Ghostcat The Next Day…

          The next morning, as I walked to school, I smelled bear.  Aunt Lina.  She had probably gone back to check my kill.  I hope the little dog got enough to eat before she got to the woods, & frightened everything off.  Aunt Lina had been asleep when I left for school, but it was one of my early mornings – I’m in the chorus & they meet in “zero period” – Forty minutes before the first class of the day. 

         What can I say about chorus?  I like to sing, and my friends are in chorus, so I joined too.  Mrs. Beach is so much fun, and we sing cool stuff.  But it’s still a school class, and so stupidity is the name of the game.  I think I’ve already written about the whole “Christmas without Christ” concert before Christmas…

          The Spring Concert has no stupid restrictions, because it’s not tied to any holiday (like Easter or Passover). Mrs. Beach has used gospel spirituals, Broadway show-tunes and pop songs in an attempt to win the “Clash of the Choirs” trophy.  Dor tried out for a solo and will be singing “Frank Mills” from “Hair.”

          Dor is a pretty good singer – that’s why I was so surprised when she didn’t get a singing part in “Cheers Not Tears—Just Smile!”  But…that’s another thing I’ve written about in previous posts, so I won’t waste time rehashing it…

          As I reached the front door of D. S. Whitstone, I saw Carl locking his bike to the parking lot fence.  He wasn’t supposed to do that, but the bike rack was already full.

          “Wait up!” He shouted.

          Ruby’s dad’s van pulled up just as Carl reached the door, so we waited for her.  She grabbed her backpack and lunch out of the van and ran over.

          “Carl, is it true that your mom’s making you quit the play?” Ruby asked breathlessly as we walked into school.

          “Yeah,” Carl said, grinning. “And I’m glad.  I have the chance to play with a real folk band at a benefit for Breast Cancer.  I was recommended by my banjo teacher to play with this group.  It’s all adults & me.  How awesome is that?  Mom thinks that it’s a better opportunity than doing Wren’s play. Who’s gonna come see ‘Cheers Not Tears—Just Smile!’ when we do the single performance Antonio is planning?  Some local do-gooders will see it, but it won’t help me in my musical career.  Pete freakin’ Seeger himself will be at this Breast Cancer Benefit, and I can use this as a ‘resume enhancer’ when I’m trying for a music scholarship.  That’s more important than chanting ‘Turn that frown upside down!’ a few times for Wren.  Although I will come see the play when --I mean IF—it ever happens!”

          “I think it’s what’s best for you,” I said.  “But Dor’s not gonna quit – she still thinks Wren’s gonna come through for us.  Wren did promise us a fantastic end-of-the-year trip out of this.  Maybe we’ll go to Great Adventure or the Museum or NY Aquarium or something.”

          “My mom likes that I’m doing an after school activity so I’m still in,” said Ruby.  “And Amelia’s mom’s been asked to play Jackie’s mother.”

          Carl laughed. “Mrs. R is gonna play the depressed mom, too?  She has the best line in the whole play!  Lucky!”

          “What?” I asked, trying to recall the script.

          “She gets to bang on the table and yell at Shirley the Smile Sprite.  The line is pure schlock. ‘I wouldn’t be so unhappy, if he were a better kid!’  I can’t wait to see that!” Carl crowed.

          Misquoting that line was the joke of the day for us.  Amelia adapted it in Mrs. Farfanella’s math class, when Byron Knight got a problem wrong.  She slammed her book on the desk and said “Byron, Mrs. Farfanella wouldn’t be so unhappy, if you could just learn to add!”  I didn’t have Mrs. F. for Math, but Dor and Carl did, and they reported it to Ruby & me at lunch.  It made Miss F. laugh, and she didn’t even know about the play.

          Then Dor took it up to complain about how her Mom made a lousy sandwich.

          “I wouldn’t be so hungry, if she’d just make my egg salad with extra mayo!”

