Blessings and Amends | Teen Ink

Blessings and Amends MAG

June 27, 2008
By Aliza Gans BRONZE, Woodbridge, Connecticut
Aliza Gans BRONZE, Woodbridge, Connecticut
4 articles 0 photos 0 comments

It was the November of second grade, and strep throat had been spreading like the plague through my class. Two girls and I were absent toward the end of the outbreak, experiencing scarlet-striped throats and aching bones. We missed an entire week of work on our rainforest project, so my second-grade teacher, Ms. Giannopolous, sent us “streppies” to the computer lab.

At eight years old, we had mastered a variety of technical skills. We used KidPix – a program that I now consider a dumbed-down version of Photoshop –
to paint an infinite number of complex ­designs on our computerized canvases. That day, one of my fellow streppies, Kelly, showed me how to invert my rainforest landscapes so that the sky turned orange and the trees purple. My spec­ialty was adding sound effects for each brightly colored slide. My skills came in handy for Jillian, the other streppie, when she needed to insert a howler monkey scream for her emergent-layer rainforest slide.

While we were debating the correct spelling of “lemur” and “toucan,” Mr. Reynolds, our school’s technology teacher, was conducting a computer class for the elderly, instructing them on how to copy and paste text into a word document. How sad, I thought. They’re going to die soon and they’re only on copying and pasting?

While logging out of my account ­(Apple Q, Apple Q), I noticed Ms. ­Giannopolous’s name flashing on the staff log-in list. I secretly admired her: the Dannon Lite yogurt she ate (which varied in flavor from day to day), her shiny leather boots, her long, layered black hair, perfectly even teeth, and the blue and purple Koosh ball she kept on her desk. I wanted to tap into her account and learn some secret information about her that I couldn’t grasp by just observing her movements, things that simply needed a password to reveal themselves.

I clicked on her name, and thought of all the possible combinations that might unlock her account. Kelly glanced at my screen and saw what I was up to.

“Try Theresa. That’s her first name,” she suggested.

“Don’t you think she’d pick something harder to figure out?”

Jillian noticed what Kelly and I were doing.

“Try drachma. That’s the money they use in Greece, and she’s from Greece.”

We streppies tried a number of combinations until the screen suddenly froze, and the happy Mac log-in page began ticking rapidly. Not knowing what to do, we asked Mr. Reynolds to help us repair the twitching computer. He clunked over in his orthopedic shoes, his bald head shining under the fluorescent lights. He took one look at the flashing Mac and exhaled through his teeth.

“I know what you’ve been up to. You’ve been hacking into the faculty system!”

We shook our heads with the same trembling that shook the computer screen.

“You know that’s against school ­policy. I will have to tell your teacher about this.”

“It wasn’t my idea,” Kelly said, pointing to me. “It was Aliza’s.”

I winced. It seemed that experiencing high fevers, aching pains, and intense nausea at the same time hadn’t bonded us as tightly as I thought.

Mr. Reynolds glared at me and tisked. I hate it when people tisk at me. I feel like some un-potty-trained dog being scolded for wetting the carpet. It’s very demeaning. I felt my cheeks get puffy and hot. My eyes started tearing like pin-pricked water balloons, and my hair began sticking to my face. Snot dripped onto Mr. Reynold’s shoes. I had been betrayed by my classmates, scorned by a computer teacher (with bad taste in sneakers), and now I would never win the approval of my second-grade teacher.

Mr. Reynolds patted me on the back, which was probably supposed to be comforting but felt far from it.

“Go to class now, Aliza,” he mumbled.

Entering Ms. Giannopolous’s empty classroom, I could hear faint screams and laughter coming from the playground. Ms. Gianno­polous was at recess with the rest of the class. My face was still red-hot, so I hid behind the book shelf, and stuffed the purple and blue Koosh into my backpack. Hacking into computers, stealing Koosh balls … at the rate I was going, I would receive a red-light badge next to my name on the bulletin board, and get a call home.

