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Lianna Spurrier, 14Lianna is going to be a sophomore at Ballard High School next year. This is her seventh year at Young Writers Workshop, and it has always been one of her favorite activities during the sum-mer. She wants to be a novelist, though she also enjoys writing poetry. She has loved writing pretty much since she started talking, and used to tell her parents some kind of story every time they got in the car. In her free time, she enjoys writing (of course), researching her family tree, and emailing her friends. She plays the saxophone, and later this summer she’ll be go-ing to seven different countries in Europe with the Kentucky Ambassadors of Music which her band teacher in eighth grade nominated her for. She also enjoys photography, and this is the second year that all of the photos used here on her pages are ones that she took.

LivingBy Lianna Spurrier

I never have dreamedThat this could become my life

But I’m glad it did.

HaikuBy Lianna Spurrier

A haiku is a poemHaiku have very strict form

Horray; a haiku.

ShhBy Lianna Spurrier

I have a secretThat nobody knows but us

And I’ll never tell.

LoveBy Lianna Spurrier

Just four letters longand still such a simple thought

but so hard to find.

First ImpressionsBy Lianna Spurrier

Little do these people knowI am not who they may thinkAt a distance I seem quiet –Never could that be more wrong.Not many people go through the troubleAnd get to know who’s really me –

Some that do are quite surprised.

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SightBy Lianna Spurrier

You see someone everyday.You know their face

and know their voice,but do you even know

the person that they really are?

Do you know their heart’s desireor what they dream about at night,

when they’re all alone?Do you know the demons

that they’ve faced and triumphed o’er?And do you know the things they’ve done

that they hide and never tell?Do you know how they’ve changedas they’ve been shaped and molded

by the world that makes us all?Do you know the secrets they hold,deep and dark, that no one knows?

And do you know what they would doif they had one day left alive?

Do you know the pain they’ve felt,big or small, new or old?

And do you know what they seewhen they look

at you?

WelcomeBy Lianna Spurrier

The water comes downRushing, not waiting, to hit

In torrents it falls

I welcome the stormAnd the destruction it brings

Sometimes we need it.

These things aren’t commonNew beginnings are quite rare

And this is a chance.

The water comes downAnd the destruction it brings

And this is a chance.

BlueBy Lianna Spurrier

What happened to this place?Since when is the sky

so blueso enchanting

so brightso mesmerizing?

When did this sky becomeso beautifuland hopeful?

It almost seemslike I’m looking at the future,my future – how promising.That sky, it makes me smile,

makes me remembereverything I’ve done

How sometimes the worldwas crashing down around meand now it seems to lift me up.Everything is how it should be,

everything is how I wantand how I wish

and it’s so much betterthan I could ever dream.

The sky holds all that history,and I can see it all

when I look to the sky.It is my past

and my presentand my future.

Since when has that blue abyssheld so much?

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SisterA man sees his sister dying from the bubonic plague and battles with his emotions about it.

By Lianna Spurrier

They told me not to go in. Everyone told me to just let her die, and they didn’t un-

derstand why I couldn’t do that. She was my little sister, and I’d protected her for her entire life, so I couldn’t just let her die. Even if I couldn’t save her, I had to see her again. So I opened the door.

It’s been 12 years and I still have nightmares.

As soon as I stepped inside, before I even saw her, the smell hit me. It was the strongest thing I’d ever smelled, and it was dreadful. If forced its way into my nose and up my nostrils and overwhelmed my brain. It made my eyes water and my nose run. I could taste it, even. It was how I‘d imagine a rot-ting corpse would smell – hot and vicious. Like a piece of bloody flesh was left out in the sun for weeks in the summer to fester and mold. It repulsed me, and almost made me go back out that door to never return, but she stopped me. With just one word, she stopped me.

“Adam.” She still had such a sweet and innocent voice, even as hoarse and painful as it sounded. I looked at the girl that said that words, and found the sight even more overbearing than the smell. She was covered in large, bulbous blis-ters, the largest of which sat right on her cheek. It must have been as large as a apple at least. The skin around it was black, and little black lines sprawled out over her face. The bulge itself was read and looked firm, as if there really was an apple concealed

beneath her skin. On her neck there was a spot where a similar blister had burst – obviously very recently. The deflated pocket of inflamed skin was still prominent, with blood and puss surrounding it.

