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Authors: Joan Lowery Nixon

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BOOK: Shadowmaker
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And for another thing, I missed the High School for the Performing Arts and my specialty field of dance so much it was like an ache that wouldn’t go away. “You’ve got what it takes, Katie,” the ballet instructor had told me, even though he understood that ballet was not my career goal but just my private love. No matter how high he’d set my goals, I worked with all my strength to meet them.

Maybe it sounds weird that I never told anyone—even Mom—how much I loved ballet. Each time I practiced, each time I performed, the steps would become part of the music. The music would blend with my mind, and my body would follow with a joy that could have shone clear and golden, if anyone else could have seen it. But they didn’t, because I hugged my feelings to myself. Maybe I shouldn’t have.

One day Mom sat with me, her eyes glittering with excitement, and explained that she wanted to take six months leave from her column and magazine writing and
write a novel. She explained that while she was writing the novel there would be very little money coming in, and staying in Uncle Jim’s old beach house, on which she’d kept up the tax payments, would save our biggest expense—monthly rent.

My words came out in a ragged croak. “But my dance lessons? The school musical?” My voice broke, and I couldn’t finish.

“You’re talented in so many directions, Katie—dance too—and I know you enjoy your ballet lessons,” Mom said.

The words zinged inside my head like a tennis ball gone crazy.
Enjoy my lessons? Enjoy? Couldn’t Mom understand that my love of dance was so much more than “enjoy”?

No. Of course she couldn’t, and it was my fault, because my love of ballet was too private to share.

I guessed that Mom was trying to read my face, because she looked sort of puzzled, then sad and vulnerable as she told me the plan for letting our apartment go and storing the furniture. “We won’t do it unless you agree, Katie,” she said. “I know it’s hard for you, or anybody else, to understand, but this story I want to write has been taking over my mind. Mentally, I’m inventing whole chunks of dialogue, and visualizing scenes, and living more with my imaginary characters than with the real people around me. The story has to come out. I
have
to write it.”

Strangely enough, I did understand. Even though I was sure I’d never want to be a published writer, like Mom, I realized what she was trying to tell me. I keep a journal, and sometimes I just have to write down my thoughts and
feelings. It’s like an itch that starts in my brain and drives me crazy. I can’t ignore it.

Mrs. Gantner taught us to keep journals when I was in eighth grade, and I’ll always be grateful that she did. She’d look through our journals, to make sure we were on the right track, but whatever we wrote was private, and she never talked about content, even to us. Once, I wrote my thoughts about ballet in a kind of poetry that pulled the music from my body and laid it out on the paper in the form of words. Mrs. Gantner told me my poem was good and she was glad I liked to experiment with word forms, so since then I wrote a lot of poetry in my journal. Maybe it was good, maybe not, but it doesn’t matter. Nobody had ever seen it except me.

Mrs. Walgren, my English lit teacher at Kluney High, was also big on journals. She seemed pleased when I told her I’d been keeping one. I guess she didn’t want to have to explain all over again how to do it to the new student. She had asked us to turn in our journals over the weekend, so I brought mine Friday and added it to the stack.

I was eager to get it back because I wanted to write about what had happened last night. It’s easy for me to sort out ideas, feelings, problems, and all that stuff by putting them into words on paper.

I gobbled down a quick breakfast, grabbed my books, and walked along our road about three blocks to where it intersects with the main road into town. The dogs knew me pretty well by now, but they came running down the long slope from their houses, which were almost out of sight on the next road north, and leaped against their chain-link
fences, showing me, with a few halfhearted barks, that they were on constant duty.

I took a few moments to talk to each dog, so I had to run the last few feet to catch the school bus.

The bus was loaded with junior high boys—all loud mouths and big feet. I squirmed through them to the nearest empty seat and plopped down, out of balance as the bus took off. This was pickup truck country, and I doubted if there were more than two dozen kids in the entire high school who didn’t drive pickups to school.

One of the have-nots was sitting near me—a small, quiet, brown-haired girl who was in most of my classes. I remembered her name—Tammy Ludd.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” I answered, and opened my history book. Lana Jean had told me that Mrs. DeJohn, in history, liked to give pop quizzes on Mondays, and I wanted to look over the chapter I’d read Friday night.

