Rice Ball!

Margie walks head down toward school. She’s twelve, awkward. She has a layer of baby fat that has only partially melted away. A sweatshirt with a doe-eyed manga girl droops from her shoulders.

Just inside the school’s doors, Carlie awaits her arrival, backed by a cluster of friends. “Your boots look like a couple a dogs yapping,” she sneers.

Margie stops, eyes still downcast, looking at her boots. They are big and floppy and furry and unlaced, laces trailing behind her in tatters. It’s amazing she doesn’t trip and tumble with each and every step.

“Hey, I love my boots. I don’t care what anybody else says,” Margie shrugs.

But Carlie has lost interest and moved on, her damage already done. She’s skinny, too skinny, and wears plenty of her older sister’s makeup. She’s also twelve, twelve going on eighteen.

Margie watches Carlie and her followers disappear around the corner toward the lockers. She glances back down at her feet. With a sigh, she stoops down and, one-by-one, laces the boots up snugly against her ankles.



It’s the first week of school at Roosevelt Junior High. All is chaos and dazed seventh graders wander the maze of indoor halls, perhaps searching for a way out, certainly trapped, at least for the day.

Activities groups are seeking members and several kids are gathered around the bulletin board chatting excitedly about the posted announcements.

Margie pauses at a drinking fountain and pretends to drink until everyone moves on. She sneaks over to look at a sign-up sheet for the school band. The flute section has three numbered lines beneath it. She runs her finger across the name “Dylan.” Then she sees “Carlie” on the next line and groans.

The bell rings and she starts for class, but her eyes remain fixed on that one remaining empty line. She cautiously returns, takes a pen hanging from a string, and writes “M-a-r-.” Then, in a panic, she scribbles out the letters and hurries to class.



At the end of the school day, kids, filled with laughter, scurry away outside. After they are all gone and all’s quiet, Margie walks toward the doors and looks outside. The wind is blowing and fall leaves scatter across the school lawn. She looks down at her feet. She unlaces the boots, allowing them once again to yap and breathe. She trudges away toward home.

A boy has been watching her from down the hall, just out of sight, around a corner. He smiles and pulls his cap down over his eyes.

A boy zips past him on a skateboard. “Come on Dylan. Let’s hit the park.”

Dylan drops his board to the ground, flips it twice with his foot, and glides away after his buddy.



Margie flops down on her bed. With her heels, she nudges her boots from her feet, first the left, then the right. As the first plunks to the floor, a kitten climbs up the dangling sides and settles into its warm folds as if this moment is the long awaited highlight of its day. Margie folds the sides carefully up around it and loosely ties the laces.

Her room is a clutter of throw pillows thrown everywhere, a cat scratching post, and posters of manga characters named Yuki, Kyo, and Shugure (all long, straggly haired boys) and Tohru (the same teenage girl as on her sweatshirt). These posters are all neatly lined up with thumb tacks along one wall – the only things carefully arranged in her entire bedroom. There is a lonely looking music stand in the corner with sheet music spilling to the floor like a waterfall.

Margie settles back into her bed and pulls a blanket over her legs. Sensing an invitation, an aging orange tabby tries to jump up onto the bed to join her, but doesn’t quite make it – claws digging in and ripping the sheets all the way back down to the floor. Margie leans over and lifts the cat onto to bed.

Stroking its fur she says, “It’s okay Kyo. It’s okay.” The cat begins to purr, closing its cataract filled eyes.

Without looking, Margie plucks a remote from her nightstand and presses the power button. Her television comes to life showing a blue DVD screen. She stretches her leg out as far as it will reach and presses play on her DVD player with her big toe.

She starts watching a scene somewhere in the middle of an anime television show. A young girl is sitting expectantly in a chair while kids’ playful laughter can be heard. Suddenly, a kid shouts, “Rice Ball!” and the girl leaps from her chair and runs off-screen to join the other kids.

Margie stretches out her foot and presses the fast-backward button as the action races back in time. She lets go and the episode begins playing again. The scene is Tohru’s childhood memory of a moment when she went from an outcast to someone accepted by the other kids. Margie watches again all the way up to the happy exclamation, “Rice Ball!” She runs the DVD back a bit and watches again, “Rice Ball!”