I could see where the plague was taking hold of her limbs; her fingers were almost entirely black, the same for her toes, and the darkness ap-peared to be creeping up her limbs. Her nose had a very similar coloring, and I couldn’t help but wonder how long she had left. It was terrifying to realize that just a week ago, this same girl had been planning her wedding. Now, that vibrant, young, energetic bride-to-be was laying on her death bed, forced to live her final days alone and engulfed in this terrible misery.

But maybe that’s what she deserved. Over the years, she had hurt me in so many ways and never even realized it, so maybe this is what she needed. We always tend to see the best in people as they die, and standing in that room the bad memories came back and drowned out any good thoughts that I could possibly have about her. She had disowned her own family, ashamed of her humble roots. She hadn’t been married yet, but had three children, and refused to tell anyone the name of the father, ruining the family name. When she was having finan-cial problems, I was the one to offer a safe place until things got better, so she moved in to my already-cramped house. She ate my family out of house and home, never thanked

us, and stayed even when she could afford to be on her own again. She took advantage of me time and time again, and never showed even a hint of gratitude. She tricked people into getting what she wanted; she would always be the selfish little brat I knew when we were little. Yet, some-how, I always fell for her act and took pity on her. Every single time.

And now all of that was over, and I had no idea how I was sup-posed to feel about it. Part of me was devastated, absolutely crushed that this could happen to her. Another part was oh so relieved that soon she would be gone, and out of my life forever. I glanced at the girl laying in the bed in front of me.

“Goodbye, sister,” I said, sur-prised when no emotion hid behind those words in any audible way. I could see the hurt in her eyes, and it stung, but not enough for me to say anything more, I turned around and walked out, and closed the door; this was the end.

At least that’s what I thought, but her ghost still haunts me. Every time I close my eyes I see her wither-ing body turning blacker and black-er. I hear her say my name over and over again, and that blasted smell fills my nose. I don’t know if it scares me more that I still don’t know how to feel about it, or that she might never leave.

I need to be left alone, sister – I need my life back.

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Z is a Letter I DislikeBy Lianna Spurrier

Yellow or brownXylophone keysWhy don’t you ringVery loudly right now?Unless you sing soonThe song will be doneSoon you’ll have missed all the fun.Ring, you silly buffoon!Quit making me fumblePlay the right note next time!Oh please, play this lineNotes all in a jumbleMake it sound –Like I know you can –Kayla’s still one of your fans,Just sound like you should!I don’t know what to do,How hard you make this!GFEDCBA

DeafA 101-word story about distress.

By Lianna Spurrier

I didn’t hear his explanation. Just moments ago I had so much hope. I never heard him turn around and walk away. I had thought it

could actually turn out okay. I couldn’t hear her trying to comfort me; it was as if I’d gone deaf. He broke my dreams, and left them shattered all around me, their once-hopeful little pieces now reflecting what I’d lost, but even they were silent as they crashed down. I only heard one thing repeating over and over in my head, drowning out everything else.

The only thing I heard, was, “no.”

OursBy Lianna Spurrier

This world wasn’t built for meit wasn’t built for you.

This world that we’re living in,this crazy messed-up world,

it was built for us.

Hidden RoomsBy Lianna Spurrier

A poem is a journeythat only you have traveled

and only you can write.Your mind will start in one place

you’ll think you know just where you’re goingbut you never have a clue.

You’ll end up somewhere newsomewhere that you’ve never been.

You’ll look around, explore with wordsa place inside yourselfthat used to be locked.

And as your poem closesyou step out of that place.

Turn around and lock that doorforget that it was ever there,

and never can return.The poem let you in,

the poem pushed you out,the poem locked the door,

and now the poem is that place.

FallingBy Lianna Spurrier

We stand on the ledgeready to fall

ready to give ourselvesto fate.

There’s a bridge beside usthat we could walk across

but then we’d never get to seethe truth that lies below.

And so we jump.Time and time again,

we jump,and fall.

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Over YouA woman’s final words to her ex-fiancé.

