Happy New Year

“Tonight’s December thirty-first, Something is about to burst. The clock is crouching, dark and small, Like a time bomb in the hall. Hark, it’s midnight, children dear. Duck! Here comes another year!”

-Ogden Nash

From Collected verse from 1929 on…

Eleven

     What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell

you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and

seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you

wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t.

You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And

you don’t feel eleven at all. You feel like you’re still ten. And you are —

underneath the year that makes you eleven.

    Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of

you that’s still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your

mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the part of you that’s five.

And maybe one day when you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like

if you’re three, and that’s okay. That’s what I tell Mama when she’s sad and

needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling three.

    Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings

inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the

other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is.

You don’t feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even,

sometimes even months before you say Eleven when they ask you. And you

don’t feel smart eleven, not until you’re almost twelve. That’s the way it is.

Only today I wish I didn’t have only eleven years rattling inside me like

pennies in a tin Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was one hundred and two

instead of eleven because if I was one hundred and two I’d have known what

to say when Mrs. Price put the red sweater on my desk. I would’ve known

how to tell her it wasn’t min instead of just sitting there with that look on

my face and nothing coming out of my mouth.

   “Whose is this?” Mrs. Price says, and she holds the red sweater up in the

air for all the class to see. “Whose? It’s been sitting in the coatroom for a

month.”

“Not mine,” says everybody. “Not me.”

“It has to belong to somebody,” Mrs. Price keeps saying, but nobody can

remember. It’s an ugly sweater with red plastic buttons and a collar and

sleeves all stretched out like you could use it for a jump rope. It’s maybe a

thousand years old and even if it belonged to me I wouldn’t say so.

Maybe because I’m skinny, maybe because she doesn’t’ like me, that

stupid Sylvia Saldivar says, “I think it belongs to Rachel.” An ugly sweater

like that, all raggedy and old, but Mrs. Price believes her. Mrs. Price takes

the sweater and puts it right on my desk, but when I open my mouth nothing

comes out.

“That’s not, I don’t, you’re not…Not mine,” I finally say in a little voice

that was maybe me when I was four.

“Of course it’s yours,” Mrs. Price says. “I remember you wearing in once.”

Because she’s older and the teacher, she’s right and I’m not.

   Not mine, not mine, not mine, but Mrs. Price is already turning to page

thirty-two, and math problem number four. I don’t know why but all of a

sudden I’m feeling sick inside, like the part of me that’s three wants to

come out of my eyes, only I squeeze them shut tight and bite down on my

teeth real hard and try to remember today I am eleven, eleven. Mama is

making a cake for me tonight, and when Papa comes home everybody will sing

Happy birthday, happy birthday to you.

   But when the sick feeling goes away and I open my eyes, the red

sweater’s still sitting there like a big red mountain. I move the red sweater

to the corner of my desk wit my ruler. I move my pencil and books and

eraser as far from it as possible. I even move my chair a little to the right.

Not mine, not mine, not mine.

   In my head I’m thinking how long till lunchtime, how long till I can take

the red sweater and throw it over the school yard fence, or even leave it

hanging on a parking meter, or bunch it up into a little ball and toss it in the

alley. Except when math period ends Mrs. Price says loud and in front of

everybody , “Now Rachel, that’s enough,” because she sees I’ve shoved the

red sweater to the tippy-tip corner of my desk and it’s hanging all over the

edge like a waterfall, but I don’t’ care.

“Rachel,” Mrs. Price says. She says it like she’s getting mad. “You put that

sweater on right now and no more nonsense.”

“But it’s not–“

“Now!” Mrs. Price says.

This is when I wish I wasn’t eleven, because all the years inside of me–ten,

nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two and one– are pushing at the

back of my eyes when I put one arm through one sleeve of the sweater that

smells like cottage cheese, and then the other arm through the other and

stand there with my arms apart like if the sweater hurts me and it does, all

itchy and full of germs that aren’t even mine.

   That’s when everything I’ve been holding in since this morning, since when

Mrs. Price put the sweater on my desk, finally lets go, and all of a sudden

I’m crying in front of everybody. I wish I was invisible but I’m not. I’m

eleven and it’s my birthday today and I’m crying like I’m three in front of

everybody. I put my head down on the desk and bury my face in my stupid

clown-sweater arms. My face all hot and spit coming out of my mouth

because I can’t stop the little animal noises from coming out of me, until

there aren’t any more tears left in my eyes, and it’s just my body shaking

like when you have the hiccups, and my whole head hurts like when you drink

milk too fast.

   But the worst part is right before the bell rings for lunch. That stupid

Phyllis Lopez, who is even dumber than Sylvia Saldivar, says she remembers

the red sweater is hers! I take it off right away and give it to her, only Mrs.

Price pretends like everything’s okay.

Today I’m eleven. There’s cake Mama’s making for tonight, and when Papa

comes home from work we’ll eat it. There’ll be candles and presents and

everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you, Rachel, only it’s

too late.

   I’m eleven today. I’m eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three,

two, and one, but I wish I was one hundred and two. I wish I was anything

but eleven, because I want today to be far away already, far away like a

runaway balloon, like a tiny o in the sky, so tiny-tiny you have to close your

eyes to see it.

-Sandra Cisneros…

You just think you know everything, don’t you, Kyle?

“You just think you know everything, don’t you, Kyle?! Every little thing you gotta shoot your mouth off like you’re the freaking expert! Well you don’t know everything because your best friend is a kid who thinks the entire planet revolves around him and he only cares about his image! You guys think Cartman is the only selfish piece of crap at this school?! You’re all fake and stuck-up and none of you have the courage to tell Jimmy his jokes aren’t funny! The only kid here who has any sense of dignity is Kenny and the rest of you have your heads up your butts!”

— Butters Stotch