The Marble Collection: Massachusetts High School Magazine of the Arts (Winter 2012)

WINTER

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The Marble Collection Massachusetts High School Magazine of the Arts

No. 6

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OUR STUDENTS TRANSFORM THE WORLD. AND THEMSELVES. Our signature integration of study and experience in 85 countries is the best education for the 21st century. northeastern.edu

Class of 2010 Higganum, Conn.

Theatre

CELEBRATING

YEARS OF THE BARN

discover yourself

Kristin

what will you do?

To call Kristin a “Jill of all trades” would be an understatement. In her junior year, Kristin traveled to England for a full semester in the RWU London Theatre Program where she received her Diploma in Stage Management from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Back on campus, the Theatre major went right to work at the Barn (our performing arts center) serving as lighting designer, stage manager, set constructor, poster maker and prop master—all behind-the-scenes experiences that prepared her for her largest endeavor yet, directing! As part of her senior directing project, Kristin directed a play that was open to the public – Miss Julie by August Strindberg. Kristin is making her theatre dreams a reality. What will you do?

www.rwu.edu

One Old Ferry Road • Bristol, RI 02809 (800) 458-7144 • (401) 254-3500

admit@rwu.edu

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The Marble Collection

Winter 2012

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Massachusetts High School Magazine of the Arts inspiration • creativity • community

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In 2008 The Marble Collection, Inc. [TMC], a 501 (C)(3) nonprofit organization, was founded on the commitment to enrich the Massachusetts high school community at large through innovative, educational literar y and creative arts programming. The Marble Collection: Massachusetts High School Magazine of the Arts, a biannual print and digital magazine featuring secondar y students’ art, literature, music, and video works, weaves the arts back into the fabric of our community. Moreover, the Student-Mentoring Workshop [SMW ] provides students with oneto-one tutoring ser vices that focus on art and literature creation and the professional publishing process.

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TMC Winter 2012

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TMC: CONTENTS 8

The Price (Fiction) Kate E. Desmond / Burlington High School

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Butterfly (Art) Nicole Wezowicz / Taunton High School

10 Talk to me (Art) Emily Gobbi / Brimmer and May School

10 By the Lake (Art) Meghan Garven / Oakmont Regional High School

11 Overexposure (Poetry) Lisa Mindell / Chicopee High School

11 Value Self Portrait (Art) Cassandra O’Hara / Oakmont Regional High School

12 Tarnished Diamond (Fiction) Brooke Durkan / Oakmont Regional High School

14 The Fox in the Garden (Poetry) Samantha Sanchez / Chicopee High School

15 Nurtured Brilliance (Art) Hayley Barry / Oakmont Regional High School

20 Blue (Fiction) Alessandra Davy-Falconi / Boston University Academy

22 Memories (Poetry) Anastasia Tramontozzi / Melrose High School

23 Stranger (Art) Robby Fay / Ipswich High School

24 Elephant (Art) Lindsay Blumenkrantz / Peabody Veterans Memorial High School

25 Butter (Fiction) Alex Lassalle / Advanced Math and Science Academy

26 Unusual Beauty (Art) Irina Grigoryeva / Burlington High School

27 Gone for a Swim (Art) Olivia Trase / Groton School

28 Universe (Poetry) Laura White / Reading Memorial High School

29 His Last Breath (Art) Courtney Koffink / Burlington High School

16 A Fire (Fiction) Colin Smith / Oakmont Regional High School

17 Whiplash (Art) Sarah Conklin / Brimmer and May School

18 Simplicity (Poetry) Hannah Grace / Milton Academy

30 Paper Cuts (Fiction) Christina Teodorescu / Advanced Math and Science Academy

31 In My Past (Art) Hayley Barry / Oakmont Regional High School

32 The Fastest (Art) Stephanie Desrochers / Burlington High School

18 Just Another Average Day in the Band Room (Art) 33 The Hit (Poetry) Corinne Naylor / Whitman-Hanson Regional High School

19 Forgotten (Art) Katie Holden / Old Rochester Regional High School

19 Jackson (Art) Tony Wright / Brimmer and May School

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Enuma Lawoyin / Milton Academy

33 Reveal the Truth (Music) Mina Li / Lexington High School

34 Seashells (Poetry) Enuma Lawoyin / Milton Academy

TMC: WINTER 2012 34 Seize the Day (Art) Morgan Turner / Whitman-Hanson Regional High School

35 Inside Autism (Art) Meghan Garven / Oakmont Regional High School

35 Iced (Art) Julia Henry / Peabody Veterans Memorial High School

36 Look At Me (Art) Stephanie Desrochers / Burlington High School

37 La Fenêtre (Fiction) Renae Reints / Old Rochester Regional High School

40 Penelope (Poetry) Hannah Grace / Milton Academy

41 Dreamer (Art) Rene Flemming / Auburn High School

42 Flores de Otoño (Art)

51 Mermaid (Art) Alexander Nally / Chicopee Comprehensive High School

52 Cully (Art) Genevieve Fowler / Groton School

53 Ladybug Season (Poetry) Elizabeth Bennett / Milton Academy

54 The Price of Honesty (Fiction) Arianna Robichaud / Oakmont Regional High School

57 Genevieve (Art) Olivia Trase / Groton School

58 Self-portrait (Art) Jaye Giglio / Brimmer and May School

58 Our Globe (Art) Enuma Lawoyin / Milton Academy

59 self portrait (Art) Jade Chauvin / Oakmont Regional High School

Emily Fagan / Abington High School

43 Bubble (Art) Halle Edwards-McQuilton / Brimmer and May School

44 The Cabin Lady (Poetry) Kaiyuh Cornberg / Walnut Hill School of the Arts

45 Snowy Solitude (Art) Genevieve Fowler / Groton School

45 ...But You Cannot Hide (Art) Sarina Sherzai / Auburn High School

46 One-Way Ticket (Fiction) Sarah Ostrow / Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School

50 Self-Portrait Choice (Art)

60 Red Riding Hood (Poetry) Anyes Perreault / Oakmont Regional High School

62 Do I Dare? (Poetry) Shawnna Taylor / Ayer-Shirley Regional High School

63 Little One (Fiction) Jenessa Bettencourt / Peabody Veterans Memorial High School

64 Apples (Art) Helen Kim / Brimmer and May School

65 Open Road (Fiction) Elizabeth Bennett / Milton Academy

66 The Playhouse (Poetry) Shannon Reilly / Milton Academy HONORABLE MENTION

Nisa Mann / Oakmont Regional High School

50 Self Portrait (Art) Kaylee Angelini / Oakmont Regional High School

67 Columns (Art) Michael Hagerty / Xaverian Brothers High School HONORABLE MENTION

TMC Winter 2012

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F I C T I O N Burlington High School / Grade 12

Kate E. Desmond

The Price

A screech rang through the air, hovering in the morning’s dew. The sun rose slowly but surely up in the sky. Its rays were glaring down, becoming heavier and stronger. A gentle breeze rolled in, swaying the mums slightly as Mr. Price bent down on his knees, patting the moist, rich soil. Orange leapt out from the small farm, catching the eyes of the travelers. The pumpkins laid in rows, green vines sprouting out from the stems and twined in and around each other. Blonde, silky curls bobbed up and down appearing over the tops of different sized pumpkins, lined by weight and proportion.

“Isabelle! Isabelle stay over here!” yelled her father, chasing after the little girl’s motoring legs, his arms outstretched towards the speeding child.

Giggles yelped out of the girl’s mouth and she switched directions, running straight at her father, her grin growing wider and wider. His arms wrapped all the way around her as the girl hurdled herself into his body, trusting her father completely.

They rolled onto his back and the girl screeched again; her face glowing, showing her baby teeth. Leaves crunched underneath them, explosions of red and orange, as they rolled around not caring about the dampness or the leaves now entwined within their hair.

Both Isabelle and her father were laughing on the ground when Mr. Price, the owner of the farm, came over, his work boots splashed with crusted mud and damp at the toe from hiking through the morning dew.

“Can I help you fellows with anything?” he asked, smiling at the young girl and her father.

“Pumpkin,” giggled the little girl hugging an orange pumpkin the size of her.

It was lopsided and deflated on the right side. There were brown splotches plastered over it and the stem was broken off.

“You want this one, Izzy?” her father asked, picking up the pumpkin. The little girl nodded her head up and down eagerly, rocking from heel to toe. Her father laughed, flashing the same smile Izzy was. He scooped her up in his arms with the pumpkin.

“We’ll take this one,” he said, turning to Mr. Price. The owner smiled, his skin crinkling around his eyes.

“Ain’t this a thing of beauty,” he said about the pumpkin, looking at the smiling girl. He turned back to the counter to ring up the young girl and her father, surprised that this lopsided pumpkin had finally sold.

