The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary Read online

clapped a welcome.

  Isn’t it funny? The one thing

  I’m looking forward to

  about fifth grade

  is how it ends.

  September 5

  PERCUSSION POEM

  Ben Kidwell

  Every time

  I try to write a poem,

  the pencil goes

  scritch a scratch.

  My pencils

  tick a tack

  drumbeats

  on my desk.

  My feet boom

  badoom the floor

  like a heartbeat

  always moving.

  My words

  take up a rhythm

  like the wind

  blowing outside.

  Scritch a scratch

  Tick a tack

  Boom badoom

  Outside outside

  How can I write

  when everything around

  makes an interesting

  sound?

  September 8

  PING-PONG RIFF

  Jason Chen

  I have to write a poem for a class project?

  My brain bounces around for ideas,

  but it’s not like a Ping-Pong ball,

  going back and forth in straight lines.

  (Not all Asians play Ping-Pong.

  I play football, and also

  saxophone.) A poem?

  My brain bounces back to summer,

  hurling insults during Shakespeare camp.

  Thou deboshed fish!

  How couldst thou require our class

  to compose verses every quarter?

  Didst thou say every quarter?

  My brain bounces from Shakespearean curses

  to quarter notes, filling up a page of sheet music.

  Soon, I’m bebopping a jazz rhythm.

  Words begin to flow from my pencil

  like notes from a saxophone.

  Finally, my brain starts riffing.

  September 9

  EVERY MORNING

  Norah Hassan

  Every morning I braid my hair for school.

  Sometimes I use the lemon oil my sister gave me.

  I rub a drop into my hair.

  The smell reminds me of when I was little,

  the lemon tree in my grandfather’s courtyard.

  I call him Jaddi. He is not Grandpa.

  Every morning I walk to school.

  There is a path through the woods.

  I follow Ben and his father.

  They look for mushrooms and insects

  while I gaze up at the trees, so tall.

  There are no trees like this

  where I come from, Jerusalem,

  but there are also no gold autumn leaves,

  no bare branches sprouting in spring.

  If they demolish our school,

  I hope they leave these trees alone.

  I love how cool their shade feels

  even though the days are hot.

  Every morning, Ms. Hill tells us

  we must write in our journals.

  In June we will have a record

  of our fifth-grade year

  to put inside the school time capsule.

  Before I write a poem, I talk to myself in Arabic.

  In Arabic, the words sound like a river

  flowing over rocks, jagged and smooth.

  I hear Jaddi’s voice.

  English isn’t good enough for telling poems.

  It sounds like knives and forks

  clanking in a drawer.

  September 10

  MY TEACHER

  Tyler La Roche

  Everything’s bigger in Texas.

  That’s what they say where I’m from,

  but folks in the Lone Star State

  never seen Ms. Hill.

  She should’ve been called Ms. Mountain.

  Just about the tallest teacher I ever met.

  Her hair isn’t dull gray

  but silvery, and shiny as the trumpet

  I’ve been bugging my mom about.

  Kids say Ms. Hill’s strict, scolds the girls

  in our class who can’t stay friends

  more than two days in a row,

  not like me and Mark.

  My first day at Emerson Elementary,

  Ms. Hill asked Mark to be my buddy.

  How’d Ms. Hill know we’d be friends?

  Does she have a Magic 8 Ball hidden

  behind that old black-and-white picture—

  our teacher, younger than my mom,

  scarf wrapped around her hair,

  marching in a big parade?

  Kids say Ms. Hill is going to retire.

  If the school goes down,

  she’ll go down with it.

  But having her for my fifth-grade teacher

  almost makes me glad

  my family moved north.

  September 11

  I KNOW THIS ONE

  Rajesh Rao

  I raise my hand.

  I say, “Ooh! Ooh!

  I know this one.”

  I stand up, too.

  I wave and groan.

  I stomp my feet.

  She tells me to

  please take my seat.

  My arm is tired.

  Please call on me!

  I want to speak.

  Why can’t she see?

  She’s giving someone

  else a chance.

  I wasted my

  right-answer dance.

  September 15

  SELF-PORTRAIT

  Rennie Rawlins

  At home, my mom says

  I could argue a tiger out of its own stripes.

  I act like I’m a brave tiger

  for my little sister Phoenix when I walk her

  to first grade every morning.

  But as soon as I say goodbye

  I’m more like a rabbit, small and quiet,

  wanting to blend in.

