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James.
I get it.
Back to normal soon.
Fine.

    Look who’s on his wedge
dangling like a wiggly booger.
Cutest booger I’ve ever seen.
Marisol is humming and signing,
Levi waves his hands
without actually signing anything.
I can tell, though.
He’s happy to be home.
So happy.

    What is THIS? Mom shrieks in the kitchen.
I knew she would.
But I also know she won’t give anything back.
Tamales, enchiladas,
frozen containers of borracho beans,
some kind of cake.
José’s mom.
She made us dinner for every night this week.
I gave her my key so she could sneak inside
and fill up the empty freezer
while I was at school
and Mom got Levi home from the hospital.
We can’t accept this , Mom says
while she eats a cold tamale.
Definitely not , I say, taking one,
sprinkling masa crumbs down my shirt.
We should totally give these back , I say,
reaching for another.
Mom laughs for the first time in a long time.
She puts frozen beans in the microwave.
We really shouldn’t accept this , she says again,
eating a corn bread muffin.
Definitely not , I repeat.
The microwave beeps
and we don’t even get bowls
we just eat the beans right out of the container.

    Nominate a charity! Mrs. B.
Really.
Come on.
Where did you get this?
Who deserves a Carnival of Giving? Mrs. B.
Seriously.
Um, A) My family is not a charity
and 2) Mom would never say yes.
Not in a hundred million years.
Nominations for next year’s Carnival start TODAY! By next year
we could all be flattened by an asteroid
or destroyed by a zombie plague.
I mean, you don’t know.
How can you plan for next year
when tomorrow seems like
a hundred years away?
P.S. Don’t rip flyers off the middle school walls.
That is super creepy.
FYI

    Here’s the thing with school, overall:
It exists.
It’s a thing.
I go to it.
I come home.
I don’t love it.
I don’t hate it.
It feels like a giant mountain just—
BAM
right in the middle of the road
slowing down the rest of my life
in a super annoying kind of way.
I can’t get over it, because it’s too . . . much.
Unmoving.
Unmoved.
Unmoveable.
And the only way around it
is to carve a tunnel through it,
through dirt and crap in every direction
trying to maybe find something useful along the way
but mostly just getting annoyed
because there seems to be no end to the tunnel
or the crap
that just goes on
forever and forever and forever.

WEEK 18
    What are you feeling today, Timothy? Mrs. B asks this every week.
Not how are you feeling, Timothy, but what are
you feeling.
I am feeling José’s shirt on my back.
I am feeling my toes pressed against the tips
of my shoes.
I am feeling the squishy couch under my butt.
I am feeling the breeze from the vent
blowing down my neck.
I am feeling the broken pencil in my pocket.
I am feeling the itch of a zit on my nose.
I am feeling the growl in my stomach because
it’s past lunch
and not quite dinnertime.
But what do I say?
I feel nothing, Mrs. B.
I feel nothing.

    Feeling nothing doesn’t earn me time on the computer.
You know how that makes me feel ?
Sad
Mad
Tired
Grouchy
Frustrated
Those are not dwarves.
They are feelings , OK?
They are like nickels and quarters
jangling, jangling, jangling
buying me time on Mrs. B’s computer.

    What are you looking for? Mrs. B’s hair slides around off her shoulder
trapping her face next to mine
trapping us in a corner
trapping me until I answer.
A doctor. She doesn’t say anything.
I feel the warmth of her face
near my face.
I smell her perfume or shampoo
that somehow smells tired.
I type subglottic stenosis and click search.
Mrs. B writes something down.
She slides a piece of paper toward me.
Subglottic stenosis pediatric doctor I type in the extra words.
There are 35,600 results.
So many links.
Mrs. B stands up
her hair slides back into place.
For one second her hand touches my shoulder
then she moves away.
35,600 results.
That’s a lot of doctors, right?
I suddenly feel a lot less