Author's Note: I'm sorry this chapter was so long in coming. However, my specialist exam is finally out of the way, so I should have more time now to devote to Max and Aerinah. Just so you know, the book referred to in this chapter (100 Selected Poems, by e. e. cummings) really exists, and the poems and page numbers Max refers to really correspond to those in the book. The "----" are meant to be section breaks - I couldn't get it to do short lines like usual. Finally, I have included another original poem of mine – please don't use it anywhere else. Also, please review if you have a moment – I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!


A Better Fate Than Wisdom

Chapter 8: Make a Wish

I'm sitting on a bench in front of the dorm, my duffel bag at my feet, waiting for Grim and Rachel. They're coming to pick me up, because it's Thanksgiving at last, and I get to go home for four whole days. I can't wait to see the Worm, especially. I really miss her. Technically she ought to be in school today, but apparently she kicked up such a fuss about wanting to come along to pick me up that her mom finally gave in, figuring if she didn't Worm wouldn't have paid any attention in school anyhow.

I know the feeling. I went to all of my classes today, but I sure didn't pay much attention to the lectures. Especially in paleo, because not only was I excited about coming home, but also, Aerinah sat next to me today. I think maybe we're really starting to be friends again, ever since we went to that movie together last weekend. Which is really good. I didn't see her on my way outside, and I wonder what she's doing for Thanksgiving. Do they even have Thanksgiving in Canada? I can't remember.

I'm getting kind of cold just sitting out here, so I stand up and walk around a bit, and I see Aerinah coming up the sidewalk towards the dorm. I call her name, but she doesn't look around. For a minute I'm afraid that maybe she's decided to go back to ignoring me, but then I figure she just didn't hear me, so I call her name again and step onto the sidewalk, in front of her.

She looks around, surprised, and blinks a few times. She looks like she's just waking up, except she wasn't sleeping, she was walking. "Oh, hi, Max," she says, finally focusing on me. "How are you?"

"Good," I say. I remember what she said in my room that one day, about her not noticing people or whatever, and that's why she walked into me that time. I guess it's true. "You looked like you were thinking hard about something."

"Yeah, I guess," she laughs, glancing up at me. "I daydream when I walk."

"About what?" I ask, sitting down again.

"Oh, you know," she says, sitting on the other end of the bench and drawing her knees up. "Um, girl stuff." She sounds kind of embarrassed, and I think she might be blushing, although it's hard to tell cause it's dark out. I guess maybe she was thinking about a boy. I wonder who she likes. But of course, it's none of my business.

"So what are you doing out here?" Aerinah asks, changing the subject. She notices my duffel bag. "You going somewhere?"

"Yeah," I say, remembering, and I'm excited all over again. "I'm going home for Thanksgiving."

She smiles at the enthusiasm in my voice. "That's cool."

She doesn't say anything about her plans, so I ask her if she's doing anything for the long weekend.

"No," she says. "I didn't even know it was Thanksgiving here. Our Thanksgiving – Canadian Thanksgiving – was last month."

"Oh," I say. I don't remember her being gone, but of course that was when we weren't talking, so it's possible I might not have noticed. "Did you go home for that?"

"No," she says wistfully. "That was the first Thanksgiving my whole life I haven't spent with my family. But I'm planning to go home for Christmas and Reading Week, and I couldn't afford to go for Thanksgiving too."

I'm trying to think of something else to say when a horn starts honking, and this big old school bus, repainted in ugly swoops of pink and yellow and peach and purple, pulls up right in front of us.

"No way!" I shout, jumping to my feet. The door of the Prairie Schooner opens, and my grandfather steps out, followed by the Dippy Hippie himself.

Grim just kind of pats me on the shoulder, but I can tell he's glad to see me, even if he doesn't really know how to show it. Dip, on the other hand, gives me a big hug, reaching as far around me as he can to clap me on the back.

He starts telling me how he was heading west anyhow when he heard Grim was coming to pick me up, and offered to drive instead, but I miss most of what he's saying because all of a sudden Worm comes leaping down the steps and throws herself into my arms. "Max!" she's shouting, "I missed you! I fell asleep; why didn't you wake me up when we got here?" This last part is directed at Grim, who's gathering up my stuff, and Dip, who's introducing himself to Aerinah. Neither of them pays any attention to her shouting.

Then Worm notices Aerinah and starts wiggling, so I put her down. "Aerinah!" she says happily. "Hi, how are you?"