  Phoenix is real shy. She won’t like it

  if they sell our elementary and middle school.

  What if we get split up next year?

  She’ll have no sister Rennie to walk with.

  I hear everyone complaining

  about plans to tear down Emerson,

  but nobody’s doing a thing about it.

  Except George.

  He’s going to change things up,

  run for student council

  and save our school.

  I’m going to tell George

  he needs a vice president

  and I volunteer.

  I’m done being a rabbit.

  I will stand up tall and argue.

  I will roar like a tiger until someone

  hears what I have to say.

  September 16

  MY NAME

  Sydney Costley

  I used to like my name,

  until second grade,

  when we moved to this school.

  Jason Chen thought it was funny

  to call me Sydney Kidney

  and my twin Sloane the Clone.

  I used to like how our names

  aren’t too fancy.

  But my best friend

  is Rachel Chieko Stein,

  and her name is really pretty.

  I used to like how my name

  has so many letter Ys

  because my dad said

  my name made me “wise.”

  But now I am older.

  So many things are changing,

  I think I am full of whys instead…

  like why does the Board of Ed

  want to close Emerson?

  Why do they want to split up our class?

  And why does everyone but me

  want to spend three more years

  going to this school?

  September 17

  TWO HAIKU

  Newt Mathews

  Poems that have rules.

  Counting word beats in three lines
<
br />   makes sense to my brain.

  Little white frogs live

  along our school’s back brick wall.

  Look inside my hand!

  September 18

  TOP TEN THINGS THAT STINK WHEN YOUR FATHER DIES

  Mark Fernandez

  1. You can’t sleep.

  2. You watch late-night TV.

  3. You start acting like a talk-show host.

  4. Everyone but the new kid thinks you’re weird.

  5. They all ignore you.

  6. There’s no one to hang around with, so you miss your dad.

  7. The moms in your neighborhood feel bad for you.

  8. They make their kids invite you places.

  9. You think you have friends.

  10. You don’t.

  September 19

  AT THE MOVIES

  Shoshanna Berg

  My mother asked me to be nice to Mark,

  invite him to the movies with a friend.

  She said, “No one will see you in the dark,

  and if they do, the world’s not going to end!”

  My mother doesn’t know that Hannah Wiles

  judges everything I do and say.

  She tells me who’s my friend and what’s in style,

  and when we’re out at recess what we’ll play.

  So I took Gaby with me to make sure

  no one would say I asked Mark on a date.

  They ate my popcorn. I went to buy more,

  and there was Hannah, outside Theater 8.

  I hid inside the bathroom for an hour.

  I wish I could break free from Hannah’s power.

  22 Septiembre

  “EL PALOMITO”

  Gaby Vargas

  Espero el viernes la semana entera.

  ¡La clase de música!

  Cuando canto, muestro cómo me siento

  alegre, triste.

  Cuando canto, mis palabras

  suenan claras, fuertes.

  Pero cuando hablo inglés,

  me enredo. Intento decirle a Shoshanna,

  “Mark es cómico, siempre está bromeando,

  pero sus ojos marrón son tristes

  y esconden cosas que no quiere decir.”

  Intento escribir primero las palabras

  ¡pero escribir en inglés es aun más difícil!

  Buscar palabras

  en mi diccionario inglés-español

  toma demasiado tiempo.

  No encuentro las palabras correctas

  para decirle a Mark, “Siento mucho lo de tu papá.”

  Así que le enseño a tocar “El Palomito,”

  una canción triste de mi país,

  yo cantando y Mark con su guitarra.

  September 22

  “EL PALOMITO”

  Translated by Gaby Vargas and Mark Fernandez

  I wait all the week for Friday,

  the class of music!

  When I sing, I show how I feel

  happy, sad.

  When I sing, my words

  sound clear and strong.

  But when I talk English

  I make a mistake.

  I want to tell to Shoshanna,

  “Mark is funny, he always jokes,

  but his brown eyes

  cover things he don’t say.”

  I intend to write the words first,

  but to write in English is more difficult!

  To look for words

  in my English and Spanish dictionary

  is too much time.

  I don’t find correct words

  to say to Mark, “I am sorry for your father.”

  So I teach to him to play “El Palomito,”

  a sad song of my country.

  I sing and Mark plays his guitar.

  September 23

  CHANGES

  George Furst

  It’s strange how things change

  but also kind of stay the same.

