Ninth Grade Quotes

The worst pain in the world goes beyond the physical. Even further beyond any other emotional pain one can feel. It is the betrayal of a friend.

It never gets easier, missing you. And sometimes I wonder if it ever will.

If stakes and garlic were the top two things that could kill a vampire, ninth grade gym was a close third.

You look ridiculous,” Wren said. “What?” “That shirt.” It was a Hello Kitty shirt from eighth or ninth grade. Hello Kitty dressed as a superhero. It said SUPER CAT on the back, and Wren had added an H with fabric paint. The shirt was cropped too short to begin with, and it didn’t really fit anymore. Cath pulled it down self-consciously. “Cath!” her dad shouted from downstairs. “Phone.” Cath picked up her cell phone and looked at it “He must mean the house phone,” Wren said. “Who calls the house phone?” “Probably 2005. I think it wants its shirt back.

If citizens followed their leaders' example throughout history, the human race would have died out centuries ago.

Vlad made a mental note to amend the friend code: thou shalt not date the girl that thy best friend has a crush on...nor shalt thou try sticking thy best friend in the chest with a sharp hunk of wood.

Sometimes you have to be alone to think, and sometimes the best place for thinking isn't home.

Don't you find any irony in a vampire sucking up?

It was tough attempting to be social with people who'd rather pretend you didn't exist.

I don’t know what I’m doing in the next five minutes and she has the next ten years figured out. I’ll worry about making it out of ninth grade alive. Then I’ll think about a career path.

Compassion speaks with a slight accent. She was a vulnerable child, miserable in school, cold, shy … In ninth grade she was befriended by Courage. Courage lent Compassion bright sweaters, explained the slang, showed her how to play volleyball.

Otis D'ablo is alive! Do you here me? He is alive and trying to kill me!

Janie: Did you ever sell drugs? Cabel: Yes. Pot. Ninth and tenth grade. I was, uh...rather troubled back then. Janie: Why did you stop? Cabel: Got busted, and Captain made me a better deal. Janie: So you've been a narc since then? Cabel: I cringe at your terminology.

Even though I didn't notice it while it was happening, I got reminded in ninth grade of a few things I guess I should have known all along. 1. A first kiss after five months means more than a first kiss after five minutes. 2. Always remember what it was like to be six. 3. Never, ever stop believing in magic, no matter how old you get. Because if you keep looking long enough and don't give up, sooner or later you're going to find Mary Poppins. And if you're reall lucky, maybe even a purple balloon.

Do you believe i am the Pravus?

Aw, hell, Tessa. I was in ninth grade. By the time I got to the part where I imagined a girl without panties on, it was all over.

I still remember the day I got my first calculator Teacher: All right, children, welcome to fourth grade math. Everyone take a calculator out of the bin. Me: What are these? Teacher: From now on we'll be using calculators. Me: What do these things do? Teacher: Simple operations, like multiplication and division. Me: You mean this device just...does them? By itself? Teacher: Yes. You enter in the problem and press equal. Me: You...you knew about this machine all along, didn't you? This whole time, while we were going through this...this charade with the pencils and the line paper and the stupid multiplication tables!...I'm sorry for shouting...It's just...I'm a little blown away. Teacher: Okay, everyone, today we're going to go over some word problems. Me: What the hell else do you have back there? A magical pen that writes book reports by itself? Some kind of automatic social studies worksheet that...that fills itself out? What the hell is going on? Teacher: If a farmer farms five acres of land a day-- Me: So that's it, then. The past three years have been a total farce. All this time I've been thinking, "Well, this is pretty hard and frustrating but I guess these are useful skills to have." Meanwhile, there was a whole bin of these things in your desk. We could have jumped straight to graphing. Unless, of course, there's some kind of graphing calculator! Teacher: There is. You get one in ninth grade. Me: Is this...Am I on TV? Is this a prank show? Teacher: No.

ONCE WHEN I WAS ninth grade i had to write a paper on a poem. One of the lines was"If your eyes weren't open you wouldn't know the difference between dreaming and waking' It hadn't meant meant much to me at the time. After all there'd been a guy in the class that i liked so how could i be expected to pay attention to literary analysis? Now three year later i understand the poem perfectly.

Vampires,after all,don't sparkle.

People says it gets easier. People are stupid." -Vlad

I've never been one to mourn the passing of what could have been a promising relationship. When Jeff broke my heart in the ninth grade, I decided then and there that if a guy couldn't see that I was something special, I'd say good-bye with no regrets. Not that I think I'm more special than anyone else, mind you. But if a thing is not meant to be, I figure it's just not part of God's infinite plan.

Ninth grade is a minor inconvenience to him. A zit-cream commercial before the Feature Film of Life.

Hey you, dragging the halo- how about a holiday in the islands of grief? Tongue is the word I wish to have with you. Your eyes are so blue they leak. Your legs are longer than a prisoner's last night on death row. I'm filthier than the coal miner's bathtub and nastier than the breath of Charles Bukowski. You're a dirty little windshield. I'm standing behind you on the subway, hard as calculus. My breath be sticking to your neck like graffiti. I'm sitting opposite you in the bar, waiting for you to uncross your boundaries. I want to rip off your logic and make passionate sense to you. I want to ride in the swing of your hips. My fingers will dig in you like quotation marks, blazing your limbs into parts of speech. But with me for a lover, you won't need catastrophes. What attracted me in the first place will ultimately make me resent you. I'll start telling you lies, and my lies will sparkle, become the bad stars you chart your life by. I'll stare at other women so blatantly you'll hear my eyes peeling, because sex with you is like Great Britain: cold, groggy, and a little uptight. Your bed is a big, soft calculator where my problems multiply. Your brain is a garage I park my bullshit in, for free. You're not really my new girlfriend, just another flop sequel of the first one, who was based on the true story of my mother. You're so ugly I forgot how to spell. I'll cheat on you like a ninth grade math test, break your heart just for the sound it makes. You're the 'this' we need to put an end to. The more you apologize, the less I forgive you. So how about it?

Altheia is Greek," Livvy said. "She was the Greek Goddess of truth," said Kit. He shurgged when they stared at him. "Ninth grade book report." Ty's mouth crooked at the corner. "Very good, Watson." "Don't call me Watson," said Kit. Ty ignored this.

