Almost Home

1

MR. BENNETT WALKED into room 212 carrying a plastic bag. He smoothed his sweatshirt that read DEATH TO STEREOTYPES talked Claus his rubber chicken under his arm, raised one eyebrow, and jumped on his desk. He opened the bag, lifted a loaf of bread into the air and shouted,"Sell it to me."
   He threw the bread on the desk.
   Peyton Crawler let his eyes go back into his head like he's been dead for years. Harper Wilhelm hollered, " It's good for you."
    Everyone in sixth-grade English groaned. Mr. Bennett shook his head. "It has to be more than that."
   " You're hungry," Kate Nesbitt said.
   Mr. B shrugged.
   I see where he's going. I raised my hand. "Do you like toast?"
   Peyton Crawler smirked. "That's stupid."
   Go back to being dead, Peyton.
   " As a matter of fact," Mr. B announced, "I love toast."
   I pressed in. "With butter and jam?"
   He pulled down his orange wool hat and grinned. "Strawberry jam."
   I had what I needed. I ran up and grabbed the bread. "Then I can tell you, that this bread,"--- I looked at the label---"Aunt Fanny's homemade honey bread, makes the best toast in the universe."
   Mr. Bennett jumped off the desk and looked at the price. "Its expensive."
   "It costs more because it's better," I told him. "And you can freeze half of it, only use it when you want to. It'll make you so happy, you won't be able to stand it."
   He walked to the huge B that hung on the wall behind his desk The Great B, he called it. "Sold." He slammed Claus on the desk ( Rubber Chickens don't mind). "Why did she sell me?"
   Kids looked at each other, clueless. Mr. B twirled Claus in the air. "These are golden lessons from my checkered career in advertising. Think. What did Sugar do?" Mr. Bennett was in advertising for 15 years and made real decent money, but he gave it all up to teach sixth grade.
   Katie raised her hand." She had to learn about you before she could sell you the bread."
   " That's right. She persuaded me. She formed an argument to convince me." He stood in front of the smaller B on the wall the not-so-great B. "So, when you are trying to sell someone something and idea, a loaf of bread, what ever find out what the person is about."
   Mr. Bennett held up an ad with a picture of a cool looking singer standing by a piano. "Whats wrong with this picture?" he asked us.
   Simon said,"There's nothing wrong with it."
   " Look closer." Mr. Bennett suggested.
   Carrie said," I love her dress."
   Mr. Bennet looked at the ad. "Nice dress."
   I said, "Shes holding a cigarette in her left hand. You don't see it at first."
   Mr. Bennett nodded. " And why is that? "
   " They're trying to show us that smoking is cool," Carrie said.
   "They're trying to manipulate you," Mr. Bennett said. " your mind takes in the photo you don't notice the cigarette first, if ever, but it's there."
   "They want us to smoke," I said.
   "That's right."
    And my mind went to Mr. Leeland, my father, who looked so good in many ways, being handsome and funny and seeming to love life, but in his left hand there was always a losing hand.
   " persuasion is Art. It can be misused or it can be powerful. Tonight, I want all of you, including the dead among us,"--- Mr. Bennett threw Claus into Peyton's lap---" to write a string paragraph on one way you have seen persuasion misused and advertising campaign, something on the Internet, something in your life. Specifics are found on thegreatbknowsall.com."
   I wondered if I should write about Mr. Leeland and how we always persuaded Reba to believe that he was going to come through for us.
   " I will read the best three out loud in class, so work excessively hard on this."
   I wouldn't want anything about Mr. Leeland read out loud.
   Harper Wilhelm has given me her evil I like she knew all my secrets. I smiled and walked past her. Reba says it's good to smile around people who don't like you it makes you stronger. I beamed a big one in Harper's direction; she looked disgusted and left the room. I walked up to Mr. B. He was exactly my height 5ft 4 inches. His ski cap had dogs on it.
   "Mr. B, I've got something real personal I want to write about, but I wouldn't want the class to hear it."
   He adjusted his hat. "Well, make it so good, it will kill me not to read it out loud."
   I grinned. "I'll try." I stood there because I didn't want to go home. I wish I could tell him all that was happening at my house. "I'm not sure how to start writing about it."
    He leaned Claus against his coffee mug."Writing about personal things isn't easy, Sugar. Try breaking it up into small, manageable pieces."
   Small and manageable was not what my life was like.
   He looked at me. "Are you okay?"
   That depends on how you define okay.