  I’m still my parents’ favorite (only) kid,

  and we’re still a family, even though

  my dad has his own apartment.

  I still ride the school bus every day.

  We take the same route, but the horse farm

  we used to pass in first grade

  is an apartment building now.

  I know there must be other kids like me

  at our school, who need a place

  that never changes. Because parents split up,

  best friends move to a big house across town

  and you never hear from them again,

  but Emerson Elementary is always here.

  It drips and leaks. The gym floor is cracked.

  The walls could use some paint,

  but all our school needs is a little fixing up.

  Change is happening all around Emerson.

  That’s why we have to show Mrs. Stiffler

  and the Board of Ed it wouldn’t take much

  to keep our school from changing.

  Just like I have to show my father

  it wouldn’t take much

  to put our family back together.

  September 24

  WRITING TIME

  Katie McCain

  It’s writing time again?

  Some mornings

  my words are clumsy.

  They bump into each other.

  Smoosh

  boosh

  BAM!

  They’ve got as much rhythm

  as an octopus

  doing the chicken dance.

  Some mornings

  after we say the Pledge,

  my words are still

  crawling out of bed.

  They’ve got

  fuzzy slippers on.

  They haven’t

  brushed their teeth.

  P.U.

  This poem stinks.

  September 26

  LUCKY HAT

  Ben Kidwell

  September 29

  MY TWIN

  Sloane Costley

  No matter how many times I tell my sister

  appearances MATTER,

  she still dresses like some

  Olympic soccer coach

  might call her any second

  so she’d better be ready to play NOW.

  Suddenly, it’s a miracle!

  Sydney’s paying attention,

  asking me which teachers are stylish.

  The young ones, duh!

  No offense, Ms. Hill,

  but I have seen the old photo

  on your desk, and even when

  you were young in the 1970s

  that paisley scarf you wore

  wasn’t exactly fashionable.

  Last week, Sydney asked our mom

  to take her to the mall.

  Gasp! Have all my fashion lectures,

  the pictures from Vogue

  I taped on our bedroom wall,

  finally gotten through to her?

  There is a chance we might be popular

  if we dress cool and go to a new middle school

  (where no one calls me Sloane the Clone).

  When Sydney came home from shopping,

  I inspected her bags.

  A denim skirt, purple tie-dyed T-shirt,

  and cute navy blue Vans. Wow.

  “Well?” Sydney said

  when she tried on her outfit for me.

  “Finally,” I said, “you look like a girl.”

  September 30

  PICTURE DAY

  Sydney Costley

  This is why I don’t like skirts.

  It feels weird when I walk.

  These shoes hurt my feet.

  I wanted to look pretty. But I’m not.

  I thought a purple shirt would be okay,

  but I look like an exploding grape soda

  or a purple blob,

  and it’s not even Halloween yet.

  Why did I try to be

  not me

  on Picture Day?

 
; October 1

  PICTURE DAY

  Jason Chen

  When I leave the house

  my hair is gelled,

  my shirt is pressed,

  my teeth are brushed,

  my mom’s impressed.

  I look so nice

  I want to spew

  my Cheerios

  on someone’s shoe.

  When it’s time for pictures

  my hair’s in spikes,

  my shirt’s all loose,

  my teeth are pink

  from drinking juice.

  I look so bad

  I want to hurl

  my lunch upon

  some dressed-up girl.

  October 2

  POSTERS

  George Furst

  Yesterday

  my father came home

  to help me and my mom

  make election posters.

  They say

  “Make Furst Your First Choice”

  and “SOS—Save Our School.”

  After dinner, we sat

  at the kitchen table

  like we used to.

  My mom drew the letters

  with blue marker.

  My dad added red glitter.

  I stuck pictures of my face

  inside the big letter O.

  I used so much glue,

  I thought we’d be stuck

  at that table

  forever.

  October 3

  ELECTION DAY

  Norah Hassan

  Everyone is excited!

  Listen carefully while Ms. Hill explains how we

  Elect our student council.

  Candidates must sign up by Friday. George wants me

  To run for secretary.

  I can help him save our school because I am

  Organized and

  Neat.

  Does one election make me feel like

  A real American?

  Yes!

  October 6

  ODE TO MY GRANDPA

  Edgar Lee Jones

  He moves real slow,

  like one of those giant

  hundred-year-old

  tortoises at the zoo.