my English teacher had said, probably thinking she was being profound. Thinking that it would be easy, anyway. Miss Bundy, who reeked of CK cologne and drove a new white Saab her parents had probably bought, couldn’t have imagined childhood would be a difficult subject for anyone. But it was for me. Oh, I knew what the clones would write: “My First Bicycle” or “Our Third Trip to Europe.” But my childhood stretched behind like so many identical calendar squares. Read with Mom, watched television, wished Dad would come home, then regretted it when he did. Nothing ever happened. At least, nothing memorable. Nothing memorable had happened until this month. Until Charlie. Maybe, I thought giddily, I could write about smashing mailboxes or stealing bagels. That would be an A paper, all right. I calmed myself. I stared out the window, flipping through memories like tabs on a notebook. All I remembered was trying to keep Mom happy, keep my parents from fighting. Finally, I wrote about going to Disney World when I was five.