I'm sorry," I heard him say again. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sudden blur of movement as he slid out of his seat, left some bills for the breakfast he wouldn't eat, and walked away. And as he did, I thought again of those mornings in the hallway at school, way back in ninth grade. Everything had started in such sharp detail, each aspect pronounced and clear. Obviously, endings were different. Harder to see, full of shapes that could be one thing or another, with all the things that you were once so sure of suddenly not familiar, if they were even recognizable at all.

It's funny how getting stabbed through the heart by a friend can bring your whole school year down.

Some grown-ups could be so inherently stupid. Try banning homework sometime. You might see those straight A's so many parents long for.

We could not get out. The ground we walked was trip-wired. The air we breathed was toxic. The water stunted our growth. We could not get out. A year after I watched the boy with the small eyes pull out a gun, my father beat me for letting another boy steal from me. Two years later, he beat me for threatening my ninth-grade teacher. Not being violent enough could cost me my body. Being too violent could cost me my body. We could not get out.

Ninth-grade U.S. history: Not to hurt feelings but that chapter you assigned? That was all “Columbus is great,” “The Indians sure loved Thanksgiving,” “Let’s brainwash everyone.” I found way better stuff at the library,

Putting a body in a box as a keepsake for mortals to cling to long after everything that was that person is gone - it turns my stomach. Graveyards are for the living, not the dead.

You know how our teacher said the wrong name the 1st day of ninth grade and I didn’t correct her ? I was Dawson for the entire school year.” Anders snorts. “Man, that was so funny.” “I didn’t call her out the 1st time, and then it was way too late to correct her.

Consider a white ninth-grade student taking American history in a predominantly middle-class town in Vermont. Her father tapes Sheetrock, earning an income that in slow construction seasons leaves the family quite poor. Her mother helps out by driving a school bus part-time, in addition to taking care of her two younger siblings. The girl lives with her family in a small house, a winterized former summer cabin, while most of her classmates live in large suburban homes. How is this girl to understand her poverty? Since history textbooks present the American past as four hundred years of progress and portray our society as a land of opportunity in which folks get what they deserve and deserve what they get, the failures of working-class Americans to transcend their class origin inevitably get laid at their own doorsteps.

Not that bad? This ain't fucking MIT, this is ninth grade! Look at this shit!' he said, holding the progress report up. 'You got a fucking C in ninth grade journalism? How does that even happen? You work for the New York fucking Times? Couldn't break that big corruption story? Jesus Christ. Unbelievable.

I was so scared it was all going to be gone by the time I got there. Ninth grade, tenth grade - can't this thing go any faster? In the magazine, there were funny people with funny names like John Sex, who had wild white hair and a snake!-and didn't that just open up a kaleidoscope of new possibilities? And how long the years are-endless! And the minutae of your daily life! So tedious, when there are BIG THINGS happening a thousand miles away. And when you go to bed at night, it's hard to believe those people, those fabulous, daunting people, are out there right now! So we wait, and we endure, and someday we will be there, and we will make it.

Cheerleading? That totally just blew your little work outfit out of the water. I pressed my lips together to keep from giggling. It was only ninth and tenth grade. I did it because my mom wanted me to. I dropped out, it wasn’t for me. And yet my fantasy lives.

If I ever find you lurking about in my thoughts again, Vlad, I will be most displeased. You stay out of my mind, and I'll sty out of yours. Agreed?

So with nothing to do but algebra, Vlad settled down in front of the television with controller in hand.

In the American Grain" "Ninth grade, and bicycling the Jersey highways: I am a writer. I was half-wasp already, I changed my shirt and trousers twice a day. My poems came back...often rejected, though never forgotten in New York, this Jewish state with insomniac minorities. I am sick of the enlightenment: what Wall Street prints, the mafia distributes; when talent starves in a garret, they buy the garret. Bill Williams made less than Band-Aids on his writing, he could never write the King's English of The New Yorker. I am not William Carlos Williams. He knew the germ on every flower, and saw the snake is a petty, rather pathetic creature.

People are like trees,” said Mom. “They need one kind of food when they’re seedlings, and a different kind of food once they’ve been growing for a few years. Maybe you and Noe needed each other in ninth grade in a way you don’t need each other now.

Even though I didn't notice it while it was happening, I got reminded in ninth grade of a few things I guess I should have known all along: 1. A first kiss after five months means more than a first kiss after five minutes. 2. Always remember what it was like to be six 3. Never, ever stop believing in magic, no matter how old you get. Because if you keep looking long enough and don't give up, sooner or later you're going to find Mary Poppins. And if your really lucky, maybe even a purple balloon. Thanks, Mama. I love you.

Being the only stranger at dinner with a group of girls who are already close friends doesn't sound appealing at all. I'll have to pretend to laugh at stories I don't get about people I don't know. I'll probably stuff my face just to have something to do while they all gab about their ninth-grade English teacher or some other inside joke that makes me feel like an outsider. It's hard to know how to behave in those situations. You can jump right in, asking "Who?" and "Where was this?" or you can sit back and let them have their laughs. I almost always opt for the latter, sometimes to my detriment. What I think is letting them have their fun, they might takes as she-thinks-she's-too-cool.

As I follow them up, my phone buzzes. I pause, my heart racing with anticipation. I know it’s from Ryder even before I see his name on the screen, followed by three lines of text. My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite. Romeo and Juliet? I type back, smiling giddily. I should know this--we studied the play in ninth grade. Yeah. It’s Juliet’s line, but it works for me. I love you, Ryder Marsden. Not half as much as I love you, Jemma Cafferty. Sighing dreamily, I shove the phone back in my jacket pocket and hurry off to find my friends. Do I ever have a tale to tell them.

She thought it would be an easy grade. She hadn't counted on things like the subjunctive.

The congregation muttered, mostly reproachful, and Gideon started to perk up. It wasn’t quite the worst day of her life now. This was some A-grade entertainment.

You can have it if you want it, if you’re willing to pay for it. Save your money.” “I don’t have any money,” he’d said in the ninth grade. “Be thankful, Lincoln. Money is a cruel thing. It’s the thing that stands between you and the things you want and the people you love.” “How does money come between you and the people you love?” “It’s coming between us right now.

Four years ago, about 4,900 ninth grades began their high school career in the Boston Public schools. Today there are about 3,400 twelth graders. Nearly one third -- 1500 students -- have dropped out of the class in three and a half years. Almost half of the group that hopes to graduate (1,648) in six months' time has not passed the required standardized test (MCAS).

