary and Paige, and I can't wait for the second week to start. Friday afternoon when I got home from school and I had given the teachers enough time to type the grades for the week into their computers, I went online and checked. And I had an A in everything!
Mary and Paige and I had decided at the start of the week that if we didn't all get dates for the football game Friday night that we would all go together. Both Mary's and Paige's parents have said they could date this year, but my dad still hasn't made up his mind. I think he hopes that this whole dating thing will just go away or that no boy will ask me out at least this year. But I've got to have an answer ready if some guy does ask me, that is, a guy that I would like to go out with. Then I start stressing all over again that nobody will want to go with a chubby-legged, frizzed-up hair, old lady glasses-wearing girl like me.
When I ask Mom if I'll ever be pretty, she always says, "There's always somebody for everyone." What's that supposed to mean...that there's always a guy dork for every dorky girl? I know Mom doesn't mean for what she says to be an insult, but it sure sounds like one. I need to at least get some contacts and lose 10 pounds.
Paige said she thought Allen was going to ask her out on Wednesday and again on Thursday, but it was like he couldn't make up his mind on what to say or do, or how to go about asking and finally on Thursday after coming up to our lunch table and sitting down and talking for five minutes, he just got up and left and said he hoped to see us at the game Friday night. Ninth grade boys...well, what can you say.
Mom says it's wrong for young girls to ask boys out, and I sort of agree, and Mary, Paige, and I have debates all the time about when we do start dating, should we ever ask out a guy. Mary says girls should never ask out a guy for the first date, but after they've been dating for a couple of months, it's okay for a girl to make suggestions on where to go. Paige says that we can get them to ask us out by "flirting like an expert," but that didn't work out so well for her on Wednesday and Thursday with Allen. She was smiling and nodding to everything he said and laughing at his silly jokes, and he still didn't take the hint.
I really like the book that we're reading in English, To Kill a Mockingbird. I can really relate to Scout. All around her she can see stupidity and racial prejudice, and none of it makes any sense to her. One day when we were discussing the homework reading assignment, Ms. Hawk said she was going to go around the room and ask everybody which character they could relate to and why. I think what she was really trying to do was to see if the boys had been reading the homework chapters.
When Ms. Hawk got to me, I said that, besides Scout dealing with stupidity and racial prejudice, I liked how she walked away from a fight with Cecil Jacobs because her daddy said that was the right thing to do. That I liked characters that tried to do the right thing. Some of the other students' comments were really interesting. Mia said she could relate to Calpurnia the maid because her grandmother was a maid and had to work hard all her life for other people's children in other people's houses. That her grandmother said she never had time to take care of her own family and she was too exhausted when she got home to do hardly anything and she felt guilty about that. Mia said that she bets Calpurnia feels the same way. I know that there are kids at this school who feel that every Hispanic kid here is an illegal, but Mia must be the smartest person in the freshman class. I'd like to get to know her better this year.
Later, Ms. Hawk asked Marcus which character he could relate to, and he said none of them, that he didn't like stories that had the N word in them. I respect what he said, but I was really impressed when Jayla interrupted and said that everybody needed to know what the old days were like, especially black kids whose ancestors had suffered so much and white kids who didn't know anything about those days. Jayla said that she has it pretty good now, but that her grandparents sure didn't. I really liked what Jayla said, but I could tell Marcus didn't.
The person who gave the strangest answer was Luke. He said the person he could relate to the most was Walter Cunningham, this poor, little boy who won't accept a quarter from the teacher so he can have lunch to eat and is like only in two chapters in the whole book so far. Luke said that his ancestors were poor, country people like Walter's family, that his granddaddy said that some people treated them like poor white trash, just like some people in the book treated Walter. Marcus then joked that maybe Luke's people were poor white trash, making moonshine all the time. I saw Luke's eyes flash, then he bit his lip and clammed up like Marcus had said something that had struck a nerve.
Then I remembered something Mom had told me once, that "still waters run deep," that there's more to some people than meets the eye. That I should remember that before I started judging people. I feel like I've been going to school with Luke my whole life, but I really don't know him.
Chapter Eleven: Marcus
Well, we dominated Friday night in the first game of the season, and I scored two touchdowns and Caleb threw four touchdowns just like I predicted. We won big time, 28-20...the score was not as close as it looks because they tacked on a lucky touchdown late in the game. We've
got another home game this Friday, and I aim for Caleb and me to do our part. I figure I'm going to be good for at least two touchdown receptions again, and if the coach will let me do a couple of end arounds, there's no telling how many TDs I might score. When we were on defense, I looked up in the stands to see if I could spot Kylee, and I finally did. That's good that she was there, cheering me on. I'm going to ask her out real soon. I'm going to wait for just the right moment...one more big time game performance like I had Friday and that should be enough. There's an old baseball saying that "chicks dig the long ball." High school girls have got to love the long touchdown bombs and the guys that catch them—that's me.
Ms. Hawk didn't treat me right last week. she gave me a 0 on that totally stupid story on that country boy and his old woman cousin...how ridiculous is that. I mean both the story and the assignment. We got to class on the second day of school, and she said for everyone to turn in their papers. I told her that I had long practices on Mondays and Tuesdays, and I'd get the paper to her by Thursday, Friday at the latest. And she said nope, it was due today, that she had told everybody it was due today (she didn't, I didn't hear her say nothing like that) and she was sorry but my grade was a 0. That next time I should be better prepared and organized with my homework.
