today.
He thought it was hilarious.
Yeah.
Funny.
I had to climb out the window.
And no one even noticed.
Petey and Philip.
Sixteen and seventeen.
Dumb as hammers.
Paul is almost out of here.
He wants to be a psychiatrist.
That means he asks a lot of annoying questions.
Patrick is the oldest.
He’s in college and only comes home for
laundry.
And food.
That leaves me.
Kevin.
The baby.
The accident.
One college guy.
One senior.
One junior.
One sophomore.
And a seventh grader.
You can see how it might not work.
Paul says it could work.
It should work.
If my parents spent less time at work.
Maybe he’s onto something.
Or maybe he’s just annoying.
DAY 15
Give me that! Petey shouted
this morning in the car
on the way to school.
No, I said.
But he grabbed for it
swerving the car
just missing a fire hydrant.
NO! I said again,
but his arms are long
and his car is small.
That’s why I’m writing this
on the back of old homework.
My notebook
is on the street
somewhere
because Petey is a moron
and says poetry is for old ladies.
By the way,
this isn’t even poetry.
It’s just thoughts
on paper
rapid fire
with not as many words
as usual thoughts
and none of those dumb
likes or as-es
or talking about trees
that old ladies like.
These are real thoughts
like a TV scroll
with a flow that’s like a stream
that just flies out of my brain
like barf
but less gross.
Most of the time.
Wait.
Three likes just then.
Oh man.
Maybe this is poetry.
But cooler than regular poetry.
Yeah.
I’ll walk home from school today
after detention.
No ride home in Petey’s cruddy car.
I’ll walk the whole 1.9 miles.
Maybe my notebook will still be in the road.
Or on the sidewalk.
Or in the grass.
Wherever it landed.
I didn’t see.
Petey drives way too fast.
DAY 16
No luck.
The notebook is gone.
Or turned invisible.
I’m going to kill Petey.
When I get bigger than him.
Which might take a while.
Because he’s like King Kong
with zits
and worse breath.
No one gets past me today.
I am a rock.
I am huge.
My face is stone
like those giant statues
from that one island
with giant face statues.
My island today:
the boys’ bathroom
in the hallway outside the library.
No entry for dorks.
Unless they pay a toll
to the giant statue.
Robin in the hall,
so small compared to everyone.
He can sneak between them
unseen
like a bug.
But I see him.
I see what he’s doing.
Freckle-Face Kelly’s face is in flames,
Robin’s hands flipping up her skirt.
She pushes him away
but she’s too late.
Now everyone sees.
Her white, freckly legs.
Her white, flowery underpants.
And for just a second
I am moving fast.
I scatter the crowd
like a burst of bees exploding
when you hit their nest
with a rock.
Freckle-Face Kelly wipes her face.
Those little red spots don’t smear
like you think they should.
She looks at me.
Robin looks at me.
Everyone looks at me.
Freckle-Face Kelly looks away first.
I think she wants to be stone, too.
In one move Robin is under my arm
kicking
yelling
but he can’t sting me.
You can’t sting stone.
Weenie Robin fits perfectly
under the sinks.
Toll paid.
He snaps right in
between the pipes
like a Lego
like he was made to fit there.
He’s way noisier than a Lego, though
which is why Mrs. Little came
INTO
the boys’ bathroom.
She is obviously
not a boy.
She is obviously
a librarian.
She is obviously
mad.
I am obviously
in trouble.
Mr. Hartwick is obviously
wearing an ugly tie.
Surprise.
Mrs. Little isn’t even a teacher
so why can she send me to Hartwick?
Life’s mysteries
abound.
Suspended.
A word that can describe medicine.
The little bits of healthy mold
suspended
in pink goo
so that the kids like the bits enough
to swallow them.
Suspended.
A word that can describe stopping
like someone hit a pause button and you are
suspended
in time and space
your finger frozen inches from your
nose.
Suspended.
A word that can describe
me.
You should have seen Mom’s face
when she came to pick me up.
Not red.
Not purple.
No forehead veins,
like Hartwick’s.
She just smiled really big.
I’ll deal with him, she said
and then she laughed
but I know she wasn’t really laughing.
Unless something
was funny
on her phone.
DAY 17
I dreamed about that smile last night
and woke up
shivering.
Mom hasn’t talked to me
in 24 hours.
Dad is on call so he’ll be back tomorrow.
Today is the first day
of three days
of not being allowed at school.
Is this what it means to be dealt with?
Isn’t this sort of every kid’s dream?
Missing parents.
No school.
Long weekend.
Is suspension really that big of a deal?
Paul says yes. It is a big deal.
But Paul never gets in trouble,
so how does he know?
The band is here tonight,
Petey and his friends
who all look the same.
They make sounds kind of like
the tornado did
but noisier
and less memorable.
Noisier Tornado.
That could be their band name.
DAY 19
I guess when you’re suspended you’re supposed to
think
about what you’ve done.
I am supposed to
think
shoving Robin under the sinks was
not cool.
I am supposed to
think
I’ll never do anything like that
again.
You know what I really
think?
Petey shoves me under the sink
in the bathroom at home
All.
The.
Time.
No.
Big.
Deal.
No.
Cares.
DAY 20
Get this.
As part of my punishment
Mom and Dad say Petey can’t drive me
to school
anymore.
If I had known these were the
severe consequences
I’d face
I would have gotten suspended
a lot
sooner.
WEEKEND
Intervention.
That’s what Paul called it.
