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us during half- time programs. I'm allergic to hornets. One sting and my skin bubbles with hives and my throat closes up. COLD WEATHER AND BUSES I miss the bus because I couldn't believe how dark it was when my alarm clock went off. I need a clock that will turn on a 95 300-watt bulb when it's time to get up. Either that or a rooster. When I realize how late it is, I decide not to rush. Why bother? Mom comes downstairs and I'm reading the funnies and eating oatmeal. Mom: "You missed the bus again." I nod. Mom: "You expect me to drive you again." Another nod. Mom: "You'll need boots. It's a long walk and it snowed again last night. I'm already late." That is unexpected, but not harsh. The walk isn't that bad — it's not like she made me hike ten miles through a snowstorm uphill in both directions or anything. The streets are quiet and pretty. The snow covers yesterday's slush and settles on the rooftops like powdered sugar on a gingerbread town. By the time I get to Fayette's, the town bakery, I'm hungry again. Fayette's makes wicked good jelly doughnuts and I have lunch money in my pocket. I decide to buy two dough- nuts and call it brunch. I cross the parking lot and IT comes out the door. Andy Evans with a raspberry-dripping jelly doughnut in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. I stop on a frozen puddle. Maybe he 96 won't notice me if I stand still. That's how rabbits survive; they freeze in the presence of predators. He sets the coffee on top of his car and fumbles in his pocket for the keys. Very, very adult, this coffee/car-keys/cut-school guy. He drops the keys and swears. He isn't going to notice me. I'm not here — he can't see me standing here in my purple marshmallow jacket. But of course my luck with this guy sucks. So he turns his head and sees me. And wolfsmiles, showing oh granny what big teeth you have. He steps toward me, holding out the doughnut. "Want a bite?" he asks. BunnyRabbit bolts, leaving fast tracks in the snow. Getaway getaway getaway. Why didn't I run like this before when I was a one-piece talking girl? Running makes me feel like I am eleven years old and fast. I burn a strip up the sidewalk, melting snow and ice three feet on either side. When I stop, a brand-new thought explodes in my head: Why go to school? ESCAPE The first hour of blowing off school is great. No one to tell me what to do, what to read, what to say. It's like living in an 97 MTV video — not with the stupid costumes, but wearing that butt-strutting, I-do-what-I-want additood. I wander down Main Street. Beauty parlor, 7-Eleven, bank, card store. The rotating bank sign says it is 22 degrees. I wan- der up the other side. Appliance store, hardware store, park- ing lot, grocery store. My insides are cold from breathing in frozen air. I can feel the hairs in my nose crackle. My strut slows to a foot-dragging schlump. I even think about trudging uphill to school. At least it's heated. I bet kids in Arizona enjoy playing hooky more than kids trapped in Central New York. No slush. No yellow snow. I'm saved by a Centro bus. It coughs and rumbles and spits out two old women in front of the grocery store. I climb on. Destination: The Mall. You never think about the mall being closed. It's always sup- posed to be there, like milk in the refrigerator or God. But it is just opening when I get off the bus. Store managers juggle key rings and extra-large coffees, then the cage gates fly up in the air. Lights wink on, the fountains jump, music plays behind the giant ferns, and the mall is open. White-haired grandmas and grandpops powerwalk squeak- squeak, going so fast they don't even look at the window dis- plays. I hunt spring fashions — nothing that fit last year fits now. How can I shop with Mom if I don't want to talk to her? She might love it — no arguing that way. But then I'd have to wear the clothes she picked out. Conundrum — a three-point vocab word. 98 I sit by the central elevator, where they set up Santa's Work- shop after Halloween. The air smells like french fries and floor cleaner. The sun through the skylight is summer hot and I shed layers — jacket, hat, mittens, sweater. I lose seven pounds in half a minute, feel like I could float up alongside the elevator. Tiny brown birds sing above me. No one knows how they got in, but they live in the mall and sing pretty. I lie on the bench and watch the birds weave through the warm air until the sun burns so bright I'm afraid it will make holes in my eyeballs. I should probably tell someone, just tell someone. Get it over with. Let it out, blurt it out. I want to be in fifth grade again. Now, that is a deep dark se- cret, almost as big as the other one. Fifth grade was easy — old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the block. The perfect leash length. A rent-a-cop strolls by. He studies the wax women in the Sears window, then strolls back the other way. He doesn't even bother with a fake smile, or an "Are you lost?" I'm not in fifth grade. He starts back for a third pass, his fin- ger on his radio. Will he turn me in? Time to find that bus stop. I spend the rest of the day waiting for it to be 2:48, so it's not all that different from school. I figure I learned a good lesson, and set my alarm clock early for the next day. I wake up on time for four days in a row, get on the bus four days in a row, ride home after school. I want to scream. I think I'll need to take a day off every once in a while. 