Liz Coley Books

This is surprisingly not embarrassing! Mindy McGinnis interviews me for her podcast.

In which I address breaking into publishing via short stories, how my biochemistry degree figured into my writing, and self-publishing versus the traditional route.

Click here to be redirected to the podcast.

THE CAPTAIN'S KID - COVER REVEAL

So excited to reveal the cover for my upcoming novel.

Feast your eyes!

Welcome to Undercover Reading, serial entertainment

Announcing a new LIZ COLEY BOOKS feature: my video blog featuring original short stories and serialized novels.

Up first -- please meet our first hero in The Captain's Kid.

When teenager Brandon Webb sets out on his first starship voyage, he never suspects that the fate of a failing colonial planet will depend on his courage and compassion.

Some kids dream of flying between the stars, meeting aliens, defeating a villain, and saving the world. Brandon learns how quickly these dreams can become nightmares when the starship is sabotaged, the alien knows secrets about his past, the villain is on the right side, and the world isn’t ready to be saved.

Scenes from a Life: Shy Girl and Quiet Boy

Senior prank, senior ditch day, senior gift—these were high school traditions in my day and still are across the country. In my small southern California high school, we hotly anticipated another special tradition: Grad Night at Disneyland! The amusement park would shut down to the general public and allow packs of high school seniors to roam Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, and the their own awkward teenage-land. With practically no lines for the rides, it could have been paradise.

Unlike prom, where we were expected to go as 1970’s heteronormative couples, Grad Night was usually a free-for-all; no coupling required. Imagine my surprise when a boy who had never said a single word to me before—let’s pseudoname him Gerry—asked me to go as his date. I was fresh off a painful break up with my high school sweetheart. (Okay, it was about nine months past, but still…) My ex had moved on to another girl. I was emotionally stuck in the past. So I thought, “What the heck. Why not? It would be symbolic of progress.” That’s how I thought in those days. In self-conscious symbols and meaningful gestures.

Like my ex, Gerry was a long-distance runner. Like my ex, he was tall with blue eyes and curly hair. The resemblance ended there. We had absolutely nothing in common and, with both of us awkward and shy, not a single idea of how to start a conversation with a complete stranger of the opposite sex. I begged two of my girl friends to stick to me like glue, which made it even less likely that he would open up. Ride to ride to ride we went in uncomfortable silence, never making eye contact, but forced, as dates, to sit beside each other, even on the two-hour bus trip home, sharing one bench in our own timid bubbles. In fact, the only two words he was able to muster that evening were: “For you” as he handed me a souvenir Winnie the Pooh at the end of the long, silent evening.

Scenes from a Life: Fossils

When I was two and he was four, he threw rocks at me. Not very hard, and not very well. By the time I was seven, we were best buddies, in separate schools, but on weekends inseparable. At ten he moved far away, and we became loyal pen pals bordering on boyfriend-girlfriend at a very safe distance. And by thirteen, our starter romance had splintered (see SFAL: The Bet). The magical years I spent with Bruce were the seven to nine years for me (nine to eleven for him), and we were bound by boy things—cap guns, Creepy Crawlers baked in a Mattel Thingmaker, comic books, monster movies, and dinosaur dreams.

I imagine the girls of today (not to mention the parents) watching our past freedom through a timescope would shudder. They would see me walk alone, age seven, over a mile to my friend’s house and home again—alive and unkidnapped. They would see me and Bruce collecting the gunpowder out of a roll of caps and heating it with a magnifying glass until it exploded. They would see me climbing to the top of a thirty-foot tree without knee pads or helmet or safety line to read a Peanuts comic book. They would see us baking a liquid plastic goop in an electrically heated metal mold (without adult supervision) to make lizards, spiders, and skeletons—some deliciously and incredibly edible (and therefore eaten). They would see us head off, alone, armed only with toothbrushes, to a nearby park and head through the sagebrush down into a secluded canyon, along the dried stream bed, through the licorice plantation (our name for the wild fennel), and up the face of the sheer sandstone cliff hiding ancient scallops—the Fossil Site.

