Free Verse (9 page)

Phyllis looks and looks for her broom. Because she doesn't ask me, I never have to lie. She never suspects me. She already caught on that I am the last person to check with for cleaning supplies.

Mikey doesn't come over on Monday. He doesn't come over on Tuesday. By Wednesday, it's warmer than it's been all spring, and Mikey appears next to me.

“Sorry,” he says, without saying about what. “I been in trouble for running off.”

I'm walking circles in the backyard, letting Chip trail me. I scoot toward the center of the yard so Mikey's got room next to me.

“Me too.”

“You're not in trouble no more,” Mikey says. “I told my daddy it was me.”

I look at him.

“He told Phyllis. And he give back your window money.” He talks like his dad. He never says
gave
, always
give
. I like how it sounds, soft like when Hubert described the
fallen-out
between my father's side of the family and his. “I got to pay for it with my next million allowances. I don't think he remembers we haven't done allowance in a year. He brought her broom over, but he couldn't find the dustpan. Why'd you leave the dustpan in the shed?”

I squeeze his hand in thanks. I hear guitar music in my head. I answer his question: “I didn't know what to do with the glass.”

•   •   •

Phyllis finds me at four a.m., back in our old spot, sitting on the porch. She's holding a plate of egg salad sandwiches. She must have sensed how I'd be feeling.

“You didn't come to dinner last night,” she says.

“I ate,” I say quickly, thinking, too late, of how Phyllis was probably worried. Guilt makes me itch. I keep doing things that make Phyllis feel bad. I don't mean to, and I can't always tell that's what I'm doing until it's too late.

“I know you did,” she says. “I saw your crumbs on the counter. Didn't think you even liked my corn bread.”

“Sorry.”

She shakes her head. “No, don't apologize for crumbs, honey. I was just missing you at dinner.”

“I figured you had questions.”

“I did,” she confirms.

“Didn't figure I had answers.”

Her mouth tightens, almost like she's keeping in a laugh. She holds out the plate to me, and I take a triangle.

“I get why you took the blame for the window,” she says. “You were trying to protect your cousin.”

I lean back on the boards, letting my feet hang over the edge of the porch so they can reach the dirt. I eat the egg salad quickly, before it can drip out of the sandwich. A little bit of it falls in my hair.

“The thing is,” Phyllis tells me, “if Mikey's breaking windows, he's got some stuff going on. And telling his father, well . . . that lets Hubert help him. So telling the truth is another way of protecting your cousin.”

Her logic makes sense, but something still feels wrong, talking about Mikey behind his back. I reach for another half sandwich without sitting up, and she leans down to where I can get to the plate.

“He saw something in a box,” I tell Phyllis. “He got so sad.”

“I know. Hubert told me a little of . . . well. There's some family business there. He didn't think you'd have Mikey with you when you were working in the shed. And he didn't expect you to open the boxes.”

“It fell open.” I'm quick to explain away my snooping. “I wasn't going to open it, but it fell.”

“Well, shoot. Meant to be, I guess,” Phyllis says. “Now the truth is out, Mikey can deal with it.”

“He's only little,” I say.

“I know.” I notice she hasn't eaten a bite.

“There's so
much
sad,” I say.

“I know, baby.”

With my eyes closed, here in the dark, I'm able to say a little more than usual. “There's my mom and my dad and . . . and Michael . . .” It's still hard to say his name out loud and have him not answer, knowing he'll never answer again. I remember the radio crackling at his funeral, how they called him three times but he never responded. I swallow and keep talking. “And then Mikey's mom and all this new stuff—there's just . . . it's too much, Phyllis!”

“I know, baby,” she repeats. She sounds different this time, her voice low and thick.

Right before I fall asleep there on the porch boards, Phyllis says, “I put your money back in your suitcase.” There's a silence that sounds like she wants to ask a question, but she doesn't.

•   •   •

I can't find the words to describe how strange it is to see Anthony Tucker in poetry club.

