On Monday Ms. Archer hands back our personal essays.
I get an A on mine. Maybe the A is partly because I had to put the Mrs. Whistlepuff essay aside at the last minute and start all over again, an A for effort. But it doesn’t really matter because I already sent my expanded Mrs. Whistlepuff essay to the Denver Post contest last night. I couldn’t sleep, thinking about Hunter’s meanness and the New Yorker rejection. So at two in the morning I slipped out of bed, turned on my computer, and did the deed.
Kylee got an A on her essay, too. I don’t know what Cameron got on his. I do know he stuck it inside his journalism binder without even looking at it. (Ms. Archer hands them back to us facedown, to protect each student’s privacy from prying eyes—like mine.)
“All right, intrepid scholars,” Ms. Archer says. “Next up, we’ll be spending two weeks reading and writing reviews.”
“Reviews of what?” Tyler wants to know. “Video games?” he asks hopefully.
“Of anything!” Ms. Archer replies. “Video games, books, films, plays, restaurants, shops, services. Anything where you think your opinion might be helpful to someone trying to decide whether to purchase or attend or engage with that thing.”
As soon as she said “books,” I thought about the book I love best and would most want to tell the world about: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. But most people already know about that book. Shouldn’t the review be about something new? I feel too shy to ask.
“A review, say, of a book”—Ms. Archer must be reading my mind—“must be more than just a summary of the plot, though you do want to give the reader a sense of what the story is about, while avoiding spoilers that would destroy the reading experience. Above all, the reader wants your opinion about the plot, the characters, the theme, the writing style. But a review also needs to be more than just your opinion: I loved this, I hated that. Your opinion needs to be supported with details and examples. Why did you love this? Why did you hate that?”
Tyler calls out another question. “What if you hate the whole thing?”
Ms. Archer laughs. “It’s true that reviews make a stronger impression if they take a bold stance rather than being timid or wishy-washy. But you also want to be fair. Readers want to be able to trust your judgment as being impartial rather than biased.”
Olivia raises her hand. “Is anybody going to be reading these reviews?” she asks. “Except for you, of course? And other kids in the class?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Ms. Archer says. “One appealing feature of review writing is how easy it is to publish reviews online these days, on sites like Goodreads, for books, or Amazon, for just about anything, or on a business’s own website. But the ease of posting your review doesn’t mean you should compromise your standards as writers. You wouldn’t want to post anything on which you wouldn’t be proud to sign your name.”
It would be fun to post a review online. But I don’t think a review posted on a website would count as a real publication.
“I’ll also be evaluating your reviews,” Ms. Archer continues, “to see if any of them might be right for the Peaks Post.”
The Peaks Post is the Southern Peaks Middle School paper. Ms. Archer is the adviser for it, as well as our journalism teacher. The editors for the paper are eighth graders who already took the journalism class last year; regular school events are covered by students who signed up to be staff writers. I haven’t done that, maybe because Hunter calls it the Pukes Post. Anyone can submit features, reviews, or op-eds to the paper at any time. Then the byline reads “Special to the Peaks Post.” Sometimes articles in the Peaks Post are picked up by the grown-up paper in town, the Broomville Banner, which would be a pretty amazing thing to have happen.
Now I definitely need to think of something to review other than Wuthering Heights. There is no way that either the Peaks Post or the Broomville Banner would want to publish a review of a book written centuries ago.
Ms. Archer gives a smile that seems to say she’s sure she’s going to find at least one publishable review from someone in our class. Then she says, “I’m going to give you a few minutes to brainstorm ideas for what you might want to review with the people sitting near you. Try to think of something where you might have special expertise that could inform your evaluation. Or something unusual that others might not think of reviewing.”
I’m sitting next to Cameron, of course, and Kylee is on my other side. Olivia, Kaitlyn, and Tyler are right in front of us. So we pull our desks together in an awkward circle.
I wish Olivia sat on the other side of the room.
I wish Olivia weren’t even in our class.
“What are the rest of you thinking about doing?” she asks. I notice she doesn’t tell us first what she’s planning to do. Maybe she has some idea so wonderful she wants to keep it to herself.
To my surprise, Kylee, who is usually even quieter than I am, which is saying a lot, says without a moment’s hesitation, “I’m going to review Knit Wits.”
Everybody else looks blank. The name sounds just like “Nitwits.” Only I know that it’s a new shop in the mall that has every kind of yarn on earth, made of wool not just from sheep but also from alpacas, llamas, Angora rabbits, even camels.
“It’s a knitting store,” Kylee explains.
Olivia rolls her eyes, but Tyler says, “Cool! If anyone knows about knitting, it’s you, Kylee.”
“I’m going to review the new Disney film,” Kaitlyn said. “The one that’s coming out this weekend.”
That sounds like an extremely ordinary idea to me, but Olivia, who has somehow become the official dispenser of approval or disapproval, gives a gracious nod.
Tyler says he’s going to review some video game I’ve never heard of. As he says it, he pantomimes his hands twitching on the controller.
“What about you, Cameron?” Olivia asks.
