The iQuilliad ssue 13
The Quilliad: Issue 13 (March 2023)
© The Quilliad Press, 2023 ISSN 2291-9740
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The Quilliad acquires one-time publishing rights, in print and online, to pieces selected for publication. Authors and artists retain all other publishing rights to their creative works, and all contributors are compensated for their work.
Editor-in-Chief
K.S.Y. Varnam
Submissions Managers and Editors
K.S.Y. Varnam, Solomiya Kucharyshyn
Cover Art
Andrea Nesbitt
CONTRIBUTORS
Courtney Bates-Hardy is the author of House of Mystery and a chapbook, Sea Foam. Her poems have appeared in Room, Carousel, This Magazine, and the Canadian Medical Association Journal, among others. One of her poems will be included in The Best Canadian Poetry 2021 (Biblioasis). She lives in Regina with her partner and their cat.
McKenna Camac is a student working on her Education degree. She enjoys playing piano, hiking, and reading in her free time.
Louise Carson has published two collections of poetry: Dog Poems, Aeolus House, 2020; and A Clearing, Signature Editions, 2015. She also writes mysteries and historical novels. She lives near Montreal, QC.
Yuan Changming hails with Allen Yuan from poetrypacific. blogspot.ca. Credits include Pushcart nominations and publications in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17)
& BestNewPoemsOnline, among others. Recently, Yuan served on the jury for Canada’s 44th National Magazine Awards (poetry category).
Joanna Cleary (she/her) is an emerging queer poet. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in The /tƐmz/ Review, The Hunger, Gordon Square Review, Apricity Press, Digging Through The Fat, Typehouse Magazine, The Gravity of the Thing, Funicular, and Canthius, among others. Follow her on Instagram @joannacleary121.
Caitlin Gauthier is a library worker and voracious reader. Her only goal in life is to pet as many dogs as possible.
Gareth Gransaull is a writer and recent graduate with a BA in History from Western University. Gareth’s work has been published in Iconoclast and Huron’s Grubstreet magazine. Gareth is currently living in Montreal, where he is working as a fossil fuel divestment activist.
Dawn Macdonald lives in Whitehorse, Yukon, where she was raised off the grid. She holds a degree in applied mathematics and used to know a lot about infinite series. Her poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, PULP Literature, and The Sprawl.
Haley Magrill is a Canadian writer living in Vancouver. Her work has previously appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Cabinet of Heed, The Anti-Languorous Project, Dissections, and Sequoia Speaks. In 2020, her short story “Flyer” was shortlisted for the Staunch Short Story Prize.
Andrea Nesbitt is a multidisciplinary artist who thrives when her art talks back and offers surprises. She is passionate about creating spaces for creativity and collaboration, and is one of the core team behind the DrawnTogether exquisite corpse app. She hopes to make something with you one day soon!
James Owens’s poems and translations appear widely in literary journals, including recent or upcoming publications in Grain,
Dalhousie Review, Presence, Queen’s Quarterly, and Honest Ulsterman. He lives in a small town in northern Ontario.
Charlotte Vermue Peters (She/her) is a Canadian writer and theatre-maker. Previously, her poetry has been published in Gingerbread House, yolk, The Maynard, and The Mitre. Her one-act plays Oh Well and Muse were performed in the New Plays Festival, and she was editor and chairperson of the 2018 Quebec Universities English Undergraduate Conference. Off the page, she can be found cooking and making up silly little songs about her cat.
Calum Robertson is a full-time tea-drinker, part-time daydreamer from Calgary, Canada. Their work has appeared in the Gauntlet, deathcap poetry, Tofu Ink Arts Press, nod, In Parentheses, Bourgeon Online Magazine, and the Christian Courier. They’d like to be reincarnated as a dove, next time around.
Kit Roffey (They/Them) is a queer nonbinary writer studying English and psychology at Huron at Western. Their work has appeared in Symposium and Iconoclast.