99 CODE BREAKING Hairwoman has been buying new earrings. One pair hangs all the way down to her shoulders. Another has bells in them like the pair Heather gave me at Christmas. I guess I can't wear mine anymore. There should be a law. It's Nathaniel Hawthorne Month in English. Poor Nathaniel. Does he know what they've done to him? We are reading The Scarlet Letter one sentence at a time, tearing it up and chew- ing on its bones. It's all about SYMBOLISM, says Hairwoman. Every word chosen by Nathaniel, every comma, every paragraph break — these were all done on purpose. To get a decent grade in her class, we have to figure out what he was really trying to say. Why couldn't he just say what he meant? Would they pin scar- let letters on his chest? B for blunt, S for straightforward? I can't whine too much. Some of it is fun. It's like a code, breaking into his head and finding the key to his secrets. Like the whole guilt thing. Of course you know the minister feels guilty and Hester feels guilty, but Nathaniel wants us to know this is a big deal. If he kept repeating, "She felt guilty, she felt guilty, she felt guilty," it would be a boring book and no one would buy it. So he planted SYMBOLS, like the weather, and the whole light and dark thing, to show us how poor Hester feels. 100 I wonder if Hester tried to say no. She's kind of quiet. We would get along. I can see us, living in the woods, her wearing that A, me with an S maybe, S for silent, for stupid, for scared. S for silly. For shame. So the code-breaking part was fun for the first lesson, but a little of it goes a long way. Hairwoman is hammering it to death. Hairwoman: "The description of the house with bits of glass embedded in the walls — what does it mean?" Utter silence from the class. A fly left over from fall buzzes against the cold window. A locker slams in the hall. Hair- woman answers her own question. "Think of what that would look like, a wall with glass em- bedded in it. It would . . . reflect? Sparkle? Shine on sunny days maybe. Come on, people, I shouldn't have to do this by myself. Glass in the wall. We use that on top of prison walls nowadays. Hawthorne is showing us that the house is a prison, or a dangerous place maybe. It is hurtful. Now, I asked you to find some examples of the use of color. Who can list a few pages where color is described?" The fly buzzes a farewell buzz and dies. Rachel/Rachelle, my ex-best friend: "Who cares what the color means? How do you know what he meant to say? I mean, did he leave another book called 'Symbolism in My Books'? If he didn't, then you could just be making all of this 101 up. Does anyone really think this guy sat down and stuck all kinds of hidden meanings into his story? It's just a story." Hairwoman: "This is Hawthorne, one of the greatest Ameri- can novelists! He didn't do anything by accident — he was a genius." Rachel/Rachelle: "I thought we were supposed to have opin- ions here. My opinion is that it's kind of hard to read, but the part about how Hester gets in trouble and the preacher guy al- most gets away with it, well, that's a good story. But I think you are making all this symbolism stuff up. I don't believe any of it." Hairwoman: "Do you tell your math teacher you don't believe that three times four equals twelve? Well, Hawthorne's sym- bolism is just like multiplication — once you figure it out, it's as clear as day." The bell rings. Hairwoman blocks the door to give out our as- signment. A five-hundred-word essay on symbolism, how to find hidden meanings in Hawthorne. The whole class yells at Rachel/Rachelle in the hall. That's what you get for speaking up. STUNTED Mr. Freeman has found a way around the authorities again. He painted the names of all his students on one wall of the 102 classroom, then made a column for each week left of school. Each week he evaluates our progress and makes a note on the wall. He calls it a necessary compromise. Next to my name he's painted a question mark. My tree is frozen. A kindergartner could carve a better tree. I've stopped counting the linoleum blocks I ruined. Mr. Freeman has reserved the rest of them for me. Good thing, too. I am dying to try a different subject, something easy like designing an entire city or copying the Mona Lisa, but he won't budge. He suggested I try a different medium, so I used purple finger paints. The paint cooled my hands, but did nothing for my tree. Trees. On a shelf I find a book of landscapes filled with illustrations