Past the field Through the briar By the breaths of people lingering in the light Past the smoke Into the mill Creeping closer With the stealth of a cat Up the stairs And onto the windowsill Like a hawk in its nest A pencil and paper And a breathtaking view With an idea And new perspectives She put the pencil to the paper And as though the paper was a ballroom And the pencil a dancer She wrote. Anne Brandes, 12New York, New York
January/February 2016
Join the Fun
Veronica Caisse, age ten, stood in front of the mirror, her arms out to the sides. “What do you think?” she asked her cat, Aphrodite, turning so she could see the full extent of her outfit. Aphrodite gave a tiny, indifferent meow. “Thank you!” Veronica told her. “I do have good fashion sense, don’t I?” She admired herself again. Cute knee-length dress with a black-and-white stripy pattern, sparkly ballet flats, long blond hair pulled back with a flowered white headband. “Ronnie!” Her dad bellowed from downstairs. “Get down here! We’re gonna be late!” With a final glance in the mirror, she walked out of the room with a goodbye to Aphrodite. Veronica found, when she got downstairs, that her family hadn’t taken nearly as much care and time getting dressed as she had. Her mom was looking nice but normal in a maroon turtleneck sweater and black pants. However, Veronica noted the pearl earrings and slight coating of lipstick. Her dad wore jeans, a plain blue jacket, and a lighter blue polo shirt. Hmm, that was what he wore every day. Her older brother, Jared, was attired in a pair of ripped jeans, a faded T-shirt, and a well-worn USC jacket. Disgraceful. Jared burst out laughing. “Ronnie, you are really… wow…” Veronica tried to figure out what his deal was. Did she have a lump in her hair? Or were her shoes on the wrong feet? “I do have good fashion sense, don’t I?” “Sweetie,” her mom said hesitantly, “do you think you are a little, um, overdressed for an informal family gathering?” Her mom emphasized the “informal,” as if Veronica hadn’t heard that description five million times already. “Ron-Ron,” Veronica’s dad intervened. “There will be games and running around. You can change, or not. It’s your choice.” Veronica pretended to consider, but honestly, it was a no-brainer. “I’ll wear this,” she said decisively. After all, looking good should be everyone’s top priority. “And don’t call me Ron-Ron!” she admonished her dad. “It’s so babyish. I’m ten, you know.” Her mom and dad exchanged what-can- we-do looks but said no more about the matter as the whole Caisse family walked out the door and into the car. As Mr. Caisse revved up the engine and began driving down the street, Veronica arranged herself comfortably on her half of the back seat. Headphones, check. iPod, check. Markers, check. Pad of paper, check. Jared was sprawled out as much as he could in his amount of space, earbuds stuffed in his ears, though Veronica thought she could hear a very soft echo of the pounding heavy metal. Sighing, Veronica put her headphones on and began working through her playlist, humming along as she carefully designed outfits on the outlines of the people she had drawn. About an hour into the drive, as she was mumble-singing the lyrics to “All About That Bass” and filling in the shirt on her newest figure, Jared nudged her. “Look up, Ron,” he said, “we’re nearly there.” Though slightly miffed to be interrupted in the chorus of her favorite song, she pulled off the headphones and looked out the window. Sure enough, there was Aunt Mattie and Uncle Rob’s house. “We’re there!” she nearly squealed. Jared grinned. “We’ll get to see all our cousins! Nina and Josh and Kymmie and Gryffin and Joe…” Veronica and Jared waited impatiently while their dad circled around, looking for parking. “Come on, Daddy!” Veronica urged. “We need, need, need to get in!” Both Jared and Veronica were appropriately excited for their once-every-two-years family gathering with all their cousins and uncles and aunts. The place where it was held varied from year to year. This time, they were lucky, since Aunt Mattie and Uncle Rob lived relatively close to them. However, many of their cousins had to fly in. But the luckiest by far were Lucy and Gryffin, who didn’t have to go anywhere at all this year. Finally, finally, they parked and the kids leapt out of the car. “Race you!” called Jared, sprinting down the block. “I can’t run!” Veronica yelled after him. “My flats…” He didn’t notice, and with a sigh she began to walk with her mother at an annoyingly slow pace. By the time they reached their aunt and uncle’s house, Jared was already leaning coolly against the doorway, with an expression that said, “What took you so long? Awesome people always get places fast.” Rolling her eyes, Veronica reached up and rang the doorbell. Almost instantly, it swung open, and there was Aunt Mattie, a big grin on her face. “Hello hello hello!” She gave them all crushingly warm hugs, and with several more greetings and hugs to other relatives, Jared and Veronica escaped to the backyard where the other kids were all gathered. “ROOOONNNNNIIIIIIIE!” A little pint-sized ball of energy hit Veronica full in the stomach, sending her falling back into the grass. “Hey, Kymmie!” she grinned. Kymmie was seven years old, tiny for her age, with wide, intelligent brown eyes and soft red hair. Veronica had been the big sister Kymmie had never had, as the latter had grown up in a family of boys. While Jared was greeting the other boys ( Josh, Gryffin, Tyler, and Joe) with a series of fist bumps, back slaps, and “Hey, man!”s, Veronica’s other girl cousins had come over: Nina, Lucy, and Emmy. “Hi, Ronnie!” Emmy said, helping her up. Emmy and Lucy were the closest in age to Veronica, the former being eleven and the latter nine. Nina was the same age as Kymmie, and they would’ve looked very much the same except Nina’s eyes were a striking blue, in contrast to Kymmie’s brown. The boys had wandered over. “Hey, girls,” Joe said. Joe’s real name was Sasha, but he thought it was a girly name, so had spontaneously changed his name to Joe. “Pop brought a bunch of potato sacks. Is anyone up for a race?” It was unanimous. As they distributed the