Nnadi Samuel (he/him/his) holds a B.A in English & literature from the University of Benin. Author of Nature knows a little about Slave Trade, selected by Tate.N.Oquendo (Sundress Publication, 2023). A 3x Best of the Net, and 6x Pushcart Nominee. He tweets @Samuelsamba10.
Luke Sawczak is a language teacher and emerging writer living outside of Toronto. His poetry has appeared in the Humber Literary Review and is set to appear shortly in the Nonbinary Review, the Spadina Literary Review, and Ekstasis. A creative nonfiction story written in French was a finalist in Napoli Racconta and translated into Italian, and a poetry manuscript was an honourable mention for the Harold Sonny Ladoo Book Prize.
Ziggy Schutz (she/him/he/her) is a queer, disabled writer who is at all times looking for ways to make his favourite fairytales and horror stories reflect people who look a little more like her.
Bird Serlin is a disabled queer artist living in Toronto. She doesn’t need coffee, and can stop any time she wants.
Judith Skillman is a dual citizen of the US and Canada, and lives in Newcastle, Washington. Her work has appeared in Cimarron Review, Midwest Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, The Iowa Review, Threepenny Review, Zyzzyva, and other literary journals. She is the recipient of awards from Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust. Her new collection is A Landscaped Garden for the Addict, Shanti Arts Press, 2021. Visit www.judithskillman. com
Samuel Strathman is a poet, visual artist, author, and kitchen coordinator. He is also the editor-in-chief of Floodlight Editions. Some of his poems and visual art have appeared or are forthcoming in Pulp Literature, Cobra Milk, Blank Spaces and other magazines and journals. His first poetry collection, Omnishambles, is forthcoming with Ice Floe Press (2022). He lives in Toronto, Ontario.
Alden Wallace has been published in literary magazines around the world. He is the author Endless Nights, a chapbook of poetry.
ENCROACHING Caitlin Gauthier . . . 9
SPELL TO AMPUTATE ROTTEN VENTRICLES FROM PULSING HEARTS Calum Robertson . . . 10
SUBSISTENCE Judith Skillman . . . 11
MUSTARD FAMILY Dawn Macdonald . . . 12
NOW THAT THE DREAM Louise Carson . . . 13
BOREDOMS, OBSESSIONS, AND BETWEEN. McKenna Camac . . . 14
SEPTEMBER 15 TH , 2021 — IT’S FALL, BUT I’VE HAD
ENOUGH ENDINGS Charlotte Peters . . . 15
HOLY WHALE Samuel Strathman . . . 16
COASTAL Ziggy Schutz. . . 18
HUSKS Ziggy Schutz . . . 20
THE LITTLE YELLOW FLOWER Luke Sawczak . . . 21
I SAW A REDHAIRED GIRLWALKING UNDER SUNLIT TREES James Owens . . . 22
RE - CREATING Yuan Changming . . . 24 FOR WHOM THE SKIES CLAP. Alden Wallace . . . 25
A WRECKFUL PLANTING OF SMALL POCKETS OF THIRST Nnadi Samuel . . . 26
SCIENCE CLASS Joanna Cleary . . . 28
ANATOMICAL ARTIST—FOR ELEANOR CROOK Courtney Bates-Hardy . . . 30
BEAUCHȆNE SKULL Courtney Bates-Hardy . . . 32
SAUBLE BEACH Bird Tsirlin . . . 33
APOLLO AT EARTHRISE Gareth Gransaull . . . 34
POLTERGEIST Gareth Gransaull . . . 35
CONNECTING THREADS Kit Roffey . . . 36
CREATURES Haley Magrill . . . 38
Table of Contents
ENCROACHING
Caitlin Gauthier
I left the apartment this morning—anxiety heavy And cloying in the air.
When I came home, it was Cooking on the stove. Ancient grains and molasses to stick the panic to my throat.
Simmering. Splattering grease on the white walls.
