The Writers' Express Collection - Summer 2007
The following pieces are excerpts from the 253 page collection:
Journal Entries
Camp Chores - Sarah 
The garlic looks up menacingly at me. I beam my eyes just as menacingly back at it, and it seems to wilt a little, just a tiny bit, but it’s noticeable. I think, “Do not make me tear up. Do not be an onion. You are garlic.” And with a thwack, I bring the sharp, gleaming knife down and end the garlic’s life. I cringe inwardly. But once I start chopping the garlic into small bits, I find the once hidden joy in it. I dice the garlic into tiny fragments, munching on little pieces here and there, helter skelter. I love finding joy in things.
Though the garlic’s life has ended, a new one will begin: the one in my grumbling stomach. It is quiet around me: detached whisps of soft voices find their way to me occasionally, but other than that there is no sound except the distant, dreamy crackly of the fire. The amazing smell of garlic wafts lazily into my nose; but, unlike its brother onion, does not force painful tears into my eyes. Suddenly, there is no more of this clove of garlic to be cut: I reach gingerly for another, and the entire process begins, and ends, again.
Taza Chocolate Factory - Kate
The room smelled only vaguely of chocolate. Like a distant memory of a happy time now past. It was an ordinary room, medium-sized, with an assortment of novelty BIKES scattered among shelves, tables, work stations, and large, dormant machines. Our tour guide, a young man, gave us a thorough, medium-length explanation of the process, offering us samples along the way. Feeling adventurous, I tried first raw, then roasted cocoa beans. I took the raw cocoa bean in my hand, stared doubtfully at it, cautiously sniffed it. It smelled faintly of chocolate. I suppose I had expected it to look like a coffee bean, smooth and dark. It looked more like a large, rather bulbous and crusty almond, with an uneven, spotty surface. On a whim, I licked it. It didn’t taste like anything, and I got the sense that the real flavor was beneath this shell-like surface. Finally, I tentatively but firmly bit into it with my back teeth. Intense, gritty bitterness exploded like a grenade on my tongue, perhaps permanently damaging my taste buds. I felt my face constricting, collapsing in on itself, twisting into a grotesque puckering sneer. I saw the same expression dominating the faces of those who had dared try the beans.
Rock Climbing - Amanda
I stared up at the brown rock. I had to crane my neck to see the top, but I knew there wasn’t too far to go. The silver hook was just a few feet up, and I muttered to myself, “Almost there, almost there.” At the top the climb was easier with more cracks and corners to grab.
I pulled myself a bit higher and firmly planted my foot inside the long horizontal crack. I felt safer immediately and set about looking for a good crack to put my hand on. I slipped it inside the crack I found, which was broad and rough and would have been perfect, but it was slimy and wet. Then I saw it.
There was a gigantic spider web stationed right in front of my face. I jumped back. My hands would have held their position if the rock were dry, but it was wet and they slipped off. I was terrified. I clung to the rope with everything I had in me, when Amman’s voice called up to me. “I got you. Steady,” I nodded and steadied myself to keep going. I climbed on. I was looking for footholds, but I looked a bit too far down. My stomach dropped. It looked like there were miles underneath me, and the largest man was about the size of my combined fists. I gritted my teeth and kept going. I climbed and climbed, scaled those few feet, and then I managed to touch the hook! I felt elated.
Hip Hop Dancing - Ruby
The music thumped out of the boom box. “Sal-sa step, stomp, stomp,” Catalina said in rhythm. She demonstrated with her own feet sending vibrations through the floor. “Got it?” she questioned. “Mmmmm,” murmured the campers. I was replaying her movements in my mind. Catalina rewound the music, making metallic clicks as she pressed “rewind” and “play.” The music came through the speakers, its rhythm slow and complicated. The campers were silent, waiting and watching Catalina count, moving her head and tapping her head and tapping her hand on her black stretchy pants. At last we came to the designated part of the song. “Five, six, seven, eight,” she started, still nodding her head rhythmically. I watched my feet and everyone else’s move in sync with each other and the music. Our feet moved back and our hips tilted to the beat. Salsa step complete, we continued the dance, our feet’s stomps sending vibrations and loud thuds into the floor and room.
Shakespeare Workshop - Ariana
“W-why did you steal my boyfriend?” DeAndra questions. Her chocolate-like hands gently push me. I swing my arms backwards as my feet walk back.
DeAndra turns her head back on me and starts to walk the other way. I jog up behind her and pretend to pull her hair. “Ahh! Ow! Let go!” she screams, clutching my hand. My hand jolts out of her cornrowed hair.