“That’ll be 6 dollars, please,” he said after weighing it on the metal scale.

The father took out his wallet and found one lone crumpled 10 dollar bill.

As he looked at the pumpkin and back at his green bill, a little hand appeared on his wallet. He looked at his smiling daughter and then smiled too pulling out the bill. He handed it over to Mr. Price as his daughter hugged the ugliest pumpkin he had ever seen.

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A R T Taunton High School

N i c o l e

/ Grade 12

W e z o w i c z

Butterfly

p a i n t i n g / w a t e r c o l o r TMC Winter 2012

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A R T Brimmer and May School

/ Grade 12

Talk to me

E m i l y

G o b b i

p h o t o g r a p h y

By the Lake Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 10

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M e g h a n

G a r v e n

A R T

overe x

Chicopee High School / Grade 12

posur e

L i s a

M i n d e l l

Imagine, one day, the Earth up for sale with its trash, its pollution, its hatred included; innovation, world peace, and free speech a la carte.

Would you bid, would you barter, would you drive up the price?

Is it worth it, an investment in the future of life?

Will you buy it, demolish it, and start anew?

Shall you embrace all its faults, its promises too?

Now wait, don’t be selfish, and think about this: If you were for sale would the Earth commit?

Do you come fully assembled with ideas in place?

Do you see everyone equally regardless of race?

Will you fulfill your life’s plan?

Will you obey the mass command?

Can you transcend the effigy of what they say you should be?

p a i n t i n g

Value Self Portrait

Cassandra O’Hara

Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 10

TMC Winter 2012

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F I C T I O N Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 10

B r o o k e

D u r k a n

Tarnished Diamond

I would not reconsider.

My suitcases, packed to bursting, lay on the porch steps haphazardly. The house felt empty without my things. It was in a state of complete disarray, as if devastated by my sudden departure. The kitchen floor was still sprinkled with last night’s shattered glass, and you could smell the spilt wine from our—his, I corrected myself —bedroom. A sickly soured grape scent soiled the house. The lamp stand was dented from its collision with the staircase, and the hole in the drywall was a scabbing wound uncovered by a picture frame.

I had taken those photographs, of course. He had no right to them. A ring of charred grass and paper from my midnight bonfire blemished an otherwise perfectly suburban lawn. A brisk wind was blowing away our burnt memories. For a moment, I caught a glimpse of a wedding dress. I was glad to see the wind sweep it away far from me, disposing of the ashes almost as quickly as life had to our whirlwind romance. The breeze was intoxicatingly refreshing.

He sat there, on my porch swing, head buried in hands, shoulders heaving, knees shaking. His fat tears splattered on the veranda, hardly drowned out by his racking sobs. All the neighbors poked their heads from behind lacy window curtains, watching, wondering how it all could have gone so wrong. I had bought that porch swing with my last check, before he had taken that from me. Already he had stained it- first with celebratory cabernet from that moonlit night, and now with his salty tears. I’ll make him pay me back, of course, for everything.

While checking my bags to make sure I had everything, the thin tan line on my left ring finger, where a diamond had recently sat, caught my eye. The diamond ring was once beautiful to me, but as time passed, reality’s light had caused dark spots of rotting glimmer to appear. I finally saw it as it truly was: an expensive rock, mined with tears and sold by greedy hands. Funny, how much lighter my hand felt without its perfection to bear. That ring was no longer my burden. It lay alone in the pompous velveteen box, waiting for its next victim to ensnarl in sparkles.

A car pulled up to the curb, stopping too suddenly to make the stone path, but not caring enough to back up. My sister trampled the geraniums as she ran to me with a hug and a greeting. Her hands began taking away my bags to put them in the trunk. “I’ve got it,” she assured me, grabbing my heaviest suitcase. With a reassuring smile, she patted my shoulder and shot my soon-to-be-ex-husband a feral glare. “If I break my back, he can pay the chiropractor.”

I laughed. It was a hollow sound, and I could taste the bitterness on my tongue. “I wonder how he could afford that.” My steps rang out on the cobbled path as I made my way to the porch.

I strode to him, and he looked up hopefully. Tearstained, unshaven, tired eyes, bloodshot with the stress of a final night’s fighting. Pathetic, how his puppy dog face light up when it saw mine. “Baby, please,” he pleaded, restraining his worthless tears. “All I need is a second chance.”

“Baby?” I snarled. Seeing his face made me boil in anger. “You have no right to call me anything.” I pulled the ugly little box from my pocket and threw it at him.

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F I C T I O N It bounced off his unsuspecting shoulder and onto the cheap wood paneling. It laid forgotten as he looked to me, silently begging for forgiveness. For a moment, his cerulean eyes caught mine, bringing me back to masked Halloween parties and New Year’s Eve. Then I saw the number display on an unexpected phone call. “Take it. Save it for your next conquest.” He did not deserve my forgiveness.

I turned on my heel, taking care to kick the box into the bushes while marching away. Wind rustled through the ashes and neighbors hastily withdrew their gaze as I met their intrusive eyes. My footsteps clunked on the walkway, dissonant with his tears on the ground. I climbed into the driver’s seat of my sister’s poorly parked car.

She, with a final bag in the trunk, climbed into the passenger’s seat without protest.

I slammed the door, closed and locked it with a safe click, twisting the key harshly in the ignition. “Let’s got for lunch,” my sister said, tuning into a favorite radio station.

“I’d like something spicy.” The car started with a dull roar and plume of exhaust. We left.

I couldn’t resist catching one last glance, though. I saw the white house in which I had lived, with the lace window curtains and smooth boards, abundantly blooming flower bushes and a front porch swing, a mailbox with clouds painted on it. The grime on the car window obscured what I knew was there, making the house a streaked dingy gray and the curtains unseemly blobs. Flowers became ghosts on the lawn, and I saw in clear definition a circle of burned grass and a man sitting alone on a porch.

My unevenly tanned hands clenched the steering wheel tightly, and I rolled down the windows as we drove away. The breeze licked in across my face. It was time for a breath of fresh air.

AMERICA’S ENVIRONMENTAL COLLEGE CENTER for ENVIRONMENTAL ARTS AND HUMANITIES B.A. ART AND ENVIRONMENT Create. Discover. Exhibit.

FOR MORE INFORMATION www.unity.edu 800.624.1024 admissions@unity.edu

Recognized as one of America’s Greenest Colleges in 2011 by The Princeton Review & U.S. Green Building Council

B.A. ENVIRONMENTAL WRITING Write. Experiment. Publish.

LIVE YOUR PASSION

KATHRYN MILES Associate Professor, Environmental Writing You can’t write about the environment sitting in a classroom, so my students and I take our art out into the forest, onto the sea, and atop mountains. That’s where inspiration lives. Unity students have a variety of interests and will write about science, children’s literature, and even food. I want to show them there is not one way but many different ways of telling people about our world and why it matters.

P O E T R Y Chicopee High School / Grade 11

S a m a n t h a

S a n c h e z

T h e Fox i n t h e G a r d e n I am too cowardly To use the words I wish to speak I sneak around like a hunting fox Hoping to pass through your garden Without getting caught You are my only delight, The red delicious of my captivated eye But, I am too quick Too sly, too nonchalant My love, my beau, you would never catch on You can’t hear my heart banging my ribs to pieces, And you don’t notice how my eyes dance across that face Mapping those freckles in their God-given place I wouldn’t dare speak this aloud; I am too cowardly I don’t want you to see If the winds could carry a tune, I’d whisper to them how madly I love you.

But I am a hunting fox, Passing through your garden hoping to get caught

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A R T Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 10

H a y l e y

B a r r y

Nurtured Brilliance

d r a w i n g TMC Winter 2012

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F I C T I O N Oakmont Regional High School / 12

C o l i n

S m i t h

A Fire

A fire does a strange thing to a small town.

At first it’s a kind of spectacle. Everyone gathers ‘round as the flames lick whitewashed wood. Rumors spread like smoke. Cigarettes, Gas Stove, Old Wiring.

And then a siren pierces the cold mid-February morning, different from a city siren because we know it’s being sounded by old Mr. Weber in the upstairs of the town hall.

Teachers and plumbers and bagel-store owners carry ropes and axes and the pride they don’t have in their other jobs. Our volunteer heroes.

Water hits shingles hard. It sprays down over cracked asphalt and sand-covered sidewalks and the crusty, dirty snow banks of late winter. The water hits an upstairs window. And it cracks. There’s a sigh from the crowd because now it looks like the old house is being tortured. Flames are beat back by mid-morning. The crowd shuffles off to school and work and the grocery store. The last of them melt away by noon.

There’s nothing more revealing than the shell of a house.