While we perched and scraped carefully at the edges of shells to free them, we dreamed of finding a dinosaur femur. Then the whole skeleton. We imagined fame. And what we would call our find. Of course, the cliff face was from a long ago sea, so our odds of finding land-based dinos were rather long. Then we talked about the Saturday Morning Monster movies we loved—Them, Zontar Thing from Venus, and of course the Godzilla movies. And that led to a weird moment of truth as we recalled one particular movie scene—the reunion of Adult and Baby Godzilla, arms stick straight out and waving as they embraced with happy roars. Bruce and I were moved to recreate the scene, arms flapping and reaching for each other. Suddenly, from the canyon rim, we heard laughs. We’d been seen by some other kids. We both blushed bright red at the idea that they might think we were actually hugging each other.

For all our freedoms, the one we didn’t have was that of expressing affection openly. Girls couldn’t hug each other for reasons that were never mentioned aloud. Boys and girls couldn’t hug unless they were “going together.” And no one said “I love you” unless a proposal of marriage was sure to follow. We had the freedom to play, wander, invent, discover, build, destroy, help ourselves, hurt ourselves, and throw ourselves into danger. We lacked the freedom to show and share what was in our hearts. It’s a new world, and we are fossils.

Scenes from a Life: Suzy Homemaker

The Colorado History Museum in Denver curated a wonderful Toys of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s exhibit. Yips and laughs and sighs of nostalgic recognition came from every adult in the room. An easel displayed a question: What is the one toy you always wanted…and never got?

When I was in kindergarten, I passionately coveted a Suzy Homemaker oven. I don’t remember the ads that put this idea in my head. They must have run during the Mickey Mouse Show or morning cartoons. My kindergarten teacher gave us warning that we would soon be making paintings of the Christmas present we wanted most. I came home crying, because I had no idea how to draw the appliance of my eye, the oven of my heart.

My mother is a brilliant mathematician with artistic ability about a notch below the painting elephants of Bali. She can draw a snowman with three circular body parts. She can draw a cat—a snowman with ears replacing the top ball and a tail out to the side. And that’s her artistic vocabulary. It took all her concentration that afternoon to figure out how to draw a 3-D cube with 4 burners on top and a control panel and then teach the method to me. I practiced over and over at home. She still has the papers in a mildewed trunk. At school, with a thick brush in hand, I painted a portrait of the Suzy Homemaker Oven and prayed.

Did I get it? Sadly, no. My ever-practical mother told me I was welcome to use the real oven to make proper desserts. “Really? I’m allowed?” I asked. It wasn’t the same at all, but so began a lifelong love of baking cakes, pies, cookies, and other sweets.

Did I ever get over the disappointment? Sort of. When my four-year-old son Connor expressed his interest in baking, I gave him an Easy-Bake oven. My favorite birthday cakes of all came from that little purple and white light-bulb activated oven. Now he’s in graduate school, and I still have it. No regrets.

Where am I? #ReadOrWriteAnywhere

Where am I writing?

CLUES

1. I'm in an indefinite state.

2. People used to train here.

3. A pencil dropped could end up in Cairo.

4. Freedom finds a Center very close to here.

5. It's an inspiring place for purple prose.

Figure it out? Take your answer to YAChicks and enter the rafflecopter for dozens of prizes. Books, swag, skype visits, critiques. Celebrate the #ReadOrWriteAnywhere campaign.

READERS OF THE LAST ARC giveaway

This giveaway has handed. Congratulations to 2 international winners in England and India!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Unleashed

by Liz Coley

Giveaway ends April 30, 2015.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

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TRY MY SHORTS

Available now on Kindle. Click through the cover to Amazon page.

DISARMED:

When Tor sees past the gun in her face to the face behind the gun, two lives could be saved.

PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE:

Some friends are forever, and some are left behind.

STICKS AND STONES:

Family is something we create when home is only a distant memory.

COVER REVEAL and INTERNATIONAL GIVEAWAY!

I'd like to introduce you to Tor Maddox!

Please head over to YA Books Central

for an international giveaway of 2 ARCs.

Highlights Reel from Tor Maddox series blog tour

The Most Important Book Ever: The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

I have read more than 900 books in the 23 years since I started keeping a life list around mid-1989. That excludes my entire childhood (when I took piles home from the library), high school (when I read Harlequin romances faster than they could write them), college (when I took lit classes every semester), and graduate school (when I read my friend Loch’s massive sci-fi collection, five books a week). I’ve also read a few hundred books aloud to my kids over the years. For most of that time, believe it or not, I had no idea that I would become a writer.

In 1995, recently retired from hospital administration to be a stay-home mom with a three-year-old book lover and a one-year-old toddler, I first read The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. This wonderful novel had come out in 1992 and won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, sci-fi’s highest honors. The story combined alternate history and time travel, future Oxford University and the Black Death, comedy and deepest human tragedy. This is the single book that made me dedicate my efforts to becoming a writer, for real.

Up to that point, I had dabbled in short stories; I had taken a correspondence course with the Institute for Children’s Literature; I had won twelfth place in a contest with a 600-word story about a girl who pretends to be a cat; I had even completed one young-teen sci-fi novel manuscript (so that I wouldn’t waste my deathbed moments regretting not having tried). In 1995, Connie Willis inspired me to get serious, to submit my work for representation and publication, to hurry up and write another novel. How did she do this? It wasn’t that I imagined I could write an award winning novel like hers. It was that she provided a role model, a middle-aged woman like me starting a mid-life writing career. Shoot, I was only 33 and she had published her first novel at 42 and this miraculous breakout novel at 47. It wasn’t too late! I had loads of time.

As it turned out, I left 42 and 47 in the dust along the way to selling my first novel. But I kept my eye on the prize, my nose to the grindstone, and other hardworking clichés driven by three ideas. (1) I had to be more than the maker of the best macaroni and cheese and apple pie to my kids. (2) I wanted to offer my kids a living example of unremitting persistence in the face of failure and rejection. (3) Connie Willis started in mid-life and has been successful beyond measure in bringing amazing stories to the world. Why not aim so high?

The Most Important Book Ever: Jennie by Paul Gallico

To my series of essays about the most influential books in my life, I must add a fifth, which recently came to my attention in a funny way. My agent and I were talking about introducing a pair of kittens to my old cat, and she mentioned that our grown cat could teach the kittens how to be cats. In the same breath as she began to ask, “Have you ever read….” I interrupted with, “Yes! I loved that book so much.” What we were both talking about was Jennie, a novel for children, written in the fifties by Paul Gallico. I first read it about age ten on a trip to visit family in England. I was permanently marked by the reading, more than I appreciated. Many years later when it was out of print, I ordered it from a rare book shop in England for thirty pounds so my kids could enjoy it. I must have lent it to a scoundrel, because when we moved, to my dismay, it was no longer among the books on my shelves. After the recent conversation with my agent, I hopped onto Amazon, which had now been selling used books for several years, and found a copy for six dollars plus shipping. This is a book I must own forever, no matter how many times I have to re-buy it. It's a heartbreaker in a very special way.

