Shannon took a deep breath and then opened the door. Tiny brass bells that hung on the inside tinkled merrily until she closed the door behind her and ran her hand swiftly through almost completely brown hair. She let her breath out, and then inhaled the smells of the Animal Rescue Thrift Store she was now standing inside. Another girl at the counter looked up from the cash register, and grinned. Halley was a full fifteen years older then Shannon, but they could talk together as if they were the exact same age. “Hi, Shannon!” she called. “Hi!” Shannon replied. There was a loud and throaty meow from near her sneakers, informing Shannon that Jenny was making her presence known. “I won’t forget you,” Shannon said, kneeling so that she could pet the pure white cat that had been in the shop for as long as she could remember. Jenny purred, rubbing her head up against Shannon’s shoe, rolling on the gray carpet. “Come to pick up a form?” Halley asked, carefully sorting the money into equal piles. Shannon’s mouth was suddenly dry, and she stood, ignoring Jenny’s pleas for more petting. “Yes.” She nodded. “Hold on,” Halley said. The front counter was always a mess of labels, pieces of paper, things on sale, and things that Halley needed to put price tags on. Halley rummaged around in a drawer for several minutes, and Shannon stood as if frozen in the same spot. “Ah! Got one!” she called. “Come to pick up a form?” Halley asked Shannon walked to the counter, and Halley passed over a piece of paper on the clipboard. Shannon took them and bit her lip. “Isn’t the kitten room open?” she asked. “I think I can let you in. There is a new batch of kittens that I just put flea ointment on, so I don’t want kids petting them too much. Go ahead.” Halley turned to help a customer. * * * Shannon slipped inside the kitty room and made sure the door was firmly closed behind her, and locked. If there were new kittens that meant that they wanted out of the room above all else. As she turned around, she realized that she had been right—live kittens bounded toward the door hopefully. One tabby, two Siamese and two sandy-colored. Shannon bent over . . . and they scattered, finding shelter under the metal file cabinets, cages, and cave made from just-washed blankets warm from the dryer. “Better get used to me,” Shannon said, looking around. “I may work here, you know.” No response from the kittens. They didn’t stick so much as a whisker out from their hiding places. Shannon sighed. Well, she wasn’t about to go crawling around after them now, scaring them half to death. She sat down in one of the rocking chairs and looked at the form. It was hard to understand the first time she read it, but then she read it again, and began to fill it out. The last question was the simplest for her. “Why do you think working in the kitty room would help? Why do you like kittens?” Shannon paused, and carefully wrote her answer. “Because these kittens don’t have any homes, they don’t have any mothers to go to. I know I couldn’t be a mother, but I’ve always loved kittens—I may never know why. It could be because of trust.” Surprised that she was done, she looked down at her lap. There was a sandy-colored kitten sitting on it. When Shannon reached down, it hopped off. Shannon shrugged, and opened the kitty room door, then slipped out. Halley was standing there, and Shannon handed her the paper. “I know the director will let you in, even though you’re only eleven,” Halley said, putting the form on the director’s desk. “She’s seen how those kittens love you.” “Need any help?” Shannon looked at the messy desk quizzically. “No, thanks though. Isn’t it time for your dinner?” Shannon sped out the door, calling, “Thank you!” * * * “Was it accepted?” Shannon was excited, jumping up and down at the counter. Halley smiled. “Of course. I told the director you have experience with cats so you know what to do . . .” “When do I start?” “Nobody’s in there now” Halley said. “You won’t be getting paid, you know.” Shannon nodded. “Yes—I know.” * * * The kitty room hadn’t been cleaned in several days, so Shannon had her work cut out for her. The cleaning closet was full and cluttered. Shannon started dusting right away. Dust fell off the tops of the shelves and the file cabinet, cascaded down from the cages. Sneezing, Shannon dusted the rest and went to the dishes full of food. Except that was the problem. They were empty. It took her a good ten minutes to find the wet cat food. She dumped it into a new not-dusty bowl and set it on the tray. Time to wash the dishes. She opened the screen door, and closed it behind her, balancing dish soap in one hand, and a plastic box full of dishes in the other, and was nearly bowled over by a blur of gold fur. “Benny. Down!” Benny, a golden retriever, rolled in the dirt, and Shannon began to wash the dishes on the grass. She went inside again and dried them, put them on the correct shelf, and looked around. It didn’t look much better. She grimly clamped her mouth shut. She would make this place shine—or else. * * * TWO MONTHS LATER The director, a red-haired woman with glasses, looked into the room. “You did this?” Shannon nodded, embarrassed. Instead of scolding, Ms. Lanburn put her head to one side. “Very good. Excuse me—it is time for our meeting. There’s somebody coming in about ten minutes who I think you should meet.” “Who?” Shannon asked, tugging at one of her braids. “She wants to volunteer. I’m sorry but I really
