I Stop Hating Karen

At first after she's born, I hate my sister Karen more than anything. She cries all the time, and she poops her diapers. And the grown-ups don't notice how disgusting she is, they just keep on liking her. They take millions of pictures of her. They never take pictures of Linda or me any more, but all Karen has to do is sit there, and out comes the camera, because that's apparently the cutest thing in the world. She sleeps in her crib. I want to know! How is that special? I sleep too, and no one ever wants to take a picture of me. She washes dishes. What's so big about that? Don't I do the same thing practically every night?

Things Were Better Before We Moved.

This is my back yard in Westminister. That window in back of me is my window, from the room I share with my sister Linda. We have a bunk bed, and I sleep in the bottom bunk because I'm the bigger one. Linda sleeps in the top bunk, with rails on her bed like it's a crib. One time I have this cake by my bed. It's a Little Debbie cake, that came in a plastic bag, and it has white frosting on top and white cream in the middle. I don't eat it in time and ants come into my room and get it. I tell Mama and Daddy that I know there are ants in my room because I can smell them (they smell like how blue cheese tastes). They don't believe me, but then they look, and they find them. Mama and Daddy are very impressed at me because I can smell ants.

I'm On Top of the World ...Only not really.

When I am in Sixth Grade, my school has a talent show. This isn't just the ordinary kind of talent show, where you can get up and sing, or play an instrument or whatever. This is a really serious, important one, where you have to go to practices ahead of time, and there are judges who award prizes. I really want to be in it. I like all talent shows, because I like singing. And singing in a talent show is better than just singing in Music Class, or being in Cherub Choir at church. I get to choose what song I sing, and I can do more than one of them if I want to. The prizes make this one better, but I would want to be in it just as much even without them.

Me and Jesus

Everyone knows it is very important to accept Jesus into your heart, because otherwise you won't be a Christian, and you can't go to Heaven. If you don't go to Heaven, you will go to Hell. You will burn in a lake of fire and be away from your family forever. If you do go to Heaven, you get to sing hymns and listen to Jesus' words for all of eternity. This sounds a lot like going to church for me, and it's not very interesting. But I sure don't want to go to Hell!

Before School

Channel Islands High School has three rows of classrooms. Beyond those to one side, are some portables. Beyond it to the other side, is the quad. A mural looks out over it, a painting of a Raider, which is the school mascot. Raiders, at least according to this painting, are approximately Greek-looking warriors. They aren’t, actually. They’re not anything real so far as I’ve been able to discover. Also, the student who designed the mural was not very good at drawing. I’d think the picture was an embarrassment to the school, only I don’t really think much of Channel Islands High either.

Below the mural on the quad, there are benches. I don’t like sitting on them. I bring a book and read, and I hope no one notices me.

I Turn Into a Bad Kid at Haydock Junior High School

Jesus says we should turn the other cheek. He says if someone hurts us, we should not fight back. Even if someone hurts us a lot of times, or steals our stuff, we should only give them love and forgiveness. This is a problem, because the kids that used to just yell insults once in a while, when I walked past on my way to the bus stop, now are doing it every day. Then they start throwing stones.

One day when I'm in Sixth Grade, I just can't take any more of it. I go after the kid who was throwing the stones, who's this little brat a couple years younger than me, named Richie. I start hitting Richie. Then he starts hitting me back. Then it's a real fight, and before I know it, I have Richie on the ground and I am hitting him again and again.

“You can stop now,” says this other kid from the neighborhood named Kevin. “You've won.”

I look down and he's right. Richie isn't fighting any more, he's just lying there crying. I turn around and walk the rest of the way to my bus stop, and it turns out the bus hasn't even come yet.

Mrs. Duddy

Cartooning, is one of my favorite classes in the Seventh Grade. The teacher, Mrs. Duddy is kind of old. She has a fluffy old-lady hairstyle like my Grandma wears. She uses red-red lipstick and a lot of face powder, and there's a strong smell of perfume that always hangs around her.

I like her class because I don't need to draw realistically in there. The idea is to draw pictures that tell a story, and if the people don't look much like real people, that is okay. I learn how to make angry-eyebrows, and sad-eyebrows in her class. I learn that a puff of smoke behind someone makes it look like they're running. Boobies only have to be one curved line sticking out, and another one in the middle of the girl's chest to make it look like she has two of them. I have a lot of fun drawing cartoons in the Seventh Grade. I fold notebook paper in half and draw cartoons all over it. I make funny stories and suspense stories. The other kids in class like my cartoons. Even the ones that don't like me very much pass them around, and ask for more when they're finished.

Halloween

Halloween is the best holiday after Christmas, because of Trick-Or-Treating. Some peoples' Mamas buy them cheap costumes, with masks that never look like who they're supposed to be, but my Mama always makes ours. We dress as Spanish senoritas, or little Dutch girls, or Indian maharanis and sometimes, when the costume calls for it, we get to wear lipstick and some of Mama's jewelry. I love just the look of Mama's jewelry box, and the smell of her cold cream, because they remind me of Halloween.