A couple of weeks ago, an author friend quizzed me about my favorite Star Trek and Star Trek Next Generation episodes. The original series episode that immediately leapt to mind (Tribbles aside) was “The Paradise Syndrome,” in which Kirk loses his memory and lives a peaceful, happy life for months with Miramanee, a pseudo-native-American on an unspoiled planet in the path of an asteroid. They fall in love, they marry, and they almost have a child before tragedy strikes and the ship returns for Kirk. My favorite Next Generation episode was “The Inner Light,” in which Picard falls into a coma on board and mentally awakes on the planet Kataan, where people insist he is a man named Kamin. As Picard lives for years on this planet, he falls in love with the woman who calls herself his wife, fathers a girl, watches her grow to adulthood, and learns to play the Ressikan flute. Inevitably, he awakens on board from his 25-minute coma to find the terrible and beautiful memories of the past forty years were caused by a special mental probe of sorts from an extinct people. He retains the ability to play the flute. Every time I hear that piping theme, I cry for the world and the love he knew both for a lifetime and for only twenty-five minutes.

What do these stories have to do with Jennie? In that novel, a young boy named Peter, much neglected by his busy parents, darts away from nanny in front of a carriage and is run over. He awakens as a white kitten, immediately to be tossed out of his London townhouse and onto the cruel streets of London. Adopted by a sweet, knowledgeable tabby named Jennie, he learns how to survive as a homeless stray, travels to Glasgow and back, and blossoms into a big, strong cat under her intense loving care. Eventually he challenges a bully tom cat to a death fight to save Jennie from being “claimed” by him. I won’t spoil the ending. Suffice it to say, this story about someone who escaped a mundane, troubled life and lived an entire lifetime as another before returning. The poignancy of all three of these stories hits the same achy spot in my heart, but I had no idea until I reread it, that for ten-year-old-me, Jennie had been the foundation, the model, the prototype, even the archetype for this kind of heartbreaking, bittersweet story.

The Most Important Book Ever: The Secret Garden

Much as I identified with the tortured hero of Dr. Seuss’s I had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, the first book that touched me to the core was The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I was fortunate in my choice of a British mother, who read aloud with the correct Yorkshire dialect, making sense of all the tricky apostrophes and altered vowels.

While I wasn’t an orphan like Mary Lennox, nor left to a recluse’s care in an English manor-house, I related to her story. She was a grouchy child; right or wrong, I considered myself a grouchy, somewhat miserable child. My favorite characters were Lucy in Peanuts, Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street. In spite of a perfectly normal childhood, I remember declaring with all the angsty melodrama I could summon, “If only I had a bottle to collect all the tears I’ve ever cried!”

Why wasn’t the world more beautiful to me? I searched the back of my closet for Narnia; twice I dreamed of secret chambers hidden in the oak footboard of my bed; I jumped off ladders with an open black umbrella; I dressed in pink, hid in an alibaba, and tried very hard to become a genie/fairy named Ella. Still, it seemed the magic wasn’t for me.

Mary Lennox’s life was lonely, colorless, and miserable until she discovered her secret place, the walled garden where things unloved and forgotten lay dormant, waiting for love to make them bloom. Miraculously, Mary found this otherworldly place in the mundane world. The idea that such things were possible was a heart-expanding, mind-blowing notion for me. I had a crush on Dicken for his gentle way with people and nature. I felt sisterly affection for Colin both in his tantrums and in his getting better. This hidden place where children both healed the earth and healed each other’s physical and emotional wounds was profound. In elementary school, I didn’t have the words or concepts for what I felt, just a sense that this story was very profound and very important.

I love walled gardens. I love secret niches and low ceilings and cozy places. I love places we can call our own, make our own. I love microworlds where we can find peace and truth and healing.

The Most Important Book Ever: I had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew

After Hop on Pop, the next most important book ever in my life was also by Dr. Seuss. I had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew is the perfect story. There’s a brilliant beginning, a middle fraught with rising conflict, and a bittersweet, empowering life lesson and personal growth at the end. Perfect.

In the beginning: “I was real happy and carefree and young and I lived in a place called the Valley of Vung, where nothing, not anything ever went wrong. Until….” In a mere twenty-seven words, we have a vividly drawn protagonist, a setting, and a situation on the brink of change.