The ball was pretty, I guess. It had a soft pom-pom look. The jelly-like ­plasma center squirmed in my hand pleasingly when I squeezed it, and the rubber spikes gave my fingers something to grip.

When I got home that Friday, Shabbat evening, my mother had already been cooking for hours, and the house was permeated by the greasy smell of matzo balls and the sweetness of challah. My younger, yet domineeringly taller sister, Sarah, insisted that I dance with her as we did every Shabbat after school, but today I was in no mood. ­Instead, I lay on the couch with my new Koosh ball and squeezed it until my hands felt numb.

“Where’d ya get that?” Sarah asked. She was wearing a bright tulle tutu that embellished her wild dance moves.

“I won insect bingo at school today,”
I lied.

“Can I play with it?”

“No, you can’t even touch it.”

On any given day, Sarah would normally torment me until I handed over the ball. She was an expert kicker and hair-ripper, but tonight she knew I ­wasn’t to be trifled with.

“Girls!” my dad shouted, “It’s time to make Kiddush. Aliza, it’s your turn for a blessing.”

Every Shabbat, my dad blesses us ­before we make the blessing over the wine. I am always first, being the oldest child. My dad wrapped his arms around me. I felt his palms lightly touching my hair as he blessed me with his deep voice, barely audible.

“Yevarech-icha Adonai v’yish-marecha. May God bless you. You are such a wonderful, beautiful girl. You are so nice, caring, and honest …”

Oh, God, I thought. I’m such a sinner! If Jews believed in hell, then I would be signed right over, next-day shipping, to the fiery pits.

“You do so well in school,” he continued. “You light up my life, and may God allow you to keep growing in the beautiful way that you’re growing right now …”

Yeah, grow up to be a liar and a teacher-moocher?

“Amen.”

As my dad kissed me on the forehead, I tried to look into his eyes, but mine were weighed down toward my feet.

Before dinner, my dad put on a new CD he’d brought home from the Judaica shop. It was Shlomo Carlebach, a Jewish folk singer he was fond of. The roughness of Shlomo’s singing accompanied by the sweetness of the violin ­reminded me of Mr. Reynolds and Ms. Gian­nopolous’s distinct voices. Later that night, I would put that CD into my Walkman and listen for hours before bed, hoping that hearing their voices would rid me of my guilt and help me survive the rest of second grade.

Now, eight years later, Ms. Gianno­polous is married, they use euros in Greece instead of drachmas, and the Shlomo CD is scratched and skips when played. But it wasn’t until last month that I decided to return the Koosh ball to my second-grade teacher.

When I entered her classroom, it was dark and empty like the day I’d stolen the ball so many years before. The dim light from the windows shone on the same world flag posters, multiplication charts, and tattered carpet squares in the meeting circle. The scrawny spider plant that our class had put in a terracotta pot now dangled thick and leafy down the bookshelf onto the floor.

Now, different names were printed on the bulletin board. No Kelly. No Jillian. No Aliza. It was as if I was hugging my mother and noticed the smell of a new perfume. The simple changes made the room feel strange.

My uneasiness led me to reach into my hooded sweatshirt pouch, pull out the Koosh, and place it on Ms. ­Giannopolous’s desk near the new Mac computer, filled with her updated, ­personal, intriguing information. Maybe this computer contained
an e-mail ­exchange between Ms. Giannopolous and her husband, pictures of her and her ­relatives soaking in sunlight on the Greek island of Santorini, or a short poem about her childhood crushes. My hand had been clammy from squeezing the Koosh ball, but now that it was empty, the sweat evaporated in my empty palm, leaving it cold and dry.