“Boyfriend stealer,” DeAndra hisses. She grabs my neck and tosses it from side to side.
“Yeah,” I grumble. My hands place themselves on DeAndra’s neck. She is thrusted in all directions.
“Grr! Ucck! Awk!” We pretend to choke.
Eventually, DeAndra faints. “Yes!” I reply. “Victory is mine.” Our skit is over. I help DeAndra up.
“Ha! Ha!” We laugh and we go join the others on the soft, green, cozy grass.
Canoeing - Ashley
The cool light blue water brushed against the paddle as I exerted force and steered out. The water formed small tiny bubbles around the boat. Then the sun was soaking into my skin getting inside every pore. It didn’t stop. It could feel the water splashing onto my skin, cooling it off. It was as if it wanted to help me. The lily pads were stuck on every side of the boat, and the more we steered the more water bubbles we made. The bubbles were thick and cloudy. The water shimmered. The voices of my boatmates were drowning as we grunted, trying to pull the boat out of the water lilies.
Chinatown - John
“Shong!” she declared as the name of the product. $2.60 was the cost. In my country this food is referred to as ayacas. I hoped for the taste to be the same. I unwrapped the leaves that covered the specimens. White on the outside. Brown in the inside. I analyzed it with my smell (chicken), look (tacos), and touch (jelly). I engaged in a bite. My eyes dilated from the commotion in my mouth. The “Shong!” tasted like rotten cheese left out for months. My muscles contracted, puking out the remains. As the chewed “Shong!” lay in the trash, it camouflaged with puke and rotten food. I couldn’t tell where it went, only that it was somewhere in the trash and that the rest remained in my stomach, being disintegrated by my acids. I fell to the ground from the pain. All I could think was taking a crap, which by now might look like “Shong!”
Personal Narrative
Victorious Imagination of Life - Makeda
Walking down the peaceful, quiet, sandy walkway in the Victory Gardens makes you forget about the ninety-three-degree temperature and the scorching hot sun beaming down on you. Trees hover over you like parents hovering over their young ones, protecting and giving shade. Blooming bright pink roses and flowers are reaching over the wire fences in front of them, trying to get somewhere close to say hello to you and get though.
The touch of a petal is as soft as a silk pillow and delicate as a new born baby. Hearing the bees and other flower-loving insects enjoying the presents of the beautiful plants and taste of nectar. Butterflies flutter from marigolds to tulips passing by and catching your eye to proudly show off the beauty of their colorful and creative wings. Little walkways to stride into each section of the flowers and plants show up on your left and your right. Tables with chairs to relax on surrounded by the chirping of birds and little critters running by. I keep walking in a slow but nice pace to keep up but also enjoy the pretty and intriguing view. On one side, behind the tall green plants, I see a sprinkler, hovering high above the flowers giving water to feed their thirst.
Wishing I could go over there to get cool myself down with several droplets falling on my sun-dried skin, I hear a voice next to me. “We need to catch up a little bit.” I realized Maxiel’s voice, before quiet as a mouse, now repeated herself again louder, forcing me to be interrupted from my thoughts. I looked at her, back from my daydreaming, startled and replied a plain “Okay.” Well that stops the Imagination Express, I said to myself. I sped up the pace but still look out into the spacious garden filled with wondrous life.
Short Story
Fade to Blue - Becky
Clara brushed a clump of her straight, sleek black hair out of her face. She sat forward in her velvety, moss-colored chair, sipping her iced Starbucks mocha latte. This Starbucks was a regular haunt of hers; it was too corporate and pricey for her self-declared indie taste, but the free wireless internet access for her Dell and the amount of caffeine in the coffee made up for it. Her milky-brown eyes peered intently at the scratched screen of her laptop. Plugged into her headphones, she was aware only of the video clips flashing before her. This was her grand finale, her exit out of college—so-long film school—her dive into the real world for the first time in four years. It had to be perfect.
These clips flying before her were the puzzle pieces of her life. They tracked her, from the rosy-cheeked, blonde seven-year-old, to a moody high school outcast with stringy purple hair, to a sophisticated art school almost-grad, and everything in between. At this point in the DVD, the face came up on the screen. Here was Libby before her, grinning her toothy smile, face almost pressed up against the camera, her blond ringlets angelically framing her bright blue eyes. Libby was always the perfect angel of a little sister, whom Clara had always treasured. Clara paused, and her stomach tightened. Her breathing quickened, and her fist subconsciously clenched, gouging her nails into her skin. She furiously slurped her drink, so absentmindedly that she gnawed her straw beyond recognition. She suddenly became aware of the acid in her stomach that sloshed around violently. Steadying her trembling hand, she clicked on the next session of clips.
