Spanking Shakespeare by Jake Wizner Page A

walking over.
    I say hi, and Charlotte smiles.
    “I’m Lisa,” she says, extending her hand. “We haven’t met, but I’ve seen you around. Charlotte, right?”
    Charlotte nods, surprised.
    “Lisa knows everybody,” I say.
    “It’s nice to meet you,” Charlotte says, turning to her locker to finish packing her book bag.
    “How are you?” Lisa asks me.
    “I’m okay.”
    A group of her friends walks past and calls out to her. “Let’s talk soon,” she says, squeezing my arm and bounding off to catch up with them. I turn back to Charlotte, who has finished packing her bag.
    “I’ll see you,” she says. “I need to get home.”
    I realize I have never seen Charlotte outside of school, and I ask her where she lives.
    She hesitates. “We kind of move around a lot.”
    What does that mean? I wait for her to say more, but she just turns and walks off down the hall.

    The second quarter is ending next week. The night before my history final I come down with a big cold, sleep miserably, and wake up feeling like someone has opened a fire hydrant inside my nose. My parents don’t believe in staying home from school for anything less than the plague, so I pop a couple of Sudafed and set off for what I am sure will be a wretched day.
    I’m one of those people who, instead of blowing my snot into a tissue, sucks it back up into my nostrils. It works really well except when I suck too hard and feel the snot shoot all the way back into my throat, and then I have to run to a sink or toilet to spit it out.
    “Don’t suck it back in,” my parents are always scolding me. “You have to blow it out.”
    My father is a tremendous nose-blower. He always carries a handkerchief in his pocket, and several times a day he pulls it out and unleashes a mighty roar. Then he uses the handkerchief to dab at any stray snot or pick at any loose boogers, before putting the whole gloppy mess back in his pocket.
    “Why don’t you carry a handkerchief in your pocket?” my father asks.
    “You have a box of tissues in your bedroom,” my mother says. “What do you think they’re for?”
    I know perfectly well what they’re for, but I’m certainly not going to discuss that with my mother.
    “You sound like a snorting pig,” my brother says.
    It is true that I occasionally get dirty looks from people when I snort too loudly, but it has become second nature and most of the time I don’t even realize I am doing it.
    We have history first period, and Mr. Mullen hands out blue books for us to write our answers in. His tests always consist of a single essay question that requires us to take a position on some big topic and back up our ideas with specific historical detail.
    His primary interests are weapons, wars, and military strategy. He always tells us that his greatest disappointment in life is that a heart condition kept him out of the army when he was younger, and he often likes to conduct simulated battles in the classroom to demonstrate his military genius.
    I lift the test paper to read so I won’t have to lean over and give my snot the added advantage of gravity in trying to escape. The test question is predictable:
    What was the biggest military mistake made by each side during the Civil War? Be sure to include the names of specific people, locations, regiment numbers, and weapons in your response. (Note: I am not interested in hearing your opinions about the causes or consequences of the war.)
    The moment I start to write I feel the snot begin to drip and I give a violent snort, hoping to beat back the charge before it can really get going. There is definite strategy involved here. The trick is to snort at times when I won’t call undue attention to myself: when somebody coughs, for example, or when somebody moves his or her chair. What I don’t count on is such a persistent line of attack, and before I realize what I am doing I am working overtime to keep the enemy forces at bay.
    I guess it must be frustrating trying to