By Lianna Spurrier

MICHELLEThank you. You have no idea how much you helped me, and I will always be grateful for that. Do I regret that I

wasted two years of my life on you? Yeah, of course I do! But, if hadn’t, I would be miserable today. It was because of what you did that I know who I am, and that I have to make an effort to show people that. I can’t just sit there

quietly and expect people to see through it – you certainly never did. You never even knew who I was, and you had the audacity to just throw me aside like that? You never even tried to get to know me – you didn’t give me a chance!Thank you. I know that you helped me in a way that no one else could at that point, and I know now that’s why you

were in my life – it always has been, I was just too blind to see it.Thank you for hurting me more than anyone ever has – I needed it. Now I’m myself, and I couldn’t have gotten here without you. You changed my life, and I really am grateful, but I never want to see you again. I am sick and

tired of obsessing over this, and I am finally over it – don’t drag me back in. Go have fun with your trashy new girl-friend – I don’t care anymore. Feel free to forget me, it honestly doesn’t matter to me. But, as annoying as it is, and

as much as I don’t want to, I will always remember you. Goodbye, Matthew.

THE END

My AngelA young girl lives on the streets with no family.

by Lianna SpurrierThis is continued from a story

I’ve been working on for the past two years. So far, Susannah is around 13 years old and is living on the streets. All of her family is dead, besides her uncle who was the one that killed her parents and sister. This uncle has landed a job at Susan-nah’s school as a math teacher (Mr. C). Susannah is an artist, and when walking through the park one day a woman asked to buy her paining, and she was invited to participate in an art auction. Where this picks up, the bidding portion of the auction has just finished.

18 - The MemorialOnce all of the buyers had left,

Jonathan called all of the artists back over. “Okay, we had a very successful auction. As all of you are aware, half of today’s proceeds will go to help

keep this gallery open, and you will get the rest. As you are also aware, all payments were made in cash to avoid bounced checks, so you will receive your payment in cash. Here you are,” he announced as he started handing out some very plump envelopes. As he handed out the last one, he went on, “this has been a great help for the gallery, and they have decided to let each of you display a piece of your art in an exhibit to attract new visitors, as well as thank you all for participating in this auction. So, as soon as you can you are welcome to bring a piece of yours back for display. Great auction!”

I get to be in the art gallery? I was shocked - Bertha had clearly left out many details when she invited me to participate, as I had no idea of any of this. I noticed that all of the other artists were heading toward the door,

and in just moment Jonathan and I were the only ones left in the room.

“Are you waiting for your par-ents to pick you up?” he asked me.

“Oh, no.” I told him. We stood there for a second as I continued trying to process everything that had happened today. Realizing that I looked like a complete freak just standing there as he stared at me, I brought myself back to reality for a second. “Bye,” I said as I hurried out the door.

I came out into the hallway again, and found all of those mali-cious paintings waiting for me as I turned the corner. It was differ-ent this time, though. It didn’t feel like they were looking down on me. Questioning me still, sure, but like they knew what those people had paid for my paintings and how much they seemed to like them.

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The portraits on the walls seemed to respect me, almost, like I was some odd vase sitting on a shelf that they weren’t allowed to touch, like I was a mystery that they didn’t think they’d ever solve. They almost seemed like they were glad I had come. They had been lining these halls for years, and had never misjudged a person going in as incorrectly as they did with me. I surprised them, just like I did myself. Maybe I do deserve it, maybe I am that good. After all, if these por-traits thought I was, maybe it really was true.

I left the art gallery and started walking back towards the ware-house. I contemplated going to Tomm’s so I could leave some of the money there because I really didn’t think that keeping that much behind the warehouse was a good idea. But, deciding it was too late for his parents to think it was just a random, spur of the moment visit, I headed back to the warehouse. As I walked down the street I found myself clutching my bookbag closer and closer. I knew that the strang-ers around me had no idea how much money was now sitting in my bag, I was still just another passerby to them. No one would think to rob me - after all, how much money could a little girl in worn out clothes have in her bag? That’s all I was to them, a kid from a poor family that couldn’t afford new clothes. No one would imagine that I have more money in my bag than probably all of the people around me. I knew that - it wasn’t anyw more likely that I’d be robbed today than any other day, but it still worried me. Now they could take something valuable from me that I couldn’t replace with any kind of ease. This auction was my chance to change my life, and if I didn’t get the money I’d earned somewhere safe before it was taken

I’d never forgive myself.I kept going, as quickly as I

could without running and stick-ing out from the crowd, and soon I was walking around the dumpster and the painted faces of my family came into view. I kneeled down on the ground in front of them, still clutching my bookbag, and I did something I hadn’t done since they died - I talked to them. I don’t know what made me do it, or why I did it now and never before, but I did. I went to each one of them and told them what had happened to me to-day. I told Josie about the criticizing

portraits in the hallway, and Mama how I had helped keep the art gallery open by participating. I told Da how scary it had been to go up on stage, and Midae how I had talked to the buyers and never given away a thing, even though they asked. I told them everything, like they were really there and listening to me.