Black posts shiver weakly in the freezing rain and you wonder how the old house can stand at all. It’s the talk of the town for awhile. People like to drive by in their ’98 Chevy minivans and look at the tables and chairs and blackened wallpaper.

It’s the change of scenery that so often escapes us in the middle of winter, as long as the family is fine. Was the family okay? Oh yes the family got out. Oh that’s good, thank God. Did you see the house?

And then comes the wrecking ball. It’s not until long after the house is a pile of sticks lying in muddy grass, and the kids have started playing baseball again, that we remember the house was built in 1808.

After a time what was once a spectacle becomes a taboo. It becomes impolite to talk about what was once so beautiful and is now nothing; and so we wait and talk of other things. Where’s the family now? Days are getting longer aren’t they?

Everybody’s waiting for what comes next.

The mess is picked up quickly and rudely by the sweeps of a mechanical yellow arm. It’s not until a shiny-new brick fronted bank stands in the spot that conversation continues. People talk of what is now and are not interested in what used to be.

Memories flake away like ash.

It’s not until that same time next year, when the snow piles are mush and potholes carpet the streets and steely skies threaten rain but maybe snow…. that we think again.

Crazy thoughts.

Like maybe old houses should get funerals.

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A R T Brimmer and May School / Grade 12

S a r a h

C o n k l i n

Whiplash

p h o t o g r a p h y

TMC Winter 2012

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P O E T R Y Milton Academy / Grade 12

Simplicity

H a n n a h

G r a c e

What we always wanted were the sweet things that came without trying. Do you remember when I drew you in charcoal all afternoon?

I never finished. Sometimes, when I drew your hair, it would turn into plains of yellow prairie. I used to dream about sewing buttons back onto your shirt, pushing the needle through hole after hole, making sure it held.

Your eyes sometimes morph into the eyes of the dog who lives at the general store, the one you once patted and then said that this dog, this dog does not have a master.

Do you know what I’m telling you? That I fall asleep at night thinking of nothing but your breathing and whether our children will have the tawny hair of the Wild West.

p a i n t i n g / a c r y l i c

Just Another Average Day in the Band Room Whitman-Hanson Regional High School / Grade 12

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Corinne Naylor

A R T

Forgotten

Old Rochester Regional High School

K a t i e

/ Grade 12

H o l d e n

p h o t o g r a p h y

1893

Jackson

T o n y

W r i g h t

Brimmer and May School / Grade 11

TMC Winter 2012

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F I C T I O N Boston University Academy / Grade 12

A l e s s a n d r a

D a v y - F a l c o n i

Blue

I am very scared. I am very shy. So I am going to sit in this corner for a very long time until it all just goes away.

It is very dark here. Here is my closet. I used to be afraid of the dark. Now dark is not bad. Light is much, much worse. Light lets people find you.

Mama told me always to come here if I was ever scared because I can run faster than him. This is one of the only doors with a lock on it. I said what about the bathroom. She said it’s too thin it might not hold. So I come here.

It is dark.

I am still a little afraid of the dark.

I used to tell myself stories. There was once upon a time, this pretty princess in a pink dress who woke up one morning and just wanted to stay in bed and look out the window on a pretty blue day and be happy. A prince came and married her. They had fun for a while, but then he got angrier and angrier and angrier. And then she wanted to go away, but she couldn’t because now they had children. And now there was nowhere to go.

I can make really long stories that go on and on. But I don’t like to finish them because the longer they get the scarier they get too.

Hum, hum, hum. I like to hum. But I mustn’t hum.

Well Mama said he can’t hear me upstairs.

But I can hear them.

Poor Mama.

This is where I keep Bunny and Blue. And Lily and Pickles and Loona and Elephantina too. Bunny and Blue are my friends. The others are only acquaintances.

Most of the time. Sometimes we’re all friends and sometimes we’re all acquaintances.

Sometimes I don’t get here in time.

I put Bunny and Blue in a special place so I would be able to find them in the dark. They’re on the ground, under the bottom shelf of the big white bookcase, at the very back of the closet. Mama told me if I wanted to find them in the dark I had to move everything else out of the way. I did. Everything else is on the side. And if I move slowly, there’s a path through the toys to Bunny and Blue. I am holding them.

I hug them very close. I like hugging them. It makes me feel like they love me. Mama hugs me all the time; sometimes she’s hugging me more than I’m hugging her. Poor Mama. Sometimes she cries. Once she came in and asked if she could hold Blue. I said no, but that she could have Bunny if she wanted. Blue is very old. I have to be careful with him because… he’ll break. Bunny is younger; I made her Blue’s baby. Even if Mama said Blue was a boy.

Blue’s tired. I can feel his head resting on my leg. I have to be careful because his neck’s gotten super delicate. Bunny’s bouncing all over the place. She’s scared. She thinks she can hear him coming up the stairs. I’m telling her she’s wrong.

Papa’s steps are heavier, I say. That’s Mama coming.

It is Mama. She’s opening the door. No, Mama, what are you doing? We can’t come out yet.

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“We’re leaving,” she says. “You can come with me.”

I can hear his steps on the stairs. He’s coming closer.

“Papa’s angry,” she says, “You have to come now.”

Come in quick Mama, this door is safe and it is dark in here.

“No, this is different. The dark is outside now, we are going outside.”

Is there a door outside?

“There is a door to the outside.”

Papa’s getting closer Mama.

“I know.”

I go with Mama because Mama always knows best. It’s hard carrying Loona and Lily and Pickles and Elephantina and Bunny. And I have to leave Blue behind because he’s too old and I might hurt him. Mama says we have to hurry and I see Papa at the top of the stairs and I run really-really-really fast. And Mama follows me and we’re running down the stairs and we run through the dining room and we run through the kitchen. In the kitchen I drop Loona. I can hear Papa coming down the steps and through the dining room and through the kitchen. Mama says wait and I say no and we get Loona back together. But now Papa is here. And he finds Mama and he stops Mama. And they are shouting but Mama has opened the door for me. And I can see outside. With Elephantina and Loona and Lily and Pickles and Bunny, I run out the door. And Mama can’t come. And I know this but I am running and running and running and running—

TRADITIONAL SKILLS MEANINGFUL CAREERS Bookbinding Carpentry Cabinet and Furniture Making Jewelry Making and Repair Locksmithing Piano Technology Preservation Carpentry Violin Making NBSS for marble 4c half page.indd 1

BOSTON, MA SSACHUSET TS

NBSS.EDU 11/28/2011 4:29:42 PM

TMC Winter 2012

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P O E T R Y Melrose High School

/ Grade 11

A n a s t a s i a

Memories

T r a m o n t o z z i

Just listen, the wind is always whispering A small dissonant humming, a reoccurring nightmare Swallowing the lonely man Yet no one is around, only silence A small dissonant humming, a reoccurring nightmare A shattering cacophonous scream in the distance Yet no one is around, only silence A small breeze crawls under the skin A shattering scream in the distance The mind is in a flustered frenzy A small breeze crawls under the skin Escape, escape.. trapped The mind is in a flustered frenzy Inching deeper into the mind Escape, escape.. trapped That nightmare only remains Inching deeper into the mind The glass shatters, time is spent That nightmare only remains Dark sorrow overtakes the lover The glass shatters, time is spent Swallowing the lonely man Dark sorrow overtakes the lover Just listen the wind is always whispering

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A R T Ipswich High School / Grade 11

R o b b y

F a y

Stranger

photography/Canon eos 3000 with 50mm f1.4 TMC Winter 2012

23

A R T Peabody Veterans Memorial High School / Grade 12

L i n d s a y

B l u m e n k r a n t z

Elephant

drawing/white colored pencil & black micron pen

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F I C T I O N Advanced Math and Science Academy / Grade 11

A l e x

L a s s a l l e

Butter

My spy name is Butter. I’ve been a spy as long as I can remember, but if I were to pick a specific moment when I knew, it would have to be when I turned eight. I called the FBI number I found on Google and told them I was ready to start my training. They must have been surprised that I was ready so early because they laughed and told me they would get back to me. That’s when I knew it was official, and it was just a matter of time until they would get back to me and tell me to activate. Until then I would just have to remain under cover. Why is my spy name Butter? It’s pretty simple.

As soon as I melt into my surroundings you can hardly see me.

Being a spy is not as glorious as I had imagined it. I still haven’t made any money, but I think that’s because I’m still undercover. I decided to find a wife; people were starting to get suspicious of how I could possibly be single. I was able to get a low maintenance job as a janitor at a college so people wouldn’t ask questions. All the students must have thought they were so much better than me, but the joke was on them! It may look like Butter is cleaning out toilets and picking up vomit, but that’s all part of my cover. I figured the FBI would need some type of proof to see that I was still focused and ready for their call. So every Monday and Friday I would mail them a stick of butter with a note attached that said, “Don’t forget the Butter,” so that if it was ever intercepted, it would just look like a package from a concerned citizen.

