Read an Excerpt
California Dreaming
I’d never visited California before we moved here
but I’d heard about it
in songs.
Mom even made a playlist
and she and Dad sang along
the whole drive over from Wisconsin
but even after three days straight of
Katy Perry
the Beach Boys
the Mamas & the Papas
I still didn’t believe it.
Why would people here be different
than anywhere else?
But now that I’m here
on the first day of sixth grade at my new school
the hallway is full of kids
tapping on cell phones that probably cost more
than an entire month’s rent
in our new house.
Plus
everyone looks like they just jumped off the cover
of a magazine.
Hipster glasses
jeans where the only holes
were put there on purpose
and everyone pulling out a reusable container
full of weird grains
that must be their lunch.
I tug down my Packers hoodie
because it’s colder here
than the Beach Boys promised
and this way no one can see
that I look nothing like
the cover of
a magazine.
I wish San Francisco
would go back
to just being
a song.
Pretending
As I walk down the hallway
I head-hum my favorite walking song.
Beethoven’s Minuet in G.
dum dee dum dee dum dee dum dee dum
I move andante
matching my steps to the beat
left, and right, and left, and right, and left
so I can pretend
I’m not at all sore
from climbing up the hill in front of the school.
left, and right, and left, and right, and left
I can pretend I’ve been hiking it my whole life.
left, and right, and left, and right, and left
I can pretend I don’t smell like Wisconsin
and that I wore the right clothes to school today
and that I’m going to make tons of friends
and have an amazing year
left, and right, and left, and right, and left
just like everyone else.
Locker Number 538
Finally I reach my locker
12 clockwise
32 counterclockwise
8 clockwise
Stuck.
Attempted Duet No. 1
“Hi, I’m new here. My name is–”
“That’s my locker.”