Trolls have existed on this planet for as long as humans. This is what I was told and what I translated to Tub. The first mention of them in recorded history is from ninth-century Norway, when the nefarious creatures began showing up in song, verse, and bedtime stories to keep misbehaving children in line. According to Norse folklore, trolls are one of the Dark Beings, the purest embodiments of evil, and they scurried from between the toes of Ymir, the mythic six-headed Frost Giant whose murdered body became the universe in which we live; his bones became the mountains, his teeth boulders, and so forth.

My ninth-grade teacher told us that we would all fall in love with Catcher in the Rye. The elusive maroon cover added to its mystique. I kept waiting to fall in love with Salinger’s cramped, desultory writing until I was annoyed.

A year after I watched the boy with the small eyes pull out a gun, my father beat me for letting another boy steal from me. Two years later, he beat me for threatening my ninth-grade teacher. Not being violent enough could cost me my body. Being too violent could cost me my body. We could not get out.

OBITUARY Certificate in hand, my school career now finds its slow and certain end. Last act, the iron curtain here Closes on what I might have been. One year more and I would have earned my diploma, having played my part. Instead this list of what I've learned, States I was quiet, hardworking, smart. Yes, gone those lovely days in time When once I dozed to Schiller's "Clock," Though much preferred was Scheffler's rhyme. Awakening me and signalling "stop." Playing hooky, passing notes, my relinquished School pass - all passe. Only I remain, dismissed and hindered, a ninth-grade student without a grade. [September 11, 1939] by Felice Schragenheim

No smartphones before high school. Parents should delay children’s entry into round-the-clock internet access by giving only basic phones (phones with limited apps and no internet browser) before ninth grade (roughly age 14). No social media before 16. Let kids get through the most vulnerable period of brain development before connecting them to a firehose of social comparison and algorithmically chosen influencers. Phone-free schools. In all schools from elementary through high school, students should store their phones, smartwatches, and any other personal devices that can send or receive texts in phone lockers or locked pouches during the school day. That is the only way to free up their attention for each other and for their teachers. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence. That’s the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults.

The previous year, I had really taken an interest in the opposite sex, but it all seemed pretty natural. It all changed one night when I was in the ninth grade. I went with a buddy to a swimming party, where we met two girls whom we were both interested in. As the night went on, we found ourselves alone in a room with the girls. The girl I liked asked me to help her undress. I was very attracted to her, and she was pretty healthy for a ninth grader. As I looked back at my buddy cheering me on, the only thing I could think of was my dad’s admonition--and three letters, R-U-N! I ran out of the room, and the abuse I took from my buddies over the next few days was probably the worst I ever experienced. From then on, I decided to shy away from girls with questionable reputations and focus on those who could possibly help me spiritually and help get me to heaven. I didn’t feel I was strong enough to stay pure unless both parties had the same goal.

We are studying American history for the ninth time in nine years. Another review of map skills, one week of Native Americans, Christopher Columbus in time for Columbus Day, the Pilgrims in time for Thanksgiving. Every year they say we're going to get right up to the present, but we always get stuck in the Industrial Revolution. We got to World War 1 in seventh grade - who knew there had been a war with the whole world? We need more holidays to keep the social studies teachers on track.

When Benjamin Bloom studied his 120 world-class concert pianists, sculptors, swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians, and research neurologists, he found something fascinating. For most of them, their first teachers were incredibly warm and accepting. Not that they set low standards. Not at all, but they created an atmosphere of trust, not judgment. It was, “I’m going to teach you,” not “I’m going to judge your talent.” As you look at what Collins and Esquith demanded of their students—all their students—it’s almost shocking. When Collins expanded her school to include young children, she required that every four-year-old who started in September be reading by Christmas. And they all were. The three- and four-year-olds used a vocabulary book titled Vocabulary for the High School Student. The seven-year-olds were reading The Wall Street Journal. For older children, a discussion of Plato’s Republic led to discussions of de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Orwell’s Animal Farm, Machiavelli, and the Chicago city council. Her reading list for the late-grade-school children included The Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov, Physics Through Experiment, and The Canterbury Tales. Oh, and always Shakespeare. Even the boys who picked their teeth with switchblades, she says, loved Shakespeare and always begged for more. Yet Collins maintained an extremely nurturing atmosphere. A very strict and disciplined one, but a loving one. Realizing that her students were coming from teachers who made a career of telling them what was wrong with them, she quickly made known her complete commitment to them as her students and as people. Esquith bemoans the lowering of standards. Recently, he tells us, his school celebrated reading scores that were twenty points below the national average. Why? Because they were a point or two higher than the year before. “Maybe it’s important to look for the good and be optimistic,” he says, “but delusion is not the answer. Those who celebrate failure will not be around to help today’s students celebrate their jobs flipping burgers.… Someone has to tell children if they are behind, and lay out a plan of attack to help them catch up.” All of his fifth graders master a reading list that includes Of Mice and Men, Native Son, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Joy Luck Club, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Separate Peace. Every one of his sixth graders passes an algebra final that would reduce most eighth and ninth graders to tears. But again, all is achieved in an atmosphere of affection and deep personal commitment to every student. “Challenge and nurture” describes DeLay’s approach, too. One of her former students expresses it this way: “That is part of Miss DeLay’s genius—to put people in the frame of mind where they can do their best.… Very few teachers can actually get you to your ultimate potential. Miss DeLay has that gift. She challenges you at the same time that you feel you are being nurtured.

Following the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades of middle school, high school would have been a fresh start. When I got to Fairfax High I would insist on being called Suzanne. I would wear my hair feathered or up in a bun. I would have a body that the boys wanted and the girls envied, but I’d be so nice on top of it all that they would feel too guilty to do anything but worship me. I liked to think of myself — having reached a sort of queenly W status — as protecting misfit kids in the cafeteria. When someone taunted Clive Saunders for walking like a girl, I would deliver swift vengeance with my foot to the taunter’s less-protected parts. When the boys teased Phoebe Hart for her sizable breasts, I would give a speech on why boob jokes weren’t funny. I had to forget that I too had made lists in the margins of my notebook when Phoebe walked by: Winnebagos, Hoo-has, Johnny Yellows. At the end of my reveries, I sat in the back of the car as my father drove. I was beyond reproach. I would overtake high school in a matter of days, not years, or, inexplicably, earn an Oscar for Best Actress during my junior year. These were my dreams on Earth.

