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school colors) are the size of bridge tablecloths. They’re attached to four-foot staffs with bulb handles. By grasping the bulb you can wave and swirl the flag in hypnotic patterns, making snapping sounds. This is done while marching with your knees brought so high that your thighs are parallel to the ground. It’s like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time.
    One of the flag swingers, although a Devilish Deb, is willing to break ranks and help me realize my dream. She teaches me the routines in my backyard. I march up and down the driveway practicing them for months. The toddlers from next door watch me with round eyes. The dogs try to shred my flapping flag. My family members snigger from the windows of the house.
    The day for the tryouts arrives. My flag swinger pal tells me I’ve got it made: grades count in the final computations, and I’m second in my class. Although I perform my routine flawlessly before the band director and the gym teachers, when the list of winners is posted, my name isn’t on it.
    As I turn to walk away, I realize why. My grades are high, and as I march my knees nearly touch my chin. But the flag swingers and majorettes are drop-dead gorgeous. I’m okay-looking in a wholesome, camp-counselor kind of way. But I’m not perky or frisky. I’m awkward and shy. Worst of all, I lack vim.
    For the first time, I turn to the balm of writing, soon discovering that those prevented from living the life to which they aspire can write about it instead. I produce my first short story. I’ve been reading Faulkner novels from the town library, and I’m entranced by stream of consciousness. In the fourth-grade play, I was Miss Noun, who was married by the preacher to Mr. Verb. It is exhilarating to learn that a famous author writes in phrases that sometimes divorce the two.
    My story is told from the perspective of Nathan Hale on the morning of his hanging by the British for spying during the American Revolution. He watches through his prison bars as the boots of the approaching soldiers crush the autumn leaves, and he reflects on the brevity and futility of life. Through Nathan Hale I express my own despair at having failed in the flag-swinging competition, at facing another tedious football season playing the family clarinet in the fourth row of the marching band.
    â€œLeaves falling. Rust and scarlet and gold. Boots tromping, smashing, crushing. In front of the courthouse, dangling above the scaffold in the red from the rising sun, a noose….”
    The story is published in the school newspaper because I’m also the feature editor to whom I’ve submitted it. But when it appears, I don’t recognize it. It reads, “Brightly colored leaves were falling to the ground outside the bars across Nathan’s window. The soldiers marched through them on their way to the jail to escort him to the gallows….”
    I race into the classroom of the faculty adviser, Mrs. Hawke, who’s my English teacher and the wife of a local sheriff. She’s tall and bony with a face that always looks pained. I say, “Mrs. Hawke, something awful has happened to my story!”
    Looking up from her desk, she says, “I bet you think that story was pretty good?”
    â€œI didn’t think it was so bad that it needed to be completely rewritten.”
    â€œWell, let me tell you something, little lady: that story wasn’t even written in complete sentences.”
    After a long pause, I say, “Mrs. Hawke, if you’re going to rewrite my story, you should put your name on it, not mine.”
    â€œAnd if you’re going to speak to me in that tone of voice,” she replies, “you need to march right down to the office and see what our guidance counselor has to say about students who are rude to their teachers.”
    She writes out a referral slip and hands it to me. I stomp to the office. The guidance counselor suggests