5
Leeda
Morrison’s Dream:
The
Joy of Pain
As we are waiting for
Mr. Draper to start first period, Pearl Nolet says, “Hi, Leeda,” and I say hi
back.
She asks me how I’m
doing; I shrug a little and say, “Good. I’m good.”
“How’s it going with
your mom?” Pearl asks and I say good again. She smiles at me.
I smile back.
Then Pearl leans over
and whispers to Crystal, “She’s not good. How can she be? Did you
hear about her mother?”
“What about her?”
Crystal whispers back.
Pearl says, “Her mother is, like,
completely mental. She won’t even let Leeda get her driver’s permit yet.”
“Is she 15?”
“She turned 15
over two months ago. Two months!”
“What? What is
her mom’s problem?”
“Get this. Her
mother says she hasn’t studied for it enough.”
“Oh my God. That
is so lame. I studied for my permit test for, like, ten minutes tops!”
“I know, right? I
don’t even know how Leeda can stand it.”
Mr. Draper has started to call attendance,
but my classmates can’t stop talking about my predicament. Others join
in.
Christina asks, “Who
doesn’t have her permit yet?”
Pearl says, “Leeda--her
mother won’t let her, even though she’s fifteen and like, three months.”
“That is totally not right,” chimes in
Bobby. “We should do something, seriously.”
Mr. Draper clears his throat and says,
with his usual sarcasm, “Oh, excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but I wonder if
we might interrupt your conversation with something we call history class.
Would that be all right?” He turns to look for the remote
control for his overhead projector. “Now where did I put that thing?” he
mumbles. The conversation about me starts to buzz again--how it’s not
fair, how my mother should be brought up on charges of child abuse, how no one
should have to endure the hardships I do. “Aha,” Mr. Draper says
when he spies his remote behind his coffee cup.
“Guys,” I say, and Pearl shushes everyone.
I look around at the concerned faces of my classmates. “It’s okay,”
I tell them; Bobby starts to object, but I hold up my hand. I smile at
him and say, “No, Bobby, really. I’m good.”
Everyone settles back into their seats,
shaking their heads and sighing. “Wow, I don’t know how she does it,”
says Christina quietly, and Mr. Draper starts his lecture. Though I can’t hear
my classmates talking about me anymore, not out loud, I can feel the energy of
their concern surrounding me, and I can see from the way they’re looking at me,
then looking down to send their texts, that my predicament is still the topic
of their conversations. I try to face straight ahead, though, and hold my
head high. This, the way I deal with my life, makes their thumbs work
even faster.
As the day goes along, my story
spreads throughout the school. People learn that my mother not allowing
me to try for my driver’s permit is just one chapter in the Book of My Ordeals.
Word spreads about how Josh Sanderson asked me out once, then canceled
the date, then never called me again; about me having to return my computer to
the company rather than to the store where I bought it, and it’s been almost
two weeks I’ve been without it; about my cat possibly having leukemia; about my
little brother’s inability to recognize that I have to have some privacy, and
my room is totally off-limits, no matter what; about my father’s insistence
that I have to maintain at least a C average or I won’t be able to continue my
dance classes. I don’t spread the stories. They are simply
incidents I’ve mentioned in the past, but now everyone at the school is
catching on to the simple fact that my life is a living hell.
“How do you do it, Leeda?” “Don’t
you just want to run away?” “We never hear you complain; how can you be
so strong?” “If I were you, I’d just die.” All day long, both friends and strangers
approach me, asking these questions. I reply by smiling. I reply by
squaring my shoulders a little, putting my hand on their arm and saying, “We
all have our trials, right?” They shake their heads. Some let
sympathetic tears stream down their cheeks.
Near
the end of the day, the cruelest fact of my life comes out (maybe I mentioned
it on Twitter or in a text, I’m not sure): My parents are claiming they
don’t have enough money to send me to drama camp this summer, the one I’ve
attended for the past four years straight. The school is in an uproar.
Classes can’t function, the students are so distracted by my plight.
They refuse to be quieted or to focus on anything but what I have to go
through. My phone won’t be silent for more than a second. Eventually, my inbox can’t hold any more
messages of dismay and anger directed at my parents, messages of support
directed at me. Signs appear on lockers: “Free Leeda!”
Finally, the last period of the day, Mr. Connelly
pulls me from class and asks me if I would be willing to make an announcement
to the school. “Frankly, Leeda,” he says, “we all understand the
incredible injustice that’s been perpetrated against you, but…” I hold up
my hand and smile at him.
“But you have a school to run. I completely
understand, Mr. Connelly. People should stop worrying about me.
I’ll be fine.”
“So you wouldn’t mind speaking to them?”
“I’d be happy to, if you think it will help.”
Mr. Connelly doesn’t reply. He wants to, but he ducks his head,
embarrassed to let me see the sudden strong emotion overwhelming him. I pat his
arm and hear his almost inaudible “thank-you.” In the office, the
secretary kindly shows me how to work the microphone. I reach to press
down on the button to begin speaking, but the secretary takes hold of my hand.
“I just wanted
you to know that...that...I can’t believe what you’ve had to endure. I
just wish…” She can say no more. I nod and thank her and tell her
I’m okay. “Bless you, Leeda,” says the secretary and slides the microphone
toward me.
