Only Alien on the Planet by Kristen D. Randle Page A

inconvenience more than slightly preferable to terminal humiliation. Of course,as it turned out, it would have been much better if I'd just toughed it out and left things as they were.
    Just after third period next day, Caulder passed me in the hall and stuffed a wad of papers on top of the books I was carrying, waggling his eyebrows and grinning like he was really satisfied with himself.
    When I got to Mrs. Shein's room, I put the books down on the floor and spread Caulder's wad out flat on the desk. It turned out to be a long report, folded into loose quarters, as if somebody'd meant to throw it away. The title read: A Partial Analysis of Bismarck's Application of Selected Machiavellian Principles by Michael S. Tibbs.
    So this was one of Smitty's papers.
    I rifled through the pages—ten pages long with footnotes on every page. For Leviaton's class. Leviaton hadn't assigned any research so far this year. So, this was Smitty's idea of what you did for a regular assignment. Top of the class? I guess so.
    I'd read as far as the third page when the bell rang. It was impressive; he wrote like an adult, with a sentence structure that was definitely more complex than anything I could have done. Actually, it read like a well-written textbook—clear, but without much life in it. No personality. It was actually more or less exactly what you'd have expected.
    Mrs. Shein had started going over the last night's assignment.
    I leafed through the rest of the paper while I reached down for my notebook. I hauled the notebook up onto my desk, flipped it open to the math section, and blew Smitty's reportoff the desk. I bent over to retrieve the report, and when I straightened up with it, a little piece of paper fluttered from between the pages. I shoved the rest of Smitty's paper into my notebook, and then I reached down again for that little scrap. I could see that there was writing all over it, as though it were a note of some kind, which was curious. I wanted to read it right then, but when I straightened up again, I finally noticed that everybody was watching me.
    “Are you quite finished?” Mrs. Shein asked—not unkindly.
    My cheeks went hot, and I nodded. She smiled. I leaned over to get my math book which I deposited, unopened, on my desk, and then leaned over again to stick the little scrap from Smitty's paper into my purse.
    “You weren't finished,” Mrs. Shein observed.
    “I am now,” I said. Her smile had thinned a little. I wanted to put my head down on the desk.
    That feeling was destined to last way past lunch.
    I spent first lunch hiding out in the library—which was legal, as long as you didn't bring in food. I buried myself back in the reference section, away from slings and arrows of social ridicule, spread out my books, and started digging around in my purse for my pen. When I finally unearthed it, there was that mysterious little scrap from Smitty's paper wrapped neatly around it. I'd nearly forgotten about it.
    I still thought it was a note. As I peeled the bit of paper off the pen, I pretty well decided it couldn't have been Smitty's; who was going to be passing notes with Smitty Tibbs? Then, whenI could see the writing more clearly, the regularity of the lines made me think it was probably just the rough notes he'd made for his paper.
    But as I began to read, the planet slipped quietly on its axis; the truth of the matter was as far from my conjecture as Beta Centauri is from Chicago. This was not a note of any kind. It was a poem.
    I read the first line and stopped.
    Poetry is not my best thing. T. S. Eliot, I never understand— Edgar A. Guest and his clones, I understand all too easily. I land somewhere to the obscure left of middle—E. E. Cummings, I like. And Gerard Manley Hopkins, who I also never understand, but whose words make music inside me.
    This poem was like that, like Hopkins. At least, the first line was.
    I read the first line again, and then I read it still again, out loud this time,