There were multiple shots of Clara and Libby, dressed up for Halloween as Tom and Jerry, of the two viciously tickling each other before a Christmas fireplace, of birthdays, dance recitals, of everything that was, back when Clara was a chubby, innocent teen, back when everything was perfect, back before that autumn.
Clara didn’t grieve when it happened. She never cried, never showed her emotion. She was just a shell, a figure behind the camera. That autumn, she was the camera. Its viewfinder was her eyes. Everything was a scene; her life was a scene, and she was merely an extra, a character to balance out the stage, to take up space.
Extras don’t feel; they just remember.
She remembered through this video. It was her autobiographical thesis project, encompassing what she had learned in art school, who she was, and who she will become. It was right here in the tiny DVD. She edited the clips, added special effects, spruced up her life, and added a soundtrack or sound effect in the proper places.
She edited her life.
Now, she was caught. Should she edit it all out, make it more screen-appropriate, or should she leave it raw, hurtful, undone, and true. She could easily cut a whole section of clips, add a sappy montage at the end, and give it more of fairy-tale feel, but each time Clara tried, she would get that nauseous feeling, as though her insides were being ripped out. She knew what would get her a better grade; that she didn’t question at all. Now, though, it was a trial of ethics. Was it right to completely change yourself, just for the sake of the audience? The question was Libby. Libby was Clara’s turning point, where her life went from real to surreal.
That night, her dreams were troubled, filled with a bright, shrill, almost taunting laughter. It was the face that affected her the most. The bright blue eyes pierced her, and then she was trapped. The scene played over and over in Clara’s mind. She awoke. Her whole body was drenched with an eerie cold sweat. Clara leapt out of bed and rushed to her Dell, which was still humming away peacefully on her desk. She opened a folder in the desktop and began a new series of clips. With a start, she realized she had never seen this segment before. She remembered filming them, but she never had the courage to watch them; she knew they would open wounds. Cautiously, she began to watch.
The setting was a perfect day, so bright and crystal-clear, with birds chirping and late-summer bees buzzing. Trees were decorated festively with fiery gold and blazing red hues. In Boston a plane door shut, leaving a tearful mother and a proud older sister. A grinning six-year-old was ready to visit Grandma for the first time by herself. Fade to the next Wednesday, a blur of black and too much family and the smell of bunches of heavily-perfumed flowers. Finally, cut to those same blue, smiling eyes piercing into Clara’s soul, and that laughter, that happy laughter—
Clara’s stomach lurched as she realized when these clips were from. Then it was as though all of her mind switched off and she focused on only one thing: she wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t betray Libby, not now, not after everything that had happened in the time since that day. She defiantly dragged these clips into her movie, and then a sudden flash of inspiration came over her. She knew what she had to do. She pressed save and popped the unfinished and uncut DVD out of the drive and into her pocket.
A warm, soft breeze ruffled the pearly-pink blossoms on the trees above. The soft, mossy ground was still littered with autumn’s leaves, and the blue sky was ornamented with wisps of clouds. The grass stirred and the grounded squelched as she walked through the garden. She cast a long shadow as she walked, and the sun was still low in the sky. She walked stoically, almost mechanically, towards her white-marble destination. Breathing in and out purposefully and methodically, she came to a halt and stood, staring for a minute before she put her gifts down. Her tears slid down her face, splashing and gliding to the now grassy plot. She could still smell it; the smell of already-rotting flowers lying on cold stone still carried over the six years. She traced the etchings in the memorial stone with her fingertips.
ELIZABETH JULIA MAHONEY
MAY 26, 1995 – SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
“Happy birthday, Libs.” Then Clara walked away, leaving only a sun-yellow daisy and a DVD, a silver memorial, glistening in the sun.
Travel Writing
First Night - Ben 
Tumbling, pouring, piling, tripping off of the bus, retrieving bags, lugging them over the roughly cobbled streets, suddenly here, suddenly perceiving, suddenly awake. Now, I am finally in Italy. That might seem like a strange comment to make— after all of the planning and learning my group has done to prepare for this moment, after all of the travel—almost sixteen hours of travel!—and airports. After the classes at the Bradleys’—getting to know each other, learning more about the culture of Italy and Italian conversation (things that we hadn’t learned in our school Italian classes) and especially learning about the city we would visit. Arezzo, city of the Saracen’s Joust. A typical Italian hill town, old and made of mainly stone, located at the intersection of four majestic valleys; the city to which our exchange program would be traveling to spend a week in the home of an Italian family.
And now we are here.