He’s taking a nighttime college class.
It’s for nerds who want to be psychiatrists.
It teaches them words like “intervention.”
When he said it, I thought he meant for me
but he meant for Petey.
He took Petey aside
while Petey rolled his eyes.
Paul told him to be a better big brother,
a better person.
Paul is the only one who sees Petey
as he is,
a King Kong jerk.
You’d think
Philip would see the King Kong jerk part, too—
but Philip is too busy
with football and girls
to notice anything
other than cheerleaders or boobs.
Paul told Petey to watch it.
Petey said Watch THIS.
And then punched a wall.
Paul rumpled my hair.
I think my getting suspended bothered Paul
more than anyone else.
More than
me.
DAY 23
Well.
My notebook is not lost.
Guess who found it?
Shrimpy Robin.
His face is like a dog
with a juicy bone.
Whatever.
No one can hear your heart beat fast
when you are jagged stone.
Mrs. Little put 50 pounds of books
in my arms.
Shelve them, she said.
Her mouth was tight,
puckered
like a cat
(’s
butt).
This is part of the punishment.
Not just suspension.
Becoming Mrs. Little’s slave
for two weeks
after school.
So boring
I might
die.
DAY 24
I did not die.
But now I might.
Robin made copies of some pages from my
notebook.
COPIES.
Gave them to everyone.
EVERYONE.
Guess who’s going to get to watch his nose
EXPLODE OFF HIS FACE?
At least Robin didn’t copy my secret
about messing up the books.
And at least he didn’t copy Petey’s crying secret.
Even with Petey in high school
he would still find out
from someone’s big mouth.
I’m sure of it.
So now I’m worried
because Robin knows my secrets.
And I know he knows.
And he knows I know he knows.
And the way his smile curls like the Grinch
is no good.
That I know for sure.
Deep breaths.
Jagged stone turns to smooth rock.
Cold rock.
Rocks don’t die.
Rocks have no feelings.
Rocks don’t care.
Mrs. Little relaxed her cat-butt mouth
as she made me dust
the computers.
Your face is as white as a sheet, Kevin, she said.
Are you quite well?
Mrs. Little is from England.
She hardly ever talks.
But when she does,
sometimes she talks with extra words.
I didn’t say anything
in case I threw up on the computers
and then had to clean it.
So much for being
cold rock
that doesn’t care.
It turns out the problem with
having been suspended
is that you are not just on
thin ice,
as they say,
you have been sucked into
zero tolerance
which is like
zero gravity
suspended,
you are pinned against a wall.
Frozen.
One misstep
and you’re done.
I told Paul about the zero tolerance
and how I can’t hit Robin
for making copies of my notebook
even though Robin could use a swift kick in the butt.
Paul said it’s my own fault.
He said Robin is protected from me
because of me.
I don’t know what that means
other than that Paul is annoying.
DAY 25
Poetry boy.
You’d think they could come up with something
better.
Poetry boy! Poetry boy!
Who’s so tough now?
Poetry boy! Poetry boy!
Where’s your dress?
Poetry boy! Poetry boy!
Harry’s out to get you now.
Why is poetry boy a bad thing
when everyone loves the pages I put on the
walls?
Isn’t that like poetry, too?
Messing with sentences to make new ones?
I’m no boy. I’m an outlaw.
Peter Pan
I’m a poetry bandit.
Maybe I should tell my secret.
Spill the beans.
Except what about zero tolerance?
What about MAJOR CONSEQUENCES, MISTER?
It’s all so dumb.
It doesn’t bother me.
Poetry boy! Poetry boy!
Whatever.
Robin is their leader.
By the way.
He thinks I’m easy prey
as he leads the chants
with his juicy dog-bone face.
That I can’t hit.
Anymore.
DAY 26
Robin says he’ll tell on me.
He’ll tell everyone I’m the one
who puts the marked-up pages on the walls
and I’ll be in big trouble
because of the zero tolerance thing.
But
He’ll keep my secret safe if I do one thing.
He wants me to mark up the pages
and then HE wants to put them on the walls.
HE wants to be the outlaw.
The Poetry Bandit.
Hmph.
I don’t care.
I don’t.
Really.
I told him he’ll get in trouble.
He says no he won’t.
I told him those are my bandit words.
He says not anymore.
I said I won’t do it.
He says he’ll make sure I get in trouble for it, then.
He’ll make sure everyone sees my whole notebook, too.
All of it.
I’ll be murdered by Petey
and then I’ll be expelled.
This is a problem.
They all loved it, of course.
Well, except for the teachers.
But no one cares about them.
Now Robin wants me to “discover” him,
so he can be King of the School for real.
That made me laugh.
“King of the School” is not an actual thing.
(But it would be a good band name.)
I was just making fun of him.
Duh.
DAY 9,342
It’s not really day 9,342.
But it feels like it.
Shelving books.
Poetry boy.
Poetry boy.
Shelving books.
Poetry boy.
Poetry boy.
Shelving books.
The days don’t even separate anymore.
It is all just one long
never
end
ing
day.
The Cat Stranglers.
That should be Petey’s band’s name.
Or Cat Tornadoes
or Bleeding Ears
or Bleeding Cat Tornado Ears.
Something like that.
I don’t know what they’re doing in there
but it doesn’t sound like music.
What they need is a real song,
real words
to scream
in that microphone.
We hate everybody!
We hate you!
We hate everybody!
Especially you!
We hate everybody!
We hate you!
We hate everybody!