She nudges the stop button with her toe and lies back against her pillow, still stroking Kyo’s fur, and exhales as if she’s been holding her breath her whole life. She slides off the bed, lowers to her knees and starts digging for something under her bed. She pulls out a flute case.

Settling back against her pillow, she opens the case, removes the parts of a flute, and assembles them all without needing to look, her practiced hands knowing exactly what to do. She raises it to her lips and blows across the mouthpiece. The sound is hollow, airy. She grimaces, adjusts the mouthpiece, wets her lips, and tries again.

And what comes out is a beautiful, delicate melody, music from the television show she has just watched, the same melody, but somehow more gorgeous, more heartfelt.

She lowers the instrument and looks pleased, even happy. Then a trace of fear fills her eyes and a single tear runs down her cheek.



Margie stands outside the door to the band room, holding her flute case. She’s wearing different jeans, but is still adorned by the same sweatshirt, clearly a well-worn favorite, or possibly her security blanket. Her boots are once again tightly laced. She listens intently through the closed door.

Someone is playing the flute quite badly. The tone is filled with air and there are wrong notes aplenty. All else is quiet in the room, almost hushed. Margie takes the doorknob in her hand and pauses, mustering courage. She hides the flute case under her sweatshirt, opens the door, and goes inside.

Margie takes a seat in the back, hoping she isn’t noticed, while Carlie finishes her audition. Mr. Lawrence says, “Nice job Carlie.” A girl in the second row starts to giggle. Carlie flashes the girl a glare and she shuts right up.

Mr. Lawrence says, “Okay Dylan. Are you ready now?”

Dylan gets up and saunters toward the front of the room. Stopping just short, he glides the last few steps like a skateboarder with an invisible board. Kids laugh and he pauses to soak it all in.

Carlie laughs the loudest until she glimpses Margie trying to hide her own laughter. Then Carlie’s expression turns serious, scary.

Dylan pulls his cap down over his eyes and starts playing his selection. He plays well or at least well compared to Carlie. There is an assured casualness about him, his tone is clear, and he hits mostly all the right notes. And those notes that he misses don’t seem to bother him in the slightest.

When he finishes, he lifts his cap and glides away just as he arrived. There’s more laughter, this time mixed with applause.

Mr. Lawrence says, “Okay Margie. Glad you could make it. Are you ready?”

“What?” she gulps.

“You signed up.” He points to the sheet.

“I didn’t-”

“Well?”

Margie pulls her flute case out from under her sweatshirt and opens it. She starts to assemble the pieces.

“Come on. I still need to listen to the trumpets.”

She gets up, still adjusting the mouthpiece and hurries toward the front of the room. A girl nudges her foot ever so slightly into the aisle and Margie trips over it, falling to the floor in a sprawl. Her flute clanks across the floor and one of the keys breaks off and slides under Dylan’s chair.

Shaken and embarrassed, Margie gets to her feet and starts to run from the room, but a voice stops her.

“You can use mine,” Dylan says.

Margie wipes her tears and walks over to take the offered flute. She makes her way to the front of the room and pauses, hoping the shaking will go away, afraid to look at anyone.

“Would you like to wait a bit?” asks Mr. Lawrence.

Margie doesn’t answer and instead raises the flute to her lips and starts to play the same lovely, lilting melody she had practiced alone in her bedroom. She seems to disappear to a place filled with happiness and where nothing else matters. Mr. Lawrence pulls out a chair and sits down, losing himself in her world as well.

When she finishes, she stands quietly for a moment, still afraid to look at anyone. Then Dylan starts clapping. Then everyone starts clapping. She finally looks up and the first thing she sees is Carlie’s empty chair.

---

Margie walks in through the school doors, quickly escaping the now howling winds and blowing snow. She is once again wearing her big, funny, floppy boots with laces dangling. She sees another girl walking toward the lockers wearing almost the very same boots, also yapping.

“I love your boots,” Margie tells her.

“Thanks” says the girl.



Outside, Carlie stands alone just out of sight of the front doors, smoking a cigarette. As the icy winds swirl snow around her, she narrows her eyes and plans her next move.