Iris in the German Garden
An old minivan slowly grumbled its way up the ugly, concrete driveway, passing an old clump of purple-brown wisteria vines, rumbling by a dingy hedge shielding the moldy garbage can, full of old holes where squirrels and raccoons had once tried to nibble their way in to eat the trash. “Well, here we are!” said a woman in a falsely cheerful voice, dragging an old, moth-eaten suitcase. A girl of about eleven adjusted her hat and coat. She brushed back her dirty-blond hair and said, “Are we really? My, I think I expected it to be a bit grander, didn’t you? But I suppose it’ll have a simply lovely garden to play in, won’t it, Mother?” She said all this very fast, in a bossy-ish sort of English accent. “Yes, I’m sure it will,” her mother replied. She gave a tired smile and seemed to be trying to convince herself as much as her daughter. This girl’s name was Iris Stellar-Lupos. Her mother, Jill Stellar, was a widow. Iris’s dad, Robin Lupos, had died of cancer a few months ago. Before Mr. Lupos had died, he and Iris’s mum had planned to come to Germany for a year, so that Iris could learn a second language. But then Robin had died, and Iris’s mum decided that they should come to Germany anyway. A change of scenery, she thought, might help Iris forget about… well, she didn’t want to think about that. Iris took her small suitcase and followed her mum up the stairs. As they entered the grimy glass doors a robotic female voice said, “Willkommen im Wunderhaus!” Iris looked enquiringly up at her mother. “It’s German for, ‘Welcome to the Wonder-house,’” her mother replied, trying to smile. They walked up five flights of stairs (there was no elevator) until they came to a door saying “Stelar Lupus.” Great! Iris thought. They can’t even spell my last name! Mrs. Stellar opened the door, saying, “Home, sweet home!” She was always too positive. “Now, honey,” Iris’s mother said as they trudged down the hall, staring gloomily at the peeling orange wallpaper, “you go into this room and unpack. Finally you can have your very own bedroom!” Muttering indistinctly, Iris opened the bedroom door and slipped quietly inside. She didn’t want to be disturbed. “I expected it to be a bit grander, didn’t you?” Iris didn’t bother unpacking. She took out her diary and a stub of pencil, threw herself onto the little cot in the corner, tried to make herself comfortable by pulling the thin, moth-eaten covers up to her chin (but abandoned that quickly as the faded orange wool was itchy), and began to write: I hate it here… I miss my dad… Why did he have to die?… I want to be at home with him, not here… * * * Iris awoke to the sound of shouting. She opened the window and leaned groggily out. “Please! I’m trying to sleep!” Two boys stared at her from the outdoor corridor that ran around the inside of the building. One was roughly Iris’s age. The other looked about six. “Oooooh!” the older one yelled. “She’s trying to sleep! Has the little baby got enough rest? Little ones are very delicate!” he mocked. Iris closed the curtains, hoping they weren’t so faded that they were see-through, pulled on her dress, hat, and coat, and stormed outside. “LEAVE… ME… ALONE… IN… FUTURE!” “Hey, don’t shout!” said the elder of the two. “I’m James Rickmann. But please, dear lady, do call me Jamie.” He made a fake bow. “And this charming young gentleman is Molasses.” “Huh?” Iris stared at him, unable to make sense of what he’d said. She was still very jet-lagged and felt slow and clumsy. “His real name is Milo, but everyone calls him Molasses,” Jamie explained. “We’re from New York. Our family is staying in Germany for a year.” “I,” Iris said, trying to shake off her tiredness, “am Iris. And please don’t shout. It disturbs the magic.” She smiled annoyingly, in the I-know-something-you-don’t kind of way, which is very different from the I-have-forty-three-dollars-in-my- pocket way, or the it’s-my-birthday-and- I’m-getting-a-video-camera way. “Aw, you don’t really believe in magic!” Jamie said, “People only believed in that before there was science and stuff.” “Yes, I do!” Iris retorted. How could they know that she had believed in magic ever since she was nine, when she had first read the Harry Potter series. They had been her favorite books ever since. How could they know about everything that had happened to her in her short, eleven-year- long life? About how her dad got cancer and died? Her head throbbed, but she tried to ignore it. “I’ll prove to you that magic exists! Wait here!” Iris dashed back into her apartment, filled an empty jam jar with water, and grabbed her Hermione Granger wand and some irises from a vase in her room. She ran back outside, dropped the flowers into the jar, and pressed and twisted and squeezed them until she had dyed the water the purple of the flowers. “This,” she said, trying to imitate Hermione’s bossy voice, “is Draught of the Living Death, from Harry Potter. It…” “We know!” Jamie interrupted. “We’ve read Harry Potter.” Iris sighed, then said, “Abracadabra!” and pointed the wand at the “potion.” Nothing happened. Iris tried not to burst into tears as Molasses giggled and Jamie whooped. “I’ll prove to you that magic exists. I’ll prove it to you!” she said. “Meet me here in a few days and I’ll show you!” She stormed off towards the rusty metal apartment door that must once have been painted orange, snatching up her mother’s half-finished tea and some paper from the printer. (She hoped her mother wouldn’t notice; paper was expensive.) Then Iris sat down and began. * * * Of course magic exists!” Iris hissed. It was the next day, and Iris’s first at her new school, Gruene Grundschule. It was made of concrete with