I hate the smell: wet wool and a hint of the things I miss the most.
To be fair. I cut the ingredients myself. Piled high Top to bottom All the colours I should not eat.
Can you choke on the hope of your childhood?
On the light cupped in the palm of your hand, Meant to read by?
Can you choke on your own tongue while you are screaming?
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SPELL TO AMPUTATE ROTTEN VENTRICLES FROM PULSING
HEARTS
Calum Robertson
Nisi num nē, nē num nisi
Eat the white-flecked mushy meat of me
Nisi num nē et nē num nisi
Consume flaky shreds of who I was for me
Nisi num nē or nē num nisi
Chew and spit and spew and shit the me I can be
Nisi num nē but nē num nisi
Devour the decomposing, reforming me when
Nisi num nē est nē num nisi
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SUBSISTENCE Judith Skillman
On this farm called “pain” I wake each day and each day the same call whistles from slits and breaks in this body given by the Lord Who made every good thing blue as a jay or black like night. In this place shadows stalk the nerves, branches lift and fall. Green’s no more than leaves. My board for breakfast paid, I stumble into the shower, remember a painting by some German artist who used his brush as a surgeon. Memory cuts close to release cord and bone. I’m a new keep, my only duty to morning. After the cash crop of late lunch perhaps a walk through neighborhoods if not new still never as old as this my only occupation.
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MUSTARD FAMILY
Dawn Macdonald
when rivers and streams get blown across the continent. short-lived. a bad weed (said it outright). pitted in the outline. this blot is kidney-shaped. this blot is heart-shaped. this blot is liver-shaped. this blot is star-shaped. this blot is club-shaped. this blot is pear-shaped. here’s a rosette. it prefers a persistent stigma. she’s always loved a gravelly soil. quarter-inch crush. dwarf stones. you’d call that a suitable habitat. those are parallel remains. oblong, wrinkled, knotted with impurities. clasped and appressed, as is still common throughout our range.
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NOW THAT THE DREAM
Louise Carson
Now that the dream seems to be coming true, there are no fires in the large comfortable rooms. The people play instruments without joy. Joy is too frightening. (The secret name.)
So go.
It’s not so bad to go. All those missed milestones – unimportant. Her graduations are hers.
Crawl back under the green. The first poem, the last. The first book, and the last. These are mine.
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BOREDOMS, OBSESSIONS, AND BETWEEN. McKenna Camac
I promised myself the first time I laid eyes on your smile, I wouldn’t stay up all night counting your teeth.
I wouldn’t fight myself to find you worthwhile,
I’d walk away from the untouched masterpiece.
Still, I dipped my fingers into each pore on your skin.
I divulged where I promised to fast.
The taste of autumn love hasn’t turned brown.
Each breathy delight lingers and lasts.
I’ve written your flaws; I bit your shoulder.
I’ve whispered my demands on the soft part of your neck.
And when all was said and all was done, Your touch left me nothing but your wreck.
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SEPTEMBER 15 TH , 2021 — IT’S FALL, BUT I’VE HAD ENOUGH ENDINGS
Charlotte Peters Work was cancelled, and I’m hospitalized again, one-handed; handy how these things work out. The cosmic chuckle is heavy-handed. I wonder at the dappled light
cast by the universe, at the cast on my arm, the cast of characters around.
A man at the fracture clinic wears a t-shirt that claims no pain no gain! and six-foot sits next to an amputee. I wonder what they talk about.
I wonder how she can read with the flickering fluorescents dappling the page— —on, off, on, off, on off.
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HOLY WHALE
Samuel Strathman
I’m searching for the strange and prophetic.
Most people confuse prophetic with pathetic. Don’t correct them.
Unenlightened travellers are forbidden from partaking in this journey.
I dive into the whale’s mouth with my followers, slapping each others’ backs until collapse –until we’re sitting in the belly
Let us pray.
This is not a religious ceremony.
We don’t know what one person is praying for from the next.