Consider my life before I moved in with Mamaw. In the middle of third grade, we left Middletown and my grandparents to live in Preble County with Bob; at the end of fourth grade, we left Preble County to live in a Middletown duplex on the 200 block of McKinley Street; at the end of fifth grade, we left the 200 block of McKinley Street to move to the 300 block of McKinley Street, and by that time Chip was a regular in our home, though he never lived with us; at the end of sixth grade, we remained on the 300 block of McKinley Street, but Chip had been replaced by Steve (and there were many discussions about moving in with Steve); at the end of seventh grade, Matt had taken Steve’s place, Mom was preparing to move in with Matt, and Mom hoped that I would join her in Dayton; at the end of eighth grade, she demanded that I move to Dayton, and after a brief detour at my dad’s house, I acquiesced; at the end of ninth grade, I moved in with Ken—a complete stranger—and his three kids. On top of all that were the drugs, the domestic violence case, children’s services prying into our lives, and Papaw dying. Today, even remembering that period long enough to write it down invokes an intense,

I married him—despite all the very good reasons that no one should ever partner up for a third time—because early on, he reminded me of the best father figure of my life, my ninth-grade English teacher. When that man died, his friends (eighty-year-old poker buddies, pals from his teaching days, devoted former students of all ages and types) wept. He was old, fat, diabetic, and often brusque. Women desired him and my children loved him and most men liked his company a great deal. He was loyal, imperious, needy, charming, bighearted, and just about the most selfish, lovable, and foolishly fearless person I had ever known. And then I met Brian and found another.

Albert Einstein, considered the most influential person of the 20th century, was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read. His parents thought he was retarded. He spoke haltingly until age nine. He was advised by a teacher to drop out of grade school: “You’ll never amount to anything, Einstein.” Isaac Newton, the scientist who invented modern-day physics, did poorly in math. Patricia Polacco, a prolific children’s author and illustrator, didn’t learn to read until she was 14. Henry Ford, who developed the famous Model-T car and started Ford Motor Company, barely made it through high school. Lucille Ball, famous comedian and star of I Love Lucy, was once dismissed from drama school for being too quiet and shy. Pablo Picasso, one of the great artists of all time, was pulled out of school at age 10 because he was doing so poorly. A tutor hired by Pablo’s father gave up on Pablo. Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the world’s great composers. His music teacher once said of him, “As a composer, he is hopeless.” Wernher von Braun, the world-renowned mathematician, flunked ninth-grade algebra. Agatha Christie, the world’s best-known mystery writer and all-time bestselling author other than William Shakespeare of any genre, struggled to learn to read because of dyslexia. Winston Churchill, famous English prime minister, failed the sixth grade.

One three-page letter from a thirty-seven-year-old white woman from Pleasantville, New York, concluded: “I am so glad you didn’t sneeze.” Almost ten years later, King would build the final speech of his life around that line, although he would add dramatic power to the anecdote by attributing the letter to a ninth-grade student at White Plains High School. “I, too, am happy that I didn’t sneeze,” he would say. He would repeat the refrain to celebrate all the joys, struggles, and triumphs he would have missed had he made an abrupt move that day in Blumstein’s department store. Thoughts of death had long preoccupied him. Now he saw that nonviolent movements grew stronger when they came under attack. Violent assaults on the determinedly nonviolent aroused sympathy and attracted support for the cause. It was a lesson that would shape the last ten years of his life.

Why don't you make everybody an Alpha Double Plus while you're about it?" Mustapha Mond laughed. "Because we have no wish to have our throats cut," he answered. "We believe in happiness and stability. A society of Alphas couldn't fail to be unstable and miserable. Imagine a factory staffed by Alphas–that is to say by separate and unrelated individuals of good heredity and conditioned so as to be capable (within limits) of making a free choice and assuming responsibilities. Imagine it!" he repeated. The Savage tried to imagine it, not very successfully. "It's an absurdity. An Alpha-decanted, Alpha-conditioned man would go mad if he had to do Epsilon Semi-Moron work–go mad, or start smashing things up. Alphas can be completely socialized–but only on condition that you make them do Alpha work. Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they aren't sacrifices; they're the line of least resistance. His conditioning has laid down rails along which he's got to run. He can't help himself; he's foredoomed. Even after decanting, he's still inside a bottle–an invisible bottle of infantile and embryonic fixations. Each one of us, of course," the Controller meditatively continued, "goes through life inside a bottle. But if we happen to be Alphas, our bottles are, relatively speaking, enormous. We should suffer acutely if we were confined in a narrower space. You cannot pour upper-caste champagne-surrogate into lower-caste bottles. It's obvious theoretically. But it has also been proved in actual practice. The result of the Cyprus experiment was convincing." "What was that?" asked the Savage. Mustapha Mond smiled. "Well, you can call it an experiment in rebottling if you like. It began in A.F. 473. The Controllers had the island of Cyprus cleared of all its existing inhabitants and re-colonized with a specially prepared batch of twenty-two thousand Alphas. All agricultural and industrial equipment was handed over to them and they were left to manage their own affairs. The result exactly fulfilled all the theoretical predictions. The land wasn't properly worked; there were strikes in all the factories; the laws were set at naught, orders disobeyed; all the people detailed for a spell of low-grade work were perpetually intriguing for high-grade jobs, and all the people with high-grade jobs were counter-intriguing at all costs to stay where they were. Within six years they were having a first-class civil war. When nineteen out of the twenty-two thousand had been killed, the survivors unanimously petitioned the World Controllers to resume the government of the island. Which they did. And that was the end of the only society of Alphas that the world has ever seen." The Savage sighed, profoundly. "The optimum population," said Mustapha Mond, "is modelled on the iceberg–eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above." "And they're happy below the water line?" "Happier than above it.