Eventually I had children, so I wouldn’t raise any suspicions, but they were Butter children, not mine. I couldn’t get distracted; I needed to stay focused. The wife and kids must have thought they knew who I was. I kept waiting for the call from the FBI that would let me know when to report back to them, they probably just wanted to see how I would handle this civilian mission. I didn’t leave myself a margarine of error; I was always 110 percent focused.

My daughter eventually became engaged, and as the ‘father’ I walked her down the aisle. I remember as I walked with her I suddenly felt a sense of pride and great joy from all these smiling faces around me. I was so proud that I had tricked them all; I had Buttered each one of them up. I don’t know why the FBI was still waiting to give me a different mission; I had done a fantastic job being a ‘father’ and ‘husband.’ Maybe they had too many spies? So I just waited for my churn. I eventually ‘retired’ from my day job and also became a ‘grandfather.’ I imagined the day that I would get the call and finally be free of them. “Honey, I’m leaving. I have been a spy for the FBI the whole time,” I would say. “I can’t believe it’s not butter!” she would scream and faint. But until that moment I will just have to continue, even though I am probably the best spy in the world. I couldn’t imagine there being someone butter.

I have been a spy my whole life, and I’m the only one who knows.

TMC Winter 2012

25

A R T Burlington High School / Grade 10

I r i n a

G r i g o r y e v a

Unusual Beauty

p a i n t i n g / a c r y l i c 26

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A R T Groton School / Grade 12

O l i v i a

T r a s e

Gone for a Swim

p a i n t i n g / a c r y l i c

o n

c a n v a s

TMC Winter 2012

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P O E T R Y Reading Memorial High School

/ Grade 11

L a u r a

Universe

W h i t e

Here I lean back into the gentle arms of galaxies, Spirals dizzying my sight, The soft space and freedom Caressing my skin.

Here I find my head swimming in thoughts unspoken, Vast and dark, Little stars flickering in a galaxy far away, The Emptiness and Everything slowly Drowning me: Those thoughts of todo y totalmente and Antimatter and The color of your eyes.

Here I gladly drift As a plank of wood from a pirate ship, Sunken in the sea, Would much like to drift, Bobbing slowly down this stream of time And space, Without a care in the Universe but To keep those thoughts Caged safely inside my spiraling Galaxy And never let them free, Lest they echo back to you In your own little planet and something Breaks From the reverberating sound.

That wouldn’t do.

We can’t have our orbits collide through the Intergalactic void; We can’t have your world come crashing down, And sideways, And backwards.

It just isn’t right.

Your planet has a gravitational pull much Stronger than mine And I don’t think your astronauts could handle the Weightlessness.

Here I float, approaching an all-consuming black hole in Deafening Silence, The words too loud for me to hear Or say.

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A R T Burlington High School / Grade 10

C o u r t n e y

K o f f i n k

His Last Breath

d r a w i n g / w a t e r c o l o r

w i t h

c h a r c o a l

TMC Winter 2012

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F I C T I O N Advanced Math and Science Academy

/ Grade 12

C h r i s t i n a

Pa p e r C u t s

T e o d o r e s c u

She sat on the floor, the bustle of the workplace all around her, and fed reams of paper to the shredder by the window. Each time it was the same: the dull roar of the shredder as he relentlessly devoured his meal, then silence—a blinking green eye, the only indicator that he was still awake, waiting. Always waiting, always wanting more.

He wasn’t picky. Plain printer paper and watermarked stationery were all the same to him; he cut through them as ruthlessly as reality slices through tentative hopes. And it struck her that hopes and dreams and paper were not altogether different. Because that was life, or her life, anyway: endless piles of papers and files and folders that all held unspoken promises—promises that invariably met the same fate.

She had seen it all: aspirations of every level stuffed into armies of garbage bags and trucked away to the wastepaper basket of forever, waiting in vain for answers to questions that were never asked. And while she held the dreams they were crisp and clean but so fragile—their destruction never lurking more than a few feet away: scissors, a candle, a pen. When they were wrenched from her grasp, she finally noticed the cuts: paper cuts, shallow and deep and painful all at once.

Nothing mattered, in the end. Secrets and memories written in pencil or ink or blood—it made no difference; all were laid to rest in the same cemetery under headstones with no inscription. Some staved off their fate for centuries—millennia if they were lucky—by hiding in dust-cloaked cabinets and bookcases in the shadow of time, but time always found them. It finds everyone.

She sighed and watched the black machine shred her life away.

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A R T Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 10

H a y l e y

I n M y Pa s t

B a r r y

d r a w i n g

TMC Winter 2012

31

A R T Burlington High School / Grade 10

The Fastest

Stephanie Desrochers

p a i n t i n g / a c r y l i c

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M U S I C Milton Academy / Grade 11

The Hit

E n u m a

L a w o y i n

The rain was beating puddles In the turf where you played your final game.

I always thought I’d fix you, snap your joints Back into place.

That night you led your undefeated team From the locker room, tongue wagging, Chest pumping. Your cleats broke green As the crowd bore grey and blue.

You were facing a college scholarship And the double repeat quarterback With the Schwarzenegger arms. Knees bent Forward, fingers laced in dirt, You were all potential. You were flying toward the end zone, Caught by the sound of shifting bone, the silence From the bleachers where you gave me Your letter jacket.

Today, you live through pictures, old jerseys I pull out on rainy days. I see you As I saw you then, the star stuck on his back, Toes pitched toward the moon. Still, I think You were made to be broken.

m u s i c

eee CLICK TO LISTEN

Reveal the Truth

M i n a

L i

Lexington High School / Grade 12

TMC Winter 2012

33

P O E T R Y Milton Academy / Grade 11

Seashells

E n u m a

L a w o y i n

I used to collect them on days at Bethany.

He showed me one once, put my ear To its opening and told me To listen. If you’re quiet, he said, You can hear from the beaches To the bottom of the sea.

That summer he Packed his things into a box.

I used to keep them, hundreds of them In mason jars. My mother told me: Your father is a broken man, There’s really no one else to blame.

The big ones have always been my favorite.

I like to run my fingers along the creases in Their curve, and imagine who they once Belonged to. Sometimes I put his to my eardrum, Listen to the sound of billowing waves And his feet creaking out the back door.

p a i n t i n g / a c r y l i c

a n d

Seize the Day Whitman-Hanson Regional High School / Grade 12

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s p r a y

M o r g a n

p a i n t

T u r n e r

A R T

Inside Autism

Oakmont Regional High School

M eg h a n

/ Grade 11

G a r ven

p h o t o g r a p h y

Iced

J u l i a

H e n r y

Peabody Veterans Memorial High School / Grade 11

TMC Winter 2012

35

A R T Burlington High School

/ Grade 10

S t e p h a n i e

D e s r o c h e r s

Look At Me

m i x e d 36

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m e d i a

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F I C T I O N Old Rochester Regional High School / Grade 10

R e n a e

R e i n t s

La Fenêtre

A pane of glass surrounded by weathered wood and cracked paint. A window.

That is all. An average window, clear except for the common piled dirt in the corners.

A window, on the first floor of an average house, based by a blooming violet hydrangea bush. It’s nothing more than a picturesque suburban home in New Hampshire. I pass this home every day as I walk to my karate class, as I have since I was a child. And every day a new stranger stares out from the window. This window. An average window in an average house, in an average suburban neighborhood. Nothing special, but these people are.

Some are young, some are old. Some are sickly, some are bloody. Some are angry, some are content. They sit inside and gaze dreamily out as I walk by. They used to scare me, even the ones that smiled kindly, but after years it is nothing more than mundane curiosity that I feel. Who will be next? An old wrinkled man gazing wistfully, a small smile playing on his lips in memory. A young woman, bruises shadowing her frail face, blood dried along her neck in a deathly slash of abuse. A small boy dressed formally, blonde hair combed back smooth, his head at a constant snapped tilt of curiosity. They all came one day and were gone the next, only to be replaced by another in the window. I never hear them, despite the few I’ve seen screaming in soundless rage. I’ve never tried to speak with them either. We share nothing more than eye contact through the dusty glass window.

Perhaps I’m insane, a hallucinating teen desperate for attention, but I’ve never told any of my friends about the window, and I’ve never seen anyone look at the window as I do. It’s my little secret, my wonder. I pass by each and every day, smile and nod to the person behind the window and continue on my way.

That is, until the face behind the glass was familiar.

It was in the summer, a Wednesday afternoon. The sun shone with the warmness of freedom, and the light breeze blew worries and nightmares away. A few clouds were white lilies in the sky, floating along the lazy river of blue. It was the perfect day.

