|
b503c0e
|
Maybe they're planning the next Project. They could mail snowballs to the weather-deprived children in Texas. They could knit goat-hair blankets for shorn sheep.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
61f39ac
|
In one universe, they are gorgeous, straight-teethed, long-legged, wrapped in designer fashions, and given sport cars on their sixteenth birthdays, Teachers smile at them and grade them on the curve. They know the first names of the staff. They are the pride of the school. In Universe #2, they throw parties wild enough to attract college students. They worship stink of Eau de Jocque. They rent beach houses in Cancun during Spring Break and ..
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
8eb1795
|
Ghosts are waiting in the shadows of the room, patient dull shimmers. The others can see them, too, I know it. We're all afraid to talk about what stares at us from the dark.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
a709a43
|
You know what's not sexy?" I pushed his hand away. "Babies. Babies are not sexy." "But I bought condoms," he said. "I even practiced putting one on!" The lost-puppy look on his face made me smile. "I'm proud of you, Boner Man, but that's not enough."
|
|
humor-relationships
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
d56a0ab
|
They said I had to get fatter. I told them my goal was 080.00 and if they wanted my respect, they'd better stop lying to me. When my brain started working again, I checked their math. Someone had made a mistake because they didn't figure in the snakes in my head and the thick shadows hiding inside the cage of my ribs.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
fb48e39
|
Few people know this, but I am a trained assassin, skilled in jujitsu and krav maga. I can also, with a few folds, turn an ordinary piece of notebook paper into a lethal weapon. Or I can turn it into a butterfly, which is a great trick when I'm babysitting." I fought a smile. "A trained assassin who babysits." "Only the Greene twins and only because their family gets every premium channel on the planet."
|
|
the-impossible-knife-of-memory
laurie-halse-anderson
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
ea3c741
|
She complains all the time about her hair turning gray and her butt sagging and her skin wrinkling, but I'm supposed to be grateful for a face full of zits, hair in embarrassing places, and feet that grow an inch a night. Utter crap.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
c665a80
|
Most life is spent doing things we don't want to do.
|
|
sucks
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
6cf3c73
|
I just do what I'm told. If I felt like talking, I would explain that she couldn't pay me enough to play on her basketball team. All that running? Sweating? Getting knocked around by genetic mutants? I don't think so.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
f51c35e
|
Bologna girl, that's me.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
eebf68c
|
The good soldier swears to kill. Fire the cannon, mount the barricade, lock and load. Smell your brother's blood on your shirt. Wipe your sister's brains off your face. Die, if you have to, so they'll live. Kill to keep your people alive, live to kill some more.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
0e9cebc
|
Censorship is the child of fear the father of ignorance and the desperate weapon of fascists everywhere.
|
|
fear
fascism
ignorance
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
b974cc2
|
The school board banned one of Maya Angelou's books, so the librarian had to take down her poster. I fished it out of the trash. She must be a great writer if the school board is scared of her.
|
|
freedom-to-read
maya-angelou
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
837e74c
|
I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
f5e9b53
|
They mean hot like 'I'm too good for you I got my own money don't be frontin' me.' You're more like 'Be my boyfriend I'll make you cookies come meet my dad ' know what I mean
|
|
humor
girls
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
d14b6cc
|
You can't speak up for your right to be silent. That's letting the bad guys win.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
0059373
|
I'm not wearing this!" I shouted. "Wear it or die," Mom shouted back." --
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
d0dc274
|
Odysseus had twenty years to shed his battle skin. My grandfather left the battlefield in France and rode home in a ship that crawled across the ocean slowly so he could catch his breath. I get on a plane in hell and get off, hours later, at home.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
0291cec
|
Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
5e545ce
|
I embarked on a campaign of honey and kindness, which, if you've never tried it, is very hard to do with someone who thinks you are chickenhearted and has in the past called you a poxy sluggard. It is especially hard if every day you are plagued with fear about what might happen next.
|
|
humor
laurie-halse-anderson
name-calling
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
3286db9
|
I'd given him bits and pieces of my peculiar life, but colored softer and funnier than they had been. I'd painted my dad as Don Quixote in a semi, on a quest for philosophical truths and the best cup of coffee in the nation.
