Tick. Tick. Tick. I lay on my bed on Saturday morning, flat on my back with my watch pressed to my ear. I listened to the patient, steady ticks. Tick. Tick. Tick. The house was empty except for my dad and me, and he was down in the basement, working in his studio. Mom was […]
January/February 2003
Friday Night at Miss Farida’s Piano Lesson
Miss Farida loves vanilla-smelling candles which flicker against the sleeping couch. I place my sandals beside the spill of shoes and slippers strewn across the plastic mat in the hallway to her room. I see the Sesame Street stickers propped near the electric piano, tangled in a hoop of dreaming dust, and the pedals, wrapped […]
Jenny
The new girl stood over by the jungle gym, not climbing or talking to the other girls, but just standing there, peering into a brown lunch bag. She pulled something out of it, but I couldn’t see what it was from the distance. Matt, a skinny boy with round glasses, was talking about a scary […]
