She says, Don't eat the mystery meat if you value your life.Then she points to a brown wet pileon my plate and makes a face that says.bad taste.

Homework, I have discovered, involves a sharp pencil and thick books and long sighs.

The stories would lift me up,the words like a breeze beneathbutterfly wings,and take me far from the pain in my bellyand the tight knot of my heartI hope they will have stories at my school.If they don't know how,perhaps I can teach them.It isn't such a hard thing.All you must do is sayOnce there was...and let your hoping find the words.

I look at our facesand see all the colors of the earth---brown and pink and yellow and white and black---and yet we all are sitting at the same desks,wanting to learn the same things.