The Flynn Effect

01 | if birds could talk

Jo

MY LEGS FEEL like blocks of lead as I stand in front of the bulletin board in the hallway. The Beatles does a great work of blocking out the loud chatter of passing students by blasting a hard chorus in my ears as my thumbs fiddle with the straps of my schoolbag while my eyes trace the continuous array of words on one of the many decorated papers pinned to the blue, hard surface.

Articles! Articles! Articles!

Turn in your articles to the news department today. We accept all kinds of short stories, poems, creative non-fiction, and the likes that cut across diverse topics. Remember, the one with the best article gets a special place at the FRONT PAGE of Lakeville weekly.

You have a voice. Pen it down. We are ready to listen.

There's an abridged sample of the winner of this week's article right next to it and I shuffle on my feet a bit. The words are immaculate. Each line bleeding into the next with a special twist of perfection around each sentence. Right beneath the ellipses that signify that the rest is in the school paper, the writer's name- Sara Marie Hotchkin- appears in block letters, right next to a sprawled signature.

The face of the mousy haired girl from my English class immediately engraves itself in my brain. Her hand is always up and erect in the air even before the rest of the question is asked. For a brief moment, I imagine her penning down her thoughts into a journal and skipping all the way to the newspaper department to turn them in.

I take out a piece of paper from the book that was lodged under my armpit and stare at my handwriting. I stare at the extra long crossing of all my ts and the mediocrity of my words. If birds could talk is underlined twice as the title above the body of the poem and with one last look at Sara's article in front of me, I rip mine into shreds.

Piece of crap.

I close my eyes for a second as I dispose the tiny pieces of my work into the trash and open them again after I've turned away from the board. I take a deep breath and turn up the volume of the mix to max, reveling in the transition to another song.

I pick up my steps and turn towards a corner before heading straight to one of a few of the empty classrooms in this wing. The Debate Club sign that is plastered against the door glares at me as I approach. The sides of the paper are crinkled with a brownish tint. A new addition that I haven't noticed before, sits underneath the name of the club.

Come, let us ARGUE together!

A little smile makes it way to my lips as I twist the door knob. That scrawny handwriting definitely belongs to Mrs Lenderman.

Compared to the different clubs in Lakeville High, debate club is—at least to me—considered a minority with only seven students in total. And I'm the mother Hen, aside our coordinator of course, Mrs Lenderman, but she's never really here. Especially since a life started growing in her womb.

I'm a bit surprised when I walk in and meet six students because we're never really complete during our sessions. Khalid slyly winks at me as soon as he sees me and I roll my eyes at him, already used to his antics.

"Yo, Jo. I've got some new ideas that you'd kill to look at," Amanda hollers, flipping her braids behind her neck but I'm not listening. Instead, I'm watching Mel with a raised brow and the unfamiliar boy—the sixth person who's not a member of this club—devouring her mouth with a lustful aggression.

His hands are digging dangerously into her jean clad thighs and her body pushes further into the table she's perched upon.

"Ugh, they've been at it since we arrived," Cass groans as she tosses a crumpled ball of paper into the trash from her seat.