Ameena looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her worried face stared back at her. “Come on!” Adam, who was Ameena’s twin, yelled impatiently. “Adam’s fitting in well,” Ameena remarked. She remembered how, when they had first moved, Adam, who was regularly noisy and active, had been so subdued and unusually silent. Lately though, Adam was a pest as usual. Somehow, a pest seemed better to Ameena. Of course a pest wasn’t ideally what you’d want for a brother. If you got to choose your sibling you would probably pick an obedient, well-behaved brother who did all your work for you. But Ameena was relieved when Adam returned to normal. Adam had befriended a boy named Sammy who lived across the hall from them in their apartment on 5th Street in Brooklyn. Sammy was a basketball player. Sometimes at night Ameena could hear the sound of the basketball hitting the floor. Every day Adam went over to Sammy’s house to trade Pokemon and basketball cards, while Ameena stayed in her room chatting with her Californian friends on the phone. There were three of them: Sarah, Amnah, and Maryam. Ameena had pictures of them on her bulletin board above her desk. Ameena’s mom tried to encourage her to make friends, but Ameena refused. “Move on,” her mom suggested. Every religion has its not-so-good people and its good people Since Ameena was incredibly shy, she couldn’t even say hi to a girl who had been friendly to her and who was taking residence next door to them at apartment 1b. She had no hope at all. Now Ameena had another problem: school. Ameena was a practicing Muslim and wore a scarf. Many ignorant people, especially in New York, had a bad image of Muslims. They associated them with 9/11 because those people had claimed to be Muslim. Deep down inside Ameena knew that she was just a normal twelve-year- old girl. She was exactly like everyone else except that she believed different things. Every religion has its not-so-good people and its good people, Ameena noted. She wished everyone else realized that as well. The fact was, they did not. Ameena reflected on all of this as she headed to the door. She slung her backpack on her back and waved goodbye to her mom, who was sorting the laundry into darks and whites. The city outside was chilly, and Ameena zipped up her sweatshirt. The autumn morning felt crisp. Adam and Ameena soon arrived at Brooklyn Junior High. The two pushed their way through the crowd of people to their classroom and took seats toward the back. Ameena took in her surroundings. There were about five rows of desks, each containing places for ten students. At the head of the room, there was a large desk with a bouquet of tulips which matched the pale yellow paint of the room remarkably well. On the wall opposite the door, there was a pencil sharpener and below it, a cheap plastic garbage can. In each pupil’s desk drawer were five new pencils and a stack of clean white paper. Some rubbery-smelling erasers were also included. The red-paneled glass door cast a glorious light into the classroom when it was sunny outside. On the front of the door was a nameplate that read Room 12. All in all the classroom was pretty comfortable. Ameena recognized the girl from apartment 1b. She was sitting next to her. All of a sudden a hush fell over the class. Everyone’s heads were turned toward the door. A woman six-and-a-half feet tall marched into the room. She was brandishing her book as though it was a sword. She searched the room daringly for anything out of place. Satisfied, she stomped to the front of the room and announced, “Girls and Boys!” Everyone jumped. “I am Mrs. Franconi, and I am your seventh-grade teacher!” No one objected, so she continued, “Open your books and get to work. School isn’t just to play around.” Everyone opened their books without a word. Math and Language Arts turned out pretty uneventful, and no one misbehaved even once. Mrs. Franconi barked and boomed all class long, which hurt Ameena’s ears. Once, when a girl named Britta forgot how to spell “expedition,” Mrs. Franconi looked like a firecracker ready to explode. All of a sudden a hush fell over the class When it was time for history, everything went from pretty good to horrible. Ms. Lillian was a beginner teacher. First, she was five minutes late for class because she was conversing with the other teachers in the lounge. Next, a little brainy girl knew the answer to one of Ms. Lillian’s questions and was so excited about it that she stood up on her desk, fell off, and twisted her ankle. Then Ms. Lillian started fretting all over her and gave her a watermelon sucker from a plastic baggie in her purse. A jealous kid called Ike climbed onto his desk, jumped down, and started fake bawling. Pretty soon almost everybody was doing the same. Everyone was just trying to get a lollipop. Finally, class was over. Ameena felt sorry for Ms. Lillian, who had to endure all these disrespectful kids. After school Ameena and Adam were absentmindedly strolling toward their lockers when, all of a sudden, “Hey, Muslims!” someone teased. Without even looking, Ameena could tell this guy was not going to be friendly to her by his tone of voice. Ameena whirled around. A boy with flaming red hair and a black T-shirt with red writing on it yanked at Ameena’s scarf. Ameena stood there, desperate and totally helpless. She hoped someone would arrive and help them, but no one did. Another boy who had spiky black hair and a plain, bright red T-shirt threw an overstuffed yellow water balloon at Adam and hit him smack in the face. A third boy with pale blond hair, wearing all black, shouted after the two now-retreating figures, “We’ll get you Muslims; we’ll get
July/August 2009
Somersault