Cameron has been doodling the whole time, but he looks up to say, “Cosmic Eruption.” When everyone looks as mystified as when Kylee mentioned Knit Wits, he says, “It’s an indie band.”
“Autumn?” Olivia asks.
I have an idea cosmically erupting in my brain now, but there is no way I’m going to say it in front of Olivia or Cameron; I’ll save it to tell Kylee later when we’re completely alone.
“Probably just a book,” I mumble.
“Which book?” Olivia pursues.
I can just imagine the eye roll I’d get for saying Wuthering Heights.
“I haven’t decided anything yet,” I say.
“What about you?” Kaitlyn asks Olivia. “I bet you have the coolest idea of all.”
Kylee and I think that sort of thing about each other—I mean, we’re both each other’s biggest fans—but we don’t show it in front of other people to make them feel bad.
“I haven’t decided anything yet either,” Olivia says. Then she relents. “Well, there’s a new cupcake store on Ninth Street. It would be fun to have an excuse to taste all their cupcakes.”
“Oooh!” Kaitlyn squeals.
I have to admit that’s a review I’d like to read or, even more, a review I’d like to write. But I already have my own idea.
My own extremely terrific idea.
Guess who is going to go to a certain gig this weekend and write a review of a certain band named Paradox?
On a five-star scale, guess how many stars I’m going to give them? I wish I could give them zero, but on the rating sites for things, one star is the lowest you can give. But it’s what I’ll say about them that matters.
In class on the very first day of the new school year, Ms. Archer told us, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”
And the published pen is mightier than anything.
What if Ms. Archer chooses my review to publish in the school paper? And what if the Broomville Banner publishes it next? Maybe the Associated Press will pick it up! And the terrible things I’ll say about Hunter’s band will be read by people all over the world.
Nothing is sweeter than a writer’s revenge.
* * *
“You have to come with me,” I plead with Kylee.
I’m at her house on Saturday afternoon, in her room, sitting cross-legged on her bed, next to a growing pile of finished dog sweaters, each one cuter than the last. She told me she feels guilty she’s only finished five so far, but five sounds like a lot to me. It’s five more dog sweaters than most people on this planet have to show for themselves.
“I need to finish seven more by a week from Wednesday,” she says.
“Why a week from Wednesday?”
“That’s the deadline.” Kylee’s fingers click along on the needles as fast as my fingers click along on a computer keyboard. I wonder if she knows how many stitches she can knit in a minute.
“What do you mean, the deadline? Don’t cold little dogs need sweaters just as much on Thursday? Or Friday? Besides, winter’s still two months away.”
“That’s the last day of the special knit-for-dogs drive,” Kylee answers.
“And why seven more sweaters? You act like you’re an oppressed worker in some sweatshop in China.”
She looks directly at me.
I shouldn’t have made a joke about China.
“In some sweatshop somewhere,” I correct myself. “Like if you don’t meet your quota, you’ll be fired and your family will starve to death.”
“Donating a dozen sweaters is my personal goal.” Kylee sounds like her usual placid self, to my relief after the unfortunate sweatshop-in-China comment. Yet her fingers look anything but placid as she keeps the needles click-click-clicking. “And dogs might freeze to death if I don’t make them.”
“The sweaters are for the shelter dogs,” I remind her. “They’re not going to round up all the stray dogs in Broomville so they can dress them up in sweaters.”
“You have goals,” Kylee says. Her tone has an un-placid edge to it now. “You want to publish your Cameron poems in The New Yorker.”
I haven’t told Kylee about the rejection yet. It’s the first time ever in our friendship that I haven’t told her something. I’m not quite sure why. I guess I feel not only heartbroken about it but also ashamed at how pitiful I was to dream so big and fail so badly.
“And you want to publish your review of the band in the Peaks Post, and the Broomville Banner, and someplace where everyone in the world will read it.” Of course, I told her that after school on Monday. “So this is my goal,” Kylee finishes.
I want Kylee to achieve her goal as much as she wants me to achieve mine. But how can I achieve mine if she doesn’t agree to go to the gig with me tonight? I could call Brianna or Isabelle. But no one else understands how I feel about Cameron, and there’s a good chance Cameron will be at the gig, since the band is playing one of his songs. I still don’t know which one is his because of being too distraught to listen to the practice that day, but I’m sure I’ll recognize it when I hear it. Writers show their soul in what they write.
“Please come?” I make my voice high and squeaky and irresistibly adorable. “Please, please, please, please?”
“It will be loud,” Kylee says.
True.
“It will be dark.”
Also probably true.
“I’ll hate every minute of it.”
I try to come up with some reason weighty enough to overcome her objections. “I think Cameron might be there, and … well … Just come with me. That’s all I ask. You can bring your knitting with you.”
Kylee tosses aside her knitting and flings herself down on her bedspread in a gesture of surrender. Face buried in dog sweaters, she says, “This is a one-time thing. I am not—I repeat not—going to be a Paradox groupie, no matter how many songs Cameron writes for them. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I say.
I’m so relieved and grateful, there’s nothing I wouldn’t agree to right now.
Besides, given how scathing my review of Paradox is going to be, and how widely I plan for it to be published, this may well be the only gig the band ever has.