What's up. This summer I got braces AND glasses, which is a lot of hardware for one face, and then I started 7th grade. My grandpa died in June. He was my fishing partner. My mom says writing stuff down helps, so this is me writing stuff down. Survival tips at the bottom, free of charge.

Skip to August | Survival Tips

Uncle Dre (Mom's little brother) took me fishing at the river today. First time since Grandpa. I brought the tackle box.

The river is still high and brown from all the hurricane rain, so Uncle Dre said the fish would be "confused." We sat on the bank for two hours and caught NOTHING. Uncle Dre kept checking his pager. I kept looking at the note in the lid. Patience is the bait. Patience is the bait.

Then my bobber went under. I did it the way Grandpa showed me: don't yank, count two, then pull up smooth. It was a catfish! A little one, like the size of a hot dog bun, with whiskers, all mad about it. Uncle Dre took the hook out because they can poke you. We let him go. Grandpa always let the little ones go. He said "go get your daddy and come back."

On the way home Uncle Dre said, "Your granddad would have been proud of that hook set." I looked out the window for a long time.

I still miss him so much it feels like a stomachache. But it was a good day. Both things.

Fish caught this year: 1. Fish Grandpa would say I should have caught: about 6.

Mom took off work this morning and we went to see the counselor, Ms. T. Her office has a jar of Jolly Ranchers (which I can't eat, BRACES) and a poster of a kitten hanging from a branch that says HANG IN THERE.

I told her everything. The names, the binder, the glasses thing he does with his fingers. My voice did a crack in the middle and I wanted to disappear into the carpet, but Ms. T. just waited like it was no big deal.

She said three things. 1. It's not snitching when somebody is hurting you. 2. She's going to talk to him and to the vice principal, and the teachers are going to watch that hallway. 3. I can come eat lunch in her office any day I want, no questions.

Today in the hall he just looked at me. He didn't say anything. I don't know if that's better or worse yet.

Mom bought me a milkshake after. She said, "That was brave." I said, "My voice cracked." She said, "Brave people's voices crack all the time, baby."

I told Mom.

I wasn't going to. I was going to handle it. But today he slapped my binder out of my hands on the stairs and my comics went everywhere, and everybody stepped on them, and at dinner I just started crying into my spaghetti. Which is hard with braces, by the way. Spaghetti gets EVERYWHERE.

So I told her about the whole two weeks. There's this 8th grader. I'm not putting his name, because Mom says you don't put people's business on the Internet, even people who deserve it. He calls me Metal Mouth and Four-Eyes and Professor, and he does it loud so everybody laughs.

Mom didn't yell. She got real quiet, and then she did her church-hat voice, which is the voice she uses when she is NOT playing, and said, "We're going to see somebody about this Thursday." Then she hugged me for a long time.

I feel lighter. Like I put down a backpack I didn't know I had on.

Hurricane Floyd is here. Well, the rain part. It has been raining ALL DAY like the whole sky is a bathtub somebody forgot to turn off. The creek behind our building came up over the path. Mom wouldn't let me go look.

He called me Metal Mouth three times this week. I didn't write about it before because writing it makes it realer. Okay. There. I wrote it.

Staying in. Drawing comics. My new one is about a catfish superhero named Captain Whiskers who is very patient.

After church we had dinner at Grandma's, and after the pound cake she said, "Jamal, come here, I have something for you," and brought out Grandpa's tackle box.

It's green metal and the trays fold out like stairs when you open it. It smells like the river and WD-40 and those peppermints Grandpa always had. Inside: all his lures (he had names for them, like "Old Reliable" and "The Embarrassment"), bobbers, sinkers, a spool of line, his fishing license from last year in a sandwich bag, one peppermint, and a picture of me when I was six holding up a sunfish like it was a shark. His pocketknife is staying with Grandma "until you're older," which, okay.

And taped inside the lid, in his handwriting, it says: PATIENCE IS THE BAIT.

I didn't cry at Grandma's. I cried in the car. Mom didn't say anything, she just turned the radio down.

Also: I asked Devin to trade my Gyarados back (see 8/28, the dumb trade). He said "no backsies." Mom says that is not a real legal term. It's still a no.

9/9/99!!! THE SEGA DREAMCAST CAME OUT TODAY!!!

I don't have one. Let me explain the math.

Dreamcast: $199. Plus a game, because what are you going to do, look at it? Sonic Adventure. So more than that.
My money: $23 and a jar of pennies I haven't counted but it's heavy.
My allowance: $5 a week if I do the dishes AND take out the trash.
So: about 36 more weeks. That's next MAY. By next May it will be old.

My best friend Marcus from down the hall got one today. He says the graphics look "like a movie." I believe him. I will be visiting Marcus a lot.

I asked Mom about Christmas. She said, "Maybe. Don't get your hopes up, baby." I know money is tight since the car. I'm not going to ask again. (Okay, maybe once more in November.)

First day of 7th grade. Debut of the new face: braces (blue and silver bands) plus glasses (black frames, Mom says they make me look "distinguished").

Good stuff: I have lunch with Marcus. My science teacher has a real snake in a tank. My locker opened on the FIRST try because I practiced the combination all weekend on a lock Mom bought at the hardware store.

Bad stuff: some 8th grader in the hall said "Look, it's the Professor," and then when I said "What?" he saw my braces and said "Oh, METAL MOUTH." And his friends laughed. I pretended I didn't hear. I heard.

It's only the first day. Maybe he'll forget.

I did something dumb.

Today at the pool I traded my holographic Gyarados to Devin, this kid from the next building over. For five cards. An Electabuzz, a Scyther, and THREE ENERGY CARDS, which I already have like forty of. I don't know why. He was talking really fast and the Scyther looked cool and it was hot out and my brain was melting.

The reason it's dumb is not the cards. It's that Grandpa bought me that pack. In April, at the drugstore, when we stopped for his medicine. We opened it in his truck in the parking lot, and when the shiny Gyarados came out Grandpa said, "Well, look at that sea serpent!" He didn't know anything about Pokemon. He was just happy because I was happy.

Now Devin has it. I feel sick about it.

Other news: I got my glasses last week. Did you know trees have separate leaves? Like, you can see EACH ONE. I thought they were green blobs. Twelve years of blobs.

BRACES DAY.

Two hours in the orthodontist chair with my mouth open while they glued little metal squares on every tooth and put in the wire. The worst part is the thing that holds your lips back. You look like a jack-o'-lantern. I picked blue and silver bands.

Now my teeth feel like they're wearing shoes that are too small. Mom made mashed potatoes and applesauce for dinner. Tomorrow: mashed potatoes and applesauce. The day after that: guess.

Grandpa used to say my teeth came in "like a picket fence after a storm." He would've had something funny to say about this. I keep thinking of what it would be and I can't come up with anything as good as he would.

Eye doctor next. Mom says glasses by the 20th. Middle school, here I come, fully armored.