I don’t know how long I sat there, kneeling in front of the wall and whispering every little detail to them. I knew they couldn’t answer me, or offer their opinions on what they thought the man meant by ‘patron,’ or even say that I did a good job. I knew that, and I never expected them to. I realized that they were just silly paintings on a wall in a corner of town, but to me they were real. This was my family. It was

everything I had left of them, and I was going to cherish it. They never got buried with a nice headstone commemorating their life, so this was their memorial. In my mind, this was their final resting place. Even though they were just silly paintings on public property.

But that night, just as I drifted off to sleep, I could have sworn I felt… something. Like one of them was trying to tell me something. I knew it was impossible, but I felt it all the same, and it made everything I had ever done worth it.

They were proud.

19 - The Internet “Why are you giving

this to me?” Tomm asked as I handed him the envelope that Jonathan gave me.

“Because I can’t just keep it all behind the warehouse, anyone could take it then. I have some of it still, but I want you to put the rest somewhere safe, so no one can steal it.,” I explained.

“Okay then I guess.” He opened the envelope and

looked inside to see how much money I had actually earned. “Woah! There are thousands of dollars in here, Joelle!” he told me. Joelle. Why is he so bent on calling me that?

“Don’t call me Joelle,” I told him. “My name is Susannah.” I couldn’t have him running around referring to me like that – what if he forgot at school sometime and called me Joelle then? What if Uncle Greg heard? That would be the end. If he just stuck with Susannah, it wouldn’t be a problem.

“Why not? I mean, your real name is Joelle, why shouldn’t I call you that?”

“Because if you get in the habit, you could say it in front of Uncle Gr- Mr. C. He’d figure it out.”

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“Aw, come on, give me a little more credit than that! I won’t mess it up.” I sighed and dropped the subject, maybe I just wouldn’t reply whenever he called me Joelle, then maybe he’d stop.

“There was a man at the auc-tion, too. He came up to me after-wards and said he wanted to be my patron, then handed me $5,000 and said he’d give me that much every two weeks. Do you know what he mean by patron?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Umm…” said Tomm as he walked over to the computer on his desk. He brought up the internet and searched ‘art patron.’ He clicked on the first result and read me the definition. “‘Patronage is the sup-port, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another’ ac-cording to Wikipedia.”

“So does that mean he just send me money? I don’t have to do anything?” I asked, not really believ-ing that anyone in their right mind would do such a thing.

“Yeah, that’s what it looks like,” said Tomm after he had clicked on a few other links.

“Woah. Well that’s awe-some. Okay, what’s a money order? He said that he’d send me the rest of the money in the mail as a money order.”

He typed it in the search bar and read the first result. “It’s like a check, but more trustworthy, a mi-nor still can’t cash it though,” he told me.

“Well great. More for Eliza to cash I guess.” We sat there in si-lence for a second as I worked up the courage to ask him one more thing. “About the patron,” I started. “He needs an address to send the money to.”

“You could send it here,” he

suggested.” “True, and I thought of that,

but your parents would see it. Then they’d wonder what was going on, and we can’t tell them that. What can I do?

“Well, we could involve my parents I guess. I mean, they have no idea who you are even. If you got to know them a little and told them that your parents don’t support your art or whatever, and explain that you need somewhere for him to send stuff, then I’m sure they’d let you use our address. They don’t need to know the whole truth behind it, right?”

“Huh, I guess that’s right. Okay, that’ll work. Great, thanks!”

“Good, so how about you come back tomorrow evening, they should be home then.”

“Alright then.” We sat there for a minute or

two, both lost in our own thoughts. “Wanna see what we can find online about Mr. C?” he asked, motioning toward the computer, and I nodded. “Okay, what’s his full name?” he asked after he brought up the inter-net.