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A lantern illuminates
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the whale’s stomach, calcifying us in the thick of our devotion.
Some of us find what we are looking for while others are lost at oblivion.
COASTAL Ziggy Schutz
The world I grew up in had an ocean with no waves.
As an adult, I know why. An island, large enough to protect a sleepy little stretch of landlocked coast. A strait, with the city twinkling like a constellation on the other side of it.
But growing up, it felt like some kind of magic. Like the Pacific itself quieted so that we could be brave enough to skip dipping our toes in, instead running over rocks, barnacle scrapes like the rings of a tree to mark the years. Woken up far past bedtime, because the water had chosen that particular night to glow.
And when we were older, nudging each other at the end of the pier, the sea held her breath in time with us, as one by one we jumped off the edge of our world into water that always caught us kindly, no matter the tide.
It’s a small town, one that tends to itch once you reach a certain height. A perfect place to grow up, but for my queer little heart and loud mouth, it was never going to be the place I ended up settling down in. Still, the ocean that hugs the Sunshine Coast does not begrudge me for leaving. She still holds her breath with me when I return, stumbling over the rocks to say hello.
I still haven’t learned my lesson, about the barnacles. I’ve got the scars to prove it.
The town has grown, and I have too, but the water is still just as calm as I remember it. I open my eyes, and can barely feel the salt, as I watch the ghosts of kids I used to be splash around me, luminescent phosphorescence kissing the edges of each memory the moment one of us is still.
There’s a lot to be said about small towns. About the things they teach us, and the things they don’t. My small town wasn’t perfect, because this isn’t a fairy tale. But down the road
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from this beach, there are still trolls in the woods, carved into the bark by a sculptor who sees the same potential that I do.
There is a magic here, one that can be caught in your hands. All you have to do is hold your breath, make that jump.
I step off the pier, fully grown now, and am reminded that anyone can make a splash, as long as they’re brave enough.
Hello, the ocean whispers, as I open my eyes, welcoming the familiar sting.
I watch as my ripples disturb the surface, and let myself float back to shore on waves of my own making.
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HUSKS Ziggy Schutz
It’s not something he can describe, not easily.
It’s a tone, a roughness like living, pants worn through at the knees and messy handstitched patches on the elbows of a well-loved flannel.
It’s filling out that flannel, it’s looking at home in his clothes (in his body), instead of being mistaken for a kid who’s gone and stolen his older brother’s wardrobe.
And he knows it’s a process, that it won’t happen overnight, no matter how often he looks in the mirror and compares photos side by side.
He smokes, like that will speed things along, and every time the breath catches in his throat he imagines it like sandpaper, tearing at all the edges of his voice he doesn’t like.
It’s slow, slow enough that he almost doesn’t notice, but little by little, there is less and less that makes him wince. More and more, when he opens his mouth, he likes who he hears.
It’s been a few months (17 weeks, 17 bandaids, in a rainbow of progress and time passing), and the bruises on his hips are more often from the needles than the corners of his desk, when he opens his mouth and a voice that feels like his falls out.
Husky, low, and his.
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THE LITTLE YELLOW FLOWER
Luke Sawczak
Does a dandelion rest at night? In the cool summer dark does it put away the spindle that spins the thread of light?
Do all these billowing trees made of coalescing air close leaves like piers, dreaming now, elsewhere?
Last night cherry blossoms bathed in streetlight gold hung like ghosts in a black sea, mental bodies.
Is there flower torpor?
I know the closing petals that are folded like negligées as morning glories sleep, but the little yellow flower in the roadside dusk that does not seem to fade, a small, more constant sun,
what does it do while we are gone?
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I SAW A REDHAIRED GIRLWALKING UNDER SUNLIT TREES
James Owens
Years later I know that if I have a heart at all it is a black blade that God
whets on a stone hidden in his murderous chest: a dry, anticipatory scritch-scritch-scritch.