I was fifteen at the time, well accustomed to the window’s visitors by then. But I was not prepared for this. On my usual walk to my afternoon karate class, I passed by the average house with the seemingly average window. Picking my eyes off the sidewalk, I glanced to my right to see who would be sitting behind the glass today. When my eyes met hers, I stopped, my heart pounding with dread.

I saw Katelyn. My Katelyn. My little sister of just seven years, who was supposed to be away at a fun-filled camp with her friends for the week. Not here. Not here behind the window. It couldn’t be her. It couldn’t be sweet little Katelyn, with her toothy smile lighting up a room, her brown pigtail braids swinging as she skips, her big blue eyes, a window themselves into her caring heart. My Katelyn, always the first to say “bonjour” every morning, because she had an adorable passion for French. She could not be here.

TMC Winter 2012

37

F I C T I O N

It could not be her because that would mean Katelyn would never be seen again on my side of the window. She sat behind the dark frame where so many others have sat, and gazed into my average sunny world with eyes bluer than the feathers on the wings of the blue jays flitting in the trees. She looked not sad, but wistful, as if she were only daydreaming, watching the summer world pass by through a cold window.

When I stopped, a small smile even turned up the corner of her lip. It could be any girl looking out any window, except for the red welt on her neck, a sting of some sorts, small, but deadly. This couldn’t be my Katelyn, my sister. No, it must be another, I thought, another girl with blue eyes and pigtail braids, and an unfortunate allergy to bee stings. With this decision, I settled my heart and my mind enough to turn and continue my walk to karate class.

On my first step, the cell phone weighing down my pocket began to ring.

I pulled the phone out of my jeans and viewed the front screen: incoming call from Mom. I glanced at the window, to find the little girl’s dreamy expression gone, replaced with an intense stare, her eyes narrowed on me. I shook my head and raised the phone to my ear, answering the call. My “hello?” was greeted by choking sobs. Mom never cries.

“Honey? Honey, I need—I need you to come—to come home… right now,” my mother got out between gasped breaths and sobs. I didn’t answer, only turned towards the window, and stared into those deep blue eyes. “Can you—hear me? Come home. It’s… your sister… just—come home... Hello?”

Still, I ignored my mother’s sobbing voice. I lowered the phone and shut it, cutting off the cries. I was still, holding my breath, staring, searching through the window, and knowing without a doubt that this was my Katelyn.

She looked out the window now with sadness, portraying a lost message in her striking blue eyes, not making a movement. She only watched me. My eyes began to blur, but I held the tears back. She wasn’t gone yet. She was here. I could see her clearly through the window. Maybe, she could still have a chance.

I pulled my eyes away from her blue, and regarded the front door. Chipped wood, painted a once-flattering ivy green, now just peeled away in shreds. The doorknob was gold, shiny gold, as if it alone had been polished while the rest of the house rotted. It was inviting. I took a step towards the house, and glanced at my Katelyn.

She stared back, eyes wide with worry. Another step, and I was on the front door’s path. My phone began to ring once again in my pocket, but I ignored everything.

My only concerns were this concrete path that led to the golden doorknob, and those blue eyes now rimming with tears through that glass window. Another step, and I felt heavy. Weight pressed on my body, pulling me down, so I felt as if I carried the sky on my shoulders. A step closer, and the burden worsened, but I staggered to remain upright. My Katelyn was speaking now, urgently, words lost behind the window.

Her small hands pressed against the window, as if she wanted to break through. Her eyes were pouring tears. “I’ll save you,” I whispered, trying to protect her, as I always have.

One last step, and my hand grasped the golden doorknob. My other hand held me upright under this weight, resting on the house’s chipped paint. A deep breath and I swung the door open, stepping into the house. The weight was gone. I heard wooden boards creak beneath my feet. I heard crying, soft tears, and looked up. Blue 38

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F I C T I O N eyes. Then blackness.

I am sitting in an old wooden chair. I face a window. A pane of glass surrounded by peeling wallpaper of dulled flowers. A window. That is all. An average window, clear except for the common piled dirt in the corners. A window, on the first floor of this average house, based by a blooming violet hydrangea bush outside.

It holds nothing more than the view of a picturesque suburban street in New Hampshire. I used to pass this home every day as I walked to my karate class, as I had since I was a child. And every day, as always, a new stranger would stare out from the window. This window. An average window in an average house, in an average suburban neighborhood. Nothing special, but those people were, and now I am.

I remember my mother’s crying voice and regret not responding. I remember my sister’s wet blue eyes and regret not listening. I remember the golden doorknob and regret turning it in my blind, failed heroics. I remember the blackness. And then I was at rest, waiting for my turn. Now my wait is over, and today is my day, my last day to see the world I will leave.

During my rest, the warm of summer had turned to autumn, and the colors of fall decorated the street. I imagine the crunch of the leaves underfoot, but I can no longer hear past the dull silence of this house. Outside, the trees stand stark, nearly stripped of their leaves, except for the few that cling to their branches in desperate memory of summer life. The street is still, besides the wind pushing the shriveled skeletons of leaves against the curb.

To the left, I see a young boy approaching, walking down the sidewalk, hands tucked warmly into his coat pockets. Head down, his charcoal hair obstructs his face as he concentrates on the grey rock being kicked along with each step. I watch him as he draws closer. A single kick throws the rock farther ahead, and the boy looks up after it, revealing deep green eyes and a somber expression. I watch him, and am surprised to find he watches me. The boy has halted in his walk, staring with obvious curiosity at the window in which I sit. I smile, and offer a small wave, remembering how I enjoyed the friendliness of a few of my deceased friends. The green-eyed boy steps back and looks warily around the empty street, before once again resting his insightful eyes on me. He waves. For a moment more, we regard each other, and then he in on his way again, kicking a new-found rock down the sidewalk.

For the remainder of the day, I sit in this old chair, and watch the earthly day pass by. An old man walks his golden retriever; a mother pushes her child in a stroller; various cars pass, headed toward their destinations. None of them pay me notice. The world goes on, and I sit, observing, remembering, and accepting. The green-eyed boy passes by again, returning home. He regards me with a questioning look, but simply waves and moves on. The sun goes to sleep, bringing the brilliant hues of pink and orange, purple and blue, until the night sky blinks goodnight with its millions of lights. Still, I sit at this window, watching the moon hang in the sky over the street I once walked on.

On the first stroke of midnight, I rise from the old wooden chair and give the window one last look. It is time. I turn and step up the creaking staircase. Au revoir.

TMC Winter 2012

39

P O E T R Y Milton Academy / Grade 12

Penelope

H a n n a h

G r a c e

Queen of screened calls and ignored forget-me-nots, my sister waits. She’ll do a first date to humor him, even herself, but no longer will she pull him by the collar into her wanton wasteland of newspaper clippings and Polaroid photographs.

I bought her the camera for her twenty-fifth; she still takes pictures of the hands of strangers. The only criterion, she said, was that the hands needed to touch something.

On the back of each picture she writes a headline.

Juvenile hands drawing hopscotch in chalk bear Troops Deployed to Border. Civilian Casualties a Result of American Brutality taints the exchange of rings on my wedding day. She brought a stranger to the reception, calling him by the wrong name in drunken honesty. I remember how our mother looked at her, dreading each word that hinted her daughter’s love for a dead man in camouflage.

She’ll come over some days and kick my husband out of bed, slurring together words she wishes she knew: exhumation, insemination, confirmation.

I tell her to take up knitting: like her grief, it too takes up lifetimes to knit and purl, loop yarn over needle and pull just enough to make a knot.

She can make half a scarf but never learned to cast off correctly, leaving trails of what she’s made desperately unraveling, and always coming back to the first Polaroid: his fatigued hands covering her eyes, plastering tears to her face. He told her not to look, that he’d be back in time for Reforms Made to Education, in time to walk her down the aisle at my wedding.

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A R T Auburn High School

R e n e

/ Grade 10

F l e m m i n g

Dreamer

d r a w i n g

TMC Winter 2012

41

A R T Abington High School / Grade 11

E m i l y

F a g a n

Fl o r e s d e O t o 単 o

photography/adobe photoshop 42

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A R T Brimmer and May School / Grade 12

H a l l e

E d w a r d s - M c Q u i l t o n

Bubble

photography/Canon Rebel 35mm black film TMC Winter 2012

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P O E T R Y Walnut Hill School of the Arts / Grade 11

The Cabin Lady

Kaiyuh Cornberg

I. Resentment I should not have thrown that glance

At the last second, then To watch the river boat withdraw

Around the river bend; Or throw so many desperate looks

Up river toward the mouth In hope of it returning soon

To take us back to town As we are here, to cook and fish,

To keep the cabin neat— Time will not trickle faster Through the dishes, bugs, and heat.

