SHOUT by Laurie Halse Anderson

Author:Laurie Halse Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2019-03-12T04:00:00+00:00

sweet-and-sour tea

I went shopping with a new sorta-friend

my first semester at Georgetown, aliens

warily circling each other, sniffing for clues,

both of us desperate and lonely

cuz she was British boarding schools

and flying first class while I was a hillbilly

who worked on farms, chopped wood,

shoveled manure, and milked cows.

But we smelled some possibility,

so she led, I followed

and after hours of watching her buy things

(I’d never seen someone my age with a credit card)

she announced we should have a proper

English tea, her treat,

which sounded good to me.

We floated into a restaurant, perched

on Cinderella couches, spread cloth napkins(!)

on our laps, and she ordered tiny sandwiches and

a high-class blend that came with its own pedigree

I asked for plain tea, regular folks’ tea,

the waitress asked me, “Cream or lemon?”

and I said, “Both.”

It was the first cup of tea of my entire life.

Tiny, crustless sandwiches arrived

you needed two to make a mouthful

and the waitress poured our tea

into skin-thin china cups

we spooned in heaps of melting honey

added thick cream, already heated

and stirred silver spoons in an arpeggio

of satisfaction, tink, tink, tink

I was a glowing, sparkly unicorn

in love with a life that suddenly included

tea and cute sandwiches. I picked up the slice

of lemon and I squuuuuuuuuueeeeeezed

it into my dream cup

It curdled instantly, it damn

near turned into cottage cheese

for a horrified moment

we both stared in my cup

I waited,

praying for a friendly laugh to bridge

her world and mine, the way I’d laugh

sweetly

if she ever tried to milk a cow

and screwed up, which she would,

cuz it’s hard, but my laugh

would ring warm like a copper bell

and I’d help her

She snorted, her lip curled.

Scorn dripped from her chin

and burned holes in the tablecloth

torching any hope we could be friends.

Most relationships come with expiration dates

just like milk and bread. Some go sour

before you can taste them.

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