Stanford Anthology for Youth: Volume 21

name again. “Oh God. What am I going to do? If she comes 251
wandering out here looking for me, not only will I get in
trouble for climbing on the roof, but she might disown me if
she sees I broke the friggin’ fence!”

Again, “Chloe! Right now!”
Oh lordie. She’s getting impatient. Triple punishment.
Roof, fence, making her wait. “Why do these things happen to
me? I mean, besides the occasional run-in with trouble, I’d say
I’m a pretty good kid.” I let out a discouraged sigh. “Alright,
Chloe. Just pull it back into place and see what she wants,
then you’ll put more thought into fixing it. Later.” I move to
reach for the panel and sharp pains shoot through my left
foot in multiple places. I lift it up. Dark lines litter the ball of
my foot. Splinters. I shift my weight to my other foot and
grab the slab of old wood. It slips and I catch it just before it
hits the neighbor’s shed.
Footsteps.
I’m in a serious hurry now. She’s walking down the hall
and I have no excuse for why I didn’t hear her or why my
hands and feet are almost covered in splinters. I still can’t get
the board to stand up. She’s in the bathroom now and I start
to worry my heartbeat will give my location away.
I gasp. “Why didn’t I think of this earlier?” I pull the piece
of fence sideways out of my neighbors’ yard and stand it
up in ours at a slight angle. It works. That was close. I let out
a sigh. I still need the splinters out. Quickly, I roll around on
the grass to get muddy and run to the front of the house.
I plop myself on the couch, internally screaming, “Get in a
permanent position, Chloe! That way it will look like you were
here the whole time and your excuses will be consistent!
Permanent position! Permanent position!” She walks out. I try
to even my breathing. I know nothing I can do will slow my
heart. I’m still prepared. “What were you doing? I called you
five times! And get off the couch! Look at you! You’re filthy!”
I almost smirked.
“It was actually two. And I was doing gymnastics. I fell
a couple of times though.” She looks at me. I start to worry
she can see right through my lie. She breaks the silence.
“Still. I need you to unload the dishwasher. But first... ” I tense.
“Please take a shower.” I relax and smile. “Sure, Mom. Wouldn’t
want to have to do the same dishes twice!” She chuckles
and walks to the back of the house. I follow her, take a warm
shower, and pick out the wooden splinters just as I hear from
outside,
“Who broke the fence?”

mary voorhees

Your Hero

252 Who is your hero?
I look down at my blank response on the piece of paper.
Tapping my pencil against the desk.
Tap
For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to write.
Tap
I mean, half of my family is in the army. That makes them
heroes, I guess.
Tap
Then again, there is Mom. She has to provide single-
handedly, while Dad is away.
Tap
I don’t understand why leaving your family is heroic.
Tap
Enlisting with too little time to spend with them. Leaving
quickly, while the family that was left behind needs to pick
up the pieces.
Tap
All we would get from the army when they can’t return
is a “Whoops. Looks like your dad and brother have been
killed. Our bad. Sorry about this.”
As though they could send us replacements.
Tap
“Stop it!” someone hisses from behind me.
My family decided to move for the 3rd time in 5 years
and made me enroll into school as soon as we did. It is my
first day of school. MY first, not THE first. The rest of the
students are already 2 weeks into the school year and I
am stuck doing those “get to know you” activities that the
teachers do as a failed attempt to connect with students.

I take my dog, Addie, on relaxing walks almost everyday. Addie gets way too ex-
cited about them, and jumps around before the leash is even around her neck. I
love it, though. It makes Addie, well, Addie.

I glance back up at the clock. There are 5 minutes left 253
until the bell rings, and I haven’t written a single word down.
I want to make up my feelings and start writing about Dad.
About how he’s the stereotypical role model, how he is
fighting for our county, and is so amazing, heroic, and smart.
That wouldn’t be honest, though.

Why can’t I just have a normal family? Why couldn’t I have
been able to write “Yeah, I have an older brother and he is so
funny, cool, and has so many friends. He is in college now,
NOT THE ARMY, and has straight A’s. I want to be like him,
because he is my hero.”

The bell rang, an ear ringing pitch that made me cringe.
“Okay,” the teacher says standing up from behind her
desk and walking over to me. “This will be assigned as
homework for you and is due tomorrow.”
She gives me a fake smile. The toothy, forced look. She
either thought I bought it or thought she sold it, because she
then walked away, back behind her desk.
I start packing my school work and get up from my chair.
It is recess time. I can’t believe people are excited to get a
break from classwork. At least they get to play with their
friends. The worst time you can toss a kid into a new school
is when the year has already begun. That is when other
students have already created their friend groups and are
picky about letting anyone else in.
I walk over to the nearest vacant table and pull out my
book. I look down at the words that stand on the page as my
eyes move back and forth. I reach the bottom of the page
only to realize, I haven’t read a sentence. I go back and try
again, but to no avail. I can’t concentrate on my book because
I have my attention on a girl pointing at me from across the
field.
She is a head taller than me with dark black hair tied back
into a ponytail long enough to slap someone with. The girl is
wearing a black leather jacket, with inappropriate writing that
I will not repeat. Her eyes are a fierce, stubborn dark brown.
Her nose resembles an Italian nose bump, which makes her
face look like a pig. I can get this vibe that it resembles her
personality, too. I try to ignore her by concentrating on my
book, but she began to stride over to me, so I just give up on
my book and wait at the table.
“Watcha readin’?” she calls out, grabbing the attention of
people nearby.
I place my elbows on the table, my chin resting on my
hands. I ask, “Didn’t your parents ever tell you that pointing is

254 rude?”
I am genuinely curious, but that was not the best thing to

say. She glared at me as though she expected lasers to shoot
out of her eyes and decided to open her mouth again.

