Free Rules to Rock By by Josh Farrar

strong enough to hold everything together. But she was getting old and needed rest. And my parents were in no condition to help anybody but themselves.
    “Maybe X and I should have stayed in Brooklyn with you,” I said. “Even though you’re getting older, you could take care of us way better than they can.”
    “Annabella, no! I no like hear you speak this way, okay? You must love you fathers, and respect them. Even though they not perfect. Even though they make you angry.” She blew her nose, and I could picture her picking up one of the frilly baby blue handkerchiefs that she always carried around with her when she had a cold, hand-washing them with the rest of the laundry three times a week. “Life sometime very hard, baby, very hard. But you have to be strong. You got to be. And you got to remember that I love you, too, okay? Abuela love you very much.”
    “I love you, too, Abuela,” I said, trying to ignore the voice inside my head that said, You are not as strong as she is. Will you ever be? “Very much.”

CRACKERS ’N’ CHEESE
    Mr. V gave me back my “homesickness” assignment on the following Tuesday. It didn’t have a grade, but it was covered in red marks.
    Everything’s better in Brooklyn
    Fried salami, goopy cheese
    Egg Mountain shows and the East River breeze
    Take me back to Brooklyn, please
    Man, I miss my old hometown
    Milk shakes at Uncle Louie G’s
    What’s for dinner tonight, pizza or Chinese?
    Take me back to Brooklyn, please
    Ms. Cabrera, a few comments:
    •     Nice emotion in this piece
    •     What is the Egg Mountain?
    •     “Goopy cheese” is a nice colloquial phrase, which makes me very hungry.
    •     I want to know more. There is a great deal of greasy food in Providence as well, I’m sure you know. What else are you missing? Other places, other people? Can you write more verses, please?
    •     “Uncle Louie G’s?” Is this the proper spelling? Please verify.
    •     “pizza or Chinese”—nice touch, celebrating multicultural cuisine
    This is a nice beginning. It begs questions of the reader, which is a good thing. Is it a poem or a song? Songs are a legitimate form—you should keep working on this—but even short songs have more than two verses, usually, don’t they? And a chorus?
    Keep going!
    Mr. V
    Jonny and I met again at lunchtime. We passed the activities board in the hall, and I spotted my sign, now hanging at a funky angle. It was starting to get tattered around the edges, and someone had written “LOSER” at the bottom! That insightful comment had been there for at least three hours.
    “This is so depressing,” I said. Although it was probably time to pull the sign anyway—I hadn’t gotten a single response after the ADHDisaster. I ripped the sign off, folded it up, and threw it in the trash.
    “Ah, don’t worry about it,” Jonny said. “Child’s play.”
    “What do you mean? That’s so obnoxious.”
    “Sticks and stones, Cabrera. Forget about it. Listen, I’ve got a lead on a musician. A piano player.”
    “A piano player?” I hadn’t really thought about keyboards—guitar, bass, and drums were the real essentials. I didn’t want to sound too much like Benny and Joon, either.
    “A keyboardist . Whatever. She can play.”
    “Well, okay. Sure.” Rule number one , I thought. Got to go for it.
    At this point, I probably would have hired a kazoo player if that kazoo player had shown some serious commitment. If I had to mold the talent, I’d mold the talent. Jonny said he had heard really good things about this girl, at least musically. He didn’t say a word about her personality.
    We walked down the hall and I spotted Bumblebee Shoes, the kid who was constantly being thrashed by the team of Federal Hill thugs. I gave him a nod. He started to give me a smile, but then he took a quick look at Jonny and turned white. The kid was so spooked, I guess anybody over five foot six gave him the