of every stinking tree that grows: sycamore, linden, aspen, willow, fir, tulip poplar, chestnut, elm, spruce, pine. Their bark, flowers, limbs, needles, nuts. I feel like a regular forester, but I can't do what I'm supposed to. The last time Mr. Free- man had anything good to say to me was when I made that stupid turkey-bone thing. Mr. Freeman is having his own problems. He mostly sits on his stool and stares at a new canvas. It is painted one color, so blue it's almost black. No light comes out of it or goes in, no shadows without light. Ivy asks him what it is. Mr. Freeman snaps out of his funk and looks at her like he just realized the room was full of students. Mr. Freeman: "It is Venice at night, the color of an accoun- tant's soul, a love rejected. I grew mold on an orange this color when I lived in Boston. It's the blood of imbeciles. Con- 103 fusion. Tenure. The inside of a lock, the taste of iron. Despair. A city with the streetlights shot out. Smoker's lung. The hair of a small girl who grows up hopeless. The heart of a school board director ..." He is warming up for a full-fledged rant when the bell rings. Some teachers rumorwhisper he's having a breakdown. I think he's the sanest person I know. LUNCH DOOM Nothing good ever happens at lunch. The cafeteria is a giant sound stage where they film daily segments of Teenage Humil- iation Rituals. And it smells gross. I sit with Heather, as usual, but we are off by ourselves in a corner by the courtyard, not near the Marthas. Heather sits so her back is to the rest of the cafeteria. She can watch the wind shift the drifts of snow trapped in the courtyard behind me. I can feel the wind seep through the glass and penetrate my shirt. I am not listening too closely as Heather ahems her way to what is on her mind. The noise of four hundred mouths mov- ing, consuming, pulls me away from her. The background pulsing of the dishwashers, the squeal of announcements that no one hears — it is a vespiary, the Hornet haven. I am a small ant crouched by the entrance, with the winter wind at my back. I smother my green beans with mashed potatoes. 104 Heather nibbles through her jicama and whole-grain roll, and blows me off while she eats her baby carrots. Heather: "This is really awkward. I mean, how do you say something like this? No matter what... no, I don't want to say that. I mean, we kind of paired up at the beginning of the year when I was new and didn't know anyone and that was really, really sweet of you, but I think it's time for us both to admit that we . . .just. . . are . . . very . . . different." She studies her no-fat yogurt. I try to think of something bitchy, something wicked and cruel. I can't. Me: "You mean we're not friends anymore?" Heather: [smiling with her mouth but not her eyes] "We were never really, really friends, were we? I mean, it's not like I ever slept over at your house or anything. We like to do different things. I have my modeling, and I like to shop ..." Me: "I like to shop." Heather: "You don't like anything. You are the most depressed person I've ever met, and excuse me for saying this, but you are no fun to be around and I think you need professional help." Up until this very instant, I had never seriously thought of Heather as my one true friend in the world. But now I am des- perate to be her pal, her buddy, to giggle with her, to gossip with her. 1 want her to paint my toenails. 105 Me: "I was the only person who talked to you on the first day of school, and now you're blowing me off because I'm a little depressed? Isn't that what friends are for, to help each other out in bad times?" Heather: "I knew you would take this the wrong way. You are just so weird sometimes." I squint at the wall of hearts on the other side of the room. Lovers can spend five dollars to get a red or pink heart with their initials on it mounted on the wall for Valentine's Day. It looks so out of place, those red splotches on blue. The jocks — excuse me — the student athletes, sit in front of the hearts to judge the new romances. Poor Heather. There are no Hallmark cards for breaking up with friends. I know what she's thinking. She has a choice: she can hang out with me and get the reputation of being a creepy weirdo who might show up with a gun someday, or she can be a Martha — one of the girls who get good grades, do nice things, and ski well. Which would I choose? Heather: "When you get through this Life Sucks phase, I'm sure lots of people will want to be your friend. But you just can't cut classes or not show up to school. What's next — hanging out with the dopers?" Me: "Is this the part where you try to be nice to me?" Heather: "You have a reputation." 106 Me: "For what?" Heather: "Look, you can't eat lunch with me anymore. I'm sorry. Oh, and don't eat those potato chips. They'll make you break out." She neatly wraps her trash into a wax-paper ball and deposits it in the garbage can. Then she walks to the Martha table. Her friends scootch down