II. A Dark Nature She learned the first time—the first bear Was all it took to invoke fear: She once forgot to lock the doors, The shutters, though it was her chore To padlock any way a critter Could barge in—she closed the shutters From then on. The woodsman hated Any chance a bear had satisfied His appetite on their provisions, And from then on, she locked the doors.

III. The Trapper She missed the way his gnarled lips curled back Over his purple gums when he looked in And saw how small their cabin really is.

He made some comment, “Long you, you two’ve got!”

Or something like that, as if they didn’t know.

It’s like he’s done it all before and thinks Or knows he has a right to feel accomplished— At man and wife’s expense. He was so old, His snow shoes—so old—made by frost-chomped hands.

They say he has a cabin up the slough That he’s been living in for forty years, Just watching others fight slippery spruce logs.

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A R T Groton School / Grade 12

Snowy Solitude

Genevieve Fowler

p a i n t i n g

...But You Cannot Hide

Sarina Sherzai Auburn High School

/ Grade 11

TMC Winter 2012

45

F I C T I O N Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School / Grade 10

S a r a h

O s t r o w

O n e - Wa y T i c ke t

The station is a zoo when I arrive, and Carrie is nowhere to be found. Around me some rush to make that last train home before Christmas, while others are ambushed at the platform by their families. Still more thread through the crowds, looking lost, all alone on the merriest night of the year. I wonder which category Carrie would place herself in.

The waiting area is packed, and there’s nothing to do but wedge myself into a seat between a dozing man and a trash can. Up on the arrival board, the New York train is listed as on-time. The location doesn’t mean anything, of course; Carrie probably flew into JFK this morning from some remote corner of the world, all her belongings on her back.

Before I can pursue the usual game of Where Was Carrie This Time? my pocket vibrates, and I leap about a foot in the air, causing the man on my right to choke awake. He glares at me, but I’m too busy extracting my phone to care. It turns out to be just a text from my mother, who is sure Carrie won’t call because she missed her train. I try to reassure her, but the thought has occurred to me too. When Carrie took off five years ago, she missed my driver’s license, my prom, my first kiss. That’s enough reason to assume she’d have no qualms about missing her train back home now. In fact, it’s the more likely scenario; she’s never been one for adhering to schedules.

Carrie was always the stray variable. To me, some things are just set: college, a career, and falling in love all appear on the list, in no particular order. When she postponed college to travel, defined a career as anything that would pay for the next one-way ticket to wherever she fancied, and did it all solo, of course it threw me off balance. In fact, my whole family has been unable to get back on our feet. It’s why Mom and Dad gave me that look when I suggested going to college a plane ride away, and I couldn’t face becoming their second disappointment.

A train pulls into the station, then a second. Across the room a woman with flyaway red hair ducks inside, and my heart leaps into my throat, but she’s too short to be Carrie. Aside from that, she looks too similar, even has the same density of freckles on her face and neck. I won’t be surprised if I miss Carrie completely, it’s been so long.

Her only contact is sporadic postcards, always sent from somewhere new, and I keep them in a bundle under my bed where I can review them at my leisure. It is in terms of the unnamed people on these that I think of Carrie: men in turbans, couples under the Eiffel Tower, children leading llamas up rural paths.

My phone buzzes again, and I retrieve it with shaking fingers.

“Hello?”

“Liz? It’s Carrie, where are you?”

I freeze. She’s here. Actually here. Not just in the country, but breathing the same stale station air. “Hi,” I say, trying to gather my thoughts. “I’m, um, under the clock in the waiting area. Are you off the train?”

“Yeah, hold on, I’m looking for you... What are you wearing?”

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F I C T I O N

“That’s you? God, wait a sec, I’ll be right there!”

She hangs up. Heart pounding, I stand, turn in a slow circle. The room bustles with people, and travelers pour in from two different platforms. I strain for a glimpse of her crazy hair and see nothing. Carrie is a conspicuous person; it shouldn’t be this hard, unless she dyed her hair, or cut it all off, or I suppose she could’ve lost her legs in a war zone and now navigates by wheelchair, making it impossible to find her in this stinking crowd...

“Liz!”

She emerges from behind a group of skiers bearing huge equipment bags, and if my heart was pounding when the phone rang, it’s bouncing all over the place now. I step forward, whether to greet or slap her I can’t decide. I never get to do either however, because she dodges someone in a bulky parka and reveals a baby on her hip.

Why did she bring home a baby? I think. Where’s the mother? Then a man materializes beside Carrie holding the same backpack I watched her get from Santa a good ten years ago. I freeze in my tracks, eyes flicking from Carrie, to the man, to the baby between them.

“It’s so good to see you!” Carrie cries. She passes the baby to the man and wraps her arms around me, flattening my face into her shoulder. It’s probably a good thing because I have no idea what expression it bears. “God, you’re practically grown up.”

“I’ve grown up? What about you? Is this... your family?”

“This is my family,” Carrie grins. But while I struggle to form coherent sentences, her words sound as if they are the simple script of her heart. She gestures to the man and baby. “Kyle, my husband, and Julia, your niece.”

My niece. Once again my balance is shot. I’m not supposed to have a niece; I still need a sister. It appears whatever chance I had of that just went flying out the window, now that she has a shiny new family. I think my heart jumps out after it.

“And where did you pick them up?” I say.

“I--” Carrie begins.

“You just forgot to mention them in your letters?” I demand. “No, you know what, they weren’t even letters. Just a few sentences, and all about you, never a ‘Hey Liz, how’s your life going? What am I missing while I run up and down mountains, leaving my family to worry themselves sick about me?’”

“Liz...”

“What’s out there that’s so much better than us? I honestly can’t think of anything you’d find that we couldn’t give you at home. And for crying out loud, there’s no reason to go making a new family when you’ve got a perfectly good one right here, waiting for you!”

“Wait a sec,” Carrie says, “I needed to sort myself out.” She glances at Kyle, a sort of apologetic look mixed in with a plea for understanding, then turns back to me. “I needed to see something new, I’m sure you know the feeling. You’re in the same boat I was: right around the end of high school, the pressure of college turned all the way up.”

“Yeah, so I go to Starbucks with some friends, or watch TV. I don’t take off and run away from everything!”

Julia fusses in Kyle’s arms, and Carrie takes her back. Immediately mother and daughter relax a notch, as though all the comfort they needed was in the other’s touch. Funny. There was a time when Carrie and I were like that too, when we made TMC Winter 2012

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F I C T I O N tents out of her bed sheets and snuggled close. Or when I was upset, and leaned my head on her shoulder so she could pull me to her and wipe away my tears.

“I’m sorry, Liz. I needed to get away. Maybe it was stupid of me to want to introduce my family properly, but it just didn’t feel like something you could cram into a postcard.”

“So call.” There’s a lump in my throat the size of Texas, and I know I won’t be able to swallow past the tears. “Or swing by for a day, just so we don’t forget your face.”

“That’s what I’m doing right now,” Carrie says. She shifts Julia to her other hip so that she can pull an envelope out of her pocket. “Maybe it’ll help if I give you your Christmas present early?”

I snort: of course Carrie would think a gift could solve all my problems, because when she left that was probably true. Now I’m not a little girl anymore. Nevertheless, she puts the envelope in my hand and waits, so I have no option other than opening it. Just as with her postcards, I pause a moment and picture the adventures, however brief, contained within. Usually I take a second to wonder where she is, what exotic wind bent the card before she sent it my way. But this time I don’t have to, because she’s right in front of me. She was much more magical when she was in a faraway land, conquering the world with a spirit I’d never have.

The envelope contains only a single piece of paper, smudged from being folded too soon after printing. I have to squint at it to make anything out.

“A plane ticket?”

“To London,” Carrie says. “It’s the first place I went after graduation.”

“It says it’s one-way.”

Carrie shrugs. “Only way to travel. There’s no reason to put a return date on it if you’re not ready to return.”

“But that’s not how it works! You can’t just abandon everyone like you did, you can’t get a husband and a child and a life without some sort of, a kind of... path.

A plan.”

“Don’t tell me you got sucked into the whole college-career-marriage thing, Liz,” Carrie says. “Now that’s not how it works.”

“It’s just that, well, it feels like cheating.”

“Cheating that I stumbled into the man I love? That I decided I didn’t need college to be a good mother? That’s not cheating; that’s just life.”

My words fumble even more now, as I grasp at the thoughts I haven’t allowed myself to think for a long time. “But I was never, I’m not… it’s such a long shot.”

“Of course it is. And I’ll admit, it’s tough at first. But so worth it. You miss out on everything when you keep both feet on the ground.”