Anglos dominated the prisoner population in 1977 and did not lose their plurality until 1988. Meanwhile, absolute numbers grew across the board—with the total number of those incarcerated approximately doubling during each interval. African American prisoners surpassed all other groups in 1988, but by 1995, they had been overtaken by Latinos; however, Black people have the highest rate of incarceration of any racial/ethnic grouping in California, or, for that matter, in the United States (see also Bonczar and Beck 1997). TABLE 4 CDC PRISONER POPULATION BY RACE/ETHNICITY The structure of new laws, intersecting with the structure of the burgeoning relative surplus population, and the state’s concentrated use of criminal laws in the Southland, produced a remarkable racial and ethnic shift in the prison population. Los Angeles is the primary county of commitment. Most prisoners are modestly educated men in the prime of life: 88 percent are between 19 and 44 years old. Less than 45 percent graduated from high school or read at the ninth-grade level; one in four is functionally illiterate. And, finally, the percentage of prisoners who worked six months or longer for the same employer immediately before being taken into custody has declined, from 54.5 percent in 1982 to 44 percent in 2000 (CDC, Characteristics of Population, various years). TABLE 5 CDC COMMITMENTS BY CONTROLLING OFFENSE (%) At the bottom of the first and subsequent waves of new criminal legislation lurked a key contradiction. On the one hand, the political rhetoric, produced and reproduced in the media, concentrated on the need for laws and prisons to control violence. “Crime” and “violence” seemed to be identical. However, as table 5 shows, there was a significant shift in the controlling (or most serious) offenses for those committed to the CDC, from a preponderance of violent offenses in 1980 to nonviolent crimes in 1995. More to the point, the controlling offenses for more than half of 1995’s commitments were nonviolent crimes of illness or of illegal income producing activity: drug use, drug sales, burglary, motor vehicle theft. The outcome of the first two years of California’s broadly written “three strikes” law presents a similar picture: in the period March 1994–January 1996, 15 percent of controlling offenses were violent crimes, 31 percent were drug offenses, and 41 percent were crimes against property (N = 15,839) (Christoper Davis et al. 1996). The relative surplus population comes into focus in these numbers. In 1996, 43 percent of third-strike prisoners were Black, 32.4 percent Latino, and 24.6 percent Anglo. The deliberate intensification of surveillance and arrest in certain areas, combined with novel crimes of status, drops the weight of these numbers into particular places. The chair of the State Task Force on Youth Gang Violence expressed the overlap between presumptions of violence and the exigencies of everyday reproduction when he wrote: “We are talking about well-organized, drug-dealing, dangerously armed and profit-motivated young hoodlums who are engaged in the vicious crimes of murder, rape, robbery, extortion and kidnapping as a means of making a living” (Philibosian 1986: ix; emphasis added).

Carmack quickly distinguished himself. In second grade, only seven years old, he scored nearly perfect on every standardized test, placing himself at a ninth-grade comprehension level.

To be truly mature as an early adolescent means you’re able to be a good, loyal friend, supportive, hardworking and responsible,” Dr. Allen said. “But that doesn’t get a lot of airplay on Monday morning in a ninth-grade homeroom.

I met plenty of frogs who didn’t turn into princes when I kissed them. They were just as slimy, smelly, and cold-hearted as the ones I dissected in ninth grade biology.

It’s not easy starting something new. Few things are more intimidating than walking into a brand-new situation and having to make the best of it. Maybe your parents moved during your ninth-grade year and you had to make new friends in a foreign country where everyone spoke a different language from yours. That’s uncomfortable, and, as any well-meaning adult might say, “a character-building experience.” But what if you feel like you already have enough character, and you don’t want to leave all your friends and go to a foreign country with different money and food and a big school where the other kids ignore you and make you wish you were a treasure chest or a dog bone or anything buried deep beneath the earth and out of sight? What then? Well, you do as your parents tell you, and hope you don’t perish from too much character development.

Author’s Note This series of stories are set in Australia and use Aussie words, expressions and spelling. We say ‘mum’ to rhyme with ‘thumb’. Year 9 is the same as ninth grade and high school begins in Year 7 and goes all the way through to Year 12. Christmas is in the summer. We do maths, not math, and we spell analyse (and a bunch of other words) with an ‘s’, not a ‘z’. In fact, lots of our spelling is just slightly different, so don’t get worried if it’s not what you’re used to.

my first day of ninth grade had no assembly no "First Ten Lies They Tell You in High School" no showdown with Mr. Neck Speak is a novel rooted in facts, to be sure, but a story bred with its own DNA an invasive species growing out of a stump of a tree hit by lightning growing from the girl who survived

Though school administrators often defend their tracking practices as fair and objective, there usually is a recognizable racial pattern to how children are assigned, which often represents the system of advantage operating in the schools.13 For example, in a study of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District in North Carolina, Roslyn Mickelson compared the placements of Black and White high school students who had similar scores on a national standardized achievement test they took in the sixth grade. More than half of the White students who scored in the ninetieth to ninety-ninth percentile on the test were enrolled in high school Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) English, while only 20 percent of the Black students who also scored in the ninetieth to ninety-ninth percentile were enrolled in these more-rigorous courses. Meanwhile, 35 percent of White students whose test scores were below the seventieth percentile were taking AP or IB English. Only 9 percent of Black students who scored below the seventieth percentile had access to the more-advanced curriculum.14

Prep early. If your child is not ready for college when she graduates in June, she’s probably not going to be ready when fall semester starts. The process of encouraging readiness must begin much earlier. Start suggesting as early as ninth grade that college is something that needs to be earned. Begin to outline together the kinds of skills your child will need to develop over the next four years in order to demonstrate their readiness. Tell him you will want to see that he can basically run his own life for at least six months prior to going off to college.

We’re both consenting adults. We’re both single. And we’re incredibly attracted to each other.” “You are so confident.” “Attractive, isn’t it?” I give her a smile that’s been getting me laid since the ninth grade. Her teeth sink into her plum bottom lip. “Oddly, yes.” I like that answer. I like it a hell of a lot.

They had been friends since kindergarten, started dating in ninth grade, and got married after high school. My grandfather will tell you that there was no way to convince either one of them to wait just a little bit longer. They knew. Some people are lucky like that. They meet their best friend, the love of their life, and are wise enough to never let go. Unfortunately, my parents’ love story got cut far too short. Just before she died, Mom told me she was ready. She said she was tired of fighting and tired of missing Dad. She thought of death as a new beginning—said she was going to go spend the rest of her next life with Dad, and I’d like to think that’s exactly what they’re doing now. Best friends together again.

A valuable lesson I'd impart to my ninth-grade self: "Resist the urge to cloak your true self in a veneer of pain-disguised confidence. Such a mask, though it might seem protective, can inadvertently distance you from the very individuals you cherish deeply. This path could ultimately pave the way towards feelings of desolation and despondency. Remember, embracing vulnerability is an inherent aspect of our human essence, a trait that can serve as a shield against the clutches of depression and the echoing ache of solitude.