                        *   *   *
I walked home with Meesha Moy, my best friend. Her life was at small and manageable either. Even when we were a block from her house, we could hear the sound of bad accordion music carried in the wind Meesha stopped walking and shook her head. Two months ago, her family had to rent out her room to Mr. Denton who played, or try to play, the accordion. Meesha had to sleep on the couch in the TV room. Her dad got sick in the bills were killing them. We had a lot in common, except that Meesha's dad couldn't work because he was sick. Mr. Leeland didn't work because he was a gambler.
   We haven't had to rent out a room... yet.
   The bad accordion music got louder; a dog started howling. Meesha looked like she could start howling, too, but Reba taught me to be grateful no matter what I look up at the blue sky. "Its a pretty day, huh?"
  Meesha glared at me. "If it was raining, he would be practicing on the porch."
   I nodded and headed down Pleasant Street, my street, working hard at my gratitude. Reba was always telling me, "You take the G-R out of gratitude and you got attitude."
   Only once did I mention that attitudes got three T's, not two.
   " I'm teaching you enduring concepts for living," she snapped."Not spelling."
   Chester, our Postman, was pushing his cart down the street. My grandpa, King Cole, was a mailman until the day he died. "Mail tells a story" he always told me. "A good mail carrier knows what's going on in every house on his route. They know who's paying their bills on time, they know who's late."
   Chester looked at me with sympathy and handed me a stack of envelopes all marked URGENT. I hate that word. Only one was addressed to me, or halfway at any rate. It had curlicue writing.

   SUGAR BOOGER COLE
   14 PLEASANT ST.
   ROUND LAKE, MO

    I sighed. Sugar isn't the easiest name to be slapped with, I'll tell you. I was supposed to get name Susannah. I was supposed to get Matt born in a hospital to but my whole life started as one big surprise I have one in the back of a Chevy and the parking lot of Sugar Shack in Baton Rouge in a rainstorm so bad, my parents couldn't make it to the hospital. When I popped out and Reba saw the Sugar Shack sign, she felt like it was a sign from God; right then I got my name. At least God told her to stop at Sugar. Sugar Shack Cole would have been a chore to live with. As far from Mr.Leeland, he got the thrill of helping me get born, and believe me, he hasn't done squat to help since then.
   But I was grateful. As soon as I could write. I sent a note to the Chevrolet Company in Detroit, Michigan, and thank them for making such good back seats that a baby could get born and be okay. That company cared so much, they wrote me back and said that although many babies have been born in Chevrolet backseats over the years, I was the first one who they knew of named Sugar.
   Reba says part of why I am on this Earth is to bring a little sweetness into people's lives."And sweet doesn't mean stupid," she says."Sweet doesn't mean weak. I'm not talking about kittens wearing sun hats either. I'm talking kindness. You go out there, Sugar Mae Cole, and show what it means to be sweet."
   I threw the sugar-booger envelope into the garbage and walked up the path to our house. The yellow paint was cracked and our porch needed repair, but we had hanging flower pots that made up for some of that. We both was sitting on the porch in a white chair with her pink phone to her ear, clutching the little silver bell on the necklace Mr.Leeland had given her last year right before she kicked him out for the umpteenth time Mr.Leeland got in Atlanta and called it her Southern Belle. It was her big desire is to be a fine Southern Belle, which is kind of like being a lady on steroids.
   When Reebok watch that though, it meant she was ready to pop off and working hard to find her graces.
   " Why yes," she said into her pink phone," yes, I know, and I'm terribly sorry we're late again." Her voice went deep Southern now, pouring the words out like hot butterscotch melting vanilla ice cream. "But I'm struggling as it is to pay the rent. Surely, sir, you understand that I can't manage the late fee."Reba clung to that bell like it was a lifesaver. She closed her eyes. "Why, yes, I hope we will be able to resolve this soon as well. You have a nice day now." She flipped her phone shut and shouted," honking, skinflint moron! If his brains were Dynamite, he couldn't blow his nose!"
   I wanted to know more about the late fee, but I decided not to ask. King Cole always told me,"If you've got a good fair question and you ask it at the wrong time, what do you get?"
   Answer: "In trouble."
   I kissed Reba on the head and went inside to start my paragraph on bad persuasion.
   It's always good when homework can help you manage a part of your life.