ghost

i don't know how old he is but he has a ninth grade english class so maybe he's fifteen. maybe seventeen. he's only shown up three or four times to my first period class, each of those times solemn, at least an hour late. he is always quiet and i tell him i'm glad to see him, though really i don't know him well enough to say, i suppose. i cram books onto his desk like i expect him to do something with them but there is no pressure. he takes the books, looks through them, promises to come back the next day and read one but he never does.

this is why i am surprised to see him when i look up during my last period class. the four eleventh graders who have managed to hang on until now are working independently, quietly. he stands in the doorway, leaned back against the doorjamb, a babyish, baggypants version of the marlboro man. he's watching the hallway, which is short and pretty much empty. a few of my other ninth graders wander in, mill about. i am not sure why they aren't in class but they mumble something about a sub and how it's too noisy and they seem content to read quietly so i am happy to have them here. the boy standing in the doorway seems a little unsure and i yell over to him to come in and sit down. he shuffles into the room and sprawls out in one of the chairs near the board.

i offer him books. maybe he can read and maybe he can't. i don't recall seeing any proof either way and when i have asked him he just shrugs. probably not, then. i pull a table up in front of him and slap down a book full of images. i get paper and a pen and ask him to write, tell the story of the image. he looks at me a long time and bends over the paper. he carefully puts his name up in the right corner but the squished letters fall all over each other in rebellion. i go back to working with other students.

he sits at the table, flipping through the book. i tell him he can write about any picture he likes and he nods. he goes back to the book. he spends maybe ten minutes staring at one picture, then the other. he tells me he's chosen one that isn't one of the ones i first showed him. i nod. when it is almost time to go he closes the book and puts it on the shelf. he walks back over to the door and looks out into the hallway again. he leaves his paper on the table with the pen lying across it. in the upper right corner there is his angry name. and then all across the rest of the page there is nothing.