          We all laughed so hard, that the teachers began to give us weird looks. The kids in our grade already thought we were geeks, so our odd behavior was hardly noticed by anyone else.  But it helped make the day go faster!

          Play practice that afternoon was a disaster.  Wren was frustrated when a few of her “stars” didn’t show (and didn’t bother to show).  Only one of the Madisons showed up, Heather’s threatening to quit, and no one could find Brittany….When she found out about Carl, she nearly blew a fuse.  Antonio was cool about it; Carl’s playground scenes were mostly pantomimed anyway.  He figures one of Wren’s triplets could fill in.

          Oh!  Last week we got a new male lead, Roger.  The girls are all goo-goo eyed over him.  He doesn’t want to be bothered with them, and sometimes hangs around by us, which is making us even less popular with the Madison-Brittany-Heather-Madison clique.  It’s funny, I’m not even sure if they like each other, they just seem to have banded together because of the play, and because they dislike the attention Roger pays us.  Great, like we need more trouble than school gives us.

            I know I’ve said this before, but I cannot wait until this play is over.

            Until my next post…

            Randi 

Ghostcat in the night

          Once again I'm posting about a month after things happened.  I am so far behind in keeping my posts current.  I can't wait until school is over!!

          I had another day of testing at school -- under the watchful eye of Ms. Joilee, I was still not allowed to read a book, but Carl’s mom had heard all about my humiliation at the hands of Ms. Joilee, and felt sorry for me…Carl’s mom is so sweet – she’s asked me to call her “Minni”.  She’s the first non-Native, non-relative adult who has ever treated me like I had a brain.  Carl is so lucky to have Minnie as his mom!  Minnie sent Carl to school with two I-pods that Thursday morning, both hers and his, so that I could at least listen to music in my downtime.  So I got to relax with music when I finished the test sections.  And as a bonus, I have some “new” artists to check out – ironically enough, some guy named “Cat Stevens”, and gypsy band called “Gogol Bordello”.  I also have to check out some of the soundtracks she had songs from on her I-pod …“HHHH     air”, “Chicago,” and “Starstruck” …there were some really good songs in these plays & movies. 

          The music took my mind off of the tedious task of testing.  At the end of the testing, Ms. Joilee handed me back my book, commenting that This Rough Magic was “hardly what she expected such an advanced student to be reading.”  Her sarcasm was dripping like butter from a Julia Child recipe.  I just smiled, and told her that my copy of Maus and was autographed and I didn’t want to lose it to a confiscating teacher.  Some kids got my joke.  One boy, this quiet kid who was only in my gym class, told me he was surprised that any other 6^th grader in this town had even read Maus.  I had to remind him that I wasn’t actually from White Cedars.  That made him laugh.

          He told me his name was Jay, and he usually went to the Catholic school, Our Lady of Sorrows.  His dad had lost his job because of the bad economy, so this year he was in public school.  He hated it. I told him I’d been homeschooled all of my life, and that this was my first time in ANY school.  He just shook his head in dis-belief.

          “How can you take it?”  he asked.

          “It’s like I’m in prison, but I try to have an interesting life outside the bars.” I replied.  That cracked him up.  Jay’s really nice – unfortunately, his lunch is during my recess time, but he said he’s gonna cut sometime to sneak into lunch to see me.  I kinda like that.

          Because of the testing, there was no homework, so after school I took a nap.  Then, after dinner, I told my aunt I would be in my room, but I slipped out the window and headed for Horseneck Nature Sanctuary.  I checked out the paths -- much of the ground was damp, but there air was full of interesting scents.  I waited until around nine-thirty to shift, even though I didn’t sense anyone nearby.  It’s hard to see the stars in the suburbs; there’s always light from somewhere.  In cougar shape, it’s more obvious.  The whole Eastern sky glows with New York’s need to be seen.  But between the trees, it’s almost like I’m back home. 