Our boogie boards went bump-bump-bump over the sand. The tide was high, and the waves were big. Just looking at them made me excited. There weren’t many people out today. Figures. It was two days until s-c-h-o-o-l started, the dry Santa Ana winds blowing in the hazy summer smog. My bathing suit was still sandy and damp from the day before, and oily black tar coated my bare feet. We kept walking. We had to get past the rocks that shredded our feet. The beach wasn’t sandy, or smooth. The stretch of coast was empty, and it was far from popular, being near an oil derrick and beat-up resort. This place was only full in the heat of early August when Malibu was too crowded. The beach had rhythm, personality: the happy loner that dallies; the dreamer that didn’t care what the little blond gang of Barbies thought. I could feel the hot sand through my worn black flip-flops. I started to sprint, eager. My blue Morey board, faded and battered, went bump-bump-bump in my wake. The string that attached to my wrist pulled down a slope to the hard sand, near the green, murky water. It wanted to be in the waves, just like me. I threw my towel down, kicked off my flip-flops. I ran down the beach, feet burning, dodging mounds of fly-ridden seaweed. “Claudia!” my brother called. “Wait!” But then he was sprinting too, his legs matching mine, beat for beat, push for push. We dashed into the waves, a ragged thrill of energy soaring through me. It rose beautifully behind me, forming a perfect crescent Shock. “Jeez, that’s cold!” I said. Bump-bump-bump! my boogie board replied, splashing over the water’s ripples. I waded farther in. Jack and I both gasped as the chilling water reached our necks. We sank in deeper after we’d caught a couple waves. I could just make out a new group of swells on the horizon. Three feet, easy. Good-sized. As they came closer, my Morey slipped out in front of me. Sure, I thought. “You gonna take it?” I asked Jack. “Yeah, think so.” He spun his board around, both of our backs to the wave. It rose beautifully behind me, forming a perfect crescent. I kicked out onto my stomach, and the wave jolted me forward. It all happened so fast: the wave went down with a crash, and my Morey shot out from under me like a man diving from a sinking ship. I was companionless. My stomach took a wrenching flip. Suddenly, covering my head (the one thing I learned from surfing lessons), I spun, some poor servant of the wave. I tried to force myself up, but white water held me hostage. Lungs bursting, I thrust myself upward. Air! I stood, dazed and battered. I felt as if I’d gone through spin cycles in the washing machine. But then my boogie board came floating towards me. Bump-bump-bump! it said. I stared at it for a moment, and then raced back into the waves. Claudia Ross, 12Studio City, California Brynna Ziegler, 12Boalsburg, Pennsylvania
Keeping Score
Keeping Score, by Linda Sue Park; Clarion Books: New York, 2008; $16 Before I read Keeping Score, when I thought of baseball, I thought of boys. I thought the only way people got to know the game of baseball was by playing it. After I read it, I was inspired to learn more about the baseball teams in my area (the Cubs and the White Sox). Before I knew it, I was watching games on TV, and even getting to be a pretty good hitter! Now, baseball doesn’t seem so much like a boy thing anymore! During the Korean War, which is when Keeping Score takes place, playing baseball almost always was for boys. But Maggie, the main character, knows the game of baseball like the back of her hand, and she got to know it the hard way: by listening to every single Brooklyn Dodgers game on the radio. She never misses a pitch. In fact, it is while she’s listening to a game at the nearby firehouse where her dad used to work that she meets Jim. He’s another intense fan, but for the New York Giants. The two talk baseball, compare favorite players, and laugh about most everything. And perhaps most importantly, it’s Jim who teaches Maggie to keep score. And keeping score of a baseball game isn’t the same as scoring a soccer game, or a football game. Keeping score of a baseball game requires concentration, and a really huge knowledge of baseball. Everything changes when Jim is drafted into the Korean War. But at least sending letters back and forth from Korea to America is sort of fun for Maggie. And while letters are going back from Korea to America, the Dodgers are winning game after game. It means a lot to every Dodgers fan, especially Maggie! You see, the Dodgers had never won the World Series. Not even once. But now, even the Yankees (their main rivals) are being crushed by the Dodgers! There are so many wins that the losses hardly matter. And then, something horrible happens. After hours of carrying bodies in from the battlefield, Jim stops walking, talking, and moving altogether. He’s suffering from what your parents might call post-traumatic stress syndrome. And right after the Dodgers’ huge winning streak, they lose the pennant game! To the Yankees! Both baseball and life are a cycle of hope and disappointment, and with the Dodgers out of the World Series and Jim sick from the war, it seems like disappointment is all there is. But I think that Maggie’s love of baseball really helps her get through all these setbacks. After all, even after Willie Mays strikes out five times, he still has the determination to come up to bat and hit a solo home run. And it really helps me to think about this idea too. Little disappointments happen to me every day, solo auditions I didn’t get, the White Sox losing a game, a test I didn’t ace. It’s important to just keep trying. So Maggie comes up with a plan. She decides that when Jim comes home she will take him to see a Giants game at Ebbets Field. She spends months saving up for it. And that’s not all. To help Jim get better she decides to do the hardest thing she has ever had to do in her life: pray for the Giants to win the World Series. I will not tell you how this all works itself out—you’ll just have to read it for yourself! But what I really admire about Maggie is how she had the strength to sacrifice all of this just to help a friend. Eliza Edwards-Levin, 10Chicago, Illinois