Pandas on the Eastside All I ever get is this speech He didn’t stick around after you were born That’s all you need to know Why would I need to know about the ingredients in orange soda but not need to know anything about my own father I think when Mom says That’s all you need to know what she really means is That’s all I want to tell you There’s a difference But Mom doesn’t see it that way The past is gone she says as though it’s a book I left on the bus and should just forget about But how can I forget a past I never knew anything about in the first place Sometimes when she’s slipped a little and smells of wine she lies on the sofa and calls me Scheherazade I asked my teacher what that meant and she gave me a book called The Arabian Nights so I don’t know maybe I’m an Arab I don’t look like any of the girls from The Brady Bunch or like any doll that’s for sure Mom says she was one of the first people to give a kid a name like Journey Wind Nowadays you can’t walk down the street without tripping over a baby named Rainbow or Sunshine or a toddler 3
Gabrielle Prendergast called Freedom or Phoenix But most girls my age are called Mary or Julie or Nancy or Jackie Jackie was the name of the president’s wife the year I was born 1962 So there are a lot of Jackies but not too many Journeys in grade five at Eastside Elementary Mom was a real trailblazer an innovator namewise She says she was a hippie before anyone even knew there were hippies She calls herself Heather some days On others she goes by Bird Bird Song Get it Song is not our real last name I found my birth certificate one day when I was looking for a quarter to buy milk My real first name is Journey and my real middle name is Wind but my last name is actually Flanagan which is about as far from Song as you can get And it’s sure not a Viking name Under Father it says Unknown So I go by Journey Song That’s what I write on my schoolbooks anyway My school is three blocks from our apartment and in the morning I some times have to step over puddles of pee or worse things but mostly the streets are quiet at that time All the kids at school live on the Eastside No one from the outside would ever send their kid to an 4
Pandas on the Eastside Eastside school Some kids at school don’t even speak English Some kids never bring lunch Some kids only come to class once or twice a week or they come late every day My teacher Miss Bickerstaff sighs a lot and sends a lot of notes home and writes letters to politicians I’ve heard some parents gossip in the schoolyard that all she wants is more pay and better sofas in the staff room but she let me read one of the letters once She was asking for more books and chalk and better blackboards Stuff for us not her Stuff to make the school a better place to learn Learning is the key that unlocks your future Journey she said Then she blew her nose Our classroom is real dusty sometimes I think it must be hard to be a teacher on the Eastside 5
Two Miss Bickerstaff I saw the headline on a piece of newspaper that Kentucky Jack had folded over his head to keep the morning sun out of his eyes while he slept in the bus shelter Ewwww Nancy Pendleton said when I leaned down to take a closer look I could hear Jack snoring under the newspaper and I could sure smell him too but I wanted to read the headline PANDAS COMING TO AMERICA Under the paper Jack grunted and rolled over in his sleep The newspaper slipped off his head and fell into a suspicious-looking puddle under the bench Gross Don’t pick it up Nancy said I really 6
