Julia arose at the early hour of four o’clock AM, fighting already bubbling nerves, and being careful not to wake her parents in the next room or her two younger siblings. She didn’t want anyone to know about her endeavors, should they fail. And she didn’t want to hurt her parents by going behind their […]
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 […]
