Alice Austen Lived Here by Alex Gino

Author:Alex Gino [Gino, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2022-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Monday morning, TJ and I were ready. TJ was wearing a black button-down with white piping and pearlescent buttons to match my black polo shirt, but where I had on black stretch pants and my regular sparkly sneakers, TJ wore velveteen pants and shiny black shoes they called classy oxfords. The principal even complimented us on our outfits on the way into the building.

“See?” said TJ. “Making a stylish impression matters.”

I shrugged. I didn’t mind wearing the shirt if it made TJ happy, but I wasn’t about to try winning people over with my fashion sense.

Watras greeted the class with a rare grin. “Welcome to report week, ladies and gentlemen!”

TJ and I exchanged a glance of shared irritation. The school code said that you weren’t supposed to refer to students by gender like that, but when we had brought it up to Watras, he had barely given a whiff of an apology followed by a lengthy explanation of his age and experience. It was worse than being called ladies and gentlemen in the first place.

“I am excited to hear your reports, and to choose one to enter into the borough-wide battle to become a real statue in front of Borough Hall.” He said it like it was the beginning of the world’s most boring television competition show, called So You Think You’re a Locally Relevant Historical Figure.

“Since we will be focused on hearing your reports this week, you will not need to sit in your regular seats.” A smattering of cheers speckled the room. “Instead, sit with your project partner. Choose one spot for the week and stay there.”

The room filled with the screeches and thunks of thirty-two middle school students rearranging themselves, along with hopeless cries from Watras that this process did not require extensive use of the mouth muscles. I was already at the end of my row, so TJ took the seat next to me and we were done. We even had time for a round of Super-Tic-Tac-Toe on a four-by-four board before the rest of the class worked out which pairs of friends were going to sit next to which other pairs of friends.

The way Watras did oral reports, seating aside, was awful. He wouldn’t let students volunteer to go first like any other teacher would. He wanted everyone to be ready on day one and somehow he thought that the best way to accomplish this was to put everyone’s name in a glass fishbowl and, in his words, let fate set the agenda.

Alanna and Sarah presented first, and to no one’s surprise, their statue subject was Alexander Hamilton, even though he’d lived in Manhattan, not Staten Island. Sarah said that since there were a number of his descendants on the island, there was a local connection. Watras did not look convinced.

Josh and Abe’s statue model was pretty cool, a drawing of a man standing on a bridge. He was the same size as the bridge and stood with his head held high and his fisted hands on his hips.

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