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January/February 2016

A Different Kind of Brave

I bend over and finger my key chain, determined to escape into the world of Little Miss Piggy and Mini Kermit the Frog. I try to ignore the teasing around me. I try to ignore Andrea, who is seated across from me, arms over her head, yelling at them to stop. I try to ignore the bus driver, who isn’t paying attention at all. The best thing I can do is ignore, I think. But something makes my eyes turn upward, my ears tune into the cruel words. Andrea is wearing a red coat today. Her eyes roll around inside her huge glasses. She’s an autistic girl. And that automatically makes her a magnet for bullying. Henry, a boy in the back, yells names at Andrea. More kids try to grab her hat and jewelry. Her backpack is in the middle of the aisle. Somebody grabbed it and threw it there. That’s where it’s staying for now. I can see some kids are glad they’re not getting picked on. Like Sean, who can’t keep a friend for more than a week. Some kids tease him behind his back. Others simply ignore him, sending an anti-Sean vibe and signaling to everyone, even the youngest kids, that he’s not cool to be around. So of course he is laughing his head off as Lucas, sitting behind Andrea, pops up and yells, “Freak! Freak! Freak!” over and over in her ear. “Stop it!” she screams. No one listens. Somebody flashes his middle finger up at her. I gasp. Everybody knows what that is. It’s terrible and mean. Andrea is in a hostile atmosphere. Kids go out of their way in an exaggerated fashion to avoid touching her. “If I ever see anything like this again, you’ll have me to answer to.” When she gets off at her stop, everyone forgets her. Like me. When I get off, I run to my house. My room is so quiet, the walls a peaceful shade of blue. I forget that Andrea probably isn’t very happy right now, and I forget that Sam and Lucas are home safe, with no consequences. *          *          * The next day, I am tense as I climb on the bus. The moment Andrea gets on, she says, “Hi, guys!” in a piercing voice and waves. Sam screams, “Look out, here comes Andrea!” Somebody sticks a kick-me sign on her back as she walks past. When she sits down, someone else grabs her hat and throws it out the window. In a clear, strong voice, I hear someone say, “Mr. Dave, stop the bus.” Everybody’s eyes turn. Melissa, a fifth-grader, rises up. The driver slams on the brakes. Calmly, Melissa walks down the aisle, quietly gets off the bus, picks up the hat from the street, climbs back on, and returns it to Andrea. Then she faces the bullies. “You need to leave Andrea alone. Period!” Her words are loud. Melissa takes Andrea’s arm. “Come here, Andrea,” she says. Andrea gets up. Melissa wraps her arm around her. “Look,” she demands. All of us look. The bus is silent. The driver is staring in the rearview mirror. “This girl deserves respect,” Melissa tells them. “All of you ganging up on her at once is cowardly. It’s malicious. It’s cruel.” Everybody nods. Even Sam. “If I ever see anything like this again,” she says to Sam, Lucas, Richard, and George, who are the leaders of the bullying, “you’ll have me to answer to.” She doesn’t say this violently, but in a quiet voice. “And all of you.” She motions to us. “Did you ever once stand up for her?” We shake our heads. “That goes for you, too. All of you say sorry to her.” “Sorry,” we all chorus. “It doesn’t make any sense to bully people who are afraid of you like she is. I know you think that mercy is for weak people. Think again.” She lets go of Andrea. Then Andrea starts to clap. And then Rochelle, in the last seat, joins in timidly. Her seat partner, Abby, starts in. It’s like one of those waves you do at baseball games. Everybody starts clapping, the ripple going through the whole bus. Everybody claps, even the bullies. Then Rochelle stands. And everyone stands. It’s a standing ovation. Everybody gets to their feet gracefully at the same time and claps. Boys whoop and holler and whistle. Lucas even takes off his baseball cap. The bus driver gets to his feet and claps, too. I’m clapping my hands so hard they’re about to fall off, so I run up the aisle and throw my arms around Melissa, who pulls me to her, and we’re giggling and then laughing as we bounce up and down, hands on each other’s shoulders. Then everybody’s up out of their seats and hugging Melissa, and hugging each other. Everyone’s laughing, light shining from their faces. If this was a movie, there would be happy, up-and-down light fiddle music playing right now. Even the fiddler would be doing a tippy-toe dance and rhythmically making the bow fly up and down. Then Rochelle hugs Andrea. Kids are high-fiving Sam and the other boys. And then we all try to hug Melissa and Andrea at once. They’re squashed in the middle and we’re crowding around them. All of a sudden I realize how backwards we had been thinking. Brave to us was riding a horse through a deep dark woods to rescue a treasure. Brave was risking your life to save princesses from wicked stepmothers. Now I know there is a kind of brave that involves the possibility of a hundred children rising against you. It involves the risk of not being safe from the bullies anymore. It involves, most importantly, you saying one little sentence that could change something forever. Sadie Perkins, 11 Madison, Wisconsin Sarah Uhlman, 13Morrisville, Pennsylvania

