Author's Notes: I just got this idea out of the blue. I was looking through the parts in Sloppy Firsts that include Marcus's poems, and I wondered how he learned how to make the origami mouth and the star he folded the Christmas poem into. So I came up with this random one-shot. Sloppy Firsts and Marcus Flutie aren't mine; they belong to Megan McCafferty. However, this attempt at a Marcus "back story" is purely mine. Hope you enjoy it.
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I think I was about nine when I got the origami book. At that time, I'd been off Ritalin for a year, because Mom saw that it wasn't really helping anyway, and she figured that I'd have to learn how to get an attention span on my own, and she didn't want me to be dependent on a pill. Nothing seemed to calm my constant state of being antsy. The only things I liked doing were skateboarding and writing lists. Yes, lists. I had a notebook full of lists: skateboard tricks I could do, my favorite kinds of candy, what I wanted to be when I grew up, what I'd do with a million dollars… things like that.
But I digress. I was nine and full of the same restless energy I'd had for my entire life. It was sometime during the winter, and I was at home watching Salute Your Shorts on Nickelodeon. At that time, TV was also a good way to pacify me, especially Salute Your Shorts. I wanted to be just like Budnick when I grew up. Dad was in the kitchen heating up TV dinners for us, and I heard the door slam and the sound of my mom's loafers on the hardwood floor in the foyer. She came into the living room and asked me to come sit on the couch with her. I obeyed, and she handed me a thin brown paper bag. "It's a gift for you," she said.
I opened the bag and peered inside, and disappointment washed over me. I pulled the book from the bag and sat it in my lap. The Art of Origami was on the cover in looped script, covering pictures of folded animals and flowers. Attached to the back was a plastic pouch with a sliding zipper, and inside of it was a stack of brightly colored square paper. "What's this for?" I asked.
"It'll give you something to do with your hands," Mom said. "Maybe it'll help you focus."
I decided not to disappoint my mom by telling her that I thought the gift sucked. I figured that I'd treat it the way that you'd treat a terrible Christmas present from a relative and hide it away, in the back of my closet somewhere. Later that night, I was planning to do so, but for some reason I found myself leafing through the book. I ended up stopping right on the page that listed the instructions for making a throwing star. This fascinated me. I opened the pouch and found some black and green paper and attempted to make the star. For a week, I tried and tried to make it, using almost all the black and green paper in the pack, and when I finished that, I started folding notebook paper into squares so I could try that way. Finally, after five days of struggle, I finally made a decent-looking star.
Mom was right. Origami gave me something to do with my hands. Within a year, I had learned how to create every project in that book. When things got particularly boring in my classes, I would discretely pull out a sheet of paper, fold it into a square, and create something. Everyone I knew wanted throwing stars or a popper. In an art class in eighth grade, I got so bored I made an origami house, complete with furniture. My teacher was so surprised that she gave me an "A" for the day.
I specialized at making fortune tellers. Or mouths. Whatever you want to call them. It's the easiest thing ever to fold. Divide a square into four parts. Fold the edges in towards the center, then flip it over and repeat. Open it up, and stick your fingers into the pockets beneath to move. Easy.
It's been years since I picked up the book. I know it from cover to cover. I don't need to go back to look at how to fold the mouth up. I smile as the words on notebook paper disappear into the folds, and as the bell rings, I try to find a way to sneak it into her back pocket. It's too easy. I fake-stumble and place my hand on her lower back, and slide it into the pocket. We exchange a look, and I leave her confused. Thanks for being in on my sin, I think, recalling the last line from the poem.