|
|
optimism
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
4104d0e
|
The guidance counselor convinces them I need a reward-a chew toy or something.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
a9e530f
|
No. Absolutely not. I forbid it. You'll have nightmares." "She was my friend! You must allow me. Why are you so horrid?" As soon as the angry words were out of my mouth, I knew I had gone too far. "Matilda!" Mother rose from her chair. "You are forbidden to pseak to me in that tone! Apologize at once."
|
|
parents
teenagers
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
9df566a
|
I had let down my shields, that was the problem. The crazy inside Dad had infected me, weakened me so that when Finn smiled, I'd been vulnerable. I'd dropped my shields and let myself pretend that somebody like Finn would want to be with somebody like me.
|
|
love
sad-love
young-love
sad
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
50e2bd4
|
My only choice was to fight my way out, even if I didn't think I would make it.
|
|
life
eating-disorder-recovery
depression-recovery
recovery
fight
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
127f176
|
Mandatory community service" seemed like hypocrisy,"
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
d63a948
|
Mr. Freeman thinks I need to find my feelings. How can I not find them? They are chewing me alive like an infestation of thoughts, shame, mistakes. I squeeze my eyes shut. Jeans that fit, that's a good start. I have to stay away from the closet, go to all my classes. I will make myself normal. Forget the rest of it
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
22fdf0a
|
Too much sleep is bad for your health, Matilda." She slipped a freshly made ball of butter into a stone crock. "It must be such a grippe, a sleeping sickness."
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
237c855
|
Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
8dfab46
|
I wish I were three feet tall and he could pick me up and he still had a beard and he wore cotton sweaters that felt soft on my cheek and I could cry it all away and I would wipe my tears on his shoulder and I could suck my thumb and suck the end of my ponytail and he wouldn't tell me only babies did that and he would rock me on the front porch with the wind coming clean from the north and he would sing nursery rhymes with made-up words lik..
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
8186318
|
Ninth grade is a minor inconvenience to him. A zit-cream commercial before the Feature Film of Life.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
3ae5028
|
One of the seeds has split its shell and reaches a white hand upward. An apple tree growing from an apple seed growing in an apple. I show the little plantseed to Ms. Keen. She gives me extra credit. David rolls his eyes. Biology is so cool.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
cea8077
|
Our frog lies on her back. Waiting for a prince to come and princessify her with a smooch? I stand over her with my knife. Ms. Keen's voice fades to a mosquito whine. My throat closes off. It is hard to breathe. I put out my hand to steady myself against the table. David pins her froggy hands to the dissection tray. He spreads her froggy legs and pins her froggy feet. I have to slice open her belly. She doesn't say a word. She is already de..
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
1ca8bcf
|
thoughts hidden there? If she can, what will she do? Call the cops? Send me to the nuthouse? Do I want her to? I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won't. I'll need brain surgery to cut it out of my head. Maybe I should wait until David Petrakis is a doctor, let him do it.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
a495f41
|
I'm just going to pretend that a very good-smelling, incredibly warm stranger is sitting next to me, a harmless stranger.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
aa124e5
|
I can't face the idea of riding home on a busful of sweaty, smiling teeth sucking up my oxygen.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
93e0f05
|
How could filling in a bunch of blanks and writing a fluffy essay about the 'moment of significance' in my life let them know if I was good enough to go here?
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
7f710b9
|
It was the most eloquent silence I ever heard.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
b7d544d
|
You're not dead but you're not alive. You're a wintergirl.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
ff5ce4f
|
She looks like a china doll," observed Grandfather as we departed. "I will break just as easily," I muttered."
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
d072568
|
Broken leaves flew into the air from the violence of his thrashing, and the gore and blood kept pouring from the black hole in his belly and from his mouth - surely enough blood for ten men, a sight horrid enough to make God Himself weep - and suddenly, his boots stopped running and his form stilled and then......Death caught him.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
1c58a7d
|
This note about anatomy from me to you is for the remembering that after you speak after you shout your open mouth will breathe in the light for which you've hungered and your backbone will unfurl, until you can again dance to the beat of your steadfast heart.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
18508cf
|
I'm fighting the shock of having a guest in my room. I almost kick her out because it's going to hurt too much when my room is empty again.
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
a25c5db
|
Hairwoman is torturing us with essays. Do English teachers spend their vacations dreaming up these things?
|
|
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |