Write This Down (2 page)

The backup guitar and vocalist is Timber Jones, who has an Afro that I think he gets permed; it's albino white, with one purple streak in it, except sometimes the purple streak is green.

The bass player is Moonbeam Rollins. I'm sure he gave himself that first name. He reminds me of this poem we read in school, “Miniver Cheevy.” In the poem, Miniver Cheevy, “born too late,” wishes he lived in the Middle Ages. Moonbeam wishes he lived in 1968. He wears tie-dyed T-shirts, sandals even in the winter, and a big peace sign on a chain around his neck.

Hunter is the drummer. He wanted to be a drummer back in fifth grade when kids got to choose what to play for instrumental music. But my dad said he had to do a “real instrument,” so he was a trombone player for two years before he refused to be in the school band anymore. Then this past summer he found a drum set super cheap at a yard sale down the street, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The first couple of times the band came over, I holed up in my room or headed over to Kylee's. But lately I can't resist hanging around the band because of Cameron's brother being right here, in our house, in our kitchen, scarfing down the seven-layer dip Mom makes for them, with those tortilla chips that are little scoopers that break off into crumbly pieces and stick in your braces, speaking from unfortunate experience. I'm never in the kitchen with them—Hunter would hate that—but I sit in the family room just off the kitchen, pretending to be writing. Part of me hopes David will see me or at least cast his eyes in my direction as I'm musing over my manuscript.

Okay, this is pathetic, but today I even changed into a flowy white dress, because Emily Dickinson always wore white dresses. My plan, or rather my dream, is that David's eyes will fall on me as I'm writing, all Emily-Dickinson-ish, and then maybe he'll say something about it to Cameron later.

“Hey, lil bro, is there a girl in your class named Summer or something?”

“Autumn. There's a girl in my journalism class named Autumn.”

“That's right. Autumn. Well, she was writing all the time I was there, I mean, just totally lost in writing her story.”

“Yeah, she's like that in journalism, too.”

“I think the two of you have a lot in common. You both like to write, you're both sensitive, you're both mysterious…”

No. Even I can't imagine any world, however fantastic, in which this conversation actually happens. Besides, none of the band members, including David, can even see me from the kitchen, and they're deep in conversation about the band, talking about what they'd play at a gig if they ever got a gig. From what I overhear, it'd mainly be covers for songs by well-known bands, as well as songs by some indie groups, and maybe a couple of originals.

“Do you have a piece of paper I can use to write down the playlist?” one of them asks. I think it's Timber. His voice is the deepest.

“There's got to be one around here somewhere,” Hunter says.

“Can we just rip out a page from this notebook?” Moonbeam asks. “It looks like a fancy one, though.”

OMG.

I left my Moleskine on the kitchen table after lunch.

The notebook with my Cameron poems that I wrote this morning.

Including the one titled “Ode to Cameron.”

I should leap off the couch, race into the kitchen, and snatch the notebook from their hands before anyone can peek inside. But I'm paralyzed, like a squirrel spied by a dog who freezes into a squirrel-shaped statue.

“It's my sister's,” Hunter says. I hear the sneer in his voice. This is not the voice of someone who bought me a perfect “Don't annoy the writer” mug only a few months ago.

Don't open it. Don't open it. Don't open it.

“Hey,” Hunter says, and he's chuckling now, “get this.”

No.

No.

No.

“‘Ode to Cameron,'” he reads in a fake high voice.

All the air is sucked out of my lungs as if Hunter's words are a whooshing vacuum cleaner.

“‘Ode to Cameron'?” David asks. “As in my brother Cameron?”

There isn't any other Cameron in our school.

Hunter keeps reading in the same warbly falsetto. “‘If thou wouldst die, the snow would yield / yet another grave for me.'”

Laughter.

Are those such terrible lines? I'd like to see Hunter write anything a tenth as good. But they definitely sound terrible read aloud by Hunter with the other guys cracking up.

Hunter continues: “‘If thou wouldst leave, my heart would break / like a ship wrecked on the sea.'”

Puking sounds. I cover my ears. Is Hunter the one pretending to puke? Or are the other guys fake-puking, too, including David?

Now my heart
is
broken,
exactly
like a ship wrecked on the sea.

I can never face Cameron again. Ever, ever, ever.

And I can never forgive Hunter. Ever, ever, ever.

If Hunter still liked me, even the tiniest, teensiest bit, he could never make fun of me—of my writing!—in front of all his friends, including Cameron's brother.

I can't bear it anymore. I can't.

Even though the damage has already been done, I'm there in the kitchen now, grabbing at the notebook as Hunter, guffawing, holds it above my head, too high for me to reach.

“Give it back!” I shriek. “Give it
back
!”

From the corner of my eye, I can see Timber doubled over with laughter, but Moonbeam gives me a sheepish look.

“C'mon, Hunter, give it back to her,” David says.

David!

With utter contempt, Hunter tosses my notebook onto the floor so that I have to crouch down to pick it up in the most humiliating way.

All four boys are silent now, watching me. But my eyes are fastened on Hunter, even though he's looking away, perhaps smarting from David's comment. He must know what a mean thing he just did.

“I'm going to publish my poems someday,” I tell him. My voice starts out wobbly and quavery, but it gets louder and stronger as I keep on talking. “I'm going to be a famous writer, and
then
you'll be sorry you ever made fun of me. I'm going to write something about
you
, and the whole world will read it and know what a terrible brother you turned into!”

Then I stumble out of the room. And I do mean stumble. My Emily Dickinson dress is too long, so I catch my heel on it and trip against the kitchen table, whacking my knee so hard my eyes sting with tears.

