Miss Cary says for a news story to be something people will want to read, it’s got to be like a well-written novel by a great author; it’s got to touch on human emotions. She even gave me a list of what the most important human emotions are. I see this as proof of something I’ve suspected since we first met, that she doesn’t think I’m real bright.

She told me, after I’d written something, I had to compare it to her list to make sure I was striking one of the emotions there. She says I have to do this until it happens without thought. The most important human emotions, in Miss Cary’s eyes, are:

1.    Anger

2.    Fear

3.    Happiness

4.    Sadness

5.    Surprise

I’m well on my way to being a good reporter, because another one of Miss Cary’s lessons is that the best reporters always question what we’ve been told. Good reporters want to look deeper into whatever we’re investigating; we don’t just accept any old answer someone gives us. I’ve taken that lesson to heart and didn’t accept Miss Cary’s list of the most important human emotions as the undisputed truth either.

I’m not saying the list isn’t a good start, but I think there are two more important human emotions that need to be included. I’ve never heard of them described as emotions, but they should be. From what I’ve seen, they have a stronger effect on you than feeling sad or happy do.

I’m talking about sounds and smells. There is nothing that can bring up memories quicker than a certain sound, or clearer than a familiar smell.

Someone singing a song can make you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing the first time you’d heard it. Hearing a belt get pulled out of its loops real fast can make your head jerk up whilst you remember a licking from a year ago like it just happened.

But the emotion of smell is even stronger.

A good whiff of something can quick-as-that pick you up and drop you in another place and time, just as surely as that contraption in the story The Time Machine.

I can walk into our home and if Mother has baked cookies, a memory so strong sometimes gets into my head that I can remember conversations from years ago, or even the way the light was falling through a window.

I was walking home from school when I was around six or seven. I know it was then because that was the year the mayor gave me a Hudson Bay capote for my birthday, and I was so proud of it, I didn’t want to take it off, even when spring was edging close to summer.

I remember becoming very excited when I opened the front door to home and breathed in air that was drenched with the smell of cookies. I dropped my Hudson Bay coat on the floor and ran to where the warm brown smell was coming from.

Any time I smell chocolate chip cookies, I remember Mother’s exact words when I came into the kitchen. She said, “I know you didn’t just drop the mayor’s coat on the floor. Do you have any idea how much that cost?”

I said, “Are the cookies done?”

She whirled around from the stove and snapped, “And I know those aren’t your boots tracking wetness into my kitchen! You have to the count of three to get your clothes taken care of, Mr. Benjamin Alston, and the ‘one’ and the ‘two’ are silent.”

I remember I had a moment of stupidness, wondering if it might be worthwhile to make a dash at the cookies that were cooling next to the stove. I wasn’t particularly bright at six or seven years old.

But when Mother said, “Three,” I was brought to my senses and went to do as I was told.

Or I can go tomorrow into the icehouse in Buxton and pick a coat off a nail and pull it around me, and in no time, the brisk smell of dampness and cold that are clinging to the coat will carry me into the middle of a snowball war that happened years ago.

Me and Spencer were pinned down in our snow fort while the twins and Pilot pelted us with snowballs. They’d cheated and soaked the snowballs in water to turn them into ice balls, and we were defenseless. Trying to protect my head, I pushed my face into my jacket and first smelled that smell that the icehouse coat brings up.

If I had closed my eyes, I would have been back in the ice fort, listening to Spencer’s laughs, feeling his legs kicking at me as we lay huddled behind the crumbling walls of our soon-to-be overrun fort.

Spencer had said, “ ’Tis an honour and a pleasure to die in battle with such a wonderful chum, Benji.”

I’d replied, “No, Spencer, the pleasure’s all mine,” just before one of the ice balls sent Spence crying home with a busted lip.

So even though Miss Cary was the first black woman in North America to have her own newspaper and had done a bunch of other things that people celebrated, she didn’t know everything.

She had refused to publish another article, but that’s not the reason today’s headline was going to be:

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER NEW EMOTION. FAMOUS NEWSPAPER EDITOR EMBARRASSED FOR GETTING IT SO WRONG.