Sophomores and Other Oxymorons Page 9

  I didn’t even look at the two seniors. “Do you have to go?” I asked Jeremy.

  “Yeah.” The stress on his face eased slightly as he recognized me.

  “So go,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Go right here. If they don’t move, piss on them. They aren’t leaving you much choice.”

  “I’ll kick the crap out of you,” the senior on the left said.

  “And you’ll still be drenched in piss,” I said. “As well as whatever crap splatters over you as you’re kicking it out of us. Sounds like a fair trade.”

  I turned my attention back to Jeremy. “Go ahead. Let it fly.”

  Jeremy blinked. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Really.”

  He reached for his zipper and pulled it down.

  “You’re crazy,” the senior on the right said as he scooted away. “Both of you.”

  “Out of your mind,” the other one said.

  I watched them walk off. “That was close,” I said.

  “I don’t think I could really have done it,” he said. “I’m kind of shy.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They thought you’d do it. Though it’s always better to bluff when you’re willing to go through with it. I guess then it’s not really a bluff, is it? It’s more like—”

  “Scott,” Jeremy said.

  “What?”

  “That’s fascinating, but I really need to go.”

  “Go,” I said.

  Jeremy dashed into the boys’ room.

  When he came out, I said, “You might want to rethink your timing, and not try to go between periods. Or learn to get through the day without a bathroom break.”

  “What do you think I am? A dog?”

  “Nope. A dog would have ignored those guys and done his business.”

  I got to lunch a couple minutes late.

  “Sightseeing?” Lee asked.

  “Nope. I’m fostering a puppy who’s not a puppy,” I said.

  “How Zen of you,” Lee said.

  Richard looked back and forth from me to Lee. “I’m glad I don’t listen too closely to the two of you.”

  “I don’t listen at all,” Edith said.

  I, on the other hand, was determined to listen. I figured the best way to respond to Ms. Denton’s apparent disdain for blood relatives of Bobby Hudson was to excel in the class. When I got there, I paid attention, took notes, and tried to participate in discussions, even though she rarely called on me.

  • • •

  When it was time for English, I decided to try to take Mr. Franka’s advice and allow myself to learn from someone I didn’t like. I had a feeling it would be an even more useful life skill to cultivate than balancing a checkbook. I took my seat, eager to be a sponge, a blank slate, or whatever the task required. Okay, not really eager. But willing. Grudgingly. Sort of.

  “Who can name a figure of speech?” Mrs. Gilroy asked.

  Similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia, and alliteration were quickly tossed out by the class. Followed—no surprise, given our first day of class—by oxymorons. Things slowed after that, but we added hyperbole and personification.

  After a dry spell, I dredged up assonance and consonance, which I’d learned about last year when we were studying poetry. And that was the end of it.

  “Is that all of them?” Mrs. Gilroy asked.

  “All we can think of,” Julia said.

  All we’ve been taught, I wanted to say. But I’d learned to monitor my thoughts before they became words in this class.

  “Well, that is the proverbial tip of the iceberg,” Mrs. Gilroy said. She went to the board and started writing.

  I looked at the first word she wrote. If it actually was a word.

  metonymy

  Beneath that, she wrote synecdoche.

  They reminded me of the jumbled strings of letters that had appeared when I tried to make a crossword grid.

  “Anybody?” Mrs. Gilroy asked.

  Silence.

  She looked directly at me. “Nobody?”

  “Isn’t metonymy like self-rule?” Julia asked.

  “That’s autonomy,” Mrs. Gilroy said. “You get credit for trying. Never be afraid to make a wrong guess in this class. That’s part of the learning process.”

  Nice try? If I’d said that, she would have mocked me without mercy.

  “These two, metonymy and synecdoche, are frequently confused,” Mrs. Gilroy said. “That will not happen here. I should add that they are far from alone in being misunderstood and misapplied.”

  She resumed writing. I counted as she wrote. When she stopped, she’d put forty-seven words on the board, including the meager assortment our class had come up with. Several others joined synecdoche and metonymy in resembling really unplayable sets of Scrabble tiles.

  “‘Antanaclasis’?” I whispered to Lee. I would have mentioned bdelgymia, but I had no idea how to pronounce it.

  “Not a clue,” Lee said. She pointed to the board. “I just realized she did that from memory.”

  That was pretty amazing. But I had a feeling Mrs. Gilroy was about to suck all the joy out of creative writing.

  “These are our tools,” she said. “There are many others, but these are among the most essential. We are going to get well acquainted with them. We will learn to recognize them, and we will learn to create them, skillfully and eloquently. We will learn to write. You may think you’ve been writing all along, but without real knowledge of your tools, without a true appreciation of figurative language, you’ve merely been scribbling in the darkness.”

  Yeah, this was going to suck. I knew how to write. People loved my articles in the school paper. I’d found all sorts of creative ways to describe a football game or a wrestling match. And I got good grades on my papers from Mr. Franka last year. I wondered whether I could switch classes. I didn’t have to be in honors English. Mom had mentioned that it wasn’t too late to change. Maybe Mr. Franka taught a sophomore class. I’d have to find out. It would be awesome to have him again.

