Lemon by Cordelia Strube Page A

capture. She made it though, and soon after started risking her life on a regular basis heading back south to lead more slaves to freedom. Hearing about Harriet Tubman exhausted me. I had a stash of mini-marshmallows in my backpack. I kept eating them to keep my strength up.
    Harriet Tubman was someone with a life purpose.
    â€˜What if you have no life purpose?’ I ask.
    Blecher spoons yogourt into her yob. She’s acting a little aloof because I caught her reading a Double Digest Archie comic hidden inside a National Geographic .
    â€˜I mean,’ I clarify, ‘don’t you think it’s possible that some people don’t have a life purpose?’
    Harriet Tubman lived to be ninety-two. No way do I want to live to be ninety-two.
    â€˜Your life purpose reflects your deepest values,’ Blecher says.
    I can’t even think of my shallowest values, never mind my deepest ones.
    â€˜Living your life purpose,’ Blecher says, ‘requires being clear and aligning yourself with your spiritual nature, moving past your inner blocks.’
    I listen for the lunch bell. I only came here to get away from Bonehead and company who have taken to calling me a bull dyke and braying in my direction.
    â€˜Inner blocks can defeat us all,’ Blecher says. She taps her temple and her gut in case I don’t know the meaning of inner blocks . ‘You are your own worst enemy,’ she adds.
    â€˜Can you give me some examples of people with life purposes?’ I ask, stalling for time. ‘I mean, I can only think of dead ones.’
    Blecher rips a granola bar wrapper with her teeth.
    â€˜Harriet Beecher Stowe would be a good candidate,’ I say. ‘But she’s dead.’
    â€˜Harriet who?’
    â€˜She wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’
    â€˜Haven’t read that one.’ She starts chomping the granola bar.
    â€˜It was the first novel to really expose slavery in America,’ I explain, knowing she’s bored out of her mind. ‘She wrote it long before old Mark Twain figured out to write Huckleberry Finn , which is everybody’s all-time favourite novel. Personally I think the last third needs work. Everybody talks like old Mark was the first one to point the finger at slavery, but the truth is it was Harriet. You have to wonder how much longer it would have taken to get the Civil War going without Harriet blowing the whistle.’
    Blecher crumples up the granola bar wrapper and pitches it at the trash can, missing it, of course. With her mouth full of oats she can’t speak, which is a plus. She holds up a finger to indicate that she will offer words of wisdom after she gets the fibre down. Fortunately the bell goes.
    Rossi corners me at my locker. ‘I said I was sorry,’ she says.
    â€˜Don’t sweat it,’ I say.
    â€˜Doyle invited me to Kirsten’s party. Do you mind?’
    â€˜Not at all.’
    â€˜You guys aren’t going steady or anything?’
    â€˜Negative.’
    She stands gnawing on a Bic. Under all that sparkly eyeliner I see the kid I used to know and I feel so sad. Because she was my best friend and we had answers and now we don’t know anything .
    â€˜Everybody thinks it’s really cool that you’re writing a play.’
    â€˜Who says I’m writing a play?’
    â€˜Did you really kick Larry Bone in the face?’
    â€˜I didn’t kick anybody.’
    â€˜He says he’s going to whip your ass.’
    I walk away from her, to my biology class where I can get some sleep.
    â€˜Come over later?’ she asks.
    In chemistry Doyle blows up something that singes his eyebrows. Conkwright starts yelling at him. Conkwright’s one of those Scottish types who came here at age two or something but still speak with a Scots accent. ‘Just what do ya think yarr dooin’? D’ya want to buurrrn the eyeballs oot of yarr head?’ He gets all red and starts blowing spit. Conkwright