I’ve come into this trip from a distinctly negative month dominated by an accusation from my school’s administration that I’d done something I hadn’t—namely, write a hate letter to the school paper that I worked for in order to (this was the Nurse Ratchett-like principal’s theory) garner more attention to an article that I had written. That, combined with the usual stresses of school, has preoccupied my thoughts throughout the past few weeks. I feel threatened and disbelieved, and I am worried that I will be remembered for something that I had not done.
The sun is sinking over the strangely misty hills on this warmish February and the long, thin clouds are lit orange. My heart has beating with the stress of school, combined with the usual stresses of traveling—Will I make the plane? Will I pass through customs?—that for me were not lessened by the fact that three capable adults were handling all of the logistics for the group.
As I walk into the center of the city, the old town, the centro storico, my bag jumps and clatters on the uneven pavement and we can see the yellow streetlights casting a romantic glow over the stone buildings. People are taking their evening stroll, fare la passagiata, to walk up an appetite for an evening meal. I smell different foods cooking in the houses we pass as we approach our destination, the Hotel Cecco (owned by a friend of one of our teachers, the erudite Signora Barsamian, who is leading this exchange of fourteen eighth-graders while six months pregnant).
People start to look at us, chattering away in Italian. I catch snippets of their conversations. Nuovi. Newcomers. Studenti Americani. American Students. I try to ignore the stares etching into my back. The way that I feel is not unique in my group— Michelle turns to me, complaining. “These people are staring,” she whines. I hate whining, but she is tired from the travel and does have a point.
Michelle is the daughter of the Bradleys, and it was at her house that the preparatory classes for this trip took place. I had been formally accused of the “hate incident” just before the first of these preparatory classes, and I had been in no mood to learn on that day. The group had convened for the first time and while the others chattered away I zoned out, in a deep funk, trying to figure out how I would deal with the situation. I came to no conclusions. Later, during the lessons, I could not pay attention, but Signora Barsamian knew what had happened—for I had told her—and let it pass.
The buildings around us are old in a way that in the US would be unusual. Here in America, we treat old buildings—and in this sense of old I am talking about buildings predating 1600—as museums. In Italy, they are still used. People live in these buildings; they work in them. I see a shop, just closing for the night, with live chickens pecking in cages, and upstairs in that same building the unmistakable blue light of a TV filters through damask curtains. Probably because in Italy there are more of them—there might only be a handful of pre-1600 buildings in the US, but in Italy there seem to be thousands.
There are no cars allowed in the city center except by special permit, but nobody should be less careful for that fact. A delivery truck, easily as wide as the narrow street we are walking on, comes barreling down at about forty miles per hour. He honks as he passes us, as if inquiring how we dare take up space in his street. I cower into a building’s portico.
The Hotel Cecco is small and slightly seedy. We simply dump our bags in the rooms, which spread out over two floors, distinguished only by the color of the linoleum flooring—red on the third floor, green on the second. Ick. Sort of like my middle school—grey linoleum and industrial carpeting, lots of brick and few windows.
The room that I will be sharing with Will and Andrew—the only other guys on this trip—is small but has a large picture window onto the street with a balcony. Will and Andrew are plotting strategies for dropping things onto the balcony of one of the girls’ rooms; I am more interested in unpacking and in trying to keep my mind clear. I can’t shake the feeling that this is all a dream and that I will wake up back in my mundane usual world.
We finally leave the hotel and enter the central square of the city—the Piazza di San Francesco. The church of San Francesco (where the famous Story of the True Cross murals by Piero Della Francesca reside) is old and the stones stick out of its sides at odd angles. People perch on the stones and converse; lovers kiss passionately in the darker corners of the church exterior.
The light in this piazza is beautiful—dusky evening orange combined with the soft ivory of streetlights. People carry on passionate political discussions in sidewalk cafes, windmilling their arms and carrying on about Casa Della Liberta and L’Unione, Berlusconi and Prodi, as the hotly contested parliamentary elections—the equivalent of our presidential elections—are about to occur. Couples, oblivious to the other types of passion surrounding them, stroll, holding hands in the warm breeze, eating gelato.
The air gets colder and I am glad for my sweater. The sun slowly begins to dip over the horizon. If you smell carefully, you can catch the perfume of the cypress trees on each surrounding hilltop.
The centro storico is not very big, and the group has been given free rein until dinner at eight. I explore up the main street leading off of the piazza. This type of main street in any Italian town is called the Corso. It is lined with full restaurants and closed or closing shops. People wander up and down, looking at menus, arguing about prices, peering into shop windows—vetrine—and having private conversations. Some of the students from my group—Will and Andrew—are ogling some young women striding up the Corso in stiletto heels. A gaggle of gossiping girls—the ditz coalition of the exchange group—is looking into shop windows and giggling at the high prices. That’s all they can think about. Shopping.