          I don’t know why I think of Pennsylvania as my home state -- I wasn’t even born there, it’s just where I’ve been growing up most of my life.  New Jersey doesn’t feel like that, yet.  But that night, as I slipped past fallen trees and around abandoned buildings, my inner cat felt quite contented.  There were interesting scents to explore; I scented small creatures-- mostly birds -- that I’d never smelled (or seen) before.  Birds were migrating early this year, because of the warm snowless winter, and it seems that lots of different species of birds use this ridge as a guide.  There were tiny birds sleeping in the brush and treetops.  There had been a coyote passing through, and some dogs lived nearby.  I prowled through a field, then climbed a tree to get a different vantage point, but startled a turkey nearby.  I wondered how she recognized me as predator, because she certainly had never encountered a cougar before.  Was there some sort of genetic conditioning?

          There were no pheasant or grouse around; the turkeys probably held that niche in the ecosystem.  Back home, I often scented all three, but not here.  Instead there were all sorts of interesting new bird scents because of migration.  Apparently New Jersey has more migrant birds than my home area of Pennsylvania had.  The trees and fields smelled as if there more than fifty varieties and it wasn’t April yet!  I walked past the skunk cabbages that were beginning to unfurl, and paused, because there was a dog nearby.  It was injured; fear and blood were in the air. 

          What happened next shouldn’t have occurred at all – I had a full stomach and Aunt Lina had cautioned me often enough to hold my cat’s instincts in check.  It was over so fast it takes longer to describe it than to do it. 

          I killed a wabbit. 

          OK, I know, NOT FUNNY. But if I don’t try to laugh, I’ll cry again.

          See, there was an owl flying; that caught me off guard.  Then I smelled more fear, and a rabbit ran by.  The owl swooped and the rabbit swerved.  I pounced.

          There was a high pitched squeal (yes, rabbits squeal) and then it was all over. The owl was gone, and I could smell the blood.  It made me – the Randi me – want to puke.  I almost shifted back, but my cougar sensed something nearby…

          I backed away from the poor dead bunny.  It was a young cottontail.  If the owl had caught it, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but here, now…what a waste.

          There was a light rustling….a small, rust-and-chocolate dachshund limped toward me and the carcass.  I backed up.  This was the dog I had smelled before – it had a couple of cuts, and was afraid, but hungry.  It whined as if it were begging for table scraps.  I backed up a few more feet, leaving the dog to the spoils of my stupidity.  It tentatively licked at the bloody neck of the rabbit, then looked at me as if to make sure I was not claiming the kill for myself, then it bravely put it’s good paw on the bunny as if to say “Mine!” He was shaking as he did it, but I couldn’t help admiring the little guy – he was facing down a cougar!

          I backed away, leaving the dachshund to his meal.  Hunger was overriding the dog’s fear, and at least the bunny’s death would feed another animal, so it wasn’t such a waste any longer.

          It was time for me to go back to my clothes and head home.  I forget how long it took to get back to the house.  Thank God no one saw me – I had blood and tears  on my hands and face.  I climbed back into my room to see Aunt Lina sitting on my bed, waiting for me.

          Busted.

          She asked me why I hadn’t just asked for permission.  We could have gone out together, she explained.  She couldn’t understand that I wanted to go alone.  And she wasn’t thrilled about the kill, but I would have thought she’d be angry. 

          Instead, I saw disappointment in her eyes. 

          “It happens,” She said.  “You have to learn better control.  That’s why we should have gone out together.”  Then she got me a bottle of peroxide and told me to clean myself and my clothes before I went to bed.

          I’ve read in books how a parent’s disappointment is worse than getting yelled at.  Suddenly, I understood how those characters felt.  Aunt Lina didn’t much care about grades (although my second marking period had produced all A’s & one B+ in Social Studies.  Mrs. Raschall still hadn’t gotten over the mistake of first marking period – I doubt I’ll ever see an A from her.) but she does want me to excel at her lessons in survival as a shifter in 21^st century America.  I only hope I do – what happened tonight was risky, and foolish.  But then there’s that shivering, limping dachshund that wouldn’t have had a dinner tonight, if it weren’t for my slip-up.  I hadn’t told Aunt Lina about him.  But the last thing I recall thinking about before drifting off was that little guy standing up to a predator that could have ripped him to shreds.