“I wanna to see whatcha readin’,” she says sternly, getting
closer to my table. Students watching formed a circle,
following the girl in.

I grabbed my book and shoved it into my bag with such
force that I probably damaged it.

“What? Is the bookworm afraid I’m going to take her
precious book?” The girl says in that dumb voice grown-ups
use when they talk to babies.

It is my turn to shoot the lasers. I felt my face grow hot,
and I knew I probably looked like she is crawling under my
skin, so I think for a way to calm down.

“Come on,” she says standing over the table now, “I just
want to know what the book is.”

I close my eyes and, in my mind’s eye, I pull away from
the table and drop into what I was reading. I see the main
character talking to her friends and I call over to them and
wave. They wave back, happy to see me.

I could feel the girl’s hot, disgusting breath on my face.
“Open your eyes,” she demands.
No, I refuse. I’m not going to let her taunt and screw with
me. I am better than this.
The next thing I feel is a pain on the side of my face.
My eye goes numb, and I see drops of red, hit the concrete
beneath me. The metallic taste, from the blood, was too
much. I spat to the side, that caused students to back up. They
all had eagerness written on their faces.
I turn back to the girl. She has this smug grin that gives
me a feeling at the pit of my stomach. A hot, burning feeling
that starts gnawing at my insides, screaming to get out.
The Thing gets stronger. . . bigger. . . . hungrier by the
second. Holding it back seems like a waste of time. Why
bother?
I don’t care that my eye is throbbing. I don’t care that my
lip is bleeding. I grab her ridiculous, black jacket and fling her
across the table.
CRACK!
And break goes the nose, but I doubt she is the type of
person to break down crying at this point.
She gets up and turns around.
I make a half whimper-half laugh sound at her new nose
job. Her reaction made me worried that lasers might actually

blast from her eyes, or maybe her nose by the looks of it. It is 255
crooked. I would classify it as facing a “unique” new direction.
It would be a miracle if she could breathe out it, but I couldn’t
tell since she was huffing and puffing and was about to blow
the house to New Jersey. My head more like it.

Before she could get her hands on me, one of the
teachers finally noticed that something was wrong. What did
they think was going on inside the middle of a giant crowd,
with students that were more interested in fighting each
other than learning anything that they could teach?

“What is going on here?” he shouts at us.
I couldn’t hold back, my temper was too high. “What
do you think?” I yell at him. “There is blood on your already
filthily, stained school and all over us! Put two and two
together you sorry excuse for a high school degree!”
How could he have let this go on for so long? Did he
honestly not know what was happening?
“THINK MONKEY! THINK!” I scream at the top of my
lungs.
“That’s enough!” he shouts back. “In the office! Now!”
The next parts that go by are a hazy blur. I was told off
and yelled at by the principal and Mom. I went home early
and was suspended, along with the other girl. I was also
grounded, of course. Why would expect Mom to hear my
side of the story? She just thinks the fact that I was in the
fight is misbehaving.
After I stop the bleeding and made sure nothing is
swelling, I sit down with my back laying against my bedroom
wall and rest my arm on my bag.
I sit there, stewing in my own rage for what felt like
hours. The Thing won’t sit still, though. It refuses, and the
more I do, the more it tries to get out.
I yank my already damaged book and throw it across the
room.
Then I notice a crumpled up piece of paper lying at the
bottom of my bag. I take it out and flatten it against the floor.
It is my homework. I hold it in one hand, crumple it once
more, and have it join the book. I want to take my mind off
of what happened, so I think about what I could do. It doesn’t
take long to reach the conclusion that my homework is the
only thing I am allowed to do.
I knew what to write, too.

Who is your hero?

You probably know already that I got into a fight with
another student, on my first day no

less. That may make me seem like a bad person, but trust
me when I say that I‘m not. I realized

that I wasn’t entirely angry with that girl. I was angry with
something else. My heroes went off a

few weeks ago to go do something brave, selfless, and, in
a way, heroic, but left me. Today, as I

stood up to that girl (in what was not the best way I’ll
admit), I solved the puzzle. Those

heroes are gone and don’t get their spots back after what
they did. They lost their chances. I

was the one to stand up to that girl, I was the one to
defend myself, I was the one to pick myself

up when I fell down, and I was the one to care for me
when I needed it. So, you want to know

who my hero is?
I am my own hero.

256

acknowledgements

Stanford Anthology for Youth would like to thank the following
groups for their contributions and support:
Associated Students of Stanford University
Haas Center for Public Service
Stanford Student Activities and Leadership

We would also like to thank all of the participating schools, 257
teachers, and parents for nurturing the creativity and talent of

these young writers and artists. In particular:

258