Pete and Ronnie gave me a hard push onto the front stoop. “Wh-what do you want?” I stammered. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Go inside,” Pete growled. “Go say hi to Mr. Hartman.”
“He’s waiting for you in there,” Ronnie added.
I felt my throat tighten. I started to choke. “No, please—” I started.
They shoved me to the door. “You really think the house is haunted?” McKay asked.
I nodded. For once, I didn’t make a joke. “Yes. Everyone knows Mr. Hartman’s ghost is in there.”
“Well, go shake hands with him,” Pete said. “Ask him why he screams every night.”
“How long do I have to stay in there?” I asked in a trembling voice.
“All night,” Pete said. “We’ll come get you in the morning.”
“No. Please—” I begged.
Ronnie pushed open the front door, and they shoved me inside. I staggered a few steps. The front door slammed hard behind me. The sound made me jump.
The house was damp and hot and had a sour smell. Kind of like spoiled milk. I blinked, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
I took a deep breath. Yes, I was really afraid. Maybe there wasn’t a screaming ghost in here. But I didn’t like standing inside a dead man’s house in the dark.
What should I do?
What should I do about these three guys who were on my case every day?
I glanced around the room, thinking hard. Too dark to see anything. It was all a brown-black blur.
A few minutes went by. I felt a trickle of sweat roll down my cheek.
Heart pounding, I moved to the front window. And then I let out a scream. A high, shrill scream that rang off the walls.
I brought my face close to the glass. And screamed again. A frantic, frightened shriek.
“Help me!” I wailed. “Please—help me!”
I could see Pete, Ronnie, and McKay on the lawn. They froze and their eyes bulged when they heard my screams.
“Help!” I shouted. “It’s got me! Ohhh, help me!”
I saw them take a few steps back.
“It hurts!” I wailed. “It hurts! Help me! It really hurts!”
Squinting through the window, I saw them take off running. Gravel flew up from the driveway as the three of them thundered to the street. They turned and disappeared into the darkness.
I took a moment to catch my breath. My throat felt sore from shrieking. But I had a wide grin on my face.
No. I hadn’t seen a ghost. Nothing had grabbed me in the dark.
My screams were just a joke. I was a funny guy, remember.
And a good screamer. A talent I had just discovered.
Sometimes a funny trick or a joke will help you a lot. The next afternoon, the three boys weren’t waiting for me at the bus stop. They never waited for me there again.
I saw them in school. Sometimes they nodded at me or muttered “Hi.” But we never really talked. We definitely never talked about the haunted house.
I’ve been a funny guy ever since. But I’m not sure I could still scream so well.
I leave the screams for the stories I write.
Survival
A List
by Micol Ostow
TWENTY-EIGHT THINGS I’VE BEEN MADE FUN OF FOR:
Being half-Jewish
Being half–Puerto Rican
Not being Jewish enough
Not being Latina enough
Having less money than some of my classmates
Having more money than some of my classmates
Being taller than everyone else
Being shorter than everyone else
Being fat
Being thin
Being top-heavy
Being bottom heavy
Being “religious”
Not being “religious”
Getting good grades in English
Getting bad grades in math
Dating boys who weren’t Jewish
Dating boys who were “too Jewish”
Being a prude
Being a slut
Being a freak
Being a conformist
Loving my parents
Hating my parents
Loving my brother
Hating my brother
Hating myself
Loving myself
There’s a Light
by Saundra Mitchell
I don’t know why I was different. We were all poor. We all lived in public housing. We all walked to school; we all had white-labeled, black-lettered government peanut butter on our sandwiches.
No, I guess I do. I had buck teeth and crossed eyes and a stutter. The eyes straightened out with glasses, the stutter straightened out with speech therapy. Not much to be done about the buck teeth, but the funny thing is, nobody tormented me over any of that.
Saundra has lights.
It started showing up on chalkboards before class. It was written in the bathrooms, on the desks. I heard people whisper it, and whispering is menacing, but mostly, it was baffling. What did it mean?
Maybe I did have lights! If somebody would tell me what they were, I could get rid of them, right? Pinches in the water fountain line, not allowed to play four square at recess, sitting by myself at lunch because nobody would sit with me because
Saundra has lights.
Dodgeball again in gym, glasses broken again—three pairs in a row, until my mom wrote a note telling the gym teacher I couldn’t play dodgeball anymore because I was just too careless with my glasses, which were expensive. So I sat on the side and got hit anyway, and nobody wanted to be out because they’d have to sit next to me, and
Saundra has lights.
I ran away from school. I told my mother it was because people were mean to me, because everybody made fun of me, because I was extraordinarily, completely, and entirely alone. But you can’t run away from school, she told me. I needed to ignore them. I shouldn’t give them the satisfaction of a response.
So I put up with it for as long as I could, and then I ran away again. That time, my mother delivered me to my principal, who paddled me. Yes, I got paddled for running away from people who were tormenting me. It builds character, you know.
It wasn’t until sixth grade that I found out what it meant. Dionne wrote, in front of me, on the board while we waited for our teacher to come back from the office—
Saundra has lights.
And then she turned and scratched her head in demonstration.
Lice. Lice! I had been teased and isolated and pinched and pushed and building character over an insult they couldn’t even spell! They weren’t even smart enough to spell lice, L-I-C-E, lice, lice, lice! I was eleven years old and full to bursting with self-loathing and hatred and they weren’t even smart enough to spell a four-letter word!
It didn’t occur to me how many people must have known it was spelled wrong but just went along. And I learned to just go along, too. By the time I got to high school, I was quiet and odd. I didn’t know how to talk to people or look them in the eye—
Saundra has lights.
So I didn’t, and I managed to unnerve people all the way through junior high, all the way into high school—the place where people still threw ugly words at me, but added their fists to it.
Nobody gently put a hand in the middle of my back at the top of the stairs and pushed.
It was a pap, a concussive blow—pap into the front of my locker, pap at the top of the stairs, pap when I was standing too close to the benches in the locker room. I learned to lean against walls and creep down stairs. I learned to be afraid if people were standing behind me. And I believed them when they said if I got on my bus with them, I wouldn’t get off.