In the middle, the poor protagonist suffers a stubbed toe. First solution? Watch where you are going. Then he’s bitten from behind. Second solution? Aim eyeballs in different directions. Vowing vigilance ahead and behind, he is attacked from above and below. Now he’s in a real quandary because he only has two eyes. What’s a lad to do? He sets off on a journey to find a new and safer place he’s heard of—“the City of Solla Sollew on the Banks of the beautiful River Wah-Hoo, where they never have troubles! At least, very few.” This classical hero’s quest takes him through terrible trials in which, just as hope is in sight, something else goes horribly wrong repeatedly. The final insult, the ultimate crisis, is the single trouble with Solla Sollew: the door to almost-paradise is locked, barred by a key-slapping slippard.

At the end, the moment of truth, the hero learns of a more distant Utopia, “the city of Boola Boo Ball on the banks of the beautiful River Woo-Wall, where they never have troubles! No troubles at all!” He’s wary; he’s been let down by so many promises along the way. Can he flee trouble one more time, just a little farther, for a promise? No, he decides. Something in him has changed. After facing Poozers and billions of birds and a flubulous flood and a camel with gleeks, he has outgrown his innocence. He wasn’t passive to begin with, but now he’s stronger and wiser, and he picks up a weapon and heads home.

The twenty-word resolution: “I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see. Now my troubles are going to have trouble with me.”

I can’t even convey how much I loved this story, how many times I read it until it was memorized, and how much I still love it today. I think it is Seuss’s crowning glory.

The Most Important Book Ever: Hop on Pop

The most important book in my life was Hop on Pop by Dr. Suess. My mom brought it home one day—I think I was four—sat me down at bedtime, and started helping me sound it out. We’d done letters and letter sounds on signs, on cereal boxes, on doors and light switches, on refrigerator magnets. Animals made noises, so it made perfect sense to me that letters did too. A cat says meow, a dog says woof, a cow says moo, and a P says Puh. An H says Huh. And O says ahhh.

Put them all together: Huh-ahhh-puh HOP!!! HOP!!! Ahhh-nuh ON!!! Puh-ahhh-pop POP!!!

It was an epiphany moment. The world was suddenly bright and full of possibilities. I knew I could read anything now. Thanks to phonics and my mom’s perfect Julie Andrews British diction I could tell the difference between POP and PUP, between SIT, SAT, and SET. The important words in the book were spelled in capital letters—no b, d, p, q confusion possible—then the little letters were repeated underneath. Genius.

Each little vignette told a simple story, often with humorous conflict: “We play all day. We fight all night” was completely recognizable sibling behavior. I was the big sister. I got it. There was psychological support for kids; a less than patient parent at dinner could be explained by reference to “Dad is sad. Very, very sad. He had a bad day. What a day Dad had!” The big words, “Constantinople and Timbuktu,” became recognizable and fun to say. They promised great things ahead—the idea that as you grew up you’d learn new and wonderful words.

Mom and I worked through the book night after night. I went back to it by myself over and over again. It was the most powerful tool I had ever held in my hands.

Scenes from a Life: How Dr. Dean Saved my Fingernails

It was round about 1976, and back then schools took liberties with the kids' safety and dignity that would be inconceivable today. Without forewarning the parents or issuing permission slips or even considering whether this was a good idea at all, our small school brought in a locally renowned night club hypnotist to entertain at a morning assembly. As we sat on the bleachers with baited breath, Dr. Michael Dean cast his piercing eyes across the assembled hundred and thirty students and somehow picked out the twenty most likely (and impressionable) candidates for an hour of hilarity and humiliation, seventies-style.

Swaying like a human pendulum, Dr. Dean repeated his mantra in a resonant bass voice: "Way down. Deeper and deeper asleep. Your eyes are getting heavy. So heavy. Way down…," until the twenty were largely lulled into submission. Where hypnosis left off and compliance due to peer pressure and expectations began is anyone's guess. One student was asked to act like a chicken and willingly clucked and flapped. One of the older girls sang "Bennie and the Jets" at the top of her lungs. A future Harvard man was made to crawl like a toddler, suck his thumb, and sit on the lap of the singing hypnotist while he crooned "Danny Boy." The rest is a blur, hideous images of teenagers made to look like fools fortunately lost to memory.