               Until my next post…

               Randi       

Testing, 1-2-3

     I know that posting twice in one day is weird, but I have had these written since last month, but wasn't allowed on the interwebs, as Aunt Lina jokingly calls it.  Also, I've been BUSY!  Sorry.

    

     This public school life I’ve been forced into really rots.  I have become a nervous wreck.  I spend all day running around an ancient building ill-suited for the modern idea of how to educate the masses, keeping up with the nonsense-work that some teachers give us to do at home, trying to at the very least stay out of the radar of the mean kids, the upper classmen, and the teachers that love to “make an example” out of kids they don’t understand (or who make them look bad – I have a story about that….).  Real learning is minimal, at best.  Thank God that most of the stuff we’re “learning” is stuff I’ve already dealt with when I was homeschooled in PA.  My public school lessons have mostly been about acquiring survival skills.  Not the kind you’d learn in the forest or jungle.  The suburban classroom is a more dangerous (if subtle) environment.  I’ve come to understand why these kids look up to people on reality TV – there’s no challenge to becoming a “Snooki,” most of the girls are ¾ of the way there already!  And while Kevin Smith is a cool-geek who loves comics and movies, he actually had to WORK to make his good fortune happen.  And most of the kids I go to school with have never had to work a day in their life.  Mommy and Daddy have given them everything they’ve ever desired (or the allowance to buy it), and have told their precious by-products of a night’s lovemaking that they are too good and too special to ever flip a burger, ring-up an order, mow a lawn, or hammer a nail.  So these kids idea of a work-ethic is “I got my paper in on time, man.  Whaddaya mean, that’s not good enough?”  Anything different, anything not within the realm of what’s been done before, or what somebody on TV or in a magazine or on the web says is cool, is suspect.  You either laugh at it, or pick on it.

     Part of me knows I could best these idiots at their own game (especially if it involved physical prowess – no one in DSW Middle School could beat this cougar!),  but that’s not the game I want to play.  Aunt Lina brought me up to keep things in check, fly below the radar, hunt and don’t be hunted, and most important, stay unnoticed.  And I do all of this, while attending classes, eating lunches, exercising & playing stupid games in phys-ed, and taking their stupid standardized tests.

     Which brings me to today’s little essay.  I recently took my first in-school standardized test, and it was such an outrageous experience that I really have to tell about indignity.  You see, they are not testing me for any meaningful reason except this: by testing me and my classmates, they hope to determine how well the teachers are teaching the material that the federal government deems worthy of being taught to middle schoolers like me.  Let me explain.

     According to politicians, not enough money is being spent to educate the average kid.  According to two politicians in particular, reform was needed.  The politicians in question were then-President George W. Bush, and the then-senior Senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy.  But somehow, everyone forgot that this new education plan, “No Child Left Behind,” was a bi-partisan effort, mostly the brain-child of a (now) dead Kennedy.  Mostly everyone blames President (GW) Bush for the stupid plan that because he signed the bill in order to look good.  Too bad he didn’t actually read into what he was signing us kids on for.  Good in theory, but not in practice.

     Because there is no practice, there’s just tests, to test how good the teachers are doing.

     First of all, it’s stupid because you can use a calculator, so basically they don’t care if you know how to actually add, subtract, multiply or divide.  I’ve learned that there are kids in the 6^th grade in White Cedars NJ who don’t know what 6 x 8 is, without a calculator. They never memorized basic math tables, because according to the government, that’s not the way to teach kids.  They’ll “absorb” it by just doing it. Kinda like throwing a person off a diving board in order to teach them how to swim.  How many people d you know who learned how to swim that way?  But the government says it will work, and the government knows best, right? Now why do we trust a body that we know can’t get a simple war right to tell us how to educate children?