 

2

“So let's brainstorm options,” I tell Kylee as I'm lying on her bed clutching her very pink stuffed elephant to my very flat chest. I texted Kylee that I needed to come over and told my mom I was going to her house, but I didn't tell Mom what had happened. It's too humiliating to tell anyone in the world except for Kylee.

“Option number one,” I say. “I transfer to another school. Immediately.”

Kylee shakes her head so hard her dark bangs fall over her eyes. “You'd have to start all new classes, and you'd be behind already in everything, and your best friend would miss you every minute of the day, and your parents would never let you.”

“Right now we're brainstorming,” I remind her. “Brainstorming means you think of everything, every single option, good and bad, without passing judgment on any of them. Like we did in Mr. Harris's language arts class last year.”

Besides, option number one sounds pretty good to me, at least compared to the option of going into journalism on Monday and facing Cameron after his brother heard my love poem. Even though David was the nicest to me of any of them, I can't imagine that he won't tell Cameron about it.

“So what's option number two?” Kylee's eyes stay fastened on me, her fingers effortlessly clicking her knitting needles down the next row of the pink-and-green-and-yellow scarf she's knitting. She's such a good knitter she doesn't have to pay attention while she knits.

“Option number two is I drop journalism.” I'd still have to see Cameron in the halls, but that's totally different from sitting right next to him in class every single day.

“No!” Kylee moans. “That's your favorite subject! And then we'd only have two classes together!”

She obviously didn't listen to my reminder about brainstorming.

“Option number three,” I continue, but I can't think of a third way to avoid having to see Cameron ever again for the rest of my life. “Run away?”

“That isn't funny.” Now Kylee's distressed enough that she puts down her knitting. “Option number
three
is that you forget about it. I'd bet you anything that David won't even tell Cameron. Girls talk about boys a lot more than boys talk about girls.”

Kylee herself never talks about boys. She doesn't have a crush on anyone, though there's this very short, mega-awkward boy named Henry Dubin who has a crush on her; he's in science with Kylee, and art. You can tell he likes her because he always seems to be bumping her with his backpack in the hall and snorting in this high-pitched horsey kind of way.

Now I have to hope that Cameron's brother doesn't joke with him about me the way I joke with Kylee about Henry Dubin.

I can so see the scene playing itself out in my mind. Cameron's brother sits down to dinner with Cameron and their parents in the ultra-modern-looking house where they live, a few blocks from us, the house I walk by every chance I get, always pretending I'm on the way to somewhere else.

“Hey, lil bro, is there a girl in your class named Summer or something?”

“Autumn. There's a girl in my journalism class named Autumn.”

“That's right. Autumn. Well, she has a big-time crush on you, man.”

“You're kidding.”

“Nope. I was at her brother's house today with the band. And her brother, Hunter, read us one of her poems. And guess what it was called? ‘Ode to Cameron.'”

Gagging noises from Cameron.

“She's really nuts about you. Listen to this. Are you ready?”

Sickening silence from Cameron, who is not at all ready.

“‘If thou wouldst croak, the snow would puke up yet another grave for me.' Or something like that.”

Awkward laughter from Cameron. “Man. Oh, man. It's bad enough that she's always staring at me in journalism class. Oh, man, this sucks.”

This scene is a lot more believable than my dumb Emily Dickinson fantasy. Its dialogue sounds completely real, while the other one sounded fake.

But maybe, maybe David will tell Cameron the
real
opening lines from my poem and Cameron will think they're
good
? Maybe he's secretly liked me all along and will be glad to know I secretly like him?

Kylee has gone back to her knitting, but I know she's still thinking.

“Okay,” she says when she gets to the end of another row. “Option number four—well, maybe this is just the same as
my
option number three—is that you act normal around him tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the day after that. I really don't think Cameron's brother is going to talk to Cameron about you, and if he does, he can't say your poems are bad, because they aren't bad—they're wonderful.”

Did I mention that I love Kylee more than anyone in the world? I do have other friends. Sometimes I go over to Isabelle Abshire's house to watch old black-and-white movies, because Kylee won't watch anything that isn't in color. Sometimes Brianna Clark hangs out with Kylee and me; she once said we're “soothing” to be around, but I know she really meant Kylee. But I love Kylee a thousand times more than I love either of them.

So Kylee just said my poems are wonderful. Despite the horribleness of everything that happened, down deep—well, not even down all that deep—I still think they're wonderful, too.

“What if…” I begin, and then trail off. “Kylee, tell me honestly. I know best friends are supposed to believe in each other, but they're supposed to be honest with each other, too. Do you really, truly, cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die think my poems are good—and not just my poems generally, but my Cameron poems?”

Without a moment of hesitation, Kylee nods.

“What if—maybe this is ridiculous…” I say, even though I don't think it's ridiculous because it's what I've been planning to do ever since I made my big announcement to Hunter and the band this afternoon, just sooner than I thought.

“In brainstorming, nothing is ridiculous,” Kylee reminds me.

“What if I published my poems somewhere? Somewhere really impressive? And then it won't matter what Hunter said, or what Cameron
might
say, because a famous poetry magazine will be on record saying that they're fabulous. And Hunter will be like,
Wow, I guess Autumn really
can
write, and I shouldn't have made fun of her.
And Cameron will be like,
Wow, I guess this majorly published poet
is
a girl I'd like to get to know.
”

Just this morning I wanted to be like Emily Dickinson and not publish my poems until after I die. A lot can change in a few hideous hours.

“Now you're talking!” Kylee said, though maybe she's just so relieved that I'm not going to change schools or drop journalism or run away that she's acting more enthusiastic than she really feels. But Kylee is a terrible liar, so I know she means whatever she says.

I let myself play out a new script in my head.

“Hey, lil bro, is there a girl in your class named Summer or something?”

“Autumn. There's a girl in my journalism class named Autumn.”

“That's right. Autumn. Well, she has a big-time crush on you, man.”