However, all of this put us in mind of hypnosis, for good or evil. At the next sleepover, a batch of us girls decided to try it on ourselves despite warnings about the dangers. The logical hypnotist was (let's call her) Marie, whose father was a psychiatrist, which by osmosis made her the one most qualified to tap into our brains. Fortunately, this girl, who later played Glinda in the high school play, was a good witch even then. Her object was to use the power for good. When she called for volunteers, I asked to be cured of biting my fingernails. Marie used her own soothing pattern of words, and all the girls crowded around, watching to make sure I fell under her spell. Of course I didn't. But like the kids on stage, I obeyed various instructions, such as repeating words, answering questions, and lifting my arms. Finally, she instructed me that whenever I had the urge to bite my nails, I was to think of blue mountains and green gorillas. And then she "woke me up."

That was the day I stopped biting my nails, not because of photosynthetic primates on smurf-colored hills, but because everyone expected me to. For weeks, they would be inspecting my hands and asking for progress reports. I couldn't let them down. I couldn't burst the bubble. We were too invested in believing in the power of hypnotism, because the alternative was to conclude that all our friends had willingly performed those embarrassing antics.

Scenes from a Life: Breaking Curfew

I’ll begin by admitting that aside from never picking up my room, doing my own laundry, making my own bed, or helping with yard work, I was basically a good kid. I babysat my younger siblings for ten cents an hour. I got good grades. I didn’t test my parent’s patience very often. By the time I got to high school, I had never been grounded or had a privilege taken away. There was nothing to rebel against.

In tenth grade, a mixed bunch of us ranging from ninth to eleventh grade created a motley social group that started meeting on weekend nights down at the beach. There were a few unrequited crushes going around, but no one in the group was dating anyone else. No one was sneaking off for sex. No one was drinking, at least not in this gathering. It was an amazingly innocent group of kids who gathered around a fire ring and hung out to talk. Afterwards, we’d go back to one person’s house within walking distance and, if we were in a mischievous mood, make prank phone calls involving no obscenities. Remarkably innocent.

I had no official curfew, but on the other hand, I had no driver’s license. I usually had to call my parents for pick-up. On one particular evening, we’d lost track of time. It was about midnight when the doorbell rang. “It’s for you, Liz,” the host boy called out. My blood ran cold when I realized the time. At the front door stood my mom in her blue bathrobe and slippers.

Everyone saw.

“Time to come home,” she said patiently. She didn’t scold me. She didn’t ground me. She didn’t need to. Message received. And there was still nothing to rebel against. A brilliant tactic.

Epilogue: Thirty five years later (this past weekend, to be exact), I was at a high school reunion and EVERYONE in the group remembered my mom showing up in her pajamas as vividly as I.

Scenes from a Life: Dumping Maura Barnes

I’ve sworn that having survived seventh and eighth grades, possibly the cruelest ages for girls, nothing could compel me to hop in a time machine or taking a reverse aging drug and relive those years. In spite of that resolution, the events of those 700 odd days still play through my mind; the girls who seemed larger than life back then live on, unaging in memory.

Even in a class with only a dozen girls, there was the queen bee, her sidekick best friend, and a court of popular girls. Like many queen bees, she wasn’t especially beautiful or smart or talented, but she ruled through force of personality. Everyone on the inside matched her shoe choice, her nail polish color, her mannerisms, her slang. I was on the edge, acceptable but not embraced because I didn’t emulate any of these things. My shoes were knock off brands, my clothes standard and boring, and I didn’t wear nail polish on my short, bitten nails. But I wasn’t obviously offensive in any way—safely too small to be noticed much. In seventh grade, I’d become close friends with a new girl, let’s call her Maura Barnes, and we hung out mostly with each other on the fringes of this girl pack. What we had most in common was this indistinct social status.