He tests the edge of my heart against the fat curve of his thumb and meditatively sucks a drop of coppery blood.
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“let them walk in the evening, a little behind you,” Andrea Nesbitt
“Somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond,” Andrea Nesbitt
RE - CREATING Yuan Changming
Towards the summer sky I make a shape of heart
With my clumsy hands
This is the feel of life
I tell the season
This is to illuminate the dark Dreamland like a search light
I tell the crow stalking behind Like the spirit of my late Father. This is to gather all
The positive energy in the world & Send it to the future. I tell my Unborn grandson. This is the cycle Of life & the philosopher’s stone
I tell the greening copse. This is The circle to fill in with cries & laughs.
I tell my other self
Beyond the cosmic wall, as if To balance yin and yang
In the whole universe
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FOR WHOM THE SKIES CLAP.
Alden Wallace
The door is open, wide open—
4 AM in august in the applauding rain, A sandpaper grey simmering in the east But not a bird chirp yet.
There is no sweeping vista from inner city Only the grim dome above. I would love for deep rest now— Restoration for these hoopsnake eyes—
But someday I know
There will indeed be nostalgia For such slow dreamless nights as these— Each rolling past swift as tears—
I’ve had the time to think it all through And I don’t think I want to live a life
Wherein all my tomorrows are already spoken for.
I believe I believe I believe
That when two doors stand before me I am able to choose the third.
A drop of old rain rolls from a fern
As the drained clouds float by And in the time it takes
To find its rest in a bed of soil
Much can happen, much indeed.
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A WRECKFUL PLANTING OF SMALL POCKETS OF THIRST
Nnadi Samuel
I run out of ways to keep you urgent in my mouth, stomach your shouting relic. so, when grief comes for an unburial unearthing you into the forgotten, I stuff you under my tongue.
how I’ve learnt to carry you across borders, across turnpikes & racial diss. across the panting roadblocks, where we exist loudly as exclamations below a cop’s knee, or viscous ransack that gets close but doesn’t claim my throat.
the near miss— a hurt we alone can voice.
I scale you across walls, unpronounced. pawn all my sound rates at eager cost, to house your absence. the mold of your breath: a memory of all the things we run out of. till I approach the wild reserve of oxygen & grim soil yawning to mouth you whose hunger surrounds a place, kill it’s aura knowing an opening isn’t reception.
you go by the names of every fattened contraband, nurtured by my silence, plump with a knowing of all I’ve held back.
I genuflect, teeth heavy into dust to sow your person in a sullied language. I drown your absence deep in the carnivorous mud: a wreckful planting of small pockets of thirst.
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the sky— grief hefty. wrathful cherubs, laced in giant heaps of puffed cloud. each turn, a weeping threat.
I howl into wetness till the ground goes soft, loamy with my passing breath & the trail of your absence I indent with shrubs. each thicket, a bleed and scything remark scribbled in furious red across the tiny mouths of the world
as I hold you urgent, behind clenched lips. a sharp susurration tilling its underbrush.
how likely we assume dust, by which I mean— slit our tongue into sones & decibels. a throbbing loudness seething from within: an hour of sobbing gold.
27
SCIENCE CLASS
Joanna Cleary
I mapped constellations for science class (grade eight, astronomy unit). Outside, I soon became cold and finite, unsure what our bodies could mean—our relapses, our nervous limbs, the heart. Inside, the textbook that had previously belonged to Stacey Xu explained how we still see the light of stars for thousands of years after they die. I explained this to Aiden, who’d call me a nerd in front of his friends but then, sitting behind me, softly ask if I could help him label the solar system. Avery and Mia would gossip about him by our lockers, saying he secretly liked me. I might’ve felt the shame of first infatuation, had I liked boys. I outgrew astronomy by the end of the term; I wanted to write. My science textbook, dutifully inscribed with my name on the line under Stacey’s, went to Mr. Andrews’ next eighth grade class. I lived on. In high school and university, I sometimes felt infinite—finishing poems, those small moments where I could forget the winter nights spent mapping the stars.
