P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia

shooting him.” She said “Be at nam.”
    â€œVietnam’s way over there, Fern,” I told her. “Uncle had a bad dream.”
    â€œHe’s scared, Delphine. Uncle D’s scared.” And she looked scared.
    â€œHe’ll go back to sleep,” I told her. “He’ll be okay.”

Half-moons and Squiggles
    Mr. Mwila walked down the space that separated the girls and Ellis Carter from the boys, to hand out our second attempt at essay writing. I twisted and craned to catch an Excellent, Very Good, Good, or Satisfactory on someone’s paper. I couldn’t help but be competitive. If Ellis got a Very Good, I knew I’d get an Excellent. If Frieda earned an Excellent, I knew I’d get a Very Good. But if Frieda got a Very Good, I’d have to be content with Good. Even after a few weeks I didn’t know what kind of marker Mr. Mwila was. He explained things, brought in articles for social studies, and demonstrated how things worked in science and in math more than he quizzed us, so it was hard toknow if I’d be skipping along or struggling like on heavy laundry days.
    No one with an essay in their hand was saying anything, but they studied their marked sheets and made faces before turning their papers right-side down.
    Lucy received her paper and did a little chair dance. I wrote better than Lucy, so I grew cheerfully anxious to get my paper.
    While I had been watching my classmates, Mr. Mwila had placed my essay on my desk swiftly and then gave Ellis his paper.
    Finally. I saw what everyone else had seen. Red squiggles. Lines. Dots. Horizontal half-moons jumped from one word over others to get to another word. The words beneath the horizontal half-moons had a line running through them that ended in a squiggle. The poor words looked like a wriggling trout on a speared hook. I also found myself making faces at my own paper. And then I got to the end of the page where the only words written were: Good first effort. See me .
    I leaned to quickly read Ellis’s paper. Good first effort . Then I turned to my right to see Frieda’s paper. Her paper also had a lot of the same squiggles, half-moons, and the words Good first effort . No matter which way I turned my neck, no one else had See me following their Good first effort .
    I pushed my fat pink eraser over the See me and tried to look up at the board like nothing was wrong, but my stomach quaked. I couldn’t imagine why Mr. Mwila wanted to see me. With all of those red lines and squiggles dancing around on my essay, I wasn’t foolish enough to think he meant to tell me anything good. If Mr. Mwila had anything wonderful to tell me, he would have used a gold star or written Excellent across my paper.
    â€œAccording to Miss Merriam Webster, solidarity means being of one mind.” I couldn’t have thought of a better way to begin my essay. Solidarity was my main subject. From there I wrote how the Black Panthers used “solidarity” to talk about “the people” being united as one people. I couldn’t figure out why my teacher wanted to see me.
    Danny the K raised his hand and before he was called on, he said, “What does all this mean, Mr. Mwila?” He was echoed by yeahs, one of them mine.
    Mr. Mwila said, “You have submitted your first drafts to me and I have returned them.”
    â€œGiraffe!” Danny the K said. “Did Mr. Mwila say ‘giraffe’?”
    â€œDaniel McClaren.” Mr. Mwila was firm but calm. “The corner.”
    Danny the K stood up without protest and slinked to the front of the room. He stood facing the corner with his hands by his sides.
    â€œNow,” Mr. Mwila said, “you’ve written your first drafts.”He wrote the word on the blackboard. Draft .
    When Big Ma said “draft” she spoke about our cold house during the winter. When Uncle Darnell said “draft” he meant he was going into the army to