Awake and Dreaming - Kit Pearson [4]
Theo couldn’t answer such a dumb question. Hadn’t he noticed that she was always alone?
“I know it takes time. But you’ll soon feel at home.” Chubby Mr. Barker was as relentlessly positive as a bouncing ball. The other kids called him a pushover. They often persuaded him to have a video instead of arithmetic.
Theo sat down with relief. Across the aisle Nita smiled. Theo lowered her head.
Nita had been assigned to take care of her on her first day at this school last week. She was kind. Crystal and Meiko were kind too. But they wore different clothes every day and the right kind of shoes. Theo was sure their kindness was just an act for the teacher.
In her previous school she hadn’t known this. Kyla, too, had worn clean clothes and included Theo in her conversations. She was pretty and funny and for a few weeks Theo had been flattered that Kyla had chosen her as a friend. But then she’d been the only girl in the class not invited to Kyla’s birthday party.
This was the second of the five schools Theo had attended where there was a mixture of well-off kids and poor kids. Now she knew you couldn’t trust the well-off kids.
And the poor kids were too much like herself. The first day it was hard to pick them out; wearing sloppy clothes was the style and everyone looked the same. But now she knew the kids who, like her, had dirty hair and wore the same clothes for a week. They were either tough or as quiet and wary as she was.
At least Theo wasn’t the only person in the room who was called “Licehead.” If she made friends with Angela or Jennifer or Kandice, perhaps the name wouldn’t sting as much. But that would be admitting she was like them—poor and inferior, the type of person who was called names.
None of the kids in her schools were as interesting as kids in books.
The long day dragged on. Theo dully guessed at the answers in her arithmetic book and pretended to listen to an earnest woman talk to them about constructive ways to express anger. At lunch she sat alone, chewing slowly on her dry jam sandwich to make it last longer.
That was a major problem with this school. Like the last one, there was no hot-breakfast program. Two schools ago there’d even been a free lunch. Theo tried not to think of hamburgers or hot dogs or to gaze too obviously at the boy beside her, who was devouring a large piece of chocolate cake.
After lunch Mr. Barker tried to get them to write poetry. Theo was thinking so intently about the Psammead that she didn’t hear a thing he said.
Then he was standing over her. “Theo? Do you understand what I want you to do?” He smiled. “Just choose one of the lines on the board and make up a poem about it. It doesn’t even have to rhyme! You can write it any way you like!” He seemed to burst with goodwill, as if he were giving her a present.
Theo blinked at him, and nodded. A poem … She looked at the board.
What is pink? (or choose some other colour)
What is peace?
What is love?
What is friendship?
What is happiness?
She looked around—everyone else was already scribbling. She began to write slowly.
After twenty minutes Mr. Barker clapped his hands. “All right, people! Let’s have some volunteers to read their poems.”
No one raised a hand. “How about you, Nita?” asked the teacher, smiling.
“It’s not very good.”
“I’m sure it’s wonderful! Don’t forget, we’re all writers here! Let’s hear what you’ve created. Stand up and use a good loud voice.”
Nita stood up and mumbled, “‘What is happiness? Happiness is a warm puppy. Happiness is opening Christmas presents. Happiness is your mum and dad kissing you good night.’ That’s as far as I got.”
“Excellent, Nita!” beamed Mr. Barker. “You really tried to express your feelings!”
“I don’t think it’s very good,” said Robert. “She didn’t make it all up herself. I’ve heard that part about a warm puppy before.”
“Well, sometimes poets echo other poets—but not on purpose, eh, Nita?”
Nita glared at Robert.
“How