     But that’s neither here nor there – I have to take the test, because, IT’S THE LAW.  So I walk into school with the calculator I don’t need and a piece of contraband that I do need – a copy of This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart.  Since we were expected to sit quietly and not talk if we finished a section of the test early (and according to Dor I’d probably be done really quick). I thought that a frivolous piece of fiction that had nothing to do with the 6^th grade would be the perfect way to pass the time.

     This Rough Magic is a Gothic romance from the mid-twentieth century.  It takes place in Greece, and has nothing to do with the material we were being tested on.  I had taken timed tests before, with other home-schooled kids, when I lived in PA.  In that state, we’d finish test sections, turn in the test, and then we could read until the moderator called “time’s up”.  Then we’d get our booklets & scoring sheet back for the next section.  It was no big deal, as long as the book was deemed “not directly related to the testing material.”

     Well, at D. S. Whitstone, you can’t have a book during testing.  But you can bring an I-pod or Zune to listen to music or play games!  I was so furious.  That was so unfair!  Not only don’t I have an I-pod (not yet – I plan to get one when I save up enough money),  the teachers never bothered to check if anyone’s i-pod was playing a pod cast with test information.  Some kids even had I-phones (supposedly forbidden) and were texting!  But I couldn’t bury my nose in a book, and lose myself in Lucy Waring’s adventures on the island of Corfu.  Wow, what a rebel I was!

     The first test was so basic to me, that I finished way before everyone else.  Our group moderator, Miss Joilee was not one of my regular teachers, and she treated me as if I were lying when I told her I was done. Then she told me to go back and check my work!  I have never wanted to hit an adult before in my life, but this woman was so smug…first, when she took my book away from me, and then when she told me to check my work, she acted as if I were trying to get one over on her...Ugh.  So I asked her for some blank paper, so I could draw or write.  You’d think I’d asked her for some weed and a pipe, she was so scandalized!  She lectured me about how I couldn’t write anything; it was against the testing rules.

     Otherwise, I’d have written this in school, instead of at home.  This whole testing thing made me feel trapped and frustrated.  If I ever needed to get out and shift, I needed it that day.  Unfortunately, this testing took place on a Wednesday during Lent, and Aunt Lina & I were going to a special Lenten service called a Presanctified Liturgy. It’s a special Lenten service held every week, where the Communion was prepared during Sunday’s regular Liturgy (think Mass if you’re Catholic) and held for this service. Communicants are expected to fast from lunch onward.  Then there’s a meatless pot-luck dinner after the service, to break the fast.  It’s nice – we’re bringing macaroni and cheese with spinach. There’s usually soup, and this one family brings “tater tots”.  Unfortunately, going to church  meant we didn’t get home until way past eight – more like nine, and Aunt Lina was in no mood to let me go out…..The only thing that could help me relax was denied to me…and Thursday was going to be another day of testing!

     Thank God Carl talked to his mom.  She kept me sane—but more about that in my next post.

          Until then…

          Randi       

Some truths come out

     So I haven’t written since Neena got on Dor’s case at lunch.  I had this half- written in March, then life got crazy and school’s been tough, with teachers excessively assigning stuff as if to justify their jobs…..anyway, I’ve been busy.

     Let’s start where I left off – with Dor’s tormentor.  The popular girls are ticked because Neena got in trouble.  There is going to be an assembly sometime soon on tolerance, according to Miss du Stique.  The kids think it’s because of the Neena incident.  But hey, it’s not as if these kids would pick up a newspaper and read about that guy Ravi who was found guilty of bullying through invasion of privacy.  Schools all over the state (and the country) now have to worry about bullying that might result in a suicide.  There’s even some movie that’s coming out about bullying.  I guess I’m in style!

     Seriously, tho’, this bullying stuff with Neena is water under the bridge for me.  So much stuff has happened since I posted that.  First off, the often postponed play was offered a date and a venue – the first weekend of June, in the old Frost Spring Men’s Club building behind the historical Frost Spring United Methodist Church.  They have a stage there, and room to set up chairs for an audience of 200.