September/October 2004
Adrian
It was a beautiful afternoon in August; it was slightly breezy and there wasn’t a cloud in the baby-blue sky. School started in two weeks and the kids in my neighborhood were going all out, trying to squeeze all the fun they could into those last precious hours in the park. The kids in sixth grade were especially outrageous. You weren’t allowed to play in the park as soon as you entered middle school. It was an unwritten law set down by years of sun-streaked kids coming and going. This was my last summer. My friends and I woke up early each morning and came home late each night. Dusty, tan and happy, we’d crawl into our beds without bothering to change. It was softball that I was most interested in. Softball. We were obsessed. No matter how many times we’d been told to by well-meaning mothers, we wouldn’t change our interests to something more feminine, like makeup, or clothes. The mothers would sigh and shake their heads, hoping that we would come down to earth by the time middle school rolled around. There were five of us; me, Amy, Francine, Kath, and Becca. Amy was short with red hair and tons of freckles. She was short-tempered, but if you got on her good side, she was as kind as could be. Francine had long blond-brown hair that fell to the middle of her back. She was the quiet one among us, though compared to most people she was incredibly loud. Kath, or Kathleen, with brown hair cut close to her head, was the sports player among us. We all played softball, but she played every possible sport that she could. Becca, with black hair that was always pulled back into a ponytail, was the intellectual one. For some reason, she had been born with a gift for math, something that none of us understood. We were best friends, and we thought that we would never accept another person into our group. The ball met the bat and it flew farther than we’d ever in five years, hit a ball The softball field that we played on was old, so old that our grandparents remember playing on it. There had been several suggestions to tear it down and build a couple of soccer fields in its place. They had been solidly refused, not only by us, but also by more than half the adults in the town, people who had grown up with it there. There were no dugouts like the newer fields, but it didn’t matter to anyone. The grass was mostly brown with scattered bits of green mixed in; cigarette butts were more common than either color grass. The dirt that formed the diamond had not been replaced in a while, making the ground as hard as cement. All in all, the field was a waste of space, but it was perfect for our purposes. Today we were, like all other days, playing softball. It was windy and dirt was getting thrown up in our eyes. There were enough of us only to have one pitcher, one batter, a first baseman, a shortstop and an outfielder. This wasn’t enough, especially toward the end of the summer, when we’d had two and a half months to practice, but we worked through it all, adapting the rules to fit our purposes. We were years older than anyone else, most of the kids having already adjusted into the normal world according to their proud parents. We were labeled The Outcasts and spit on by kids three years younger than us. We didn’t mind the spitting or the names, but if a kid ticked us off, a bloody nose solved matters temporarily. Today Amy was pitching and I was supposed to be batting, when I saw a figure coming toward us. I turned to look, stunned. Nobody, absolutely nobody, ever came to see us. We were used to it. This was someone new. It had to have been, I thought. A ball whizzed by my head and I turned to glare accusingly at Amy. She shrugged, then laughed. “Served you right!” she called. I stuck out my tongue and turned back around, letting go of the bat. It slid to the ground with a soft tap. The figure was closer now and I could tell it was a girl. The rest of my friends saw what I was looking at and walked toward me. We gathered around home plate, all glaring at this newcomer. The girl was tall, over five feet, an accomplishment in us since we’d all been born into short families. Her hair was dark brown, pulled back roughly from her face and tied in a ponytail. The baseball cap that was shoved on her head was dark blue. She was wearing a dark pink tank top, with light pink shorts. It was Francine who spoke first. “Nice outfit.” Amy spat rudely at the new girl’s feet. “I think the mall’s that way.” She gestured with a tip of her head. The new girl stared steadily at them with dark brown eyes, reminding me of a trapped deer. “My name’s Adrian. I came to play softball.” Her voice was quiet, but she sounded self-assured. For some reason, I wanted desperately to save this girl from the fate that she was accepting unknowingly. “OK, you can bat,” I said quickly. Francine looked at me strangely, but I shrugged. Francine shrugged too. “Why don’t you play catcher, then?” she suggested. I nodded mutely. We walked back to our positions. I crouched behind the plate. Adrian picked up the bat I’d dropped. She clamped her hands around it, squeezing hard until her fingers were striped red and white. Her fingernails were painted a light green, but it had started to chip away. Eventually, she shuffled up to the plate. Amy threw the ball perfectly. It was going to be very hard to hit, I thought. I doubted Adrian would even swing. Adrian
The Shooting Star