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School’s over now and I’ve found a job that keeps me busy with corporate strategy and email. I’m still writing on the side (while I contemplate an MFA, someday). When I have to work deep into the night, I’ll look up past the fluorescents and pretend to see dead stars. But what can I write about? Where can I return? Mr. Andrews: Billions of years from now, our dying sun will swell to swallow the Earth. Our bodies know and have already started to live through memory, just like the glow-in-the-dark stars a tenant before me stuck on the bedroom ceiling. As I turn on the lights in the early morning, the cosmos becomes a poem that lingers and fades. I’ll give my thanks and continue on.
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ANATOMICAL ARTIST—FOR ELEANOR CROOK Courtney Bates-Hardy
I am listening to an artist describe the difference between autopsy and dissection.
In life, the arteries pulsate and are easier to find. In dissection, they slip away into the riot.
We all wear a suit of fascia under our skin. Without it, we lose our usual shape.
Each layer lifted and peeled, flip through dermis and fascia like the pages of a book.
Before a dissection, the blood is evacuated and the body becomes flat— drained of colour, defined by lack.
An autopsy is a race from frozen to thawed, the seeping melt from ice to flesh to rot.
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The body is the territory of ooze, of things that do not want to be separated.
Watch the colours change: pale pinks and blues to the bright reds and brilliant yellows of hothouse flowers.
A rush from pastel to oils, dust and fat disintegrate— a spiderweb that disappears overnight.
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BEAUCHȆNE SKULL
Courtney Bates-Hardy
Every headache feels like this: disarticulated shards split at the seams. Cheekbones singing to the mandible jutting forward for your gaze.
This is not a metaphor, it’s a display laced with thin wires holding the whole thing apart.
Once, there was soft musculature and a cushion of cartilage. Osseous screams
erupt from the temples: this cathedral will not hold. The tectonic shift
of cranial bones: ragged edges revealed, naked joints exposed.
Hold your head together. I’ll hold mine too.
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SAUBLE BEACH
Bird Tsirlin
we drive three hours in a bright blue borrowed car the sun shines like a hammer and I walk alien in my body to a spot where we can sit in the clean air the water sparkling like gilded spun glass when it hits me that I can’t remember the sun on the water between these trips I will return to the city and forget for a year please please remember as I wade into the frigid water and stand until my feet take root the underwater sand sucking me down into the earth I flower in the alien of my body watching Kamila swim into the horizon I lie on a towel and feel the sand grind hard mounds into my hips I let the wind wander the landscape of my flesh it feels better than every fuck I’ve had since last summer we drive home in the dark three people broken by our parents we sing along with Billy Joel I fall asleep and dream of monsters in the distance Toronto is a pool of lights cradled in rolling hills each perfect copse of midnight trees doling glimpses of the places where we live we hurtle towards the city in a bright blue borrowed car and this day of borrowed time bends to the peace of the lake the beach is shallow it goes on forever I wade into the frigid water and try to feel I’m telling John I love the blue and rose and peach of the sky but he’s not listening so I stop I’m standing alien in my body I hang on for dear life with our feet in the water
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APOLLO AT EARTHRISE
Gareth Gransaull
No, I will not quarrel with the sun.
I will not suffer the brilliant chains.
To breathe and walk as something primal yet new–that is my goal.
This is no incandescent depth–only moonstruck shores, crystalline, ankle-deep.
Paved roads do not lead here. Feet squish in opalescent clay, kicking at the stars.
In distant eyes, an ocean stares at a moaning abyss. Home.
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POLTERGEIST
Gareth
Gransaull
You sit there in pale anomaly, anxiously pawing at the ground like claw-footed furniture–
stubborn sentience, the last refuge of your insidious awakeness, makes you paler than the milk-bloom sky.
You stare at me like a door without handles, like a candelabra defrocked of erotic light.
