The Candy Smash Read Free Page B

multiplies:
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We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.
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"Mushrooms" from THE COLOSSUS AND OTHER POEMS by Sylvia Plath, copyright © 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 by Sylvia Plath. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission. For on-line information about any other Random House, Inc. books and authors, see the Internet web site at www.randomhouse.com .
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    It was the Poem of the Day that Mrs. Overton had read to them that morning in class. She always made extra copies and left them on the windowsill so that anyone who wanted to could take one home. On his way out to recess, Evan had told his friends he'd forgotten his gloves. When he went back into the classroom, he'd sneaked a copy of the poem and slipped it in his backpack.
    If the whole class hadn't gone over the poem that morning, he would have had trouble reading the words "acquire" and "edible." He wouldn't have known that "loam" was just another word for dirt, or that "discreetly" meant carefully and quietly, while "crannies" were little openings, and "bland" meant boring and tasteless.
    But they had gone over the poem, several times, and now Evan could read it confidently to himself, and he loved the way it sounded. He loved to say, "Our toes, our noses / Take hold on the loam." All those "oh" sounds, like marbles rolling across a wooden floor. He liked the phrase "soft fists"—the way one word said the opposite of the other but with almost exactly the same letters! And then when it got to the shouting part, "So many of us! / So many of us!"—Mrs. Overton had had them stand up and raise their arms over their heads to shout out the words—Evan couldn't help but feel the thrill of the mushrooms taking over the world. It was like
Planet of the Apes
—but better sounding. Like music.
    Knock. Knock.
    Evan kept his eyes on the poem. "Go away!"
    "Why?" asked Jessie through the closed door. "Why can't I come in?"
    "Because I'm busy."
    "Doing what?"
    "Jeez, Jessie! If I wanted to have a conversation, I'd leave my door open. Locked means locked!"
    "Yeah, but I need help."
    "I'll help you later, okay?"
    "Oh, fine! You stink," she said. Evan could hear her walking away.
    Evan got up from the bed and walked over to his desk. It was piled high with Lego contraptions and loose change and dirty socks and a scuffed-up baseball and old
Mad
magazines and K'NEX . Evan never worked at his desk. Whenever he had homework to do, he did it at the kitchen table with his mom in the room. That way, she could help him when he couldn't figure something out or give him a pep talk when he felt like tearing his paper to pieces.
    Quickly he moved everything onto the floor so that the desk became a wide open space, like a smooth stretch of beach. He sat down and spread his hands across the top. Then he reached down into his backpack and pulled out the stack of Post-it notes that Mrs. Overton had given each of them today during Literacy Block.
    Jessie, of course, loved Post-it notes. They were her favorite office product. She had them in every color and used them all over her room to remind her of important things. But Evan had never thought much about them until today when Mrs. Overton had shown the class what they could do.
    He looked at the mushroom poem again. He read the first stanza. Just six words. That was all. Anyone could write six words.
    Evan stared at the wall and thought about his grandmother.
    Well, first of all, she was old. So old that her knees made creaking noises when she stood up. But she still did yoga every day. She said it was good for her balance. She could even stand on one leg like a tree. Sometimes, though, Grandma's brain wasn't balanced. She could forget things. Like Evan's name. He hated when that happened.
    Evan peeled off the first