“Gregory Calisparee,” I told him, wondering what on earth would come up. He typed it in, and a few different profiles from social networking sites came up.

“Gotta start somewhere,” he commented as he clicked on the first one. We both looked at the profile,

trying to determine if it could be him or not. I really didn’t see how this would help us at all, but you never know I guess.

“No, that’s not him – the birthday’s wrong,” I said, and Tomm went back to click on the next link.

“Here, how about you write down everything you know about him, so if I find something while you’re not here I’ll still have the information,” he suggested as he handed me a notebook.

“Sure,” I agreed, and started writing.

We sat there for a long time, Tomm occasionally asking me if whatever he found could be him, but they never were.

“We aren’t getting any-where,” I told him, voicing what I’m sure both of us were thinking by that point.

He hesitated, “yeah, I guess you’re right.” He leaned back in the chair and looked over at me, seem-ing to have given up on his searching like we probably should have a while ago.

“Maybe we should just give up. I mean, Mr. C doesn’t know it’s me. As long as he doesn’t find out, he’s not going to hurt me, so maybe we should just forget it.”

“Oh come on Joelle! He killed your family, you can’t just let him get away with that! There’s gotta be proof out the somewhere, and if we don’t find it, who will? We just started! Okay, how about we go ask that lady that lived next door to you – Stacie? Maybe she saw something that they didn’t include in the article or something. It’s worth a try.”

I sighed, not convinced in the least. “Like what? Maybe she saw him drop his ID on the way out, and she saved it from the fire but didn’t give it to the police because she

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didn’t think he did anything? Yeah, right. How could she help us?”

“I don’t know, maybe she saw his face or something. Mr. C was blinded in a fire six years ago, right? That’s what he said? Well, since we’re pretty dang sure that was your fire, he should have had those big gashing wounds on his face. Maybe she could see him leaving a trail of blood behind or some-thing, and… I don’t know, but she might know something. Can we just try it?” he pleaded.

“Fine, let’s go,” I gave in. I still didn’t think there was anything she could do for us, but if he was that convinced that she could help, what was the harm? He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out some touch-screened device.

“We can record what she says,” he explained, as he put it in his pocket. He took the notebook back from me and closed it, grabbing a pen as he stood up. “Let’s go.”

20 - The Distraction “You realize this is pointless

if she’s moved, right?” I asked Tomm as we left his house and headed towards my old one.

“No, if she moved we can just go back to my house and look her up in the phone book. There can’t be that many Stacie Lynch’s in the city.”

“And what if she’s not listed under her real name? Some people do that, where they just use their first initial or something. And what if she’s gotten married and uses her husband’s last name now? Then we’re sunk.”

“Come on, brighten up Susannah!” he said. “See, I got this,” he whispered to me, referring to the Joelle-Susannah situation. I just

rolled my eyes. “Okay, we need to figure out what we’re going to tell her. Why are we asking her about this?”

“This was your idea, don’t you have a plan or something?”

“No. Come on, you agreed

to it– what are we gonna tell her?” “Ugh, fine. How about that

we were assigned a project at school to learn more about how the police department works, so they assigned each group an old crime, and we got the fire. Each group is supposed to interview the witnesses and see what we can find. That sound believable?”

“Yeah, that’ll work. Okay, so we’re working on the project about police, and we need to interview her. Great.” We walked on in silence for a bit, until another guy from school came around the corner in front of us. I knew he played basketball, but nothing else. I glanced at Tomm, and he turned towards me immedi-ately, shoving the notebook into my hands and directing me very quickly behind a bush.

“Really?” I whispered. Is he really that worried about his image that he can’t even be seen walking down the street with me? I shook my head and peered through the bush.

“James!” Tomm called, as if James was some long-lost friend that he hadn’t seen in ages. I got a good look at James and realized that I had never even seen him talking to Tomm before. He was ridiculously tall and thin, with dreadlocks com-ing past his shoulders. To be honest, he looked pretty mean.

“Tomm, what up?” he asked as they did some weird guy-handshake. “Wanna go shoot some

hoops?” he suggested, pointing to what I assume was his house across the street.