The traditional highlight of eighth grade was a class ski trip to Squaw Valley. For cover, there was an outdoor education component thrown in—identifying pine trees, building thermal snow caves, and reading the history of the stranded Donner Party, some of whom survived only by eating each other. Cannibalism may be seen as an apt, foreshadowing metaphor for eighth grade girl social politics.

Rooming arrangements were all the buzz. I assumed I’d be rooming with Maura and others TBD until she told me, less than apologetically, that she was going to room with two of the popular girls instead of me because they were expert skiers and I was a novice. It’s true she was an excellent skier, but she was awkward and unfashionable and definitely not in the right company. I was left scrambling for roommates and ended up with two pleasant (but at that point undistinguished) new girls I didn’t know very well. Maura’s betrayal ached like a knife to the ribs; she didn’t make up for it by seeking me out at meals, instead sticking like glue to her roommates until she’d outworn her welcome.

I’m not proud of what happened next. Maura had broken the best friend bond by abandoning me in my moment of need, and I figured she had no further claim on my loyalty. When we got back to school, she continued misreading signals, following the populars around, refusing to notice their pointed looks and whispers until they weren’t whispers any more. Over their shoulders, they called her PTTA to her face—pony-tailed tag-along. While I didn’t chime in, neither did I defend as her ostracism intensified and the set of everyone’s shoulders hardened against her. I wasn’t going down in her sinking ship.

Fourteen-year-old girls can enact a shunning like nobody else. Come the end of the school year, no one saw Maura again. She’d been officially dumped, and she changed schools without a word.

I often wonder what went on behind the scenes, what she told herself, what she told her mom, whether she was happy again after she moved on, whether the experience of being collectively spurned by us had scarred her for life. You couldn’t pay me enough to negotiate the social minefield of eighth grade again. I imagine she feels the same way.

Scenes from a Life: My Favorite Delinquent

Way back in seventh grade, the social divisions were fairly well established even in a tiny private school. There were the cute boys who played basketball and then the rest of the guys, ill-assorted and usually awkward. For some reason, these traits went together, although looking back on yearbook photos, I realize in retrospect that although there were dorky athletes and cute nerds, those category cutting exceptions weren’t noticeable at the time.

In some private schools, there’s one additional category of student—the kid who is there because he’s been kicked out of the public school system. Oddly enough one of these kids became one of my best guy friends in seventh grade.

His name was generic enough that I’ve no hope of finding him again—Jeff Smith—though I would love to know what ever became of him. He arrived at our school in seventh grade as a bird of a completely different feather. He was worldly, he was a bad boy, he was kind of cute, with shoulder length wavy brown hair and a ready smile. He smoked cigarettes and pot, he shoplifted, and he broke into houses. For reasons I can’t even begin to guess, he decided to hang out with “the good girls” at lunch. Maybe because we were so nice, we just accepted him, with all his baggage. Maybe because our eyes sparkled at his tales of mischief and misdemeanor. Maybe because we were as much a curiosity to him as he was to us. He nicknamed me Albert, after Einstein, and I answered to that name as if it were my own, all year. I considered it a badge of affection and something completely mysterious and indefinable.

I think he managed to flunk seventh grade. He knew he was leaving in early June, and on our last day, he presented the three of us girls in his odd posse with necklaces, personal to each of us. Mine was an owl, the others a dove and a choker that said “oh shit” on it. He proudly announced that while he had stolen the money, he had actually paid for the jewelry in a store. Shades of moral gray. It seemed like a step in the right direction to us—that’s how charmed we were. I’ve still got this token of the charismatic delinquent who brushed my life for just a few hundred days, and it’s still an unaccountably precious memory.

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by Liz Coley