I know now that she was a bully. Back then, I thought only other kids could be bullies, not adults. Driving a loud school bus in all kinds of weather must have been a misery for her. She certainly made it a misery for us. I try to see what would make someone act this way toward children. It seems she channeled all of her anxiety into picking on the people she valued the least: the kids who lived in the run-down neighborhood, the ones she figured were powerless to change things.
If I could, I would tell ten-year-old me to talk to my parents again. And if my parents wouldn’t listen, I’d tell younger me to find another adult and tell them—again and again and again, until someone paid attention.
But first, I would congratulate the shy ten-year-old me who recognized how wrong our cruel bus driver was. That ten-year-old girl was brave. She stood up against a bully, took action, and shouted at injustice.
Ellen Yeomans
THE STORY
SHE CALLS US NAMES
Every Day
Get on
quick
Sit down
quick
Don’t look around
Don’t sit up front
Don’t sit far back
Don’t get noticed
Middle is safest
Middle is invisible
You hope.
Every day.
False Advertising
Bright yellow buses
looked so cheery
on picture book pages,
on television screens,
in the tiny toy section of
Fay’s Drugstore.
You thought it would be
friendly.
You thought it would be
fun.
You imagined singing.
You thought you’d swap sandwiches
with a bus best friend.
You thought wrong.
You Thought About Telling
The first year
was confusing.
At some point
even though you knew,
you understood
the pattern was every day
it would always be every day
you decided not to tell.
You protected your parents
from the truth,
wanted them to think
Everything was okay
Everything was fine
Everything was just like
the books on the shelf.
Besides, they knew her.
And they liked her.
But This Year Is Different
You pose for the
First Day picture.
Your brother, your baby brother,
beside you this time,
finally old enough for school.
Your brother loves cars
He’s the Vehicle Connoisseur
Cars, and trucks and planes,
but especially buses.
His love-worn
mini-metal one
in his pocket, right now
making his hands smell like pennies.
He is a little scared about school.
He is a lot excited about the school bus.
So why didn’t you warn him?
Mom takes one last picture with the bus doors open behind you
with your brother turning away, ready to go.
Take your little brother’s hand
Help him climb those big steps
Be sure to sit with him
Keep him safe
Have a great day at school!
But you had to get there first.
The First Mistake
Nod quick to the Driver.
Your brother tries to sit
in the empty front seat
across from little Mattie.
You jerk him out and up
hustle him down the aisle
select the right seat
turn to him
his lashes laced with tears
because you’ve hurt his shoulder
and hurt his heart.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry
You whisper-shush him.
We can’t sit up there.
But my friend Mattie gets to, he sobs.
He wants to see out that wide bus window,
he wants to pretend to steer
and shift.
He hopes to honk
that great bus horn.
He wants to see how the lights work
flash yellow, flash red.
Of course he does,
he’s the Vehicle Connoisseur.
She Calls Us Names
Tells us
We’re animals
We’re trash
We’re poor
Our parents should never have had us.
We’re monsters.
Why does she have to put up with such scum?
She’s never hit anyone
Touched anyone
So what if you did tell?
Would she get in trouble?
Even if she has never hurt one of us?
Because she hasn’t ever hurt one of us.
Right?
The Bus Driver Says NO
When you try to bring little Mattie
back to the center seats with you.
She has an assigned seat now.
Mattie always smells
a little like cat pee
and a lot like wood smoke.
And no one sits with her.
Why didn’t you try
to save her that first day?
What If?
What if you lived closer to school? What if Mattie did?
What if you could convince them to move?
You’d be a Walker, not a Rider
And your brother would be a Walker, not a Rider
And you could “air out” Mattie all the way to school.
And all your problems would drive away.
Side Effects
Every day you arrive at school
with a sore throat
trying to talk loud enough and long enough
to drown out whatever he might hear.
You can do this all year if you have to.
You will protect him his whole life if you have to.
Except
What if one day you are sick?
And next year you’ll change schools.
Your baby brother won’t. Then what?
Holiday
The day she is absent
is like the day before Christmas break
like the day before summer break.
And even though you have to go to school,
everyone is light
and loud
and happy.
If it could be like this every day
you could rest your voice.
There Comes a Day
Your voice is tired.
You are tired
of pretending that the ride is fine,
and you try to tell your parents
try to explain
and they love you
but they just don’t see
what you see
can’t hear
what you hear.
They ask your brother what he thinks
Sometimes Mattie gets picked on and
some days the boys are rowdy, he says.
He looks at you and you can see
that he is protecting too,
that he is protecting you.
Your parents say they’re sorry
and they’re sure it’ll get better and soo
n.
And then they are laughing about when they were young
and the school bus hijinks they remember.
But your brother’s hands don’t ever smell like pennies anymore.
True
You ask Abby, who used to sit with you
before your baby brother went to school
You ask Abby,
Have you ever told? Do you think anyone ever has?
Abby says, My grandma told me to have more respect.
My grandma says not to bother her and just behave.
Keisha, beside her, leans forward and says,
I heard the Milton boys told last year. Principal said
they misbehave on the bus. It’ll be on their school record.
Abby says, It’s true, they do.
Some of us cut up when she calls us names
and it’s true
everybody’s a little poor over here.
If we acted better, maybe she’d be nicer?
Try Again with Just Mom
The bus kids must be exaggerating
because she is in the PTA
and helps out with the Cub Scout den.
Her own kids are good kids.
They’ll talk to her at the next meeting
try to see what they can do to help get
the kids on the bus to behave.
Now What?
We’ve had a Stranger Danger Assembly
and a Bully-Free Zone Program
and two years of School Safety
and something like: Character-Counts-So-We-Won’t-Tolerate-Bullies Day.
But none of that seems to fit what’s happening here.