“Of course man, anytime!” said Tomm as they started walking across the street. Same old Tomm. I had fooled myself into thinking that

this sports-obsessed jerk wasn’t the real Tomm, that he was the nice, smart guy showing me his coins. Any you know,

maybe that is the real Tomm, but in public he was always going to be this annoying jock, and I couldn’t change that. I had blinded myself to think that he would help me above protecting his image, and I was wrong. Whether he was really the coin collector or the jock, his reputa-tion was always going to be the most important thing to him. I didn’t understand why it mattered to him so much – was it really going to hurt hum so much just to say once, ‘sorry, I’m busy, I can’t play today’? Maybe I was just being bitter and selfish, thinking that Tomm actually cared about me at all. No, he really did, just not in public. He was ashamed of me, and ashamed of who he really was. He wanted to be this big sports star that everyone looked up to, and he played the part well I must say, it just wasn’t him, and he didn’t want anyone to realize that. I was still the quiet girl that he wouldn’t even think of talking to, and I always would be.

As Tomm walked I the front door of James’ house he actually paused in the doorway and turned around, looking straight at me be-hind the bushes, and mouthed one word to me.

“Sorry.” With that he turned around

and went to join James inside. He wasn’t coming back – I knew that. But he did care; I could see that in his eyes when he turned around. He

I was still the quiet girl that he wouldn’t even think of talking to, and I always would be.

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would rather be going to interview Stacie right now that playing bas-ketball, but he had to maintain his precious reputation.

I stood up from the bushes and started walking slowly back to the warehouse, thinking over everything that had happened today. I would have an address to give the patron, as long as Tomm’s parents agreed. I’d have to start getting to know them tomorrow, and that was not something I was looking forward to. I hadn’t ‘gotten to know’ anyone except Tomm since Midae found me, and it just never came naturally to me. I was pretty sure that tomor-row at Tomm’s was going to be one long, largely one-sided conversation. I could never think of anything to say in those situations – they’d prob-ably ask about my family, so I’d have to lie, and actually maintain that story. Then they might ask about my friends, and it would be really awkward if I told them that Tomm was my only friend. They could ask about my hobbies; well, for that one I could at least tell the truth that I paint, and then explain that I need somewhere to send stuff. No, not this first time, I had to get to know them better first. It would seem like I just wanted to use their address if I asked the first time, and I don’t want them to think that. They need to believe that I’m just a normal kid with an unsupportive family; that would be a good reason to need to send things to their house instead of mine. As long as they believed me, I had a solution. As long as I didn’t blow it.

21 - The Conversation I was really nervous knock-

ing on Tomm’s door Monday after-noon. I had my story all figured out, right down to the eye color of each

of my three siblings. I hadn’t been able to sleep, and so I could spend the entire night fabricating a life for myself and memorizing every detail. If I slipped up even once they might start to wonder, and I had to keep that from happening. They needed to trust me.

Much to my relief, Tomm answered the door instead of one of his parents. “Good timing, my mom just got home,” he said, letting me in. “Come on,” he said, motion-ing me toward a room. We went in to a living room, and his mom was sitting on the couch reading a book. “Mom? This is Susannah – she’s a friend of mine. We have to work on a school project later, but Trey needed help with some science homework first, so I need to go call him. So, I’ll be back,” he told her, walking off to his room. Nice excuse, Tomm, I told him in my head, a tad awkward, but nicely lied.

“Well, hello Susannah,” she said, sticking out her hand to shake mine.

“Hi. I’m Susannah, and my middle name’s Joelle, so Tomm calls me that sometimes. I really don’t know why, but it’s probably just be-cause it’s my middle name. So yeah, I’m Susannah Joelle Ballen. Nice to meet you,” I said, realizing that I was saying way too much. It was new for me though – I was nervous, but I was already prepared for any question she could ask. I had my family figured out so that we would be really hard to find and verify, and a reason for any seemingly odd thing Tomm might do that could arouse her suspicions. I guess I was just nervous, but usually I hardly said anything in these situations, now I was talking too much. I needed to find a happy medium.

“Um, yes, nice to meet you. So, are you an only child?” she

asked, obviously caught a bit off-guard by my rambling.

