HOPE IT IS OKAY TO LOVE MY MESSED-UP GRANDPA

BY EVA LIU, 10

In a world of my design, He is not my first pick for Grandpa

Not a wartime hero with legendary stories to tell And no glorious shiny badges that I can brag about

He smokes, an addiction as crazy as the fidget spinner

The cigarette leaves are engraved in his rumpled shirts

His heart, a reservoir of laziness, forces him to watch television all day No wonder the lenses of his spectacles are thicker than a dictionary

Impatient, dependent, mean Who wants a Grandpa like mine?

He yells at Grandma with indignation and shattered her iron heart

When he wasn’t at the hospital for my father’s birth

He can be impatient, He can be dependent, He can be mean, He is my Grandpa.

BACKGROUND ART BY SARAH FENG, 11

No surprise: he was not a supporter of my aunt’s medical degree

And he stole all the sweet fruit from his children in an era of starvation But let me tell you, even the underdog can beat the number-one draft pick

Grandpa is highly underrated, not appreciated by my family

Buying me ice cream after school on the sidewalk

Poring over my math homework late at night

What a stubborn old man he is, Insisting on walking me home from the bus station

He struggled to keep up with my jolly walk

As he lurched and tottered over the pebble path

I already threw my backpack on the sofa

While he was still across the threshold

My indolent Grandpa walked me home

For 2190 days, 72 months, 6 years but He refused to walk after the surgery; he lost his motivation

I am no longer a little kid holding onto his calloused hand And he lives in a lonely nursing home now, 7233 miles away from my high school

No one likes him, maybe only Grandma

Whom he stabbed with his harsh words

Dad is too busy to visit bring him fresh fruits

My uncle doesn’t even bother to ask about him

Aunt June gets enraged in her daily conversation with him

Grandpa has early stage Alzheimer’s, He forgets my cousin’s name Can’t recognize my uncle’s face But he remembers me, encrusted in his soul just like the cigarettes

A moment when love overrules science:

How can he still memorize those math formulas I struggled with?

How can he still remember the redolent smell of my baby blanket? How can he still recognize me, my everything?

I hope it’s okay to love my messedup Grandpa

Figured

BY MICAELA RODRIGUEZ STEUBE, 10

Inspired by the one sentence story “The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship” by Gabriel García Márquez

The figure looked back, not speaking but reflecting the gestures; only movements suggested any sign of life, no emotions corrupted the face, no thoughts passed through the mindless brain, only twists and imbalances of the color spectrum met the tears in her eyes; a disconnection from her own reflection; the call sounded and was ignored at first, a subtle hint at change, a tap, an idea floating in space, solely giving an option to connect; but it wasn’t loud enough, it wasn’t ready; there was more to see in the mysterious figure, lines and shapes and colors and crevices, all that did not belong to her, yet, they moved with her, it followed; a whisper, only a small airy shiver calling through the air, unmistakably present, yet incomprehensible; it beckoned to no avail; a clueless face met the figure, mindless as its own reflection, cocked to one side, uncomprehending; silence; a step back, one forward, both followed meticulously by the spectre; at the third call she turned, it was not the figure behind her but her trust; he began to speak, no words escaped his mouth, but she felt it; burning through her cheek, quaking through her bones and shivering down her spine; with each fleeting moment, the vertebrae began to jut out, protruding almost through her graying, translucent skin; it was tight, painful, but did not crack, yet; nobody could see the trust as he slipped away, nobody saw the torn skin he left behind; she wasn’t heard as she called his name, wanting him back; nobody saw him, nobody believed; without a trace left behind, there is nothing to be believed; as he faded into dust, his incorporeal touch lingered on her shoulder, and the call was back; the siren called with a sweet song, drawing the figure closer, almost within reach, but still farther than the eye could see; from afar the figure whispered, a song wisped through the air, one of loss through gain, one of happiness through pain; she did not see the change; she did not feel it; the steps forward and backward perfectly mirrored by the figure were no longer hers, but that of the figure; she was a puppet, a marionette of the immaterial; yet she was so drawn in by the sweet song the contortions were but small movements, barely changing her; until they did, until there was change; she called out for herself; the figure looked up, eyes the color of the drip-drop-dripping that meandered down the porcelain, the singing of the siren no longer soothing but torturous and tormentingly tearing at what was left; a single scream; a switch flipped; a candle lit; light shed; and the figure faded back into its frame, once more following the forward and backward, once more emotionless, once more mindless, once more a manifestation of nothing.

BY OLIVIA PAGE, 11