carefully everywhere descending Read Online Free PDF Page A

eyelashes flutter. Mark Sizler is a young movie star she’s obsessed with. She has his picture plastered everywhere and has already seen his most recent film (currently in theaters) three times. I used some of my gift card to see it once with her and then drew the line.
    We settle in her room and she hands me the family’s spare laptop. I check my e-mail first, and I’m startled to see “Scarlett West” in the list of names. I had forgotten she sent something at lunch. It’s titled “Hey,” and I click it open to read.
    Â 
    Hey,
    Thanks again for helping me with English. Me no right so gud.
    S
    Â 
    I laugh-snort and draw Amber’s attention. At her questioning gaze, I flip the computer around for her to read it. A grin spreads slowly until it overtakes the lower half of her face.
    â€œWell,” she says, cat-with-the-cream like. “Well, well.”
    Then she says, “Can you help revise the last two lines?” and tosses the notebook with the poem we had been working on at lunch back to me.
    â€œI can try,” I sigh. “But you’ll have to put up with me cursing e. e. cummings while I do so.”
    For a guy who flouted writing conventions, it’s incredibly difficult to accurately imitate his style. You’d think it would be a bunch of sticking in commas where they don’t belong and lowercasing the crap out of everything, but it’s tougher than that. We had to select one of his poems to model ours on, and Amber and I picked “somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond,” which I had enjoyed right up until I spent so much time trying to rewrite it.
    I take a shot at revising the last two lines, but my brain is still tired from working on it all through lunch, so I give up and switch to my other classes. Amber plays one of her favorite singers low in the background, and the sun filters into her pink-painted room with its plush carpet. I barely notice the time passing until Mrs. Ederlee, changed into comfortable clothes, is rapping on the door and telling us to get to the table before Pallav eats everything.
    We trample downstairs. I like the sound our feet make on the wooden stairs as we go down at a half run. Pallav, Amber’s brother, adopted from India nine years ago, is sitting with his head on the table, staring tragically at the spread.
    â€œIt smells soooo gooood ,” he moans pathetically.
    â€œSit up,” says Mrs. Ederlee, grabbing his shoulders and playfully pretending to pull them back into an upright position. I love dinners with the Ederlees. Her dad makes dumb jokes and Pallav glances at me shyly (I think he has a crush), and they let me and Amber talk like we’re both adults. Amber says they save their fights and snippy remarks for when I’m not around, but I have a hard time believing they ever get that angry with each other.
    After dinner Amber, Mrs. Ederlee, and I gather in the living room to watch The Dust of Stars , in which Mark Sizler is a young, brash rock star who learns some tough lessons about life and love. Since I’ve seen it twice already with Amber, I fetch the laptop and only half listen as I resume my homework. At this point I’ve finished everything outstanding in all my classes and have worked ahead in all but one. I’m finishing up some extra credit for AP World History when I check my e-mail and see Scarlett has sent me her essays.
    I quickly wrap up the extra credit assignment (writing a journal entry from the point of view of a peasant during the Russian Revolution) and open the first of her papers. I decide to read through it before looking over Mr. Welsh’s comments in red at the end and along the margins.
    Right away I see the issue. Scarlett has advanced personal persuasive skills that will do her well as a politician, business CEO, or saleswoman, but they don’t translate to writing. I can easily picture her debating the topic of her first paper—