"Great, thanks," Aerinah says. She's smiling at Rachel's excitement, but she also looks puzzled. "How did you know my name?"

"From Max," Worm says, like it should be obvious, and I'm trying to think how to shut her up before she says something really embarrassing. "He talks about you all the—"

Oh God. I open my mouth to say something (what, I have no idea) when Grim, bless his pointed head, steps up in front of Aerinah and sticks out his hand. "Hi, there," he's saying. "Are you a friend of Max's?"

"Um, yes," she says, glancing at me while shaking Grim's hand, and I hurriedly introduce them. Grim's looking askance at her fluorescent orange hair, but he doesn't say anything about it, and Aerinah's still giving me this strange look, kind of thoughtful I guess, and she's smiling this tiny little smile. I wonder if she's laughing at me.

Rachel's looking from me to Aerinah and back with this big grin on her face, but before she can embarrass me further I say, "Well, it's pretty cold out, maybe we should get going."

"Right you are, Max!" Dip shouts gleefully. He tips an imaginary hat to Aerinah and climbs back onto the bus. Grim and Rachel both give Aerinah one last look – Grim kind of puzzled and Rachel still grinning away – but then, thank god, they just say "Bye!" (Rachel) and "Pleasure to meet you," (Grim), and head for the bus.

"Um," I say, like an idiot, glancing at Aerinah. I can't wait to be home, and I really want to get out of there before Rachel yells something embarrassing out the window, but I also feel kind of bad leaving Aerinah. It's sad that she has to spend the holiday alone.

"Well, have a good weekend," Aerinah's saying.

"Um, yeah," I say. "You too." There's this awkward pause where I notice Aerinah's cheeks are glowing pink in the cold, and her eyes are sparkling in the streetlights, and I realize I'm just staring down at her like a moron.

Then I turn around and climb up the steps into the Prairie Schooner, hunched over so I don't whack my head on the roof of the bus. Dip waves at Aerinah one last time and shuts the doors, and then we're pulling away into the night.

"----"

We have Thanksgiving dinner the next day, and it's awesome. Gram's always a good cook, but the way she shows you she misses you or whatever is by going all out – cooking all your favorite stuff just the way you like it. Of course, she still thinks my favorite meal is spaghetti and meatballs, which it hasn't been for years, but it doesn't matter since nobody has spaghetti for Thanksgiving. There's turkey – which really is my favorite – and stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy, and baked corn with cream, and cranberry sauce, and of course Gram's famous mint sauce, which Dip and I keep trying to hoard at opposite ends of the table.

Everybody wants to know how school's going, so I tell them about my classes, and what books we're reading for English Lit, and how I got 90 on my Frankenstein essay. I can tell they're really proud of me – Grim keeps clearing his throat, and Gram's going "Well, well," and patting my hand. Dip gives me a big thumbs up (just about knocking over the gravy boat). Worm is so excited about everything she can't sit still, and her mom tells her at least three times to calm down, but she's laughing when she says it, and I don't think she really minds how hyper Rachel is. We're all excited to be together again. I'm really glad to be home.

Except I also keep thinking about school, and about Aerinah. I hope she's not too lonely.

Grim fishes out the turkey's wishbone and gives it to Rachel, and she holds one end out to me. "Make a wish!" she says, and then we both pull, and I end up with the bigger half. That means my wish is supposed to come true.

"----"

"Whatcha reading?" I look up as Worm plops down on the foot of my bed, and hold up my book so she can see the cover. "100 Selected Poems, by e. e. cummings," she reads. It's the book I bought the day Aerinah started talking to me again.

"Who's he?" Rachel asks. "Is his stuff any good?"

"He's my favorite poet ever," I tell her, giving her the book so she can flip through it. "He makes words do things that nobody else ever thought of. Like this one," I say, stopping her when she gets to 'anyone lived in a pretty how town'.

She reads it carefully, her eyes glittering fiercely like they always do when she's absorbed in a book. "Wow, I see what you mean," she says. "Like 'anyone' and 'noone' could mean what they usually mean, or they could be people's names too."

She keeps flipping pages, going from back to front, reading a line here, a verse there. "They're hard to understand, though, with the words put together so funny. It's pretty, but I don't know… do you get what they all mean?"

"Some of them, I do," I say. I take the book back and turn to page 44, to this poem that starts 'somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond'. "Try that one; it's easier than a lot of them. And it's beautiful."

Rachel reads the five stanzas, then looks up, smiling. "You're right, it's beautiful. Is that your favorite one?"