“He always comes,” Jaina whispers when she sees me looking. “But if you tell anybody you saw him here, he
will
punch you.”

“Naw, I won't, not if you're a girl,” Anthony says.

“Yes huh, you told me you'd deck me if I told on you to Will and Jason.”

Anthony shoves her playfully with his fingertips. “You ain't no girl!” She makes an ugly face at him and scoots out of his reach, but she doesn't seem truly bothered by his teasing. I don't understand how she's already so friendly with him, and Will and Jason, too. Jaina's new at this school, and she's already making friends. Me, I've gone to school with these people forever, and the only person who's even a little bit like a friend is Jaina.

Miss Jacks is at her desk, juggling two red pens and a highlighter. She misses one and suddenly all three clatter to the desk. Only half the kids spare her a glance, and nobody but me seems surprised at her behavior.

“Sorry,” she says when she catches me looking. “I want to learn to juggle. It seems like an important job skill.”

I have no idea whether she's joking, so I don't say anything. Miss Jacks retrieves one of her red pens and starts marking things on the paper in front of her. “It's been a long day,” she mutters out from under her hair.

“Hey, guys, listen up!” Anthony bosses, as if he's in charge or something. Which, I discover in the next several minutes, he actually is. Anthony Tucker isn't just
in
poetry club. He's the person who started the whole club back in September. “We've got three weeks until the deadline for county, and I want to see at least one entry from every person in this room.” He glances at the teacher. “Except Miss Jacks. Because she's old.”

“And grading your vocab quiz
right now
, Mr. Tucker . . .”

“And by
old
I mean wise and beautiful,” Anthony rushes to add. “For those of you who are new at all this”—he looks at me—“winners of the county contest will go on to the state competition, and the prize at state is a crap-ton of money.”

A girl named Lisa who rides the Cary Fork bus raises her hand. Her voice is as proper as her clean polo shirt. I've seen her in the halls, red hair and straight teeth, surrounded by friends. “A five-thousand-dollar scholarship, plus two hundred fifty dollars of spending money.”

“Which you won't win if you use words like
crap-ton
,” Miss Jacks advises.

“Deadline is the end of June, and the only rules are that it has to be a poem and it has to be written by somebody who, well, you know, goes to school in the county.”

A quiet girl in the far corner raises her hand. There is something weird about a kid raising her hand for another kid to call on, but I'm the only one who seems bothered by it.

“Is there a length limit?” she asks. Three or four other kids giggle at her question.

“You always ask if there's a length limit, Angie,” says a girl whose name I don't know, “and then you write twenty lines. Exactly twenty lines, every time. So what does it matter, unless the limit is nineteen lines, or it has to be over twenty-one?”

Angie shrugs. “I might do haiku this time, Mel.”

“If you do something that short, I'd do three poems,” Miss Jacks offers from her spot in the corner. She hasn't looked up from her papers in a while, but at least she hasn't started juggling again, either. “I'd be happy to proofread any entries you feel may need a once-over with a red pen.”

“Which is all the entries,” Anthony says. “I'm serious, people! Let's not be so last-minute this time, huh? I'm sick of getting our butts kicked at this thing! There's no reason why one of us can't win a stupid scholarship this year. You don't even have to get first place; you just have to be in the top three! Come on, guys!”

“Don't you have to, like, go get up in front of people if you win?” This is one of the few other boys in the room. I can't remember his name, but he's in my math class. He hardly ever says anything out loud.

“I don't know,” Anthony says. “You know why? 'Cause we've
never won
.”

“We will this year,” Miss Jacks says. The conversation has finally pulled her gaze from the papers she's grading. “Right, folks? And yes, Scott, you have to get up in front of people if you win. The winners from every county get to go to a workshop in Charleston, and the top finalists perform their works before the winners are announced. They always have several published authors there to present
workshops. It's an amazing opportunity.” She looks at Anthony with a raised eyebrow. “Plus, they feed you.”

“Why is she looking at
me
on that one?”

“'Cause from what I hear, the entire reason you started poetry club is because Miss Jacks said there'd be food,” Jaina points out. “Which reminds me, where's the food?”

Miss Jacks opens her desk drawer and takes out a bag of popcorn. She chucks it into the circle of chairs, where Anthony and Scott fight to gain control of it.

“Guys,” Miss Jacks points out, “we're fifteen minutes in, and nobody's learned anything yet. Anybody got some wisdom to impart?”

“I do!” Lisa volunteers. “I'm going to teach you how to write a cinquain. There are a few different types. This one is the kind where the first line is one word, and then you put two words on the second line, three on the third, four on the fourth, and one on the fifth. The first line is a noun, the second is adjectives, the third is verbs, the fourth is emotions, and the fifth one is a synonym for the first one.” She beams with self-confidence and eye shadow.

I raise my hand. “Huh?”

“Let me read,” Lisa says, a little bit pushy. “You'll hear what I mean. I'll
illustrate
for you what a cinquain sounds like.” So I do listen, but I'm flustered because she was so pushy, and I still don't understand the pattern.

“Will you read it again?” I immediately ask.

Lisa fluffs herself and preens. “Of course.”

She reads:

“Mountains.

Pretty, beautiful.

Rising very high.

Breath taking, awe inspiring.

Appalachia.”

The group claps, an awkward smattering. Anthony has a coughing fit so long and loud that I worry he's choking on a piece of popcorn.

Lisa reads her poem a third time without being asked.

“Mountains.
That's my one noun.

Pretty, beautiful.
That's my two adjectives.

Rising very high.
That's my three words that are a verb.

Breath taking, awe inspiring.
That's my four emotion words.

Appalachia.
That's my synonym. Because we are
in
the Appalachian Mountains.”

Then she claps for herself.

I raise my hand again. “Is
breathtaking
two words?”

“In poetry, you can spell things different,” Lisa snaps. “Right, Miss Jacks?”

“Many poets take artistic liberties in their poetry,” Miss Jacks allows. When we all keep staring at her, she adds, “Guys, it's after hours. I hope you're not waiting on
guidance from me. You all are going to need to keep this rolling without my help. Lisa just taught you how to write a cinquain. Have at it.” She waves a hand at the stack of loose paper and the stubs of pencils on the table.

We start shuffling and squinting and doodling. A minute turns into twenty. Cinquain is not as easy as haiku. There are occasional whispers and giggles from the nine kids spread out around the room, and crunching as the popcorn bag gets passed around, and the sounds of scribbling and erasing.

I write:

Phyllis.

Pretty, beautiful.

Patient hands prepare

four a.m. egg salad.

Kindness.

I don't show it to anyone, though. I don't know how to explain how four a.m. egg salad is an emotion.

Anthony looks at me for a long minute before sharing his cinquain. I'm pretty sure the look he gives me is meant to communicate how certain my death will be if I ever mention poetry club outside of poetry club. Not that anyone would ever believe me. And who would I tell, anyway, besides Jaina, who's sitting right here? Anthony's got pants that sag to show off his boxers and a
plaid button-up over his muscle shirt. He's got a permanent case of hat hair from wearing a beanie at lunch and outside the building and whenever he can get away with it. He does not look “poetry club” to me. If I weren't looking at him right now, I wouldn't believe it.

He reads:

“Math.

Topsy-turvy.

Snarling, pencil-tapping.

Paper-ripping frustrated—oh!

Solved.”

I can't help myself. “That's good!” I tell him. I'm relieved that cinquains can sound better than Lisa's mountain poem, and surprised through and through that Anthony can write.

“You don't have to tell me.” But his grin says he's only teasing. I've never seen Anthony's face look nice before, but right at this moment, it does.

•   •   •

All weekend, I work on cinquains. I start early and work late. By next poetry club, I want to have the perfect cinquain to share with the group. I gaze out the window and off the porch for inspiration. I lie on my back under the trees with their new May leaves in Phyllis's backyard. I wrestle with Chip and Stella when I get bored.