“I know that.” Actually, I’ve always known. It’s why I saved every postcard she sent, and pulled them out every now and then so I could trick myself into thinking I was having adventures right along with her. Why I wanted to go to college in another time zone. Why I wore her hand-me-downs and signed up for the same high school courses she did, hoping some of her strength would rub off on me. Now she’s handed me the chance to actually be her. Or rather, the chance to fly towards the horizon, towards the self I’ll never know if I don’t give it a shot.

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New School of Music

Connecting our community note by note since 1976 Cambridge, Massachusetts

www.newschoolofmusic.org

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New School of Music (617) 492-8105

Colored pencil by Caroline Cao age 14

and skills development for teen artists

ActonArt Drawing School www.actonart.com 978-266-1600

TMC Winter 2012

49

A R T Oakmont Regional High School

/ Grade 12

Self-Portrait Choice

Nisa Mann

p a i n t i n g

Self Portrait Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 12

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Kaylee Angelini

A R T Chicopee Comprehensive High School / Grade 12

Mermaid

A lex a n d er

p h o t o g r a p h y / a d o b e

N a l l y

p h o t o s h o p

TMC Winter 2012

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A R T Groton School

/ Grade 12

G e n e v i e v e

F o w l e r

Cully

p a i n t i n g

p a i n t i n g / a c r y l i c

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P O E T R Y Milton Academy

E l i z a b e t h

/ Grade 12

B e n n e t t

Ladybug Season

In the spring, we creaked open jalousie windows on the back porch to let in light.

I knelt on the countertop, plucked thick-walled Mason jars from the shelf and lined them up side by side.

We peered along the window ledge, waiting for sleek shells that would split, wing across the room on a drift of air.

All at once they slipped through cracks, flushed the peeling paint. You smoothed paper beneath them, swept them into jars.

We stretched cling wrap taught across the jars, bound it with rubber bands. You passed me scissors to prick breathing holes in plastic.

All day we cupped the jars, thumbed the bleary glass.

Until we peeled back plastic, to watch the ladybugs settle, settle, and lift off.

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F I C T I O N Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 10

A r i a n n a

R o b i c h a u d

The Price of Honesty

He slumped into the red booth by one of the faultlessly Windexed windows.

It reflected the dying sun and resurrecting streetlights that flickered on down the highway. It was 6:07. Joshua was late. Unwillingly, Asher sat in this family restaurant with its unremarkable and annoying music chiming from hidden speakers, surrounded by the overpowering scent of French fries and pickles and the waitresses’ hairspray.

After another long sip of fizzy Coke, he let a sigh of defeat and impatience escape. Anticipation made his mouth dry. He considered just getting up, leaving a few bucks for the soda and pushing through the doors into the cool evening air that required more than the flimsy cotton hoodie he was wearing. Another five minutes and that was it. Then he would leave and Joshua could keep his stupid advice and unwanted opinions to himself.

The sweaty, tattered straw wrapper was folded into impossible sixty-eighths, plucked at with his long fingers, studied by his eyes as if the creases and wrinkles held the answers to all his qualms—to all the universe’s qualms. 6:12. He pulled out his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, selecting a defaced dollar and heavy coins and placing them with a clunk on the tabletop. He swung his legs around and prepared to stand when Joshua forcefully put a hand on his shoulder, patting it, before he slid into the seat across from him.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said while unwinding the Burberry scarf from his neck, unzipping his Northface and letting it fall around him in the booth.

“Yep.” His reply was beaten and resigned, lacking both volume and assertion.

He had been foolishly hoping that Joshua would just forget or not care enough to come. But of course he had. Joshua had spent the last week calling him, texting him with ridiculous persistence until plans had been made. Of course he was here.

Now that someone had arrived who might actually buy food, the waitress scurried over.

“I’m GiGi. I’ll be your server this evening. What can I get you to drink, sir?”

She hurried through all the words in one breath. Her shiny lip gloss was smudged on her chin; her hair was thrown messily into a bun that was sculpted to look artfully shabby.

“The usual,” Joshua smiled up at her and dropped a wink. Sickening. GiGi didn’t even bother to try to prompt an order out of the other guy again—she merely turned in her pumps and headed to the kitchen.

When she was gone, Asher leaned his forearms down on the edge of the table and asked, “How many times do you have to go to a place to be a usual?”

“It isn’t so much the number of times, but more the consistency of visits, orders, and seating.”

“And hitting on the wait-staff,” Asher added. Joshua shrugged, refusing to be 54

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F I C T I O N deterred by his adopted brother’s disapproval. Joshua was admittedly good-looking in a rugged sort of way with his slightly olive complexion emphasizing the shocking lightness of his eyes. Asher was comparatively pale and his disheveled dark hair had added to the misconception that he was some sort of troubled gothic anarchist when he was younger.

Joshua studied him for a few silent minutes. His age and constant worry were starting to appear in the lines of his face as he stared intently at his victim. “You look good,” he lied.

Asher didn’t honor the comment with a response. He knew he didn’t look good. He looked skinny and hollow and nervous and sleepless and he smelled heavily of nicotine gum. He looked and felt abhorrent. The pretense of casual conversation was agonizing, chafing against his thinning resolutions. He picked up one of the quarters and spun it between his thumb and forefinger.

Seeming to drop the charade, Joshua leaned forward and looked pointedly at Asher, who refused to look up. Heat raced into Asher’s neck and face—the response he always had when he was the center of superfluous attention.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” It was an easy question to start with, a nicety before the true interrogation began, but still difficult to answer. By Joshua’s tone, Asher could visualize the stern, but desperate expression. The quarter made another rotation.

“She didn’t want to tell anyone till she was sure,” shrugged Asher. He sensed Joshua’s nod.

“Still, Asher, why didn’t you tell me? Why did I have to hear it from our second cousin? Kristine. Kristine. Asher, c’mon. How’d she find out before your brother?”

Joshua’s assured and steady voice slipped on the last part, showing how much it truly bothered him. He cleared his throat.

“I don’t know, Josh. Okay? I don’t know.” His own desperation eked through.

He did know why. He knew that this conversation would happen eventually and Joshua would tell him something he didn’t want to hear.

GiGi’s clacking, inappropriate footwear should have warned them of her approach, but suddenly it seemed she was upon them, brandishing several steaming plates. Daintily, she set them by Joshua’s elbow, but he barely acknowledged her. Asher tapped the quarter rhythmlessly. Unsatisfied, she left. Disaster hung in the air, contradicting the laughter from the collection of tables in the far corner.

“She’s young,” Joshua concluded, reforming his approach. It was clear he wasn’t referencing the waitress or Kristine or the smallish soccer player who walked by their table with her beaming parents.

“She’s mature,” Asher argued. Yes, twenty was young, but she was responsible.

“But not ready,” Josh disagreed.

Asher straightened, tightened. The quarter slithered through his fingers and rattled to the table. It was exactly what she told him earlier that day—how she wasn’t sure she was ready, how she wasn’t confident that she could handle this.

“So young,” Joshua breathed.

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F I C T I O N

“Is this about our age difference?” Asher demanded angrily. She was his junior by a margin. He had always known that their relationship wasn’t condoned by their families. But seven years seemed a short distance when you loved someone.

“No. It’s about you, Asher.”

“What about me?” If Josh wanted to say something, then Asher was going to force him to say it. To commit to it. Whatever he thought, he was going to have to spit it out, dammit.

Joshua’s words were forceful and heavy like successive punches. “Cause you’re a screw-up. That’s what. You live without consequences. You’ve messed up every single opportunity you were ever given. You’re a freakin’ disappointment. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you and you’re gonna mess that up soon. We all know it, we all see it. And I’ll be damned, if I let you screw up the baby too.” Josh looked exasperated like he couldn’t believe that Asher forced him to say it. Slowly, sinkingly, his face became chagrined like those words were never meant to be said aloud. Never meant to be heard. But they had been spoken with too much fervor to be mistakes; they had been thought for too long a time to not be meant. The quarter cringed into the table, hiding its face against the laminate.

Their eyes challenged each other, but Asher wouldn’t let the sting show. He felt his face harden and let the betrayal strengthen his voice. “What do you want me to do? Leave her? How will that help her? It wouldn’t make sense to—”

“She’s resourceful enough to get by on her own. She’s more than capable. It’ll be easier without you there.” Each of Josh’s words was reluctant like every truth burned his tongue. He sat back in the seat as if the tense words had tired him immensely— leaning away, like he could avoid the phrases that sat on the tabletop glaring at both of them. In his haste his sleeve dragged through ketchup, but he didn’t notice the vermillion stain.

Deep breath. He locked his brother’s eyes with his own, felt the tug of separation pull at his heart. “You don’t deserve her, Asher.”