But am I really much better? At least they are completely happy, too stupid to be anything but, sort of like cows. Have you ever seen an unhappy cow? Or a stressed-out blade of grass? I’m talking extreme ditziness here. But again, who am I to judge?
I continue up the Corso Italia into the second main square of the town—Piazza Centrale. If you’d seen the movie La Vita e Bella you would recognize this place as the location where the two lovers walked and where Roberto Benigni shouted, “Maria, drop the keys!”
The piazza spills in shallow steps down a hill. At its top there is a square arcade filled with an outdoor flea market and more sidewalk cafes. A man approaches me as I stand in the arcade and says something unintelligible in the local dialect. I shrug and he seems satisfied. As I look down the hill, to my left is a line of pottery shops—long since closed that day—and at the right there is the colonnade of yet another church—there are four in the centro storico alone. In America that would be unthinkable—four Catholic churches within one square mile.
This is where, every July, the Saracen’s Joust occurs. A wax effigy of a black man holding a lance (the Saracen) is set spinning and local men ride up to it and try to stay on their horses while they hit a small target with their lance. At that time each year, the city fills with tourists, but, thank god, most of the time Arezzo is not a tourist town.
I keep heading out of the Corso, which is like a river leading between several lakes—the piazzas. I continue “upstream” to the source of this river, the Piazza della Cattedra. This piazza crowns the hill that Arezzo is set on. The Cathedral is on the left and made of whitish stone, and the ancient-looking city hall occupies the side opposite. There are fewer people in this piazza than in the others and it is definitely quieter. I stand on a bench in this magical space and look down the hill towards the city. Streetlights stretch down the Corso, lighting the people who are still strolling. The sun slowly sets over the western hills.
It’s time to go back to the Cecco for dinner. I stroll down the Corso with some people from the group: Lydia and Rachel, both of whom are energetically eating gelato and babbling about how much they love the city. I zone out until I hear a silence and realize that they’ve asked me a question. I shrug; they laugh hysterically.
The lobby of the Hotel Cecco is tackily decorated with lots of harvest gold signage against plastichrome backgrounds. The floor is tiled. The dining room is downstairs.
The dinner is delicious. Probably less delicious than it seems after a day of airline food, but absolutely wonderful. First, an antipasto plate of olives and crunchy pickled items with juice dripping off of them. Next, a dish of pasta with a perfectly balanced tomato sauce—the acidity of the tomatoes contradicts the mellow herbs; the sharp garlic note underscores the whole symphony of flavor. Now, a dish of cold sliced cooked meats, roast beef and chicken, with a coating of herb-infused oil. And to finish, a dish of cheeses with a perfect, velvety chocolate mousse. The dinner serves as a formal welcome to Arezzo.
We laugh and talk about our day. We get up from dinner and go out onto the Corso again. It is carnival time: the gallivanting festival to let off steam and mischief, a time for general indulgence and consumption before the strict asceticism of Lent. A man walks out from behind a pillar and sprays me with silly string. Another man stands on a balcony dumping confetti onto the street. It’s all in good fun, and some people from my group are jumping at the chance to take out their aggression by spraying strangers with silly string.
But I still can’t shake off the stress, the fear in me. I try to make it stop, to take deep breaths, inhale, exhale, inhale, but nothing is working. The original accusation runs through my mind: sitting in the principal’s office, the sinister glint in Nurse Ratchett’s eye, her lavender nun suit (one of those ones that comically exaggerate the rear)—why does she wear these suits?—the deep, falling pit inside of my stomach. The more that I try to get these thoughts out of my mind, the more that I focus on the little things. Her nun suit, fading dyed hair, the “Children Are the Work of God” needlepoints on her office wall. Her wispy, weak-sounding yet terrifying voice, politically correct manner, speeches and statements containing not even one single original thought—they are all clichés; she herself is a goddamn cliché. Damn it, this is self-destructive. How can I let her win? How can I do this to myself?
As these thoughts throb in my head, I stare blankly at an old lady tottering up the street. The sea of revelers open up to let her through. My mind clears. Bye-bye Nurse Ratchett Principal. Bye-bye to accusations and defense, intrigue and hate. I can get over this, and through this. If I let middle school drama (not an uncommon occurrence) ruin my vacation to Italy, I will let Nurse Ratchett win. She is shivering in the cold back in Newton plotting, but I am here in Tuscany; and I will have a good time; and this is all real—and the universe is this moment.
