Because of the Sun by Jenny Torres Sanchez

Author:Jenny Torres Sanchez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2017-01-03T05:00:00+00:00

When we get to school, Jessie tells me where my first class is. The school is not very big, a lot smaller than most of the schools I’ve gone to, so I don’t feel totally overwhelmed. I had a quick tour of it when I registered with Shelly, so I have an idea where I’ll be going throughout the day.

I head to my first class, passing him in the hall. I hardly pay attention at first, but I know he’s there, painted on the wall and looking at me. A great black bear staring at the hall of students, his mouth open in one never-ending roar.

Shelly had stood frozen when she saw it. Said she’d forgotten the school mascot, and I thought then about telling her how I see the damn bear all the time. How he followed me all the way here from Florida and I wasn’t sure how long he was going to stick around or why. But I didn’t say anything. And she shook her head and walked out and I followed her.

I have only a couple of credits left to graduate because somehow I need fewer credits here than at my last school. So study hall and office assistant take up two of my classes.

The office assistant job has me at a desk that looks right out at that bear. For an hour we stare at each other.

What do you want? I ask him. What do you want?

The rest of my classes are easy enough: AP English, sociology, phys ed, Spanish II, and film. I couldn’t believe there was actually a film class, and when the guidance counselor suggested it, I thought at least I’d have that to look forward to.

When I walk into Mr. Diaz’s class, he jokes with us, saying if we only took this class because we thought we’d be watching films all year, we were only half right.

Mr. Diaz wears slacks and a jacket and tie and his dark hair is combed very neatly. He tells us a little bit about the program, how he had to fight to get a class like this into the school, had to make his case to the school board because they thought film study was irrelevant in a school like this, even though he knew this is exactly the kind of school where we need a film class! And now his students are entering film festivals and making more films, and he knew one day, no doubt, one of you, or many of you, will be accepting an Oscar.

He tells us that by the end of the year, we’ll be making our own films, and to get us motivated, he shows a couple of short films from some of his past students.

He turns off the lights. The first one is about a woman running away from a camera. As soon as it’s over, I want to see it again. We talk about it, but then Mr. Diaz moves on to the next one, about an old man and his shoes.

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