JAVIER
<jajajavier:)>
BEN B
<BenBee>
I’m listening as she says:
Help me
help you
read
to the whole class,
one by one,
face to face,
and I want to laugh
because it’s weird, right?
All of it.
Right now.
Like a dream you have
when your fever is sky-high
and your mom says,
Hmmm?
No, Benjamin.
That’s not an alligator.
That’s your sister.
It’s weird.
But Ms. J?
She keeps saying
help me
help you
read
and instead of laughing,
now I’m wondering,
What could she do?
How could she help me?
How could I help her help me?
Could that even be a thing?
Maybe?
If I could finally be
a good, smart reader,
that would mean
dealing with one less thing.
Dealing with one less thing
would give me more time
for my favorite thing.
And that is a thing
I am in favor of.
See what I did there?
I drew a line,
a string,
from worst to best,
if that, then this.
If I read better,
then I can play Sandbox more.
See?
I’m no dummy.
Put a book in Sandbox,
I say.
That might make me read.
OrRuinSandbox,
Jordan J says,
smashing the words together,
pretending they’re a cough.
You can’t put a book in Sandbox, silly.
Ben Y shakes her head,
but her eyes
flash
meteor bright
and lock on to mine.
We type in Sandbox,
I say.
That’s almost like a book.
I look at Ben Y,
she looks at me,
a triangle of thinking.
Ms. J looks up,
searching out the blue sky
between the swaying fronds
of the tree.
What if we read a real book and you play Sandbox and we see what real books are like and you see that Sandbox isn’t just a game you PLAY, which is frankly offensive, if you ask me.
Wait.
Yes!
Jordan J is on to something.
What if,
I say,
for every one minute we read in class,
Ms. J plays
one minute of Sandbox?
IN CLASS?
Ben Y’s meteor stare
explodes into a smile.
Javier’s eyes
go wide wide wide,
anime-style.
Jordan J points at me.
THAT is what I said, Buzzy
Ben. Yasss. Butttttt . . . she won’t
be a teacher griefer . . . right?
We’ll teach her.
My heart beats faster.
She’ll teach us.
She’ll learn it’s more than a game.
We’ll learn . . . to, uh, read better.
All teaching. No griefing.
Ms. J’s crinkle face looks just like
my sister Janie’s crinkle face
when Mom says something like
Did you know they make
organic Pop-Tarts?
Ms. J crinkles more, says,
I don’t think we can play video games in class, Ben.
But her crinkles soften
just barely,
just carefully enough,
the tiniest smile
in the history of smiles,
peeking around the crinkles,
just like Janie
when she tastes the organic Pop-Tart
and realizes
it’s still actually junk food.
If Ms. J eats the Sandbox Pop-Tart,
then she’ll realize it’s
good
and
good for you.
(Sort of.)
If Ms. J realizes Sandbox is good
and good for you,
maybe she’ll also realize:
It’s smart.
It makes me smart.
It makes the whole class smart.
And that’s what she wants, right?
For us to be smart?
If we’re smart,
we will all pass the FART retake.
So clearly,
Sandbox equals FART smarts.
If, then.
If, then.
If, then.
But, Ms. J.
Wouldn’t this plan be a
divergent
way to learn?
For us.
And for you.
The tree rustles.
Everyone holds their breath.
Time stops for a second.
Divergent, huh?
Ms. J’s face
all-the-way
uncrinkles
her small sideways smile
slowly slips across her face,
turning into a bigger sideways smile,
like she knows better,
but can’t help it.
I pick the book,
she says,
squishing her lips into a point.
I nod.
First ten minutes of class,
everyone takes turns
reading—
OUT LOUD,
she says,
staring us down.
We nod.
Everyone,
she says,
pointing at Javier,
who looked away
when Ms. J said
out loud
and still hasn’t looked back.
Got it?
I pick the book.
And if you take turns reading,
for ten solid minutes,
out loud,
then and only then,
I’ll play your game,
at the end of class
for ten minutes.
If you don’t read,
I don’t play.
We all nod.
Including Ms. J.
It looks like we have a deal, then,
she says.
The wind picks up speed,
whistling through the willow,
and even Jordan J’s low fart noise
seems solemn in its own way.
BEN Y
<0BenwhY>
Fun fact: some dinosaurs
had two brains.
A head brain,
and a butt brain.
Those dinos
were so
gigantically
big,
their first brain just
ran out of steam
halfway down their
gigantically
big
bodies.
So they needed a butt brain.
You know.
To help out.
How could their back legs work?
To run away from other dinos?
How could their tails work?
To do whatever tails do?
They
could
not
work
without the very important
very special
very weird
butt brain.
Dino butt brain
equals
knowing when to run
equals
knowing when to hide
equals
protection.
Fun fact:
I’m pretty sure I have two brains, too.
Regular brain.
Dino butt brain.
Sometimes
(a lot of times)
my regular brain
goes blank,
stalls,
can’t reach any thought
or explanation,
so my dino butt brain kicks in.
Shazam!
Sometimes it aims me
toward trouble
instead of away from it,
but maybe that’s because
it knows the real trouble
is in my real brain
and that’s what I need to
run away
from.