That Day
That Day Mattie
got yelled at because someone TOLD.
That Day Mattie got yelled at
because of the trash in piles by her front door
and her mother’s dogs
that roam in the yards and stand in the street.
That Day Mattie got yelled at because she reeked
That Day Mattie cried and peed in the aisle
That Day you stood up and shouted,
Leave Mattie alone!
and the whole bus went dead quiet.
You took her to the too-busy school nurse
for some clean pants.
And the too-busy school nurse
looked at you funny when you said who made Mattie cry.
On the Bus
She told you to shut up so you do because you don’t want your brother to be her next target.
She told you to shut up so you do because you don’t want to be her next target.
She told you to shut up so you do because Mattie has missed school since that day.
She told you to shut up so you do.
But you start writing everything down.
This Time
you don’t try to talk so much
that your brother won’t hear.
Instead,
you write
every mean thing she says
with dates.
And then you borrow
what you aren’t allowed to borrow
you borrow your mother’s phone.
You will be in Big Trouble.
But you record it all
over and over
the curses
the comments
the names.
The way she taunts
Malcolm and Ginnie,
her new targets,
every time she stops at their house.
Tells them every time it looks like a pigsty.
Tells them every time how it suits them.
You feel your face redden
and try to nod and smile at Ginnie
so she knows you’re on her side.
Of course, she does what you do,
doesn’t look anyone in the eye
as she takes a seat.
If you don’t look
you don’t cry.
Usually.
And Then
It happened pretty fast.
The too-busy school nurse
stopped and read
stopped and listened
to the video
on Mom’s phone that you sneaked.
The not-too-busy school nurse called the principal
to see
to listen.
And they would have called Mattie
from her class if she had been to school since
the bus driver bullied her for the last time.
New Driver
You let your brother sit up front
so he can pretend to drive.
Mattie sits in the seat across the aisle.
Not smiling
yet. But not crying
either.
Your brother calls over to Mattie,
uses his penny-scented hands,
shows her how to steer.
Mattie puts both hands on her pretend giant wheel
and steers like she knows exactly where to go.
Mike Winchell
SCHOOL'S OUT
Summer is here. You’ve made it! After a long school year, it’s time to kick back, relax, and soak up some rays. But . . . maybe your summer plans are different from what your parents have in mind. If that’s the case, who knows what this summer might look like?
Author Holly Goldberg Sloan once had a summer of unexpected plans when she was a kid, and she couldn’t help but write a story based on that unforgettable summer break.
Holly Goldberg Sloan
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW
The newspaper in our town in Oregon came late every afternoon, so that at the end of the day my parents could always be found in the living room reading. Dinner table conversation sprang most often from an article they had just seen. My father was a professor of psychology at the local university. My mother had returned to school to get an architecture degree. But my mother loved movies and the theater.
I was in fifth grade and the shortest girl in my class. I was not musical, nor did I consider myself dramatic in any form. I liked drawing. My friends. Reading. Dogs. Bowling. And baking cookies. But on this night in late May so many years ago, as we sat down over chicken and salad and noodles with butter, my mother revealed that she had just read in the newspaper that the drama department at the university was holding auditions for parts in their summer stock play. They were looking for children (short was good) to fill the roles of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. Seeing as we kids had no plans for the summer, did we want to audition? My older brother most certainly did not. My younger brother was usually up for something if I wanted to be involved. But I don’t remember wanting to be involved. I remember clearly that my mother started singing “Over the Rainbow.”
Two days later we were picked up at the curb in front of school and driven to the college campus. With Mom at our side, we signed in on a big sheet of paper and then made our way to a dark theater, where we waited until we were called, one by one, up onto the stage. A man sat at a piano, and each of us was asked to loudly announce our name and then take a turn singing. I believe we all tried to sing “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.” But this might not be accurate. Memory has a way of bending things. It is very possible we were told we could sing anything we wanted for this audition. If that’s the case, I feel fairly confident that I would have sung “This Land Is Your Land.” I have no idea what my little brother picked.
However, this is what I do recall without question: The room was very dark when I was on that stage, and the light next to the piano was very bright. I did not believe then and I do not believe now (so many years later) that I have a good sing
ing voice. What I have (then and now) is the confidence to do something without a lot of preparation or ability. I remember once the singing was over feeling nothing but relief to be back in the blue Buick station wagon and on the road. We were driven straightaway to the L & L Bakery, where my brother and I each got a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting for our efforts. This was a rare and impressive reward. It made the terror of the dark theater fade. Sort of.
That night when my mother put me to bed, I told her that I hoped my little brother would get the phone call (coming in four days only to the kids who were picked) to play the part of a Munchkin in the summer play. My mother smiled in a way that was thrilling and said I should know that my little brother told her only moments before that he wanted me to get the part. She was so proud of us. We were each hoping for the other to win. I’m not certain that I saw it as winning, although we were a competitive group. By the end of the four days the phone did ring, and there were two Munchkins in the house that summer. And the lessons I learned, as a kid working in the largest production of the year for the university’s theater department, would stay with me for a lifetime.
“Standing Tall” by Holly Goldberg Sloan is the basis for the novel Short, which will be published in January 2017 by Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Holly Goldberg Sloan
THE STORY
STANDING TALL
I’m small for my age, and most people think I look at least two years younger than a fifth-grader. But I’m used to people believing my younger brother and I are the same age.
School’s out and I’m getting ready to do a lot of nothing, which is pretty much what every day is like in the summer. I have a bike that my neighbor Janis gave me, and I can ride down the hill. That’s fun, but it means I have to push the bicycle back up the steep incline to get home. There are no gears on the pink hunk of metal, and being stuck with a heavy Schwinn with a rusty basket and rattling fenders can be a lot of work. The summer is for relaxing, so my plan is to leave it in the garage.
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