“Did you have any trouble with that chart we had to make for biology?” Tammy asked.

“No. It took a lot of time, that’s all,” I said, and tried to read.

There was silence for a moment, but Tammy spoke again, and I could hear an edge of anger in her voice. “Why do city people think they’re better than us?”

I looked up, surprised. “They don’t.”


You
do. Look at you—reading a book so you won’t have to talk to me.”

“That’s not why I was reading. If we’re going to have a test …” I closed the book and tucked it in with my other
books. “I’m sorry. I guess I did seem rude. It’s just that … I didn’t think anyone at Kluney High cared if I talked to them or not.”

A brief smile flickered over Tammy’s lips, and she said, “I’ve gone to school with the same kids since kindergarten. Some of them are nice. Some aren’t. But even some of the nice ones kind of stick to who they know. It’s not just that you’re from the city. It’s more that because your mother’s a famous reporter your life’s probably pretty exciting and nothing like you’d find down here.”

“So you’re all going to snub me before I get a chance to snub you?”

She stared at me for a minute before she answered. “I guess it must seem that way, but that’s not how it’s meant.”

“Let me put things straight,” I said. “My mom has saved up enough money to get us through the next six months, if no emergency comes up. We’re living in the house her uncle left her because living there is cheap. Mom’s here to write a novel, and when she finishes we’ll go back to Houston, and I’ll go back to the High School for the Performing Arts.” I paused, then added, “And, for what it’s worth, our life in Houston isn’t that exciting.”

“What’s the High School for the Performing Arts?” Tammy asked.

“A regular high school, only the students spend extra time working in dance or drama or music or photography—one of the arts.”

“Neat,” she said, and looked at me with curiosity. “Which were you?”

“Dance—ballet.”

Tammy grinned. “Julie was right. She said you walk like the ballet dancers she saw in Houston.”

I grinned right back. “Like a duck, with toes pointed out.” And when Tammy began to demonstrate, I said, “It’s the way we stretch our muscles.”

“Don’t you have to keep up your lessons?” Tammy suddenly asked. “I mean, there’s nobody around here who teaches ballet.”

“I know,” I said, and turned toward the window, blinking hard. All I could do was keep up my practice sessions, but that was hard in our little house without room for anything much beyond the basic positions and with only the top of the chest of drawers in my bedroom to serve as the barre.

As the bus bumped and rocked over the curb next to the drive leading to the schools’ joint parking lot, Tammy said, “We have lunch the same period. If you want, come on over to our table.”

“Thanks,” I said, and winced as the junior high boys, yelling and shouting, shoved and pushed, trying to be first to get off the bus.

English lit was first period, and I bumped into Lana Jean outside the classroom door. I noticed her fingernails weren’t clean and there was something that looked like a grease stain on her sweater. “I’m scared,” she said.

“Scared? Of what?” I asked. I thought of myself and my mother last night.

She hunched her shoulders as she gave a long sigh. “Of getting our journals back. Mrs. Walgren keeps giving me
awful grades and telling me I don’t understand what journal writing is all about. But I
have
to pass English lit. My mom will kill me if I don’t.”

I sighed. I was never really scared of getting a bad grade. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could flunk keeping a journal. “It’s going to be okay,” I said and opened the door to the classroom. A huge guy named Billy Don Knipp twisted in his seat by the window and smiled at me. He had a gap in his teeth where one had probably been knocked out. I was not the least impressed, but I smiled back, still feeling good about Tammy’s invitation.

Mrs. Walgren, round and pink with a halo of gray hair, beamed at me with enthusiasm, which puzzled me. I didn’t have time to find out what was making her so happy, because the bell jangled in our ears and we dropped into our seats.

We tried to look like we were paying attention through the long list of office intercom announcements and the beginning-of-the-week quote of inspiring thoughts—this time from the Spanish Club. Finally, with a squawk the intercom was silenced, and Mrs. Walgren got to her feet.

