LITMIR.BIZ

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      I love Sean? Yeah, right. How can I love someone who obviously doesn’t even know I exist? I’m totally annoyed with myself.

      “Nice face,” Julie says as she clicks away.

      I want to grab her camera and hurl it across the gym, but throwing things isn’t my strong suit. I admit it: I throw like a girl, however sexist that sounds. I’d probably make a fool out of myself.

      It’s time to go back to class. I take one last look around the gym as we’re heading for the large double doors. There he is, looking right at me. I think. He smiles and waves. I glance around for Mr. Driggs. When I look back at Sean, he’s walking toward the locker rooms, his back to me. On impulse I raise my camera. No time to focus. Click.

      “Come on, we’re going to be late,” Julie says, grabbing my arm. “You can flirt with your crush later.”

      “What? I wasn’t flirting. And I don’t have a crush on him! But do you think he was waving at me?” I’m such a contradiction I can barely stand myself. I know if Julie were carrying on like this about some boy, I’d probably have to dump her. How does she put up with me?

      She rolls her big, blue eyes. See, Caucasians can do that. The eye rolls right around in a circle. Me, when I roll my eyes, they look like they just go back and forth. I know this because I’ve watched Maia try to roll her eyes. And even though hers are Chinese eyes and mine are Korean, the slant is very similar.

      I suddenly realize I haven’t taken a single shot of Julie all period. Yikes. Time to get busy. As we head back to class, I pose Julie next to a fire extinguisher, next to a poster for Just Say No, in front of the girl’s room, in front of the boy’s room with her hand on the door like she’s about to enter (I kinda like that one). I shoot her walking from behind, her feet, from the front. Twenty-four—make that twenty-three—frames seems to be an awful lot. The second-to-last one I shoot up at her from the floor, as if I’m not short enough. I just hope something’s in focus. I still don’t get that f-stop business.

      “Hurry up,” Julie says, ruining my last shot by moving.

      With a sigh, I crank the film back into the canister. I have to wait till next Thursday to develop it.

      The bell clangs above our heads. I’m off to English, Julie to science.

      “Out front after school, right?” she says as we exit left.

      I nod. I have to hurry to make it from the art wing all the way up to the third floor for English. I zoom off, and I imagine my short legs churning like a cartoon character’s.

      Mrs. Hobbs is my English teacher. It seems kids have mean names for everyone, even the nicest, best teacher in the whole school. Hobo Hobbs, they call her, on account of her weird clothes. Nothing matches. Everything is patched. Her black men’s shoes must be at least two sizes too large. Put a stick over her shoulder and she really would look like a hobo.

      I’m panting by the time I get to room 313. In this class we were allowed to sit wherever we wanted at the beginning of the quarter. I sit front and center. Funny how that works.

      I slip into my seat and Mrs. Hobbs smiles at me. Most of her face is as weathered as the side of a barn, but her hazel eyes sparkle like wet paint.

      This is Advanced English. Mostly we read, discuss themes and symbolism, and then write papers. In between she slips in sentence diagramming and vocabulary lists.

      When we’re reading novels and short stories and plays, Mrs. Hobbs doesn’t tell us anything. She makes us figure out the deeper meanings for ourselves. Even after we think we’ve got it, she won’t confirm whether we’re right or wrong. She says it’s all up to the individual reader.

      Me, I love digging around, trying to figure out what the author was trying to say beyond the words she wrote down on the page. I’m like the symbol sleuth. The theme detective. The—

      “What?” I say.

      Mrs. Hobbs raises one bushy eyebrow and I can see she’s trying not to smile. But when she’s trying to look stern, somehow it makes her look even nicer.

      “I asked if you have your paper,” she says, her voice husky like she smokes five packs of cigarettes a day.

      I quickly dig through my bag and hand over three typed sheets. I wrote about Romeo and Juliet’s names in Shakespeare’s play. About how Romeo Montague ends in weak vowels, and Juliet Capulet’s name ends with a snapping consonant. I went on about how Juliet’s name sounds stronger and how I feel Shakespeare wanted to show she’s the stronger character. Three pages worth of proof.

      Okay, I admit it: My dad helped me. He didn’t actually tell me what to write, but since he is a professor of English, specializing in Shakespeare, and I love that subject, we sometimes talk about it. He’s always telling me how names can be very significant in a story, and he especially hinted about it when I told him we were reading Romeo and Juliet. But hey, what are dads for?

      Mrs. Hobbs moves on with a swish. Somewhere on her body she wears a bell that tinkles every time she steps sideways. So far, no one’s been able to figure out where the bell is hidden.

      As Mrs. Hobbs makes her way between rows, some people start whispering. I press my fingers to my earlobes, feeling how smooth they are, with a little dimple on the backside. Will getting them pierced hurt?

      Sandy, sitting beside me, leans over and says, “Is it getting too loud in here for you?”

      I drop my hands onto the desk. “No, I wasn’t plugging my ears, just wondering what it’ll be like to have them pierced.”

      Sandy brushes her long hair away from her face. “You still don’t have your ears pierced? I can’t believe it. I had mine done before I was one. You’re not chicken are you?”

      “No,” I say quickly. I pause. Which is worse, being chicken or having a father who didn’t let me?

      Luckily, Mrs. Hobbs has returned to the front of the room. Everyone knows not to talk when she’s standing there. It’s not that she ever humiliates anyone into being quiet like Mr. Prescott, one of the science teachers, or bores us into silence like Mr. Driggs. It’s just that even in her hobo clothes, she somehow commands attention. We give it to her.

      She puts her hands together like she’s praying. Large silver rings encircle each long finger, even her thumbs. “Now that we’ve finished reading and analyzing Shakespeare’s masterpiece, it’s time to take it to the stage.” Like a magician, she waves her arms, as if that says it all. Somehow it does.

      My heart starts to hammer. Stage? Not me, no way.

      “I will put you into groups of four, and you will decide which scene to present.You have one week to prepare your performances. Any questions?”

      Someone in back raises a hand and asks, “Do we all have to act, or can one of us be the, uh, backstage crew?”

      “Really, Mr. Wilson,” Mrs. Hobbs says (she calls us by our last names when she’s trying

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