And then in ninth grade, I started to really feel like a stranger in my body, the body that had served me so well up until then. The body that used to feel so light and free and unencumbered, the body that could run faster than any kid in the neighborhood, the body that had always felt strong and lean, was suddenly weighed down with new softness and curves that more than embarrassed me; they made me want to hide away from the world, from myself. It wasn’t that I felt ashamed, exactly, just wrong. And the worst part was that this new body seemed to come with a whole new set of rules, expectations of ways I was supposed to think and act and be. Maybe those rules had always been there, but they were now being ruthlessly enforced at every turn. When I talked to Mom about it, she tried to tell me every girl feels what I felt. But I wondered if that could be true. Could it be possible that every girl could feel, in such excruciating exactness, the world rearranging itself around her, setting up all new borders and limits? Was every girl walking around in such pain, feeling the price of her body like I did? Maybe. But for me, that price was too high. I wasn’t just losing myself; I was becoming someone I was not. And that scared me.

You must have slept through Mr. Quincy’s ninth-grade English class, Tom,” Kate said. “Orwell, Animal Farm, read it some time.

And then in ninth grade, I started to really feel like a stranger in my body, the body that had served me so well up until then. The body that used to feel so light and free and unencumbered, the body that could run faster than any kid in the neighborhood, the body that had always felt strong and lean, was suddenly weighed down with new softness and curves that more than embarrassed me; they made me want to hide away from the world, from myself. It wasn’t that I felt ashamed, exactly, just wrong. And the worst part was that this new body seemed to come with a whole new set of rules, expectations of ways I was supposed to think and act and be. Maybe those rules had always been there, but they were now being ruthlessly enforced at every turn. When I talked to Mom about it, she tried to tell me every girl feels what I felt. But I wondered if that could be true. Could it be possible that every girl could feel, in such excruciating exactness, the world rearranging itself around her, setting up all new borders and limits? Was every girl walking around in such pain, feeling the price of her body like I did? Maybe. But for me, that price was too high. I wasn’t just losing myself; I was becoming someone I was not. And that scared me. (Something Like Gravity, 52-53)

Our Skirt (by Kathy Boudin) You were forty-five and I was fourteen when you gave me the skirt. ¨It's from Paris!¨ you said as if that would impress me who at best had mixed feelings about skirts. But I was drawn by that summer cotton with splashes of black and white--like paint dabbed by an eager artist. I borrowed your skirt and it moved like waves as I danced at a ninth grade party. Wearing it date after date including my first dinner with a college man. I never was much for buying new clothes, once I liked something it stayed with me for years. I remember the day I tried ironing your skirt, so wide it seemed to go on and on like a western sky. Then I smelled the burning and, crushed, saw that I had left a red-brown scorch on that painting. But you, Mother, you understood because ironing was not your thing either. And over the years your skirt became my skirt until I left it and other parts of home with you. Now you are eighty and I almost fifty. We sit across from each other in the prison visiting room. Your soft gray-thin hair twirls into style. I follow the lines on your face, paths lit by your eyes until my gaze comes to rest on the black and white on the years that our skirt has endured.

While I was getting boogers wiped in my hair during Biology, he was being spit on in Social Studies. A common story. But there was a day, a sunny day in May, I’m sure, when at exactly 2 P.M., we both looked out of the window of our different schools and … What? We didn’t wish—wishes are wasted … We didn’t hope—because our future was inevitable … And we didn’t pray—we were on our own. So we sent out energy bullets: “This is for New York.” “This is for when I get there.” Little pockets of energy, to be saved and accumulated and used upon arrival. I was so scared it was all going to be gone by the time I got there. Ninth grade, tenth grade—can’t this thing go any faster? In the magazine, there were funny people with funny names like John Sex, who had wild white hair and a snake!—and didn’t that just open up a kaleidoscope of new possibilities? And how long the years are—endless! And the minutiae of your daily life! So tedious, when there are BIG THINGS happening a thousand miles away. And when you go to bed at night, it’s hard to believe those people, those fabulous, daunting people, are out there right now! So we wait, and we endure, and someday we will be there, and we will make it. And, by golly, we did.

High schools routinely classified students who quit high school as transferring to another school, returning to their native country, or leaving to pursue a General Equivalency Diploma (GED)—none of which count as dropping out in the official statistics. Houston reported a citywide dropout rate of 1.5 percent in the year that was examined; 60 Minutes calculated that the true dropout rate was between 25 and 50 percent. The statistical chicanery with test scores was every bit as impressive. One way to improve test scores (in Houston or anywhere else) is to improve the quality of education so that students learn more and test better. This is a good thing. Another (less virtuous) way to improve test scores is to prevent the worst students from taking the test. If the scores of the lowest-performing students are eliminated, the average test score for the school or district will go up, even if all the rest of the students show no improvement at all. In Texas, the statewide achievement test is given in tenth grade. There was evidence that Houston schools were trying to keep the weakest students from reaching tenth grade. In one particularly egregious example, a student spent three years in ninth grade and then was promoted straight to eleventh grade—a deviously clever way of keeping a weak student from taking a tenth-grade benchmark exam without forcing him to drop out (which would have showed up on a different statistic).

Scribbles and blank space. That’s all I’ve got. I’ve been in New York for more than five weeks and all I’ve managed to do is watch people, jot down notes, write a few free verse poems, gain five pounds, and develop a doozy of a one-way crush on Dalton. Even at almost thirty years old, just thinking about him has my skin about to break out with stress-acne that will rival the zits I dealt with all through ninth grade—the last time I was this boy-crazy.

Alice decided, when ninth grade began, that she was going to stop wasting time feeling ashamed of her appearance. Whether she felt ashamed or confident, the result was the same: She was very tall, and people were going to talk about it and make fun of her.

I DO NOT WANT TO BE ON THE COVER OF VOGUE! DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND? I JUST WANT TO PASS THE NINTH GRADE!

He was drunk—you both were. He was in the ninth grade, but he’d grown up. I knew whatever line there was before adulthood, he’d crossed it. In the morning, he’d be different, we’d be different. I didn’t want to yell at him, I didn’t want to send him up to bed, I didn’t want to waste my chance to stretch his childhood just that little bit longer. So, we played Go Fish, like we used to.” Sue clenches both fists for a second, like she

I dream about standing in the lunch line naked. It's always the lunch line in ninth grade. Nakedness dreams are very common. I suppose they are.

I’m also the mother of a teenage boy. I’ve said in the past, and I’ll say it again, that fourteen-year-old boys are like the single-cell protozoan version of a husband. I often want to invite my single girlfriends over to my house for a day so they can get a clear picture of what they’re really dealing with when it comes to men. It’s not that all men are immature. It’s that all men have a part inside them that matches the part inside me that never really left ninth grade. And in order to love them (and love myself), I’m going to need to get realistic about that part.