Benita?
Did you need something?
My real brain kicks in,
as I realize my dino brain
made me stay back
after class,
after Ms. J made everyone
give her high fives and byes,
as the echoes of the day
fade into distant shouts
outside
and inside feels quiet,
nice.
Um.
It’s Ben Y
not Benita.
My dino butt brain
parked me here.
In front of her desk
that is a table
and not an actual desk,
and it didn’t tell me
why.
I wanted to tell you,
uh . . .
I love this quiet,
when everyone is gone,
when I can hide
after school
and breathe deep
for the first time
all day.
But usually,
when I stay
after school
in the cool
quiet
I’m by myself,
not standing here,
in front of an adult,
like a big ol’ dork.
I wanted to tell you . . .
I’m sorry.
About the book.
I do things
sometimes
without thinking.
I say things
all the time
without thinking.
And it’s weird?
Because I’m always thinking
about something.
But then
the thing that happens
or the thing I say
isn’t any of the things
I was thinking.
I might have a dino brain?
You know, near my butt?
Does that make any sense?
Anyway.
Sorry I made you so mad.
Her elbow on her desk,
her palm covering her mouth,
she looks up
through her long lashes
at me
and breathes,
making the same
sniffffffff noise
my baby sister, Esme, makes
after she cries
too
too
too
hard.
Benita.
Her voice twists,
making a spiral in the air,
flying above my head,
then diving
into my ear.
I really hate that name.
My name is Ben now.
Benita was buried in ashes
almost a year ago.
Gone.
Dust.
And Ben was born.
I don’t have the mahogany voice,
and I know I’m not him,
but I can be my own Ben.
I am my own Ben.
I am enough Ben for both me and him.
And I want Ms. J to get it right.
Why can’t she get it right?
Benita.
You need to understand—
Ms. J looks up.
The bottom of the stairs
slant over her too-small desk;
if she stood up fast,
whack,
she’d get a concussion.
She shakes her head.
She opens her mouth.
She closes it.
She opens it again.
What you did was wrong.
But also . . .
I’m sorry I got so mad.
It wasn’t professional.
Ms. J does a ridiculous thing now,
sticking one bent elbow out to the side,
and sticking her other arm
straight out to the other side.
She nods her head into her elbow crook,
loud-whispers,
I lost my cool,
but don’t worry,
I just found it again,
then winks at me,
while her head
is still
dabbed into
her elbow crook
and no,
omg,
just stop.
My dino butt brain
makes me laugh
so hard
because
oh wow,
she is such a weirdo goof,
not like any teacher I’ve ever known,
what is even happening.
Ms. J stands now,
arms back down,
tilts her head
to the side,
slides
away from her desk
not smashing her head
on the stairs.
Shouldn’t you be running for the bus?
How are you getting home?
I tilt my head
to the opposite side,
even though
I’m not
in danger
of smashing it.
Maybe I’m making fun of her?
Maybe I’m not?
I take the city bus.
I’m good.
Ms. J smiles.
Her eyebrows point down,
a little like the Grinch.
You have time.
Come with me for a minute?
Her question,
it’s a command.
I don’t say yes or no.
I just follow her
out of the stairwell,
her breeze
smelling like the tired perfume
that lives in a cloud
around every grown woman
I know.
You may never have heard of a place such as this, but—
Ms. J’s arms swing wide.
She tries to wink slowly
as she sing-talks,
but both eyes wink
at the same time
and I have to chew my cheek
to stop the sneak
of a laugh
from squeaking
out.
What if she thinks
that sneak laugh
is with her
and not
because of her?
It is definitely
because of her.
This
is
a
library.
This,
Benita,
is
where
the books
live.
She continues to not get
my name right.
Sigh.
Her arms are still wide,
she’s spreading her wings,
her caftan billowing,
like she has
her
own
personal
fan,
like
she is
a rockstar
or
something.
Her voice gets
even louder now,
like she’s singing
on a freaking
stage:
Please
show
me
the
tomes
that
don’t
belong
in a toilet.
Please
help
me
choose
a book
for the class.
Oh, man.
On the first day of school
we had to play
Two Truths and a Lie
to get to know each other.
I said:
I have eleven toes.
I have two sisters.
I finish every book I read.
Was eleven toes my lie?
Or the reading thing?
They all argued,
but finally agreed,
it had to be the toes,
except
Jordan J
who ran around me
leaping
like a bonkers bananas deer
yelling
No one in here reads books!
No one in here finishes anything!
Take off your socks!
Take off your socks!
Ms. J told him to bring it down
six hundred notches
and then she moved along,
ready for the next
truths and lies
and lies and truths
but Jordan J was right.
I’ve never
ever
actually
by myself
finished
reading
a book.
Any book.
Not one book.
In my whole life.
I’ve had books read to me.
Sometimes.
But I don’t read them
on my own
ever.
In actual fact,
I have not actually
ever
been into this actual library
except once
for a FART review
last year.
I swallow.
I look around.
The stacks and stacks of books
remind me swiftly,
fiercely,
of his room
filled with his own stacks of books,