Someone blew a whistle on the playground, signaling the end of ­recess. I scanned the classroom and rubbed my hands down my legs, making sure I hadn’t in my anxiety taken anything else from my ­second-grade teacher that I would need to return. My pockets were empty, my hands were bare, yet my cold palm itched for the ­familiar plasma squirm and gripping spikes of the Koosh ball. But now the ball looked spiny and urchin-like on Ms. Giannopolous’s desk. If I touched it, the poisonous barbs would pierce my seven layers of skin, and the toxins would travel through my bloodstream, circulating through my veins and marrow. Better keep my hands glued to my pockets.

I heard the slapping of a dozen rubber soles on linoleum down the hall: crusty-nosed second-graders were coming in from recess. I hurriedly stepped out of my dark second-grade classroom. My eyes had not quite adjusted to the bright light in the corridor, so I could see only the outlines of everything in front of me. The hallway walls were lined with elementary Chuck Close paintings – ­little squares pasted together to make larger pictures. I reached the end of the hall and pushed open the double doors the same way a puny, roller-backpack-wheeling elementary student would.

Shabbat was the following night. At sunset, my family would sing the same songs from the Shlomo CD at the dinner table, drink wine that always tasted too sweet, and I would receive a new blessing from my dad.

My sister and I no longer twirl and leap clumsily across the living room floor. Instead, we joke about what happened that week with tears of laughter washing away the uneasiness of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and every gap of time in between.



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JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 52 comments.


on Jun. 15 2011 at 8:32 am
TheLemonadeCrusade SILVER, Huntersville, North Carolina
9 articles 0 photos 25 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the whole world, and all there ever will be to know and understand"

i agree with the above comment..i think this peice wasn't made up but instead an actual axperience the writer had

on Jun. 11 2011 at 8:15 pm
radicalhonesty GOLD, Alpharetta, Georgia
12 articles 2 photos 65 comments

Favorite Quote:
There is no situation, facet, or aspect of life that cannot be improved with pizza. -Daria

sorry, i wasn't trying to be rude, i was just critiqing(sp?) it. Its called constructive criticism. In the real world, work, be it art or writing or food or dance gets critiqued. Not all comments are positive, though I did try to make mine positive while constructive. maybe you just have to open your mind? anyway, aliza, great job! :)

jumper said...
on Jun. 11 2011 at 6:30 pm

that is kind o0f rude

 


on May. 24 2011 at 4:45 pm
radicalhonesty GOLD, Alpharetta, Georgia
12 articles 2 photos 65 comments

Favorite Quote:
There is no situation, facet, or aspect of life that cannot be improved with pizza. -Daria

very good writing, but I felt there was no real main idea. Was there a lesson we were supposed to learn, was it just simply sharing a story? I think you could have summed it up better, but overall great job

on Apr. 10 2011 at 7:32 am
RadiahMariaBelak BRONZE, Singapore, Other
1 article 3 photos 63 comments
could really picture it but was lost abit.. pretty good though.

lkk4209 BRONZE said...
on Feb. 25 2011 at 8:59 pm
lkk4209 BRONZE, Somewhere, Massachusetts
4 articles 0 photos 56 comments

Favorite Quote:
"April Fool's Day is for amateurs. You never need an excuse to mess with people's heads."

"I may be lying in the gutter, but I'm staring up at the stars, honey."

This is an excellent piece! the emotion and imagery in this are great!

kssketch said...
on Feb. 25 2011 at 1:23 pm
This emotion was very prominent in the piece and was very easy to feel, as I'm sure everyone went through a similar phase when they were younger :)

reenay_95 GOLD said...
on Dec. 25 2010 at 11:17 pm
reenay_95 GOLD, West Lafayette, Indiana
16 articles 0 photos 86 comments

Favorite Quote:
You can't see the stars if you are always looking down.

This was soooo good.

on Dec. 22 2010 at 5:45 pm
RitaChristine BRONZE, Metcalfe, Other
2 articles 0 photos 31 comments
Excellent piece! Your writing style is very mature and it is evident that you have spent time shaping and editing this composition (I didn't see any grammar mistakes!). Well done. :)
My only critique is the ending. For some reason the last paragraph just didn't quite sit right with me. How has she changed? (Oh, and "that week" - did you mean the week in second grade, or the wekk she returned the ball..? Maybe it doesn't matter either way... hmm.. :P)
Overall, astounding. Keep writing.