  Mrs. Gilroy circled simile, metaphor, and the other figures of speech the class had named. “We know these. They are familiar, and easy to recognize. Let’s move to the unknown. We’ll explore a new term at the start of each week. I encourage you to learn to use all of them, except for this one.” She drew a line through catachresis. Then, as if a strike-through wasn’t enough, she erased the word. That, of course, made me wonder what it meant. But I wasn’t going to fall for her teacher trick. “Throughout the week, we will stay especially alert for the technique in our spotlight—and under our microscope—both in our reading and in our discussions.”

  I sat back as she circled anaphora, and explained that it referred to the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginnings of a series of sentences or clauses for rhetorical effect.

  Ten minutes before class ended, she tapped the board by the figures of speech and said, “Copy these down.”

  Good grief. Hadn’t she ever heard of a teacher web page? Or a handout sheet? I started writing.

  “Pick one,” she said. “Research its meaning from a reliable source.”

  Hands went up. Mrs. Gilroy intercepted them. “If you don’t know what a reliable source is by now, you probably don’t belong in this class. To continue: Write a paragraph making use of your selection. Turn it in next Monday. We’ll share your efforts in class during the week, and see who can identify the main figure of speech. After that, you’ll bring a new one in each Monday for the rest of the year.”

  There were some groans among my classmates, but I wasn’t daunted by the idea of writing an extra paragraph each week. Not that I’d tell Mrs. Gilroy the assignment was a piece of cake. That’s one lesson I’d learned.

  • • •

  Mom was in my room when I got home from school. That was never a go
od sign. She knew roughly when I’d normally arrive. So if she was in my room, it wasn’t by accident. It was by design. And intent.

  “Scott,” Mom said, “if you’re going to eat in here, at least try to be neat about it.”

  That wasn’t one of the seven thousand transgressions that had crossed my mind as possibilities. “I don’t eat in here,” I said. At least, not since I’d lost a piece of pizza behind my dresser last year.

  Mom pointed to the corner, past the window, at the bagel Wesley had flung at me the other day. “Do you want the house to be crawling with ants? Or mice.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I won’t do it again.” There was no point trying to explain that the bagel had been hurled at me through the window. However it had arrived, I couldn’t deny that I’d left it on the floor. Though, in my defense, I’d been half-asleep at the time it had ricocheted off my forehead and settled in the corner. Of course, I was half-asleep most of the time.

  “I know,” Mom said, flashing me the you’re-my-well-behaved-boy look. She picked up the bagel and took it with her.

  After I did my homework, I went down to the computer. As much as I promised myself not to get sucked too deeply into Mrs. Gilroy’s list of figures of speech, beyond finding one to use for my assignment, I sort of got hooked, and ended up researching a dozen or so terms, based mostly on how goofy they sounded. But I pulled myself away before I’d spent too much time doing that. And I decided to play it safe, for a change, and not get too creative with my choice for the paragraph.

  September 8

  Sean, it turns out there are something like five billion different figures of speech. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. Or hyperbole. Which is one of the handful I know. Though I didn’t remember I knew it until someone else mentioned it in class. Which, I think, sort of proves that I don’t need to know the name for everything I do.

  Speaking of which, I found a word that describes my freshman year pretty well, and better not describe my sophomore year. Catachresis. You know what it means? I won’t keep you in suspense, or force you to run to the dictionary. I’ll bet it isn’t even in a lot of dictionaries. It means a mistake. That’s all. It’s a big word for a common thing. Though it’s really a mistake in word use, not in life. So it only describes my freshman year metaphorically, since it refers to a word-use mistake. If I used a word the wrong way, or if I made a badly mixed metaphor, that would be catachresis. But here’s the thing. You can also use it on purpose. If you’re really good, you can use the wrong word in a creative way. And I’m going to do just that. I swear. In one of my papers for Mrs. Gilroy, I’m going cata the chresis out of the English language. Why? Because she said that’s the one figure of speech we won’t be using. I will figure out a way to use it. I swear. I’ll keep you posted. But I’m not ready for that, just yet. I’m going to go for an easy one this time, like tautology. I’ll let you look it up, find the definition, and learn the meaning of it yourself.

  ELEVEN

  September 9

  Good morning, Sean. A modest request, if I may . . .

  I’d appreciate it if you would try to refrain from screaming at the top of your tiny lungs every time you wake up in the middle of the night. Your life is perfect. You have nothing to scream about. I’m the one who should wake up screaming. Thanks.

  I was making my way to homeroom on Tuesday when I spotted a familiar spine. “Great book,” I said. I pointed to the copy of Unwind that Danny Roholm was carrying.

  “Really?”

  “For sure.” I was tempted to warn him about the creepiest scene, but I didn’t want to spoil anything.

  “That’s good to hear. We’re reading it in English class.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded.

  “Who do you have?”

  “Ms. Orstrum.”