On Halloween, I can hardly eat supper, I'm so excited. After supper, Daddy puts our pumpkin on the floor. He scoops out the insides and cuts a scary face on it. Sometimes Mama toasts the pumpkin seeds and makes snacks out of them, but I don't care when she does that. Pumpkin seeds are hard to open, and there's not much seed inside to make them worthwhile. Daddy puts a candle into the pumpkin, and lights it. He puts it in the kitchen window. I take big sniffs of the good smell of candle and pumpkin mixed together. This is one of the best smells of Halloween.

Creepy Moment

My sister Karen is fourteen, and there are times when it feels like she is growing away from me. Even at her young age, she knows infinitely more than I do about style and popular culture. She knows how to make friends, and boys ask her out, whereas I am a lonely loser with only a few friends, and those feeling like they are drifting away from me. I would like to look like Karen. – I would like to be Karen, I think sometimes. I'm tired of my world of dead history and literature no one else reads. Karen's world is The Thompson Twins and wine coolers and Mollie Ringwald movies. It seems fresh and alive.

Church

We go to the Bible Fellowship Church. It's half an hour's drive away from home, but it's better than the churches that are closer, that's what my Mama says. We get there at 9:00 for Sunday School, and we stay for church. We never get home until it's way past lunchtime. It has a sanctuary with plain yellow and blue windows and no stained glass. It has two rows of classrooms, and a courtyard in the middle, with an olive tree in it.

At first, I don't go to Children's Church during the worship service. I stay in the pew with my Mama instead. The only songs they have are hard, grown-up songs., that come out of Hymnals, with little writing that's hard to find in between the lines of music. They have very long prayers, and sermons that are even longer. I have to sit still and behave myself until the whole thing is finished. Mama reads her Bible and listens to the sermon, but she lets me take her hand. I run my fingers over the veins on the back of it. I like being alone with Mama for a change. I like that there are no sisters around to take all the attention.

Grandma Johnson

My Grandma Johnson has in a comfortable house with an olden-days look to it. The back yard stretches out forever, to a workshed that hasn’t been touched since my Grandpa died. There used to be all kinds of interesting tools and plumbing fittings in there. Now, I think, there’s probably nothing left except dust and poisonous spiders. The front yard has a big carob tree, that’s good for climbing. It’s got an oak tree, with acorns underneath. You have to wear shoes when you go out there though, because the oak leaves are prickly.

Inside, the furniture is green plush and maple tables, and a bookcase full of Readers Digest Condensed Books from the 50’s in one corner. There’s a cage with no bird in it (but the parakeet’s memory is still there in the pecked places on the arm-covers), and a record player that no one’s used in the entire time I can remember. The smell is dust from the air conditioner in the window, and a faint whiff of gas from the stove.

Scary Night

My Grandpa and Grandma Brown live in a wonderful town called Prescott, Arizona. You get there by driving for hours and hours, up a steep, twisting road that always makes me carsick. The best thing to do for this, my mother says, is to eat lemon drops. Lemon drops are candy, but they're not very good candy. I eat them, but they don't make me feel much better. All they do is make me hate lemon drops, because they remind me of being carsick.

Grandpa and Grandma live outside of town. There are pine trees and big rocks with moss on them, around their house. You can go out any time and find horny toads and lizards to play with, and at night, there are animals yipping, and Grandpa says they're foxes.

School Pictures

The day when our picture-orders arrive at school, is always a good day. The teacher has all our packets to pass out, and that's time she can't give us work to do. I take out a book and read, keeping one ear open to hear when my name is called. When I get my packet, I open it right away. I sort through the pictures, the little wallet-sized ones for us at home to keep, and the bigger, portrait-sized ones that get sent to my grandparents.

The Den

The best room in the house is the den. Every day, Mama makes me have a nap-time there. I think she thinks I'm going to get mad, because I'm almost six now, and that's too old for naps. She says I don't have to sleep, I just have to go into the den for an hour and rest. What she doesn't know, is that that's the best time of the day. I can close the door on everybody else and be all by myself. I can do whatever I want, and there's nobody watching.

My Daddy's Chair

My Daddy's chair is made of black vinyl. It stands on four little peg-legs, and it has nailheads that make a pattern along the back and on the arms. Sometimes I run my fingers along them. I make them into roads, but the roads always stop before my finger gets anywhere. The chair-back has a greasy feel to it. I can use my fingernail and scrape little balls of black stuff off it. This is interesting, but a little gross. There's a torn place on the upholstery. My Mama turns the cushion upside-down to hide it, but when she's not around, sometimes I turn it the other way, and stick my finger in to feel the stuffing. It's kind of brown-colored, and it feels cottony.