Marie BRONZE said...
on Dec. 22 2010 at 1:03 pm
Marie BRONZE, Spokane, Washington
4 articles 15 photos 18 comments

Favorite Quote:
Go loud or go home.

it is simply a delight to read. 

LastChapter said...
on Dec. 21 2010 at 6:44 pm
LastChapter, Hempstead, New York
0 articles 0 photos 215 comments

Favorite Quote:
(couldn't think of anything better at the time) "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."-Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.

i would agree with this normally, but i think she is writing this from an actual experience, not making it up for a fictional piece. 

on Nov. 7 2010 at 5:00 pm
writergirl13 GOLD, Cherry Hill, New Jersey
11 articles 8 photos 261 comments

Favorite Quote:
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.
Ambrose Bierce

I like the way this was written. It was done very well. The story was great, and I liked the metaphor of the Koosh ball- how, for all those years, it was like a poison every time you touched it that wouldn't let you return it, until, at the end, you finally broke free. I also like how you echoed the beginning in the end. The only suggestion that I have is to maybe change the grade level. The story just seemed a little too mature and sophisticated to be written by a second-grader. What I mean by that is, it felt a bit strange that a second-grader would feel so inspired and impressed by a teacher as to try breaking into her account and stealing the Koosh ball. This behavior would be a bit more believable if it was in, say, fourth or fifth grade, when kids really tend to start looking up to their teachers to that point. Otherwise, this was great. Please check out some of my work and comment. 

xStarzGirlx said...
on Nov. 7 2010 at 1:01 pm
hey this jen im new here in teen ink guys!

Ellen212 GOLD said...
on Oct. 16 2010 at 1:47 pm
Ellen212 GOLD, Sebastopol, California
11 articles 0 photos 5 comments

This was really well done. I like the topic and the way you carried out the story.

The betrayal of your second grade friends and the emotions you felt was so very age-appropriate and realistic.

Great job!!!


Elisabeth GOLD said...
on Sep. 24 2010 at 9:31 pm
Elisabeth GOLD, Nottingham, New Hampshire
10 articles 0 photos 23 comments

Favorite Quote:
"A true friend is hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget."

Reallly great story. The feeling in it is great!

on Sep. 2 2010 at 3:34 pm
pinkypromise23 PLATINUM, Cranston, Rhode Island
30 articles 0 photos 412 comments

Favorite Quote:
i know that you believe you understand what you think i said, but im not sure you realize that what you heard is not what i meant.

aw that was really cute(: five stars(:

on Aug. 11 2010 at 10:03 pm
bluesky0728 SILVER, Phoenix, Arizona
8 articles 0 photos 107 comments
She is Aliza!

on Jul. 20 2010 at 9:23 am
deus-ex-machina14 BRONZE, Stewartsville, New Jersey
1 article 0 photos 439 comments

Favorite Quote:
"There are two main tragedies in life. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it." -Oscar Wilde

Your writing is just so easy to relate to and you really bring out the feelings of guilt, unfamiliarity, anxiety, and intrigue. I absolutely loved it:D

Chimerical said...
on Jul. 20 2010 at 8:21 am
Chimerical, Brampton, Other
0 articles 13 photos 53 comments

Favorite Quote:
"You know you are famous when your signature becomes an autograph."

I loved this quote it made me laugh..

"How sad, I thought. They’re going to die soon and they’re only on copying and pasting?"

Really good story though, I felt such a connection with Aliza


on Jun. 6 2010 at 5:13 pm
Authorgal98 GOLD, Frankort, Illinois
17 articles 0 photos 194 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Let your mind sart a journey through a strange new world..."

This was great! Loved your use of language!