How It Works

I sit here, and I don’t notice the dirty dishes, left lying in the sink I don’t stare at the holes in the wall, strange and unexplained I don’t ponder the fishbowl, tipped over on the floor, or the color the light makes as it bounces off the broken mirror I do not wonder about the skittering in the attic, And I don’t think about the ceiling tiles, slowly chipping down, and gathering in the roots of my hair I sit here, and I don’t notice anything, As the browning shutters bang against the wall like the wings of a caged bird Because I’ve noticed That noticing just makes it feel less like Home Alden Powers, 12East Hampton, New York

Seeing Over the Side of the Boat

I don’t like my parents. Actually, that’s not true. I love my parents, but they are so stressful. Everything has to be a fight. They fight over who is driving me to baseball practice. They fight over who gets to spend the weekend with me. Like two days ago I missed my baseball game because they were fighting over the mortgage. I don’t know what the mortgage is, but it sounds important. That game was our baseball team’s first loss. I am the starting shortstop and the fastest kid on the team. A few days ago I overheard them fighting over who gets to keep me. That is what I don’t understand. Why would one parent get to keep me? The whole point of being parents is sticking together and taking care of me. So what is this talk of only one parent taking me? I found out yesterday after school. Mom and Dad sat me down in the kitchen. It was the first time they have been in the same room and not been yelling at each other in a long time. Dad’s long, bony fingers were trembling. I had no idea of what was to come. Dad started to speak, but Mom cut him off. It was quite easy to feel the nervousness in the room. The air was stagnant, and nobody was breathing. Mom mumbled, “Tobey, your father and I are getting a divorce.” “A divorce!” I blurted, shocked. I had heard about divorces but I never thought it would happen to this family. It was clearly important because Lucky, my golden retriever, was sitting very still at my feet. She is very good at sensing feelings around her. I felt that she was the only one who cared about me anymore “Well, your mother and I both agree that it would be best for the two of us to no longer live together. That means we won’t be fighting,” my Dad stated. “I know what a divorce is, but why?” Neither of my parents answered. That was the end of the conversation, and both of my parents got up to do their own separate things. They both love me, but they didn’t know what to do to comfort me. Comforting people wasn’t either of my parents’ strong suit, and this was really hard on them. It was the first time in what feels like forever that they finally agreed on something. But I didn’t agree. I wanted them to stay together no matter what. The last three months finally made sense, like gears clicking into place. I should have seen it coming. My parents fought at every chance they had. I was left alone in the kitchen, just staring out the window. I started to realize that this divorce isn’t a good thing. It means that I won’t be around both my parents at the same time. Lucky came up to me and licked my hand. I felt that she was the only one who cared about me anymore. I got her just last year and she was a rescue. One of her ears is much shorter than the other, and her tail is crooked. Her soft furry ears on her head always gave me comfort. I gave her a pat on the head and whispered to her. I told her that it would all work out in the end. As I sat there, the cold winter air blew through the door as my mom left to go out to dinner. The sun was still just peaking over the horizon. I felt a tear drop onto my lap, when I realized that my dad tried to sugarcoat it by saying that they won’t fight anymore. But I could care less about that; I just wanted my parents to live together. My dad came into my kitchen to get dinner started. Mom went to her friends for dinner and to stay the night. She was doing that more and more now. I asked him, “Will I get to see both you and Mom after you get this divorce?” Dad said, “Well, we will work it out, maybe.” He said it in a way so he was hard to understand. I think he was trying to block out this divorce in his head and move on. The house was shockingly quiet. All that you could hear was the sausage sizzling in the pan and my dad whistling as he cooked dinner. He truly loved to cook. The smell made my mouth water and I could tell that Lucky would much rather have what we were having for dinner, not her dry pellets. After dinner, I bawled in my room. It finally set in: Mom and Dad don’t love each other anymore. Did they ever love each other? Do they still care about and love me? How could they leave me to fend on my own? At least I would have Lucky. She stuck by my side through everything. She licked my hot, red face, and I patted her head. She was the only dog I could ever hope for. Her golden fur kept me warm, and she was always there when I needed her to calm me down. I could hear her breathe deep, as she fell asleep on my lap, and I tickled her under her ear, her favorite spot. “We won’t ever get a divorce, will we, Lucky,” I whispered to her, as I drifted off to sleep. She smiled, as if to say, “No. We won’t.” *          *          * Last night I had the worst nightmare I’d ever had. Our family was going on a vacation to a tropical island. The boat ride over was pleasant and stunningly gorgeous. I could just barely see the white sand on the picture-perfect beaches over the sides of the boat as we approached. I could never see anything coming, being so short. When we got to the island, we played on the beach with Lucky. The warm