I return to your flare without a map, without antennae–only a feather-fingered shallowness that has no answers, only curtains.
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CONNECTING THREADS
Kit Roffey
Like first damp snow smoothing over hibernating lawns my skin becomes a porous blanket for the spiders who are nesting in my ceiling again.
I know I am too warm to be comfortable and I’ve never been a good host, but maybe I could be home for sale.
They make the climb from floor vents and baseboards, abundance of claws tracking wood stain and burning dust along walls marred with gut-shiny streaks, flow as fast as a toddler pouring milk into an already full cup.
Silk thread their way down to me, dangling from the light, remind me that I need make the trip to buy new bulbs if I could only face the shower and the toothpaste and the girl at the checkout who looks like my high school crush.
They move under my tongue to make their talk arachnid rhythms I can’t translate, but still, I open my mouth wide to make a ballroom to waltz in.
Let the dizzy spinning cocoon my vocal cords cozy and tight, the spiders can speak for me now, crack out a rough approximation of something I used to say.
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I can feel them circle step to make their web moon spilling midnight sky across no stars in the cavity of my abdomen, a welcome pulling of organs together, a wholeness that is all too foreign and all too close.
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CREATURES
Haley Magrill
Kitten follows with her tongue out. Feed her the best pocket crumbles until she falls asleep with her head on your knee, whimpering.
Purr-cy…Purr-cy…Purr-cy.
Stroke her ears gently. Her head looks so crunchy and juicy and is just the right size like your favourite red apples and— don’t eat Kitten!
Remember Kitten is your friend. Write this down for later. You don’t know how to spell all the words. Ask Mother to write it down for you.
Remember Mother is your friend.
“Are you ready to go, Percy?” Mother calls from downstairs. Hide Kitten in your backpack—quickly the door is opening.
“You’re looking a bit green around the gills this morning? Are you feeling all right?”
“Gills?”
“Do you feel sick?” Mother presses her hand to your forehead, frowns. “Don’t forget your coat when you go outside for lunch.”
Take the yellow bus to school. Smile at the driver.
Remember Driver is your friend.
Don’t moan, don’t shuffle, don’t stare, close your mouth they’re looking at you.
Follow the others to class. Don’t walk too close. Hang your backpack on a hook. Leave a breathing hole for Kitten.
Sit criss-cross applesauce on the carpet even though it pinches your knees. Say, ‘Present’ when Ms. Jones calls your name. Don’t grunt.
Remember Ms. Jones is your friend.
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Speak carefully when called on to read. Follow your finger. Sound out the long words like Mother showed you. Ignore the fact that Daphne is watching you from behind her dark, red hair, smelling like hot, melting sugar. You’re drooling. Wipe your mouth with the back of your hand—quickly before they notice.
Pause for breath when there’s a dot at the end of the sentence. Sometimes ‘B’s’ are silent. ‘I’ before ‘E’ except after—
Wait—they’re laughing! Ms. Jones?
Ms. Jones?!
“Percy, darling, it’s pronounced ‘pea-nuts.’ Ellie the elephant eats ‘pea-nuts’ for breakfast. Don’t forget to make that ‘T’ pop.”
‘Oh,’ is the sound you make while your face is burning. Keep reading.
But the words are jumbling. Keep reading.
But they’re laughing and your throat is closing and you lost your spot on the page.
“Bathroom, Ms. Jones?”
“Who would like to be Percy’s hallway buddy?”
“But Miss! He’s a freak!”
“We don’t call others freaks, Zachary.”
They’re laughing again. It rings in your ears. Someone will volunteer. Keep smiling—not too wide.
“I’ll have to pick then,” Ms. Jones sighs.
“I’ll go.”
Your heart stops. It’s Daphne, and her dark, red hair, and her sweet sugar head, and before you know it, she’s holding your hand and it’s just the two of you in the hallway alone.
Don’t groan, don’t limp, don’t gawk, stand up straight she’s looking at you.