Reminding myself not to say too much, I answered. “No, I have two brothers and a sister. John is seven and Joe is nine, then my sister Sarah is eleven. I’m the oldest in my family, well, besides my parents of course,” I said, laughing nervously. “Their names are Mary and Mat-thew, but my mom goes by Mary Kay because that’s her middle name. They’ve been married for 17 years, and they moved here when I was seven. My mom’s a traveling nurse, so she’s in Idaho at the moment working for some hospital, and my dad is an accountant that works at a tiny little business in a small town a few miles south of the city. We’re not in the phone book though because both of them are worried about privacy and all, so they don’t want strangers to get our phone number.” I stopped myself before I kept going, so much for not saying too much.

“Oh my, well, I’m sure you must miss your mom being gone all the time.”

“Yeah, it’s really hard. But when I miss her I paint – that’s a hobby of mine. My family hates it because they know I want to be an artist, and they don’t think that’s an acceptable career. They tell me that I should be a scientist or something. All of my siblings want to do something like that, of course they’re little, who knows what they’ll do with their life, but my parents always say that I’m the oddball and don’t quite fit in with my family. They keep tell-ing me that I need to give up on art and focus on schoolwork, but I like painting, so I keep doing it.” There I go again. I have got to calm down!

“Well, I’m sure you’re a wonder-ful artist no matter what they say.” We sat there in an awkward silence for a minute. “So where do your

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siblings go to school?” she asked, trying to start up the conversation again.

“Well, all of them are home-schooled, which is really hard since my parents are gone so often. I teach John and Joe a lot – dad will tell me what they need to learn and I have to teach it to them. Then mom or dad always teaches Sarah because she’s older. Sometimes she has like video-conferences with mom, or dad leaves her the link to a website that has good information on it for her to read. She’s a really good student so she keeps up with everything. They put me in school though because they didn’t like that I used most of my free-time to paint, so they thought that actual school would take up more of my time to do constructive things. They didn’t realize that our school has an art class though, and they don’t know I’m taking it because they made me sign up for Latin, but I didn’t want to learn Latin, so I asked the school and they switched me into art class. That’s where I met Tomm.” This was getting ridicu-lous; couldn’t I have just said ‘they’re homeschooled’? She didn’t need my life story, yet I seemed to be determined to give it to her.

“Well that’s interesting,” she said a bit apprehensively. Thinking fast, I came up with a way to explain why I kept saying too much.

“I’m sorry, I talk a lot because my parents don’t usually like what I have to say and my siblings never listen to me, so whenever I’m with someone that actually listens I tend to go a bit over-board and talk way too much. It freaks some people out, sorry.” There, I didn’t

ramble too much that time. “So why does Tomm take art?” I asked, deciding I should ask a question for a change.

“His father and I decided that he was too focused on sports, and he always liked drawing, so we put him in art class. He didn’t like it at first, but he’s warmed up to the idea by now.” Wow, that was such a short answer – why couldn’t I do that? “I’m sorry, this is really out of the blue, but you seem very familiar. I could swear that I’ve seen you somewhere before.” Uh oh – she was talking about when Midae and I were here, I was sure of it.

“No, I’m pretty sure we’ve never met. Did I mention that my family’s rich? We have a lot of money, but not a very big house because my parents like

to donate money to scientific re-search projects in-stead of spend it. They told me that until I give up my ‘insane notion’ of becoming an artist that I wouldn’t get any money from them, nor would I get to keep anything I make.

That’s why I don’t have a job anywhere, because if I did they’d just take the money away anyway.” That would make it seem less selfish of me when I needed to hide the money from my ‘parents’ in the future, but it seemed so random now. What am I doing? This is a disaster – she thinks I’m insane.

Wonderfully timed, Tomm came back down the stairs. “Okay, Trey’s good – come on Susannah,” he said as he went straight back up. “Well, it was nice meeting you Susannah,” his mom told me as I stood up to leave.

“Thanks, you too.” And with that I climbed the stairs to go join Tomm.

Only OneBy Lianna Spurrier

I still don’t understand –I can’t quite believe

that my dream has becomemy life.

It’s a gift that Icould never have predicted.Every day I sit and think, how are you still mine?

I wore my hearton my sleevejust for a day.

And your hands,they took it gently,

honest and real.

It seems to me like Ihave been lost at sea for years

but you found mebrought me back

and now I’m home.

The only questionstill unanswered

will come in timeI’m sure.

But I’m left to wonder now,is it really love?