He was sure right about Marcie, though. She was a little pistol. A beautiful little pistol who brought sunlight and laughter with her everywhere she went. One determined little girl. She didn’t quit early; she’d have made a good marine. Bobby was lucky he found her in the ninth grade. It wasn’t easy to find a woman that strong, that powerful, that sure of herself and what she wanted. After all she’d been through, after everything they’d shared, what kind of a guy doesn’t at least say “I love you, too”? *

So how did you think about him?” Rachel asks. Hallelujah shrugs. “We were friends. Good friends. He knew—knows—a lot about me. I guess I know a lot about him. Stuff he likes and doesn’t like.” Rachel looks skeptical. “And yet you never knew he liked you.” “No! I mean—when Jonah and I were friends, I liked Luke. So maybe I missed some signs.” “So you just . . . hung out? Platonically?” “Yeah. I guess.” Hallelujah thinks about how to explain it. How to distill a friendship down to its most basic components. “We had choir together last year. We talked. For kind of the first time, even though we’d been in church and school together since fourth grade.” “And, what, you found out you had so much in common?” “Actually, no. But we started comparing music we liked, and a month into ninth grade, Jonah made me this mix of songs. Based on what we’d talked about. So then I made him a mix. And it grew from there. We’d go to each other’s houses, watch movies, listen to music, that kind of thing. Hanging out.” “So tell me about Jonah. Something only you know.” “Um. He’d probably deny it, but he got really into the Harry Potter books. Like, really into them. I loaned him my box set last spring. He got so mad at me for not warning him how Book Six ends.” Rachel laughs. “He didn’t see the movies?” “No. But I told him we couldn’t watch them until he’d finished the books.

So what was Jonah like before high school? As a kid?” “As a kid?” Hallelujah brings up the picture in her mind. “He was . . . sweet, I guess. Dorky. He’d wear these outfits his mom picked out—pleated khaki pants and polo shirts, with his hair slicked down with gel. And he would get really enthusiastic about things. Too enthusiastic. He went through this cowboy phase where he wore a cowboy hat and boots to school every day. Didn’t care what anyone thought.” The mental image makes her smile. “And he and Luke were best friends?” “Starting in middle school, yeah. They played soccer together.” “Huh.” Rachel pauses. “So when did Jonah get cute?” “He was still pretty short in middle school. And skinny. But he did start dressing better.” “No more pleated khakis?” “No more pleated khakis. And then the summer before ninth grade, he had this growth spurt. And he started to, uh, fill out. So I guess ninth grade is when I noticed . . .” Hallelujah fades off. “This is embarrassing.” “No, it’s not. This is what girls talk about.” Rachel grins. “Besides. I wanted to see if you were paying as close attention to him as he was to you.” “I didn’t realize I was. We were just friends.” “You can be friends and still objectively notice someone’s cuteness.

chapter one   When the plane ran into trouble, it was over the Atlantic Ocean just south of Iceland. The Knights of the Square Table, the ninth-grade San Francisco all-star chess team, were sitting toward the middle of the plane. The three girls, Natalie, Cindy, and Alexis, sat together. Natalie was in the middle, Cindy was by the window, and Alexis was on the aisle. The guys—George, Liam, and Spider—were in the row ahead. The team was heading home after spending eight days in Europe for the International Youth Chess Championship. At the first lurch, when the plane tipped sideways, Natalie gripped the armrest so hard her fingers hurt. As if that would help one bit in an actual plane crash. A small child toward the front shrieked, “We’re frashing! We’re frashing!” “Oh, my God!” someone shouted. “Everyone needs to keep calm,” Cindy said in a small, squeaky voice. “Yeah, right!” Spider said. Spider’s real name was Michael, but nobody except his parents called him that. “Michael

You're telling me that Lilith Clout, the girl who set my hair on fire in ninth grade, could be literally a bitch from Hell? That all my voodoo toward her might have been justified? I guess so. Daniel shrugged.

In his first class of the day, correlated language arts, a class for students at least two years below their grade level in English, Boobie Miles spent the period working on a short research paper that he called “The Wonderful Life of Zebras.” He thumbed through various basic encyclopedia entries on the zebra. He ogled at how fast they ran (“Damn, they travel thirty miles”) and was so captivated by a picture of a zebra giving birth that he showed it to a classmate (“Want to see it have a baby, man?”). By the end of the class, Boobie produced the following thesis paragraph: Zebras are one of the most unusual animals in the world today. The zebra has many different kind in it nature. The habitat of the zebra is in wide open plain. Many zebras have viris types of relatives. He then went on to algebra I, a course that the average college-bound student took in ninth grade and some took in eighth. Because of his status as a special needs student, Boobie hadn’t taken the course until his senior year. He was having difficulty with it and his average midway through the fall was 71. After lunch it was on to creative writing, where Boobie spent a few minutes playing with a purple plastic gargoyle-looking monster. He lifted the fingers of the monster so it could pick its nose, then stuck his own fingers into its mouth. There were five minutes of instruction that day; students spent the remaining fifty-odd minutes working on various stories they were writing. They pretty much could do what they wanted. Boobie wrote a little and also explained to two blond-haired girls what some rap terms meant, that “chillin’ to the strength,” for example, meant “like cool to the max.” Boobie enjoyed this class. It gave him an unfettered opportunity to express himself, and the teacher didn’t expect much from him. His whole purpose in life, she felt, was to be a football player. “That’s the only thing kids like that have going for them, is that physical strength,” she said.

Jennifer was shocked. “She doesn’t have a phone?” Brief pause. “Pretty much every kid in ninth grade has a phone. What if she needs to call you?” Frances said, “Well, apparently she could borrow one of the many phones around her. I can’t believe every kid has a phone. They’re very expensive and that’s not including the monthly bill.” Jennifer looked genuinely concerned. “No, really, they all do.” She got to her feet, the meeting apparently over. “I’m sorry, I have a staff meeting to go to.” She held out her hand. “Always a pleasure, Frances. You should consider getting Ava a phone, though. Not having one really singles her out.