Remember Daphne is your friend.
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You should say something to explain your slimy palms. Kitten was like that too—gooey. You had to wipe her with a paper towel.
“Percy?”
She said your name. Don’t panic. Breathe.
“Yea?”
“You’re squeezing my hand.”
Drop your hand quickly. Not good enough, put it in your pocket. Not good enough, cut if off.
“I’m…sorry…Daphn—” The ‘E’ sticks to your tongue and you choke.
Inside the bathroom, a strange boy stares back at you in the mirror. You don’t know this boy. His cheeks fall in. His skin is grey and crusted in places where it should be soft and pink. The eyes scare you the most. They shouldn’t be yellow.
Daphne smells even tastier on the way back to class, like the warm, chewy cinnamon buns Mother only makes for special occasions. Maybe just one nibble by the ear? She would barely even notice….
Then, it’s lunch and you sit alone under a tree, ripping up clovers. There’s a game of tag on the playground. Maybe you could ask to play? Practice the words first. Don’t grunt.
“Can…I…can…I…”
A finger sticks you in the head. “You’re a gorilla.” Zachary sneers. “Have some food, gorilla.” He throws grass in your face.
Pretend not to hear. Pretend your eyes aren’t stinging. Pretend you’re at home, under the covers, feeding peanut butter spoons to Kitten. Pretend her little pink tongue is licking your fingers and making a nest in your hair and settling in for a nap. But you’re curious and you’ve never had a Kitten before and you’re wondering what it would be like to tuck Kitten in your shirt and pretend that she was your baby kangaroo. You’re picking her up carefully—two hands—and lowering her down
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the neck hole—
Oh.
Oh no.
Kitten begins to thrash like a crab caught in a net. Her claws are much sharper than you realized. It stings where she slices you.
And then her teeth sink in.
When the bell rings, return to class single file—don’t budge.
“Percy?” Ms. Jones calls. “Could you step over here a moment?”
Eyes follow you across the classroom. Walk normally. Don’t drag your feet. They’re staring at you.
Her voice drops to a whisper “Percy, did you bring an animal to school?”
You think the answer should be no.
“Oh, dear god,” Ms. Jones shudders, as you lift a sleeping Kitten from your bag.
“What’s Percy got Miss?” Zachary shouts from across the room.
“Is that a cat? I didn’t know you had a cat, Percy,” Daphne smiles.
“Can I feed it a cracker?”
“Can I feed it a string cheese?”
“Can I feed it a Lego?”
“What’s wrong with it, Percy?”
A lump rolls under Kitten’s fur. That can’t be good.
“Poke it, Percy!”
“No, don’t poke it!” Ms. Jones snaps. “Everyone back to your seats right n—”
Kitten interrupts—no, Kitten erupts before Ms. Jones finishes. Her stomach rips open, shooting out a tar-like goo. Ms. Jones squawks and trips backwards over a chair. It coats your
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hands. You’ve got her on your hands. From across the room, Daphne stares in shock—no in disgust—no in terror, as the classroom descends into chaos.
And then you’re hit from the side. Zachary’s arms close around your middle and you’re falling. Pain as your head meets the floor. Pain as his fists meet your face. Pain as his knee meets your gut.
Enough introductions!
Sink your teeth into the flesh by his shoulder. It’s soft and buttery like those bread rolls that come packed up in a tin. Keep your mouth closed when you chew. Your shirt is not a napkin. Don’t lick your fingers. It’s rude.
Somewhere far away people are screaming. You wish they would stop. It’s ruining the feast. The sounds spin around in your head making you dizzy. Put your head between your knees. Count to ten. One, two three, four, five, six—
Cold, clammy hands touch the back of your neck, whispering your name.
Percy…Percy…Percy.
A dozen pairs of yellow eyes peer back at you. Stand up straight. Smile—a little wider.
Remember these are your friends.
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—K.S.Y.V. & S.K.