     Now I haven’t said too much about the play lately.  It’s been crazy, and I don’t know where to begin…..

     Remember the speaking parts we’d been promised?  Besides singing in a few of the ensemble numbers, we get to shout “Turn that frown upside down!” whenever “Shirley the Smile Sprite” appears on the stage.  Whoopee!

     I shouldn’t complain – the script is both cloying and pandering, but I knew that by the time I’d read the third page of the script.  I was in this for the whole crew, not for myself.  But hearing the lame lines and the sappy songs, day in and day out for a few months now….it’s torture!  How else would you describe a play with lines like “Shirley you can be happy,” and songs like “Grinners Are Winners”? That’s “Shirley the Smile Sprite’s” big song-and-dance number – the one where they plan to have streamers attached to her wings and wand.  They’re discussing silver and gold streamers.  Are we in the First Grade?  Ugh. 

     The chorus of that song makes Carl and me want to puke: 

     “Grinners are winners – And winners are cool

      Frowners are downers – So don’t play the fool”

      The other day, a few of kids the director chose for singing parts didn’t show up.  So there was another audition.  One that Wren never told us about!  So none of us even had a chance at auditioning for a play that we all knew practically by heart, because we’d been there for like three months, listening to the lines and songs over, and over, and over…

     I’m beginning to think that Wren is losing sight of what this play was supposed to be about…it was supposed to be a vehicle to raise money to take our group out for a cool end-of-the-year trip.  But now Wren hardly notices us!  She’s more interested in the “stars” of this play.  And she’s switched her loyalty from us to the first group of Antonio’s picks, and from them to Antonio’s new stars.  Carl’s talked about quitting, but he doesn’t want to disappoint Dor.  So instead he channeled his emotions by re-writing some of the lyrics.  I mean, we have to do something while Wren and Antonio put their new pets (Heather, Brittany, and two girls named Madison) through their paces.  Here’s Carl’s version of “Grinners Are Winners”: 

     “Grinners are winners – And winners are tools

     Frowners are downers – And they smell like stools”

     Although we were supposed to go over the scene with “Shirley the Smile Sprite,” the new Shirley didn’t know where to stand on stage, or how to move her arms as she danced (pranced?  minced?), so we were, once again, forgotten.  Then they went through another number, and suddenly Heather – or is it Brittany? – decided that she wasn’t getting enough attention.  I get these chicklets mixed up; one’s the costume maker’s daughter, and the other is the niece of the guy who’s in charge of the sound system, but they are both prima donnas. Anyway, all of a sudden, Brittany (or Heather?) starts losing her voice.  Hmmm…

     Finally Mrs. R decides it’s time for us to go home.  She’s here because she had originally tried for the Narrator part.  But then Antonio had the bright idea (after some of the first bunch of kids had quit) of casting adults for the parent & teacher parts.  So Mrs. R is now the “erratic mom” as well as the “guidance counselor”.  But as the “family chef,” she told Wren & Antonio that we’d have to go now.  As we were leaving, Wren called out to remind us to be sure and study our lines.

     Is she serious?  It’s not as if we could forget something as ridiculous as “Turn that frown Upside down!” 

     On the ride home, Mrs. R asked us if we thought that Wren or her husband had political aspirations, and if this “do-gooders youth group” she’d started was nothing more than a resume enhancer.  Mrs. R’s mind was going down a path that we kids would have never explored, but her theory makes sense – political aspirations needed some kind of substantive base to stand on – maybe her concern for the community’s youth was just a foundation to build a local political career upon. How else would you explain a grown-up’s change from avid interest to barely concealed impatience toward a group of kids.  Wren was acting more like a middle-schooler than us middle-schoolers! 

     How pathetic is that?  I thought you were supposed to grow up after you graduated from school.  I guess that only works for some people.

           Until my next post…

           Randi