to make room for her. They swallow her whole and she never looks back at me. Not once. CONJUGATE THIS I cut class, you cut class, he, she, it cuts class. We cut class, they cut class. We all cut class. I cannot say this in Spanish, because I did not go to Spanish today. Gracias a dios. Hasta luego. CUTTING OUT HEARTS When we get off the bus on Valentine's Day, a girl with white- blond hair bursts into tears. "I Love You, Anjela!" is spray- painted into the snowbank along the parking lot. I don't know if Angela is crying because she is happy or because her heart's desire can't spell. Her honey is waiting with a red rose. They kiss right there in front of everybody. Happy Valentine's Day. 107 It's caught me by surprise. Valentine Day's was a big hairy deal in elementary school because you had to give cards to everyone in your class, even the kid who made you step in dog poop. Then the class mom brought in pink frosted cupcakes and we traded those little candy hearts that said "Hot Baby!" and "Be Mine!" The holiday went underground in middle school. No parties. No shoe boxes with red cutout hearts for your drugstore valentines. To tell someone you liked them, you had to use layers and layers of friends, as in "Janet told me to tell you that Steven told me that Dougie said Carom was talking to April and she hinted that Sara's brother Mark has a friend named Tony who might like you. What are you going to do?" It is easier to floss with barbed wire than admit you like some- one in middle school. I go with the flow toward my locker. We are all dressed in down jackets and vests, so we collide and roll like bumper cars at the state fair. I notice envelopes taped to some lockers but don't really think about it until I find one on mine. It says "Melinda." It has to be a joke. Someone put it there to make me look stupid. I peer over my left shoulder, then my right, for groups of evil kids pointing at me. All I see are the backs of heads. What if it is real? What if it's from a boy? My heart stops, then stutters and pumps again. No, not Andy. His style is def- initely not romantic. Maybe David Petrakis My Lab Partner. He watches me when he thinks I can't see him, afraid I'm 108 going to break lab equipment or faint again. Sometimes he smiles at me, an anxious smile, the kind you use on a dog that might bite. All I have to do is open the envelope. I can't stand it. I walk past my locker and go straight to biology. Ms. Keen decided it would be cute to review birds and bees in honor of Valentine's Day. Nothing practical, of course, no in- formation about why hormones can make you crazy, or why your face only breaks out at the worst time, or how to tell if somebody really gave you a Valentine's card on your locker. No, she really teaches us about the birds and the bees. Notes of love and betrayal are passed hand over hand as if the lab tables were lanes on Cupid's Highway. Ms. Keen draws a pic- ture of an egg with a baby chick inside it. David Petrakis is fighting to stay awake. Does he like me? I make him nervous. He thinks I'm going to ruin his grade. But maybe I'm growing on him. Do I want him to like me? I chew my thumbnail. No. I just want anyone to like me. I want a note with a heart on it. I pull the edge of my thumbnail back too far and it bleeds. I squeeze my thumb so the blood gathers in a perfect sphere before it collapses and slides toward the palm of my hand. David hands me a tissue. I press it into the cut. The white cells of paper dissolve as the red floods them. It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts except the small smiles and blushes that flash across the room like tiny sparrows. I open my notebook and write a note to David: "Thanks!" I slide the notebook over to him. He swallows hard, his Adam's apple bouncing to the bottom of his neck and back up again. He writes back: "You are welcome." Now what? I squeeze the 109 tissue harder on my thumb to concentrate. Ms. Keen's baby bird hatches on the board. I draw a picture of Ms. Keen as a robin. David smiles. He draws a branch under her feet and slides the notebook back to me. I try to connect the branch to a tree. It looks pretty good, better than anything I have drawn so far in art. The bell rings, and David's hand brushes against mine as he picks up his books. I bolt from my seat. I'm afraid to look at him. What if he thinks I already opened his card and I hate his guts, which was why I didn't say anything? But I can't say anything because the card could be a joke, or from some other silent watcher who blends in with the blur of lock- ers and doors. My locker. The card is still there, a white patch of hope with my name on it. I tear it off and open it. Something falls to my feet. The card has a picture of two cutesy teddy bears sharing a pot of honey. I open it. "Thanks for understanding. You're the sweetest!" It is signed with a purple pen. "Good Luck!!! Heather." I bend down to find what dropped from the card. It was the friendship necklace I had given