It was worse than Asher expected. He never thought that Joshua would be so terribly honest, never thought he would articulate aloud what Asher had feared about himself silently. He stood. Hair fell into his eyes, fists clenched at his sides. This time, Joshua was the one that couldn’t bear the weight of eye contact, the crushing pressure.

Asher turned, pushed roughly around the crowded aisles of tables and exited through the door with enough force to knock the ‘Yes, We’re Open’ sign to the ground. For an immeasurable moment, Joshua sat, then stood and walked through the door, stepping over the mistreated sign on his way. The food was left untouched, unnoticed, unwanted. Lonely and begrudging the quarter shined on the tabletop, begging someone to come back for it.

No one did.

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A R T Groton School / Grade 12

O l i v i a

Genevieve

p a i n t i n g / a c r y l i c

o n

T r a s e

c a n v a s

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A R T Brimmer and May School

/ Grade 12

Self-portrait

J a y e

G i g l i o

p h o t o g r a p h y

Our Globe Milton Academy / Grade 11

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E n u m a

L a w o y i n

A R T

self portrait

Oakmont Regional High School

Jade

/ Grade 12

Chauvin

d r a w i n g

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P O E T R Y Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 11

A n y e s

Red Riding Hood

A young woman Strolling and slinking down a dark deserted street Swivels to touch the air that makes her constantly suspicious She’s felt it before, but ignores it And takes the gloomy, grimy Moldy, miserable city alley way Towards an inviting home Her feet hit the eroded pavement and she’s fully aware That this probably isn’t the best path to take But the other path is twice as long And mother has dinner ready So she has to move her legs along Before it gets cold Like Little Red Riding Hood She smooths out her red dress That barely falls to her knees And tucks her cleavage into the folds Of scarlet silk curtains hugging Her itty bitty torso And then Silence It’s quiet, too quiet The only sound is the quick pit-pat Of footsteps behind her And before she knows it Her basket full of goodies has been yanked From her bosom and whipped over a reeking dumpster Surprised and confused she fusses And her primitive instincts tell her to run But she turns around to see a face Five o’clock shadow and cold eyes Pointy teeth and a grey jacket A beast, a wolf And the wolf with all his might Pulls her against the brick wall 60

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P e r r e a u l t

P O E T R Y And she begins to feel dizzy with all this sudden heat And next thing she knows The wolf is pawing Clawing, at her red dress And what lies underneath And she cries And screams And, “No!” and sobs And when the wolf is done he runs Towards the full moon hoping to join his Buddy-buddy wolves And then smoke up a pack of Joke cigarettes “Defendant found not guilty. Cleared of all charges.”

The young woman shoots out of her seat Her body overfilling with anger Like a boiled pot of water And she objects for the thousandth time: “My body is not an open invitation.

My dress is not a red flag telling you I ‘want it.’

There was no sign of intoxication, So I ask you again, sir, whose fault is it?”

The intimidating judge, with an intimidating stare Raised his nose, cutting thick air He cleared his throat And decided not to change his mind The young woman has now become cloaked with paranoia For all the rest of the Little Reds Skipping about with silly baskets on miserable streets Male or female Being pinned to walls by creeping wolves We should be teaching wolves not to hunt Little Reds Instead Of teaching Little Reds how To disguise themselves So as not to be the hunted.

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P O E T R Y Ayer-Shirley Regional High School / Grade 12

S h a w n n a

T a y l o r

Do I Dare?

The smiling mask hid her plan.

No one had a clue.

Fear rested behind her brown eyes.

“There were no signs.”

Do I dare reveal that I knew differently?

Spinning, racing, chilling, Falling silent.

Accompanied by my thoughts alone.

The silence is broken with the screaming truth Only I can hear.

Do I dare to let go?

My shoulders could be lighter.

Relieve the haunting feeling, Questions might transform into answers.

Do I dare reopen the wound deeper than the skin?

What is done is done.

The locker’s dust will stay.

The desk will remain empty.

Her face will only be a memory.

Do I dare move forward from what I cannot change?

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A R T Peabody Veterans Memorial High School

J e n e s s a

/ Grade 12

B e t t e n c o u r t

Little One

p h o t o g r a p h y / m i x e d

m e d i a

TMC Winter 2012

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A R T Brimmer and May School

/ Grade 12

H e l e n

K i m

A pples

p a i n t i n g / w a t e r c o l o r

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A R T Milton Academy / Grade 12

E l i z a b e t h

B e n n e t t

Open Road Remember Sundays, when rainwater pooled in the gutters, our father’s truck tarped in blue plastic camped beside the curb.

We crouched on the back door mat, yanked wool socks up over our knees and laced sneakers.

Soft and shapeless.

The screen clacked against the door frame as we plunged into rain.

He shimmied the canvas sheet from the roof, leashed the edges to the truck bed.

Wedged underneath, we rolled together like cigarettes slid smooth in their pack.

You pressed your palms beneath your chin, but I liked the click my molars made every time we hit a rut.

At the grocery, he would silence the engine, step to the street. Hips jutting into the metal bed, eyes cold with waiting, we would peer from beneath the tarp at stones embedded in the street.

Sometimes there would be water chestnuts, salt water taffy that we peeled from cellophane squares.

But remember, remember each time, he started the engine.

When smoke settled on the air he had lipped the first cigarette, the pack of Marlboros tossed like a deck of cards on the dashboard.

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P O E T R Y Milton Academy

TUMBLR SNAPSHOT CONTEST WINNER / HONORABLE MENTION

/ Grade 12

S h a n n o n

R e i l l y

The Playhouse Together, we found a dingy play house on the side of the road.

It was old-fashioned an archaic dump, you called it.

But you looked inside the cracked windows and thought, what a perfect place to play pretend.

I saw a kitchen through those windows, and a nursery on the second floor.

I thought, we could build a life here.

Together, we shrank down to look inside at all the broken chairs, outdated drapes and upholstery.

You painted the whole place, bought us new chairs, fixing me as you went.

Together, we imagined robbers that couldn’t steal; we made up diseases that couldn’t kill.

Then, you started to grow big and tall.

Your head ballooned up to the white ceilings; your neck became a giraffe’s Your hands turned fat and scary; you could no longer hold such small things in the house, not even the new chairs, not even me.

Your arms and legs stretched long and thin, twisting in and out of every room like licorice until they cracked holes in the walls wide enough to break free.

Your head burst through the roof and into a blinding sun.

You tried to tell me of your discomfort, how your arms ached under the strain of the twists, how the splinters of the broken roof had crucified your gaunt neck.

You told me your legs were too long for walls.

You told me your head couldn’t handle roofs.

You told me I had turned to plastic, that I had grown little with age.

Still, I tried my best to restrain you, as your body broke beds and the chairs 66

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A R T

TUMBLR SNAPSHOT CONTEST WINNER / HONORABLE MENTION

you had bought for us, as it broke faulty floor boards and the heart.

I demanded that you stay here, I knew there was no one else.

I could have apologized, removed you from this tiny torture chamber, removed the splinters from your neck one by one.

I could have lifted you up, taught your lanky legs to walk again, taught your fat fingers to feel again.

But you would have left me, small.

So I have watched your face wilt in the sunlight.

I have watched your body dwindle down into chasms you will never escape, into rifts in the woodwork you will never fix.

I have watched your limbs go limp in their tired coils.

Together, there is no one else.

p h o t o g r a p h y

Columns

Michael Hagerty Xaverian Brothers High School

/ Grade 12

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A R T

ARTS MAJORS

Dance Theatre Arts & Entertainment Management Communication Arts

WHY DEAN

• Study with regionally acclaimed and nationally known faculty • Immediate performance and practical experience • Intense focus on all areas of the Arts

www.dean.edu

TMC.indd 1

1/5/12 5:11:53 PM

Anna Maria College Careers in Art.

Bachelor’s Degrees in: Art, Art Therapy, Art & Business, Graphic Art, Studio Art and Teacher of Visual Art.

Come and Visit to Learn More!

Find us at www.annam aria.edu

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The art of business

AND THE BUSINESS OF ART.

Alex Hagen wanted to put his artistic talent to work. As an undergraduate at Bentley University, he learned to make films and more. Winner of a Bentley “Buffy” for Best Directing, he was selected for an internship at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. ! “Understanding business is a big part of being in movies and directing,” he says. “At Bentley, not only was I able to gain skills in filmmaking, I also learned the business side of creating films.

It’s made me better prepared to succeed in this industry.”

Today Alex works in the film industry in Los Angeles.

Whether it’s the business of filmmaking… or the business of art… or the business of science… or the business of business, Bentley University can help you attain the career of your dreams.

Visit us at undergraduate.bentley.edu.

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ISSN 2156-7298 t h e m a r b l e c o l l e c t i o n .o r g

CITY STREETS painting

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H e e b e o m Ya n g Mald e n Catholic High S chool / Grad e 12