"I don't know, maybe," I say. It's definitely one of my favorites. There's this other one, that starts 'since feeling is first', that I really like too, but I don't really get it. I mean, I can tell it's about how much a guy loves a girl, but he's trying to convince her of something, or maybe trying to convince himself, and I don't really get what that part's about.

I don't say any of that to the Worm, though, because she's already sort of smirking at me, so I figure it's time to quit talking about sappy love poems.

Then Worm asks me about the poems I've been writing, that I told her about in an email a couple of months ago. I go get my poem folder out of my backpack and give her the one about the dead king and the reincarnated lady, that came out of this cool dream I had.

I'm flipping through my other stuff while she reads, and I stop on 'A Different Point of View,' remembering how angry I got when I thought Aerinah had taken it, and how she didn't talk to me for like a month after that.

"So what's this one about?" Worm says, interrupting my thoughts, and before I can react she grabs the paper out of my hand and starts reading it.

"Wait, don't," I say, trying to snatch it back, but it's too late – the poem's only six lines long, and she's already read the whole thing.

Rachel gives me this knowing smirk. "Is this about Aerinah?" she asks.

"No.. well, not really," I say, blushing. I don't really know how to explain. I didn't think it was about Aerinah when I wrote it, but now I think maybe it was and I just didn't know it. Or maybe now it's just all mixed up in my head with her being the one who found it on the bulletin board, I don't know.

"But I don't get it," Rachel is saying. "The poem makes it sound like she's scared of you. But she's your friend, right? So she's not really scared of you, is she?"

"No, I guess not, but I wrote that before we were friends," I say. I don't really feel like talking about this. I didn't want anybody to see this poem, and now my whole dorm and my sister have read it. I should just burn the damn thing.

"And what does the title mean?" Worm persists. "Is it cause you're writing about a girl, and you're a boy?"

"Yeah, sort of," I say uncomfortably.

Rachel looks up, meeting my eyes. "You like her, don't you?" she says, and this time she's not teasing, she's serious.

"No – I don't know… we're just friends," I say, but I'm blushing furiously all of a sudden. Maybe I do like her, like that. I guess that would explain why I can't stop thinking about her. But I don't want to say it out loud, not even to Rachel. I know I can trust her with anything, but this is different. I can't talk about girls, not even with Worm. Girls and Max Kane just don't belong in the same conversation, you know?

I guess Rachel can see I don't really want to talk about it any more, because she gives the poem back to me, and says she's going to go see what Gram and her mom are up to.

I read the poem over again after Rachel leaves. I remember Darren and that girl with long brown hair teasing me about the title. What it really means, what I didn't want to tell anybody, is that it's actually about what I feel. I wrote it like it's about a girl – that's the different point of view – but it's really me that's scared. Scared of trusting people, scared of getting laughed at, scared of getting hurt. Only I can't tell anybody that. That's the really lame part about being such a huge freak. People are scared of me, I'm not supposed to be scared of them, and if anybody finds out I am, they think it's the funniest thing they've ever heard.

I stuff the folder of poems back into my bag and go see what everyone else is up to. I only have two more days before I go back to school; I should spend them with my family. And quit thinking about Aerinah.


This isn't a crucial part of the story (and I also thought it was a bit too girly to have been written by Max), so I didn't integrate it into the chapter, but if anyone's curious, here's the poem about the dead king and his reincarnated lover. I wrote this when I was 14. It was mostly based on this dream I had, but also on this eerie movie called Shadow Play, and on the character of King Peter in Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon:

A girl awakes in the midnight rain
Driven by instinct, she tries in vain
To discover the key to her dream – a name –
A name she cannot remember.

The dream returns in the midnight hour
The name is there – she can feel its power
The dream, each night, unfolds like a flower,
But the name… she cannot remember.

The name inspires love and attention;
It sings of brave deeds and a King's compassion
The soul of the King who calls her to action.
His name – she must remember!

A storm arises in the dark of night;
The girl awakes with a cry of fright.
The name is so close! With all her might
She wills herself to remember

The King, who has for ages lain
Was torn from his love – both feel the pain
He calls in her dreams, but it seems in vain
That the two may one day be united again.

She sleeps and wakes and tries again
She dreamt of a lover long ago slain…
She remembers! He wills her to utter his name!
She screams it out to the howling rain –

And follows the echo over the side
To return to a lover who long ago died
– Her face enraptured, her arms thrown wide –
She is lost in the motion of the ocean tide.