Darren Milar sighed as he walked into the schoolyard. All around him kids were laughing, running, and playing. The sound of tetherball chains as they clinked against their metal poles rang out as Darren passed. When kids started school again, they were sometimes nervous, excited, or a little sad. But that was nothing compared to what Darren felt. Ever since kindergarten, Darren had been the outcast. The nerd, if you had to put it that way. Other kids had had loads of friends, and turned against him. Darren had only one friend, Ian, and Ian was just as nerdy as Darren, without the glasses and braces. The start of school meant Darren was back to rude notes on his locker, people laughing at him in the corridors, and Ian telling him to ignore them. But he couldn’t ignore them, and already Darren knew, the second he walked into the schoolyard, that he was off to the start of another terrible year. And so it was, another terrible first day back. In the corridors, even kids younger than him, sixth-graders, laughed at him. As usual, in classes, teachers told him that he had extraordinary talent, while people sniggered and pointed behind the teacher’s back. Ian is never laughed at, thought Darren, looking around at Ian. He was sitting, working in his math book. How does he do it? thought Darren desperately. * * * Later that night in bed, Darren lay propped up on pillows, looking at the stars. He had heard that there would be shooting stars tonight. He was thinking of a wish, and it wasn’t hard. He closed his eyes and whispered, “I wish I was popular at school.” He closed his eyes and whispered, “I wish I was popular at school” But when he opened his eyes, nothing had happened. His wish hadn’t come true. * * * The next day at school Darren had totally forgotten about his wish. He and Ian were talking when suddenly, a hush fell over the blacktop. That was not normal, even the tetherball chains weren’t clinking. Darren and Ian stopped talking and looked up. Standing in front of them was the prettiest girl Darren had ever seen. She had long red hair that reached nearly to her waist, and eyes as green as jade. A few freckles were scattered across her nose. She could have been a model if she hadn’t had the ugliest scowl on her face, if her faded jeans weren’t torn at the knees, and if her Good Charlotte shirt was still black, instead of a smoky gray. Darren was paralyzed. He didn’t know whether she was an angel or a devil. Fortunately, he was spared the moment of trying to speak because the girl asked him, “You go here?” “Y- yes,” he stammered. “Good. Then you’ll be able to tell me where the principal’s office is.” She looked at him like a tiger examining its prey. “D- down the hall, f- fifth door past the water fountain.” He thought he must look like an idiot, stammering next to her speaking confidently. She didn’t even thank him, just walked away, leaving him and the rest of the school staring after her, her sandals clip-clopping loudly on the dead-silent playground. When the bell rang ten minutes later, the school was still frozen in awe at the girl’s entrance. Darren was suddenly the center of attention for once, and people kept asking him about the girl, because he had seen her best. Then, in history, Darren finally got to learn about her. “Class, we have a new student today” said Ms. Kent, after the class had settled down. “She has been on vacation in Mexico, up until yesterday. Dear, would you like to come and introduce yourself?” The girl walked up to the front of the class. “My name is Claire Guerrerro,” she growled. “I like punk rock bands. My favorite color is black, and I play the guitar. Any questions? Good.” She walked back to her seat. “Well then,” the teacher replied, “I’m sure you’ll all be very nice to Claire. Now please open your book to page 102 …” But barely anyone was listening. Claire opened her book and didn’t look at anyone. Darren had a bad feeling in his stomach, and gulped. Just one more person to pick on me. Soon Claire did become the most popular kid in school, but she chose her friends carefully, and they were almost all boys. If Darren thought this was bad, the worst was yet to come. Two weeks after Claire arrived, Darren came to school and looked around at their usual table. It was empty. This was odd, because Ian was usually dropped off by his older brother Alec pretty early. Darren sat down, and looked around for Ian. He found him quickly, but his heart sank. Claire’s group, which was usually prowling around and scaring sixth-graders, was now sitting down at a far-removed table. They were talking to (Darren shut his eyes tight) . . . Ian. Darren couldn’t believe it. Claire had taken his best friend from him. Now Ethan Lowell was talking to Ian, who pointed at Darren. The whole group looked over and laughed. Zach Parker said something, and the group cracked up again. Darren felt like crying. He tried to sit with them at lunch, but Ethan Lowell said, “Sorry, no room here, but there’s a spot for you at the nerd table.” Ian looked uncomfortable, and shifted in his seat. Marilyn Fisher said, “Don’t worry, Darren. I’m sure you’ll find a place to sit.” He didn’t realize she’d put a KICK ME sign on his back. * * * The days passed, and Darren became more and more miserable. He tried sitting with his sisters, but they talked about fashion and other girly stuff. He tried as hard as he could to be friends with Claire, and he was practically down on bended knee. One day as he sat on the