“I’m going to return your journals to you,” she said. “Most of you are doing well—I’ve made just a few comments here and there—and I want you to continue writing in these journals daily until the end of the semester.”

There were a few groans, and a couple of guys put their heads down on their arms.

“Could I sharpen my pencil?” a girl in the back row asked.

“Not now,” Mrs. Walgren said. “As usual, I’ll read a few of the best entries to inspire the rest of you.”

I sat up straight, cold needles darting up and down my spine. She couldn’t do that, could she? What about privacy? Mrs. Gantner gave us privacy. I took it for granted that all teachers would teach journal writing the same way. For just an instant I closed my eyes as I realized what I had written.

Don’t panic!
I told myself.
You’re a new student. She isn’t likely to read from your journal.
But I remembered that brilliant smile she gave me and understood what it had meant. I wished I could slide under my desk and disappear forever.

We heard Billy Don Knipp’s description of the last ten minutes of a football game, and I discovered that Billy Don, the big guy with the embarrassed look on his face, played halfback for Kluney High.

“Although your journals are basically supposed to deal with your current thoughts and feelings, it’s perfectly all right to relive an earlier experience and write about it,” Mrs. Walgren said when she’d finished reading Billy Don’s journal entry. “Sometimes the experience becomes even more definitive over the passage of a few months.” She smiled as she handed Billy Don’s journal back. “I remember that game. November sixth, a home game against Crossview High, and we won, twenty-one to seven.”

The journal belonging to a tall, slender, dark-haired girl named Julie Bach was Mrs. Walgren’s next choice. Julie had described how she’d helped with the birth of a calf. I thought what she had written was good. Really good. It
belonged in the school’s literary magazine—if they had one.

I slunk down in my chair as Mrs. Walgren picked up the next journal—mine. “Katherine Gillian,” she said, and that friendly smile flashed again. “I’ve read many of her mother’s articles and know what a fine writer she is. And now I can see that Katherine … Are you called Kate? Katie?”

I mumbled and nodded, and she went on. “That Katie has inherited her mother’s writing talent and undoubtedly intends to be a writer too.”

A couple of kids turned around and stared at me. I wanted to tell Mrs. Walgren she was jumping to conclusions. Why should I have to be a writer just because my mother was a writer? But I kept my mouth shut.

“Katie has reached down and written about her feelings in free verse,” Mrs. Walgren said. “I want you all to pay attention to the depth she achieves and the unusual metaphor she uses.”

My face grew hot, and it was all I could do to keep from groaning aloud. Nobody was going to like what I’d written.

Mrs. Walgren cleared her throat and began to read:

New girl in school?

Who says I’m new?

I’m the same sparrow I’ve always been
,

but I’ve been plucked from my nest

and dropped into a town too small
,

with roads too dusty and a sea too gray.

I cry out because the fall has lamed me
,

but no one hears.

Gulls squabble over a dead fish
,

and cluster tightly to pick the bones.

Staring with black, beady eyes

at the wounded sparrow who flaps into their unity
,

they fly off in a pack
,

squawking, “She’s new! She’s new!”

The sparrow limps alone, and no one cares.

Mrs. Walgren closed my journal, brushed a stray wisp of hair from her eyes, and nodded toward the class. “What do you think of the metaphor?”

“What’s a metaphor?” Billy Don asked.

I wanted to bury my head in my hands. Billy Don was probably the only person in class who didn’t understand I was writing about them.

Mrs. Walgren explained what a metaphor was so that even Billy Don should understand, but the puzzled expression on his face showed that he still hadn’t got it.

Julie gave me an appraising look, then raised her hand. “I can understand somebody coming to a new school and not knowing anyone and feeling different, but I don’t understand why the sparrow was lame.”

“Good question. Perhaps the lameness symbolizes a feeling of inadequacy.” She nodded in my direction. “Katie, would you like to explain?”

No, I wouldn’t like to explain! But I had no choice.
“In Houston,” I said as I carefully studied the scratches in the floor, “I studied ballet in school, and I practiced the exercises,
the positions, and the movements for an hour or two every day. In Kluney there’s no one I can study with.”

BOOK: Shadowmaker
7.28Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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