  “Lucky you. We’re stuck with the old stuff.” I envied him. On the other hand, I’d already read Unwind, and I’d seen what happened when I tried to skate along on the memory of a book. Still, I wouldn’t mind at all if I had to read it again for class. It was good enough for a second visit. I guess the fact that individual teachers got to pick some of the assigned books could be good or bad, depending on the picker. I sure couldn’t picture Mrs. Gilroy loosening up enough to assign a novel that was written after she was born.

  When it was time for gym, Mr. Cravutto sent us off on our own once again, while he stood waiting for the girls’ teacher, whose name, I’d learned, was Ms. Swan. We paced ourselves, since we had no idea how long we’d be running. I noticed that the girls went right to the field and started playing again. That gave me an idea. After the fourth lap, which totaled one mile of running, I jogged over to Mr. Cravutto. He was now deeply engaged in a conversation with his counterpart, who seemed less concerned about escape than she’d been last week. I guess he was wearing her down with his charm. I figured I’d be able to get a partial share of his attention by shouting the magic word. And, really, I didn’t want his full attention.

  “COACH!” I yelled.

  Before he could look toward me, I said, “Want us to start a game?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Good idea.”

  I jogged back to the track, just ahead of the largest cluster of runners, and waved everybody over. “Coach said we can start a game.”

  “Good job, Hudson,” Renzler said. He rewarded me with a slap on the back which, had I not braced myself for it, would have rendered me incapable of joining any game for quite a while.

  Since we had our last names on our gym clothes in black marker, most of us were on a last-name basis, unless we knew each other really well outside of gym. So I was Hudson to most of the class.

  As for those I knew well, I caught Kyle glaring at me. He seemed displeased that I’d done something that everybody liked.

  We formed two teams and played football. That did not require the supervision of a college-educated physical-education instructor. We’d spent large portions of our childhood in various forms of pick-up games.

  I kept an eye on my watch. “We’d better go in,” I said to Renzler when we were ten minutes away from the end of the period.

  “Showers!” he shouted.

  We jogged into the locker room, well exercised, and relieved not to be exhausted from running laps, or in danger of running late.

  . . . running laps or running late . . .

  The phrase tickled something in my memory. I realized it was an example of antanaclasis, one of the figures of speech I’d looked up. It was also one of the simpler ones to understand. After I showered and got dressed, I opened my notebook and wrote, “running laps or running late.” I figured I could use that in an English assignment.

  I showed the page to Richard. “For English,” I said. “One word used in two contrasting ways.”

  “That’s pretty cool,” he said.

  “You’re such a nerd,” Kyle said as he closed his locker.

  “What do you care?” I asked. “We have nothing to do with each other anymore.”

  He laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about.

  • • •

  Wednesday, after school, I waited outside the newspaper room to catch Mr. Franka before he came in for the meeting.

  “Do you teach a sophomore English class?” I asked him.

  “No way,” he said.

  “No way?” That was definitely not among the responses I would have expected. I’m not sure, but it’s possible he’d actually shuddered when he spoke. “What’s wrong with sophomores?”

  “They can be difficult,” he said.

  “For you?” I found that hard to believe. He’d been in the Marines before he was a teacher.

  “For everyone,” he said.

  “So, then, you don’t teach a sophomore cl
ass . . . ?”

  “I just told you that. Emphatically. Are you trying to be difficult?”

  At least he laughed when he said that.

  When we got inside, Jeremy handed out copies of his crossword. “I can do one a week,” he said. “Easily.”

  Sarah stared down at hers. “This looks pretty tough,” she said. “Let’s aim for one a month.”

  I looked at mine. One a year might have been better. It was definitely tough.

  After Sarah went over the articles for the paper, she said, “Scott, are you working on anything?”

  Oh, shoot. Last year, I’d had assignments. So I knew what I had to do. This year, I had a vague commission to write opinion pieces or features. I’d sort of forgotten about that. The basic layout for each issue was done after the weekly meeting, but articles could be turned in as late as the following Monday morning. The paper came out on Tuesday.

  I could tell Sarah I was working on something, but I figured it was better to go with the truth. “I don’t have an article for the upcoming issue,” I said.

  “What about the puzzle?” she asked.

  Puzzle?

  I went from puzzled to panicked as I remembered the last meeting. Right afterward, I’d gotten so involved in my publishing empire, I’d totally forgotten to look through the Tom Swifties I’d written last year. I’d even skimmed past some of them, when I was pulling survival tips from my journal. I dredged one up from memory and shared it with them.

  “That’s good,” Sarah said. “Maybe we should call it something else, to make it more special.”

  “How about Zenger Zingers?” Jeremy suggested.

  “Great,” Sarah said.

  “And we can use John Peter instead of Tom,” I said.

  Several kids shot quizzical looks in my direction, and one of the freshmen said, “Who’s that?”

  “John Peter Zenger,” I said, drawing out the first and middle names. “As in J. P. Zenger High School. You know. The guy the school is named after. The famous American journalist. The guy who beat a libel charge back in colonial times. That John Peter.”

  Heads nodded. Eyes widened slightly in token recognition. And thus the Tom Swiftie morphed into the Zenger Zinger, which was an equally vague but much more relevant name.