Heather in a fit of insanity around Christmas. Stupid stupid stupid. How stupid could I be? I hear a cracking inside me, my ribs are collapsing in on my lungs, which is why I can't breathe. I stumble down the hall, down another hall, down another hall, till I find my very own door and slip inside and throw the lock, not even bother- ing to turn on the lights, just falling falling a mile downhill to the bottom of my brown chair, where I can sink my teeth into the soft white skin of my wrist and cry like the baby I am. I rock, thumping my head against the cinder-block wall. A half- 110 forgotten holiday has unveiled every knife that sticks inside me, every cut. No Rachel, no Heather, not even a silly, geeky boy who would like the inside girl I think I am. OUR LADY OF THE WAITING ROOM I find Lady of Mercy Hospital by accident. I fall asleep on the bus and miss the mall completely. The hospital is worth a try. Maybe I can learn some pre-med stuff for David. In a sick kind of way, I love it. There are waiting rooms on al- most every floor. I don't want to attract too much attention to myself, so I stay on the move, checking my watch constantly, trying to look as if I have a reason for being here. I'm afraid I'll get caught, but the people around me have other things to worry about. The hospital is the perfect place to be invisible and the cafeteria food is better than the school's. The worst waiting room is on the heart-attack floor. It is crowded with gray-faced women twisting their wedding rings and watching the doors for a familiar doctor. One lady just sobs, she doesn't care that total strangers watch her nose drip or that people can hear her as soon as they get off the elevator. Her cries stop just short of screaming. They make me shiver. I snag a couple of copies of People magazine and I am out of there. The maternity ward is dangerous because people there are happy. They ask me questions, who am I waiting for, when is 111 the baby due, is it my mother, a sister? If I wanted people to ask me questions, I would have gone to school. I say I have to call my father and flee. The cafeteria is cool. Huge. Full of people wearing doctor- nurse clothes with college-degree posture and beepers. I al- ways thought hospital people would be real health nuts, but these guys eat junk food like it's going out of style. Big piles of nachos, cheeseburgers as wide as plates, cherry pie, potato chips, all the good stuff. One lone cafeteria worker named Lola stands by the steamed-fish and onion tray. I feel bad for her, so I buy the fish platter. I also buy a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy and a yogurt. I find a seat next to a table of serious, frowning, silver-haired men who use words so long I'm surprised they don't choke. Very official. Nice to hang around people who sound like they know what they're doing. After lunch I wander up to the fifth floor, to an adult surgery wing where waiting family members concentrate on the televi- sion. I sit where I can watch the nurses' station and, beyond that, a couple of hospital rooms. It looks like a good place to get sick. The doctors and nurses seem smart, but they smile every once in a while. A laundry-room worker pushes an enormous basket of green hospital gowns (the kind that shows your butt if you don't hold it closed) to a storage area. I follow him. If anyone asks, I'm looking for a water fountain. No one asks. I pick up a gown. I want to put it on and crawl under the white knobbly blanket and white sheets in one of those high-off-the-ground 112 beds and sleep. It is getting harder to sleep at home. How long would it take for the nurses to figure out I don't belong here? Would they let me rest for a few days? A stretcher pushed by a tall guy with muscles sweeps down the hall. One woman walks beside it, a nurse. I have no idea what is wrong with the patient, but his eyes are closed and a thin line of blood seeps through a bandage on his neck. I put the gown back. There is nothing wrong with me. These are really sick people, sick that you can see. I head for the ele- vator. The bus is on its way. CLASH OF THE TITANS We have a meeting with Principal Principal. Someone has no- ticed that I've been absent. And that I don't talk. They figure I'm more a head case than a criminal, so they call in the guid- ance counselor, too. Mother's mouth twitches with words she doesn't want to say in front of strangers. Dad keeps checking his beeper, hoping someone will call. I sip water from a paper cup. If the cup were lead crystal, I would open my mouth and take a bite. Crunch, crunch, swal- low. They want me to speak. 