“Everyone,” I say to the school, “this is
Leeda Morrison.” A deep silence settles over the building. “I just
want to say I appreciate your concern and your sympathy, but there’s nothing
that can be done to help. I’m not going to fight, and I don’t want you to
fight for me. I don’t yet know how things will work out, but…” and here
my voice breaks a bit, hard as I try to keep it even… “but I know I’ll be all
right. I know I’ll be all right.” I take my finger off the button.
The secretary gives me a long hug.
When I walk out the door of the office, an enormous
crowd of students engulfs me. Many of them hold up “Free Leeda!” signs,
yet the gathering is silent. As I walk through the throng, some of them
reach out to touch me. I smile and face forward. Shannon Baker steps out
from the crowd. She’s holding what looks like a bare, jagged wreath,
something she must have made in art class. “May I, Leeda?” She
lifts up the object, and I understand. I bow my head to receive the crown
of thorns. Shannon kisses me on the cheek and whispers, “You’re a saint,
Leeda. We all know you’re a saint.”
I walk out the door, feeling their quiet awe
behind me. I walk toward my bus, toward my unknown, unfair, cruel and
waiting future.
Reality Check: Dream 5
ü
E-mail from Carol Morrison to her husband Donald: “If we can’t send her away to drama camp this
summer, how about prison? Anything for a break, Don!”
6
Pearl Nolet’s Dream:
Ghost Watch
Floating
through the school,
I am
my ghost.
They
mourn me.
I
died,
just
last night.
Car
crash,
Not
my fault.
I
swerved to miss
a
small child who had bolted
from
its mother.
The
child had seen
a
squirrel crossing the road
(Why
did the squirrel cross the road?
To
lure the child, of course.)
and
had followed the mystery
of
that bobbing tail,
that
gray flag.
I
swerved, saved
the
child,
and
his mother will
be
forever
grateful
for my training
and
my instincts
not
to mention
my
reflexes,
but
the swerve
was
too sharp.
Physics
prevailed.
The
car rolled and rolled.
The
seatbelt held for a while,
then
failed.
(My
parents will sue and win and be set
for
the rest of their lives.)
Thrown
from the car,
I
took a brief flight
and
landed
and
laid,
neck
snapped,
otherwise
beautiful.
The
child whose life I saved
saw
me and said,
“Why
is the pretty girl
sleeping
in the grass?”
And
his mommy, tears in her eyes,
led
him away.
Later
that night, unable
to
sleep, she sketched out
the
monument she will erect
to
me
in
the park
where
she
and
her son
so
often play.
The
news spreads.
(And
some love
to
have the information,
love
to be the ones
to
tell those who
do
not yet know--I can see
their
veiled glee;
they
almost smile when they say
“Did
you hear about Pearl?”
They’re
supposed to be
broken
up
and all
but
they really didn’t know
me
that well
and
their pleasure over having
new
news overcomes
their
grief over
losing
me.
I
understand. Being
a
ghost makes me
forgiving.)
The
flag is at half-mast.
I
flutter beside it
for
a while, then
fly
to the post
office.
The flag there
is
up where
it
is supposed to be.
I am
not famous.
No
Mandela,
No
President,
King,
Martin Luther or other-
wise.
I
rise
until
the town below
becomes
a set of toys
with
trees and ponds and roads
and
little moving cars.
Still,
for the most part.
Apart,
for the most part,
from
its loss
of
me.
I
was nothing when I was alive,
or
nearly that.
I
will be nothing soon after this death,
completely
that.
But
now! But now I hear a scream!
Third
gray block over,
behind
that blot of green,
a
scream comes from the school.
Down
I drop to see…
pass
through
the
door, the bricks,
the
steel and plaster,
the
wires and plates,
through
metal and wood and glass
I
pass until I am
inside
a room
I
recognize
to
see a face
I
recognize
and
love. Elizabeth
who
did not know
I
longed for her
at
least I
do
not think she knew.
And
now she knows
I’m
dead.
In
the corner
of
the band room,
surrounded
by her friends,
(she
has so many I felt
I
never could get close)
she
will not be
consoled.
Over
by the timpani
Tawny
says, “I didn’t know
she’d
take it
so
hard. I thought
she
already knew.
I
never would have told her.”
Poor
Tawny, upset her message of the dead
was
more than just some
juicy
news. I float and pass my feet
right
through her head.
Elizabeth?
Elizabeth? I say her name.
I am
unheard.
I go
to her, cut through the crowd,
though
they don’t feel me
cutting.
Inside
this cave of caring
friends
who cannot
reach
Elizabeth,
I
crawl inside the ball
she
has made of herself
to
listen to the whisper
spilling
from her lips.
Elizabeth,
my love? I say.
She
cannot hear.
After
all,
I am
a ghost.
Ghosts
may sit
in
laps all day long.
One
may be in yours right now.
And
you don’t know.
She
cannot hear me say her name,
yet
she
says mine.
Over
and over.
She
says mine.
Like
a lover.
In a
while
I
shall rise
and
now I’ll go
to
Heaven.
Reality Check: Dream 6
ü
On-line comment posted on Pearl
Nolet’s poetry website—pearlzovwizdom.com:
“Generally, I like to be supportive and tell people they should pursue
their passions, etc., etc., but, girl, you need to find a whole other passion
‘cause your poetry sucks.” Posted by
wrmwud2dmax.
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