I live two blocks from an elementary school, where the kids are always losing their papers. Permission slips, arithmetic tests and vocabulary lists blow into my yard or are dropped, Hansel-like, on the sidewalk in front of my house.I'm always glad to find a bit of street litter with childish handwriting on it. It's a great way to review math facts or finally nail down the difference between farther and further. I never know what to expect.
My favorites, though, are the pictures doodled in the margins (spaceships and dinosaurs have lost none of their appeal through the years; also copious amounts of tattoo designs featuring guns and blood) and the personal notes. OOOOooo, the personal notes! the personal notes!
It will be a sad day for my sidewalk when texting drifts down to the fourth grade. Clean---but sad. I will have nothing to read during my morning run.
I have one of the notes in front of me. It says:
drumstik farted
followed by an odd sort of pencil scribble that could (with a little imagination) be an artistic attempt to pin down what, exactly drumstick's fart looked like.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind meeting drumstik.
And I would certainly like to meet the author of drumstik farted (Newbery Honor, 2032). Imagine the conversation! Full of writing and farts. Fartable writing. Writable farts.
Well.
Somehow, instead of writing true and noble and right (et al), I got sidetracked into writing about farts. This is not all bad. I need to write more to the market; and the market---as I understand it---is currently chockful of things like steampunk and the paranormal and heartfelt tales of spunky girls. I feel sure farts must fit in there somewhere, right?
Otherwise, what is all the commotion about drumstik and his gas?*
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*Notice drumstik has morphed into a boy of some sort. Spunky girls do not fart; not in today's marketplace, nossir.