113 "Why won't you say anything?" "For the love of God, open your mouth!" "This is childish, Melinda." "Say something." "You are only hurting yourself by refusing to cooperate." "I don't know why she's doing this to us." The Principal ha-hums loudly and gets in the middle. Principal Principal: "We all agree we are here to help. Let's start with these grades. They are not what we expected from you, Melissa." Dad: "Melinda." Principal Principal: "Melinda. Last year you were a straight-B student, no behavioral problem, few absences. But the reports I've been getting . . . well, what can we say?" Mother: "That's the point, she won't say anything! I can't get a word out of her. She's mute." Guidance Counselor: "I think we need to explore the family dynamics at play here." Mother: "She's jerking us around to get attention." Me: [inside my head] Would you listen? Would you believe me? Fat chance. Dad: "Well, something is wrong. What have you done to her? I had a sweet, loving little girl last year, but as soon as she comes up here, she clams up, skips school, and flushes her 114 grades down the toilet. I golf with the school board president, you know." Mother: "We don't care who you know, Jack. We have to get Melinda to talk." Guidance Counselor: [leaning forward, looking at Mom and Dad] "Do the two of you have marriage issues?" Mother responds with unladylike language. Father suggests that the guidance counselor visit that hot, scary underground world. The guidance counselor grows quiet. Maybe she un- derstands why I keep it zipped. Principal Principal sits back in his chair and doodles a hornet. Tickticktick. I'm missing study hall for this. Nap time. How many days until graduation? I lost track. Have to find a calendar. Mother and Father apologize. They sing a show tune: "What are we to do? What are we to do? She's so blue, we're just two. What, oh what, are we supposed to do?" In my headworld, they jump on Principal Principal's desk and perform a tap-dance routine. A spotlight flashes on them. A chorus line joins in, and the guidance counselor dances around a spangled cane. I giggle. Zap. Back in their world. Mother: "You think this is funny? We are talking about your future, your life, Melinda!" 115 Father: "I don't know where you picked up that slacker atti- tude, but you certainly didn't learn it at home. Probably from the bad influences up here." G.C.: "Actually, Melinda has some very nice friends. I've seen her helping that group of girls who volunteer so much. Meg Harcutt, Emily Briggs, Siobhan Falon ..." Principal Principal: [Stops doodling] "Very nice girls. They all come from good families." He looks at me for the first time and tilts his head to one side. "Those are your friends?" Do they choose to be so dense? Were they born that way? I have no friends. I have nothing. I say nothing. I am nothing. I wonder how long it takes to ride a bus to Arizona. MISS Merryweather In-School Suspension. This is my Consequence. It is in my contract. It's true what they tell you about not sign- ing anything without reading it carefully. Even better, pay a lawyer to read it carefully. The guidance counselor dreamed up the contract after our cozy get-together in the principal's office. It lists a million things I'm not supposed to do and the consequences I'll suffer if I do them. The consequences for minor offenses like being late to class or not participating were stupid — they wanted 116 me to write an essay — so I took another day off school and Bingo! I earned a trip to MISS. It's a classroom painted white, with uncomfortable chairs and a lamp that buzzes like an angry hive. The inmates of MISS are commanded to sit and stare at the empty walls. It is supposed to bore us into submission or prepare us for an insane asylum. Our guard dog today is Mr. Neck. He curls his lip and growls at me. I think this is part of his punishment for that bigoted crap he pulled in class. There are two other convicts with me. One has a cross tattooed on his shaved skull. He sits like a graniteboy waiting for a chisel so he can carve himself out of the mountainside. The other kid looks completely normal. His clothes are a little freaky maybe, but that's a misdemeanor here, not a felony. When Mr. Neck gets up to greet a late ari- val, the normal-looking kid tells me he likes to start fires. Our last companion is Andy Evans. My breakfast turns to hy- drochloric acid. He grins at Mr. Neck and sits down next to me. Mr. Neck: "Cutting again, Andy?" Andy Beast: "No sir. One of your colleagues thinks I have an authority problem. Can you believe it?" Mr. Neck: "No more talking." I am BunnyRabbit again, hiding in the open. I sit like I have an egg in my mouth. One move, one word, and the egg will shatter and blow up the world. 117 I am getting seriously weird in the head. When Mr. Neck isn't looking, Andy blows in my ear. I want to kill him. PICASSO I can't do anything, not even in art class. Mr. Freeman, a pro at staring out the window himself, thinks he knows what's wrong. "Your imagination is paralyzed," he declares. "You need to take a trip." Ears perk up all over the classroom and someone turns down the radio. A trip? Is he planning a field trip? "You need to visit the mind of a Great One," continues Mr. Freeman. Papers flutter as the class sighs. The radio sings louder again. He pushes my pitiful linoleum block aside