by Nicki Youngsma
When I can write full sentences on my own, I learn about the five-paragraph essay. The format is straightforward: the first paragraph outlines three body paragraphs, those three expand on points in the beginning, and the fifth paragraph is a rehash of the intro. That’s it, I get it. The pattern makes sense to me.
Shortly thereafter my assignment is to write a five-paragraph essay. I choose to write about atoms because I just learned about that in a science unit. And so, I repeat what I heard in class, using the same phrases that the teacher did. Sometimes I change the words around, and sometimes not. I do that so it sounds like I understand but am not straight-up copying, because that would be bad.
When my essay is done, the teacher gives me a good grade. She wants it to be printed in the school newspaper.
The next year my mom dies from pancreatic cancer, and I push harder to please people. I please teachers. Family. Even people at the dentist’s office: whenever I sit in those reclining chairs, I open my mouth wide when asked. Warm sugar flushes through my veins when I hear praise. I keep my mouth open as wide as I can, feeling bad about reminders to hold the position. “Remember to keep your mouth open wide. Like a crocodile!” I want to be someone who doesn’t forget.
At school I’m a great listener. At home I’m a great listener. My homework is always finished before getting on the bus the next day, and I’m able to make that happen because I use a strategy called listen, shuffle, mimic as much as possible. It works for tests. It works for writing assignments, like when I’m eleven and have to write a story that’s three pages long. At first, I’m intimidated, because three pages seems like a lot. I don’t know how I’m going to do it.
The book I just read was The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis. I stayed up late to finish it using the book lamp my dad got me for Christmas. The novel’s antagonist is named Queen Jadis, and she’s aggressive, getting my attention because she stomps around, taps her foot, yanks people, and—
There it is.
I can create a villain too, one who mimics the stomping, the tapping, the yanking. I’ll change some parts so it’s not plagiarism—listen, shuffle, mimic has not failed me yet.
My story is longer, almost five pages. After I turn it in, my teacher Mrs. Parker calls my dad because she wants to have a meeting with both of us.
I’m confused… Why does she want to talk to me and my dad? The thought of it scares me. I know my dad has meetings about my brother Mark all the time. Even though Mark is a year older than me, I do almost everything better than him. Not because I try to; it’s just the way it is. Mark always takes a long time to do homework, and teachers pull him out of class to help with reading and math, taking him into a room with other kids like that. I don’t know it now, but in twelve years’ time, Mark will die by his own hand.
I wonder if I did something wrong because teachers never call my dad for special meetings. Maybe I plagiarized after all. I didn’t try to—I intentionally tried not to—but maybe Mrs. Parker knows where I got my ideas from, and that’s what this is about.
My dad comes after school to talk with Mrs. Parker, and we sit in orange plastic chairs at a round table. The room is empty except for the three of us.
Mrs. Parker has my story. I watch it go from her hands to my dad’s. While he peers down at the pages in his grasp, my heart pounds harder. I glance between the two of them.
“I wanted you to see this,” Mrs. Parker says to my dad, “because it’s very good.”
I’ve never heard her give a compliment before—she’s the Grinch of the school—and I feel off balance. I didn’t expect her to say anything like that.
Now I feel guilty—what I did didn’t feel very hard. All I did was apply my formula because it’s worked before.
Nicki Youngsma is a writer and illustrator, and her service work includes building horticultural education nonprofits and raising young people. Her writing has appeared in Unbroken and Inglenook Lit, and she is currently working on a memoir project. Find her at nickiyoungsma.com.
Emerge Literary Journal 