The week before school lets out for summer break, our English classroom looks totally different. Mrs. Parkman has arranged our desks in groups of four and she has draped dark-colored tablecloths over them. On each desk is a plate and plastic utensils, a fancy napkin, and a stack of sticky notes and a brand-new pen. The overhead fluorescent lights are switched off, and the floor lamps she has placed around the room give off a calm, cool glow, like we’re in a coffee shop. A lone stool sits at the front of the room right under a brighter lamp, one of those with a bendy arm and a bell-shaped head. Every chair in the room has been carefully placed so that whoever is sitting in it will be able to see that stool.
The back counter is full of food: fresh strawberries and melon, chocolate and glazed donuts, cheese cubes and carrot sticks. There are glass pitchers filled with lemonade and apple juice next to a stack of plastic cups, the pretty ones that look like crystal. Mrs. Parkman has outdone herself.
I come in, silently, with the rest of my classmates. We’re all too afraid to say anything, like speaking aloud might make it all disappear. But Mrs. Parkman has the biggest grin on her face.
“Come in! Come in! Welcome to our Writer’s Lounge!”
We take our seats, and she explains what we’re going to do: one at a time, we will take the writer’s chair. We’ll read our stories aloud to the class, who will listen, respond appropriately, then write one thing they loved from the piece on a sticky note. The sticky notes will all end up stuck to our own personal copies of the class anthology.
Mrs. Parkman teaches us how to snap our fingers if someone reads a beautiful poem, how to clap somberly for a sad story, how to whoop it up for something exciting, and how to stand up and go wild if someone’s story blows us away.
We all take our plates and fill them with goodies. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a bunch of seventh graders eat, but normally it’s like watching a pack of wild dogs. Today, though, everyone takes dainty little bites and no one slurps their drinks. Mrs. Parkman’s magic has cast a spell on us all.
Everyone’s too scared to go first; the stool up front under the spotlight is intimidating. But Mrs. Parkman lets us chat at our tables while we eat, waiting for just one brave volunteer.
Marisa finally can’t stand another minute. “I’ll go, Mrs. Parkman.”
“Wonderful!” Mrs. Parkman claps her hands together, and Marisa walks up to the stool. I have to hand it to her, Marisa has some guts. As hard as it is for us dyslexic kids to read, it’s even harder for us to write. So imagine having to read words aloud that you wrote yourself.
Like I said, guts.
Marisa’s voice shakes at first, but I can tell she’s practiced, maybe even memorized, her story. Marisa tells us about the night her sister Allie was born, how she met her for the first time, her face all pink and scrunched up, her sweet little cry. When she gets to the end, I look around and see that no one’s eating or drinking anymore. They’re all looking right at her; the perfect audience.
Marisa puts her paper down in her lap and smiles so big when everyone claps and Kyla whoops. Then everyone peels off a sticky note, writes something down, and takes it over to Mrs. Parkman. The only sound in the room is the scratching of pen on paper and chairs clinking together as people get out of their seats. I write Allie’s really lucky to have a big sister like you.
Next we hear from Caden, who saw an alligator while he was swimming in the lake last summer. It gets tense for a minute and we all go wild, clapping and yelling “yeaaaahhh!” when he makes it safely back to the beach.
Kyla reads through all of her poems in rainbow order, ending with silver, her own version of a pot of gold. We snap our fingers after each one and she takes a dramatic bow when she finishes “Silver.” We can’t help it and clap wildly for her, too.
Jolie tells a sad story of losing her grandmother. I’m grateful the lights are dim because I tear up, jealous that she even knew her grandmother.
Duke’s story about the one-armed boy with superpowers has everyone on the edge of their seats. We gasp when he makes a narrow escape and sigh collectively when the villain is captured. I’ve read his story over and over, but it feels good knowing I had a hand, even a small one, in helping make it the masterpiece it is.
Everyone shares their writing, one after the other, until it’s just me. I’m the last to go, and even though I’m proud of what I wrote, that doesn’t mean my stomach hasn’t tied itself in a million knots.
I walk up to the stool at a sloth’s pace. My feet feel heavy, like my shoes have weights in them. I hold my paper so tight it feels like it might fall apart in my fingers. When I open my mouth to begin, I freeze. A sound like “urgh” comes out, so I clear my throat to cover it up. The whole class is looking at me expectantly, but it’s Duke’s eye that catches mine. He is smiling and moving his mouth silently to say, You can do it! I straighten my back and take a deep breath.
Before I tell you this story, I have to tell you one thing: Uncle Carlos wasn’t a bad guy. He was fine, nice even, until he got hurt and then got sad and then did some bad things. But he himself wasn’t bad.
The last day of sixth grade ended like every other day. I rode the bus home, dropped my stuff by the door, and watched some cartoons with De-vine, who was only two then.
Uncle Carlos came home from the auto shop late. The way he banged the front door open and limped inside the house told me it wasn’t a good night, so I grabbed an already-sleeping Dee and Maya and locked us all in our bedroom.
I remember everything else in a series of images, like disturbing snapshots in my mind, only worse because there are sounds and smells, too. De-vine’s angelic face, sleeping in the middle of the storm around her. Maya’s wide eyes and shaking hands. The door bursting open, splinters from the broken door frame suspended in mid-air. A fist. An angry growl. Alcohol on his breath, spitting word after hateful word at me. Dirty hands holding me up against the wall, my feet hovering a couple of inches off the ground. Mom wailing. ‘STOP!’ she yells. His anger leaves me for a second as he turns on her. She’s ready to fight him.”
I stop for a second to gauge the audience. Everyone’s looking right at me, waiting for me to continue.
I couldn’t watch him hit her again. So, over the pounding of my heart in my ears, I yelled out to him. He turned back to me, baring his teeth like an angry wolf. He lunged at me, tried to wrap his hands around my throat. But I was faster. My fist shot out and made contact with his face. It wasn’t hard enough, though. The last thing I remember is my own face running into the door frame. Everything went black. I woke to a searing pain in my eye and thick, syrupy blood in a puddle around me. It smelled like metal, like your hands after you play with a bunch of pennies.”
I put my hand up to touch the scar running down my face. I don’t know if I do this on purpose or if it’s just a reflex.
The next thing I knew, there was a cop in the living room, and a paramedic cleaning off my face. My hand was pretty bruised up, but thankfully didn’t appear to be broken. I remember him telling me, ‘That’s gonna leave a scar—but you won’t need stitches,’ about the gash in my cheek. Mom was sobbing, and Uncle Carlos was gone. We never saw him again. And by the time my swollen face shrank down to normal size, it was like he was never here to begin with.
That was going to be the end of my story, but it turns out it wasn’t over.”
I look over at Duke, who raises an eyebrow. He hasn’t heard this part yet.
Three days ago, they found Uncle Carlos in a park, dead for about a week. No one knows where he’s been the past year, what he’s been doing. But he’s gone now. For good. The cops found a note in his wallet. It said, ‘I’m sorry. Take care of D.’
I guess in a way, I should feel sad, but I don’t. Instead, I feel safe, knowing that he won’t come crashing through the door again, won’t come back for De-vine, won’t hurt anyone else. The night the cops told us about him I had the best sleep of my life.
I know kids like me can be kind of ‘scary.’ I have problems that most of you don’t have or don’t see. I have deep dark secrets that I’ve never told before. But if I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that everyone has their own story. And our stories make us who we are. So even if they aren’t happy ones, tell them. They are a part of you. And trust me, it feels really good to get them down on paper.
“The End,” I say because I feel like it deserves to really be the End. Capital E.