Free Ridiculous/Hilarious/Terrible/Cool by Elisha Cooper

of the person he ran past.
    â€œFourteen to seven, nigga! ”
    Every sentence is preceded or followed by “nigga,” the epithet tossed around more casually and efficiently than the ball (with the exception of the one white player, who doesn’t say anything). The game deteriorates.

    â€œThis is horrible . We goin’ home! ” It is. They don’t Finally a boy is tackled and the other boys pile on top.
    Maya’s play went on, the assistant principal’s concerns notwithstanding. And while the other student-directed plays were so dull one woman in the audience started snoring—a full-on esophagus-rattle that had the person next to her poking her in the ribs—Maya’s play was fine. Her actors came through. When the lights in the third-floor theater/classroom came on,
    Maya skipped up to the stage with the other directors and bowed, a big smile on her face.
    She’s had other reasons for smiling.
    Every day, Maya walks home after school. It’s one of her favorite parts of the day. After leaving Payton she heads downtown, slowing to look in boutiques or coffee shops or the window display of Barney’s New York, and if she’s had a bad day, it peels away and by the time she takes the elevator to her apartment on the twenty-sixth floor, she is calm.
    When she walked home last Friday, she wasn’t calm. She began checking her e-mail every half hour. At eight o’clock the one she’d been waiting for popped up. As she read the line welcoming her to the Stanford class of 2010 she was almost sick. She had to read it again. Then she started jumping around her room. Of the twenty students in the Payton senior class who applied early to Stanford, Maya was the only one accepted.
    Maya is also happy because it’s the holidays. Christmas is big in the Boudreau family. Maya has been knitting scarves for her sisters, one blue and one purple. She’s looking forward to all the festivities. She’s also looking forward to hanging out with Anais, and with Ben&Andy. Right now, she’s on air, as if nothing in the world could break this bubble, as if this bubble could only expand.

    It’s the day before break. At the west end of the atrium, the special ed students have wrapped blindfolds over their eyes and are whacking a snowman piñata with a stick. All except the blind. The blind students just grab the stick and start swinging. That they don’t need blindfolds dawns on the other students standing nearby and they nudge each other. They also cheer with each swing, and when one blind student crushes the piñata, scattering candy everywhere, the crowd roars.

    With the last bell, students pour into the hallways, where they eat cupcakes and unwrap presents and leave wrapping paper on the floor. The cool kids wear Santa hats. Then everyone surges through the front door and into the cold. Snowballs fly overhead. A teacher shouts, “You have permission to be gone for two weeks. Don’t come back! ”
    Payton is deserted over the holidays, almost. At the front desk a security guard reads a novel. In the hallways two teachers talk in normal non-whispering voices. In the library, chairs remain tucked under the carrels. In the classrooms, chairs are stacked while floors are cleaned. Mops lean against lockers.
    Outside, through the atrium windows, steam can be seen billowing out of the tops of buildings downtown, making Chicago look like a forest dotted with campfires. Everything is soft, cold, distant. The high school is hushed, as if the building itself were taking a deep breath.

JANUARY
    Diana comes back from break looking different. It’s hard to tell how initially. She’s wearing the same plain jeans, a plain T-shirt. But, there it is. In her right nostril. A stud.
    Diana’s best friend Sandra had wanted a nose stud forever. Diana had also been tempted. Some friends said a nose stud wouldn’t look good on Diana because she didn’t