Note to Sixth-Grade Self: ON WEDNESDAYS WEAR A SKIRT. ~. SKIRT IS BETTER FOR dancing. After school, remember not to take th, e bus. Go to McDonalds instead. Order the flies. Dont even bother trying to sit with Patricia and Cara. Instead, try to sit with Sasha and Toni Sue. If they won’t let you, try to sit with Andrea Shaw. And if Andrea Shaw gets up and throws away the rest of her fries rather than sit with you, sit alone and do not look at anyone. Particularly not the boys. If you do not look at them, they may not notice you sitting alone. And if they don’t notice you sitting alone, there is still a chance that one of them wiI1 ask you to dance. At three-thirty stand outside with the others and take the number seven bus uptown. Get off when they all get off. Be sure to do this. Do not stare out the windo~v and lose yourself. You will end up riding out to the edge of town past the rusted gasstorage tanks, and you will nevqr find the fight bus home. Pay atNote to Sixth-Grade Self tention. Do not let the strap of your training bra slip out the annhole of your short-sleeved shirt. Do not leave your bag on the bus. As you cross the street, take a look at the public high school The kids there will be eating long sticks of Roman candy and leaning on the chain-link fence. Do they !ook as if they care ~vho dances with whom, or what steps you’ll learn this week? News flash: They do not. Try to understand that there’s a world larger than the one you inhabit. If you understand that, you wiII be far ahead of Patricia and Cara. For now, though, you live in this world, so go ahead and follow the others across the street to Miggie’s Academy of Dance. There is a low fence outside. Do not climb on it in your skirt. Huddle near the door with the other girls. See if anyone wiI1 let you listen. Do not call attention to yourself. Listen as Patricia, with her fascinating stutter, describes what she and Cara bought at the mall. Notice how the other girls lean forward as sire works through her troublesome consonants: G-G-Guess Jeans and an Esp-p-p~it sweater. They will talk about the -IV shows they watch, who killed whom, who is sleeping with whom; they will compare starlets’ hairstyles. None of this talk is of any importance. For God’s sake, don’t bother watching those TV shows. Keep reading your books. At four o’clock, go reside with the others. Line up against the wall with the gifts. Watch how the boys line up against their wall, popular ones in the middle, awkward ones at the sides. Watch how the girls jockey to stand across from the boys they like. Watch Britmey Wells fumble with the zipper of her nylon LeSportsac. Don’t let her get next to you with that thing. Try to stand across from someone good. Do not let yourself get pushed all the way out to the sides, across from Zachary Booth or Ben Dusseldorf. Watch how Patricia and Cara stand, their hips shot to one side, their arms crossed over their chests. Try shooting your 37 juiie orringer hip a litde to one side. Rest your weight on one foot. Draw a circle on the wooden floor with one toe. Do not bite your fingernails. Do not give a loud sniff. Think of the word nonchalant. Imagine the eleventh-graders, the way they look when they smoke on the bus. Let your eyes close halDc whats the critical idea written like a 8th grader in a short sentence