We continue to conceive of the universe as consisting of things and forces that act on things. My son’s ninth grade English class were given an essay question that instructed them to name the “qualities” “in” a certain character in a novel. We say that a person “has” courage, or pride, or arrogance, or “a” temper—as though these were substances like salt. Innumerable students are asked to write about “historical forces” or “movements.” Was Blake or Beethoven “a romantic”? Such is our deeply ingrained linguistic habit of reifying relationships and activities into things that you can “have.” [...] “It is nonsense to talk about ‘dependency’ or ‘aggressiveness’ or ‘pride,’ and so on. All such words have their roots in what happens between persons, not in some something-or-other inside a person.” (Bateson, 1979)

He was taken to the McMinnville hospital and died on January 29, 2019, at the age of fifty-seven. The official cause of death was congestive heart failure, but that medical term misses so much: his expulsion from school in ninth grade, his loss of good jobs as factories closed, his abuse of drugs and cooking meth, his criminal record from drugs, his genius for mechanics, his failed marriage, his loyalty to friends including us, his five grandchildren all taken into care by the state, his loneliness, his desolation. This was another death of despair, and Clayton was a casualty of America’s social great depression.

Though school administrators often defend their tracking practices as fair and objective, there usually is a recognizable racial pattern to how children are assigned, which often represents the system of advantage operating in the schools.13 For example, in a study of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District in North Carolina, Roslyn Mickelson compared the placements of Black and White high school students who had similar scores on a national standardized achievement test they took in the sixth grade. More than half of the White students who scored in the ninetieth to ninety-ninth percentile on the test were enrolled in high school Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) English, while only 20 percent of the Black students who also scored in the ninetieth to ninety-ninth percentile were enrolled in these more-rigorous courses. Meanwhile, 35 percent of White students whose test scores were below the seventieth percentile were taking AP or IB English. Only 9 percent of Black students who scored below the seventieth percentile had access to the more-advanced curriculum.

A Ravager becomes a Devourer when they have cultivated their primary element to the Celestial Grade.

In all Amish communities, students stop going to school in the ninth grade, at age fourteen. Ninth grade in our school consisted of vocational classes, so we did our work at home and then brought our homework to school

One part of the study looked specifically at the impact on students involved in theater. Between ninth and twelfth grades, their reading levels increased at a rate of 20 percent more than a cohort of similar students—as measured by academic ability and socioeconomics—who were not getting arts education. The authors theorized that the theater students benefited by spending time “reading and learning lines as actors, and possibly reading to carry out research about characters and their settings.” In 2011, the President’s Committee

D’aron the Daring, Derring, Derring-do, stealing base, christened D’aron Little May Davenport, DD to Nana, initials smothered in Southern-fried kisses, dat Wigga D who like Jay Z aw-ite, who’s down, Scots-Irish it is, D’aron because you’re brave says Dad, No, D’aron because you’re daddy’s daddy was David and then there was mines who was named Aaron, Doo-doo after cousin Quint blew thirty-six months in vo-tech on a straight-arm bid and they cruised out to Little Gorge glugging Green Grenades and read three years’ worth of birthday cards, Little Mays when he hit those three homers in the Pee Wee playoff, Dookie according to his aunt Boo (spiteful she was, misery indeed loves company), Mr. Hanky when they discovered he TIVOed ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ Faggot when he hugged John Meer in third grade, Faggot again when he drew hearts on everyone’s Valentine’s Day cards in fourth grade, Dim Dong-Dong when he undressed in the wrong dressing room because he daren’t venture into the dark end of the gym, Philadelphia Freedom when he was caught clicking heels to that song (Tony thought he was clever with that one), Mr. Davenport when he won the school’s debate contest in eighth grade, Faggot again when he won the school’s debate contest in eighth grade, Faggot again more times than he cared to remember, especially the summer he returned from Chicago sporting a new Midwest accent, harder on the vowels and consonants alike, but sociable, played well with others that accent did, Faggot again when he cried at the end of ‘WALL-E,’ Donut Hole when he started to swell in ninth grade, Donut Black Hole when he continued to put on weight in tenth grade (Tony thought he was really clever with that one), Buttercup when they caught him gardening, Hippie when he stopped hunting, Faggot again when he became a vegetarian and started wearing a MEAT IS MURDER pin (Oh yeah, why you craving mine then?), Faggot again when he broke down in class over being called Faggot, Sissy after that, whispered, smothered in sniggers almost hidden, Ron-Ron by the high school debate team coach because he danced like a cross between Morrissey and some fat old black guy (WTF?) in some old-ass show called ‘What’s Happening!!’, Brainiac when he aced the PSATs for his region, Turd Nerd when he hung with Jo-Jo and the Black Bruiser, D’ron Da’ron, D’aron, sweet simple Daron the first few minutes of the first class of the first day of college.

she still isn’t totally comfortable with the idea that I’m gay. I told my parents when I was in ninth grade, and my mom made me go to a psychiatrist. She asked him to prescribe me something.” “No kidding. Did he put you on meds?” “No, that old guy’s my hero. He spoke with me for about an hour, and when my mom came to get me, he said to her, ‘Mrs. Owens, your son is a happy, articulate young man. He also happens to like other boys. He has a bright future ahead of him, and you should decide now whether you want to be part of it.’” “Wow, I might need that guy’s number.

Then social mores had intervened. A distinct scene from junior high flushes vividly back. Girls sitting out of rotation volleyball in gym class stared at me all gap-mouthed when—of a rainy spring day—I spouted e. e. cummings. Through open green gym doors, sheets of rain erased the parking lot we normally stood staring at as if it were a refrigerator about to manifest food. The poem started: in Just-: spring when the world is mud- luscious… As I went on, Kitty Stanley sat cross-legged in black gym shorts and white blouse, peeling fuchsia polish off her thumbnail with a watchmaker’s precision. She was a mouth breather, Kitty, whose blond bouffant hairdo featured above her bangs a yarn bow the color of a kumquat. That it? Beverly said. Her black-lined gaze looked like an old-timey bandit mask. Indeed, I said. (This was my assholish T. S. Eliot stage circa ninth grade, when I peppered my speech with words I thought sounded British like indeed.) Is that a word, muddy delicious? Kitty said. Mud-luscious, I said. Not no real word, Beverly said, leaning back on both hands, legs crossed. I studied a volleyball arcing white across the gym ceiling and willed it to smash into Beverly’s freakishly round head. It’s squashing together luscious and lush and delicious, and all of it applied to spring mud. It’s poetic license, I said. I think it’s real smart how you learn every word so they come out any time you please, Kitty said. Beverly snorted. I get mud all over Bobby’s truck flaps, and believe you me, delicious don’t figure in. As insults go, it was weak, but Beverly’s facial expression—like she was smelling something—told me to put poetry right back where I’d drug it out from.