Teen Talk

May/June 2002

Tarnished Gold
by Alissa Slavoff

Above my head, thousands of golden jewels have tarnished. There was a time when the forest sparkled in the twilight. A time when, as the first rays of sun woke us from our peaceful sleep, all the trees would be gilded and shine. Could that time be so long ago that no sparkle can reach me through the grit?
A slight depression in the earth lies before me. Could this be the place? The bare yellow clay stands bright in the morning light against the green and brown of vine and tree. So that is where the gold has gone. Shovel in hand, I begin.
Soon sweat pours off me as I dig. The cool morning will not last and I have much to do. As I turn over another shovel full of sandy clay, the days grow golden in memories awakened.

I was the leader of our little march. Behind me by a year was Mike, next, my sister Christina two years behind him, and finally his brother Scott, a year behind her. Physically Mike was in front of me with a stick to clear the path and Scott was at the back because his legs were too short.
"Hey, what's this one, Alissa?" Mike exclaimed, pointing to an odd flower.
"A blue daisy, but it didn't get big enough," I replied as if I knew.
"But what about the green…" Scott started, but then the large green bump on one side of the flower crawled down the stem.
"A daisy bug; too bad you scared it away. It was what kept the daisy from growing," I explained, though the movement of the green bug had startled me as much as the rest.

I look down at my shovel and see a tiny blue flower in the clay. Carefully, I transplant it to the edge of the yellow scar and go back to my labor. I keep digging into the afternoon until I hear the triumphant clank. Excited, I dig faster to uncover the long-forgotten floor.

"Wow!" I must have been seven, because Scott was still so little we could not leave him alone. "How did they do that?" the younger three exclaim.
"With shovels. You saw them carrying them around yesterday," I replied, hopping down into the deep, round hole. Their feet were at my shoulder. After a short inspection of the straight yellow walls and hard clay floor, I jumped up to get out and fell.
"It's a trap!" Mike yelled, reaching down to help me. Another jump, a tug and a root hanging out of the side of the hole got me out that time. My dress, once sky blue, never really came clean, though I always liked green anyway.

Scratching and brushing away the dirt from the ancient thing with a spade, I manage to unearth the facilitator of so much mischief. Smiling in my khaki slacks and shirt, I dig my shovel deeper into the other side of the hole.

"It's perfect! Now we can get in and out easy," I whispered to Mike. The older boys might come back and catch us hanging around their hole. We always ran from the cruel older boys who came screaming through the forest looking for trouble.
There had been much debate, and we had finally decided that the older boys were building another Pit. The Pit, the large excavated area that was once a gravel pit for our development, was the place to be for the older boys. They ran their bikes and motorcycles up and down the tall hills and deep crevasses. There were stagnant pools of water and the lake, a place where the exposed clay would stay mucky for days after rain, just waiting to bury you up to your ankles. It was a treacherous journey, from forest clump to forest clump and finally through to the trails beneath the towering pines on the other side of the golden dangers.
Those pines were so old we thought they must get in the way of airplanes and have seen Indians running down the same paths we did. We never followed them to their end, but we all knew the terminator line, the great end-of-all, was the highway. Great Fifty-Five could be heard humming at rush hour, and that was our warning.
"Get away, get home, dinner is nearly done! Your fathers are nearly home!" It called out to us as children of nature.
The journey was worse for the older boys. Their bikes forced them to stay in the open and their motorcycles were too loud. To get to the Pit, a farmer's field had to be crossed. The sheep he kept would all cry when the motorcycles raged in the Pit, and out came the farmer with his shotgun to the sky. Screaming words we could not hear, we guessed he meant to shoot out the sun so our mothers would all call us inside. Kids can't be out at night.
So the older boys would build a Pit on this side of the field! This was horrible news. True, the steep slopes of the Pit were fun to climb and the gullies were a challenge to traverse without becoming coated with the unmistakable yellow clay mud, but it was the trees we went for. The island in the center was our headquarters: an undisturbed oasis of trees amid the hot, barren yellow clay. Nothing grew in the clay; we had tired of planting. Only in the lake would some swamp grass stand, and only for a short time after the rain.
In this way, a plan was formed. We used an old junk tire we found by the Secret Garden, a meadow with beautiful flowers for only two weeks a year, and tossed it into the hole. With that as a stair, we could snoop around the older kids' things and make sure the Hole did not get any larger.

The sun is setting, but the work is done now. Erosion has filled in that old hole, but now it is restored. A flat, smooth clay floor is beneath my feet. A clay-coated tire at my side forms a step. The straight walls are as round as they have ever been, and a hearth has been carved out of one side. The arched notch is opposite the tire and slants down and away for about a foot. Three feet from the edge of the Hole I have started the chimney and slant it down to the top of the hearth with a spade and hole digger. I assemble a few twigs and set a bit of crumpled paper to burn. Satisfied that the smoke will funnel away safely without sparks, I toss some loose clay to smother the flame, and shovel it out.
I climb out of the wide Hole and head home. The tools go back into their places in the shed, and I walk into the old home and up to my room. Flopping onto the bed, I look out at the forest, and the leaves are golden again.

Untitled
by Kelly Stites

When I spoke to you
you pretended I wasn't there
But I was
Just preparing to leave

When I got left behind
you pretended I wasn't there
But I was
Just walking through the hall

When you walked past me
you pretended I wasn't there
But I was
Just opening the door

But when you finally needed me
I pretended I wasn't there
Because I wasn't
I had walked out the door.

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