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    What I Believe
    What I Believe
    What I Believe
    Ebook182 pages1 hour

    What I Believe

    By Norma Fox Mazer

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Vicki wishes she could solve her problems as easily as she can arrange words into a poem

    Vicki Marnet has two wonderful big brothers who are completely regular people. They like sports, chess, and the student senate, and are totally normal—unlike Vicky, who feels in her heart that she’s different. For one thing, she writes poetry for fun. She plays with sonnets, pantoums, sestinas—all kinds of stanzas and rhymes, anything to take her mind off what’s happening at home.
     
    Vicki’s dad lost his job, and since he can’t find another one, her family is moving to the city. They’re selling their big house, moving into a tiny apartment, and facing troubles that Vicki has never known before. Ashamed and slow to make friends at her new school, Vicki puts her thoughts down in verse as she makes a new place for herself—one that’s very much her very own.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateMay 19, 2015
    ISBN9781497650848
    What I Believe
    Author

    Norma Fox Mazer

    Norma Fox Mazer, who lives in Montpelier, Vermont, has written nearly thirty novels and short-story collections for young adults. Her novels, including Missing Pieces, Out of Control, Girlhearts, and the Newbery Honor Book After the Rain, are critically acclaimed and popular among young readers for their portrayal of teens.

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    Reviews for What I Believe

    3.5/5

    13 ratings2 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This is a story told in lists, journal entries, poems, letters. Vicki Marnet is a writer, and her writing helps her to deal with the mess her family life has become. Her dad has lost his job, after working for the same company for 28 years. He's having a lot of trouble finding a job, and is depressed. Vicki's family has to sell their home in the suburbs and move to an apartment in the city, where her mother has found a receptionist job. It means switching schools, leaving friends, and selling off treasured belongings to help pay the bills -- and they don't have room for them in the apartment anyway. Vicki's brothers seem to handle the changes much better than anyone else, but they also don't stick around much to help out. When Vicki's dad disappears suddenly, they are forced to take in a woman who rents a room, and Vicki does something awful. If you make a really terrible mistake, how do you make up for it? How do you earn back the trust of your family? A timely story of hardships and choices. 7th grade and up.
    • 5/5
      Vicki loves to write. She shares her inner most feelings with us through her journal. We follow Vicki as she has to move to a new neighborhood because her father lost his job , start a new school, makes new friends and tries to adjust to all of the changes. Norma Fox Mazer wrote this story from the point of view of Vicki's journal. The story is told through, journal entries, poems, lists, and some narrative. This is a great book for young adults going through similar changes. This book would be an excellent example of a unique writing style to tell a story.

    Book preview

    What I Believe - Norma Fox Mazer

    Memo to Myself

    Try not to stumble over chairs or your feet or anyone else’s feet.

    Do not stare at Casey Ford.

    Remember he is the hottest and nastiest boy in school.

    Ask yourself why you keep forgetting that.

    Remind yourself he told you your front teeth were way big.

    Ask yourself why you keep forgetting that.

    Do not talk about Dad to anyone.

    Try to be nicer to Mom.

    Try very hard to act normal.

    So What Do You Do for Fun, Market, Casey ford Sneered

    and I got a bit flustered (he’s so hot) and stupidly told him about writing in my journal, my notebook, on the palm of my hand, on napkins and scraps of paper, which got me one of those Vicki-Marnet-you-are-strange-strange-strange looks, and now I’m thinking if people are gonna look at me like that (and they are, they have, they do, they will), why not just go for it and say although I intend to be a lawyer, writing is fun for me, so I write run-on rambling sentences like this one for fun and I write crazy things like sestinas and pantoums and all kinds of poetry for fun, which I started when I was six and couldn’t spell and wrote Bewaer little gril if you are weerd expeshlee if your daddy has a beerd, the zingo line being if you are weerd, which, even way back then, I knew I was, unlike my big beautiful brothers, who are regular and normal and do regular, normal things like Spencer’s sports and Thom’s student senate, and that’s not all that’s normal about them, they also have normal hair, which might sound unimportant, but isn’t if you have irresponsible, impossible, ridiculous hair like mine, which has led to my secret plan, that as soon as I am old enough to do what I want and not freak out Mom and Dad, I will shave it all off, and then my strange outside will match my strange inside—in a word, weerd.

    Rug Love Sestina

    For years, with every fleet beat of my heart,

    I loved Revco, each bright brick and stone.

    This was where my dad worked, and his eyes

    brightened whenever he said, like a song sung

    just for me, "Revco is fine, the best. I’ll never leave.

    Our future is secure, it’s one thing I know for sure."

    On Take Your Daughter to Work Day, sure-footed,

    we raced—his long legs, my short ones—to the heart

    of his life, his office. I loved that room, wanted to live

    under the desk! On top, photos of us all, silly and stunned

    in the sun at our lake house, Mom swimsuited, singing,

    Dad building a fire, us kids capering and crazy-eyed.

    First time in the office, age six, colored stones

    in my pocket, seeing his raspberry rug, I took leave

    of my senses, flung myself nose down, closed my eyes

    and rolled like a little dog-girl, yipping, "Sure, sure

    do love you, ruggy raspberry rug." A rug love song

    to please my dad. But, no. Vicki, get up! I heard.

    I stood and saluted, hoping he’d laugh and leave

    Discipline Dad on the rug with dog-girl. His eyes

    shone on me again. Still, that moment, like a stain,

    was hard to clean away. Could even his sure

    love be shaken? Scary thought! My heart

    took its time slowing. Love is a twisty, tricky songster,

    but hate is a twistier, trickier, turnaround song.

    Now I hate Revco. They fired Dad! "No anger. Leave

    it be," he told us. Said he wasn’t bitter or heartsick.

    "The company had to downsize to save its life. I’ll

    take my time finding a new job. Hey! This is my shore

    leave!" Mom, laughing, picked up one of my stones,

    predicted jobs would pelt Dad like rain! The stone

    fell. We all scrambled to rescue it for her. Strong

    quick Spencer got there first. We cheered, so sure

    of our happiness, all of us chattering and lively.

    That night, stargazing on the deck with Dad, eyes

    on the sky, he pointed out Orion, Betelgeuse. "It’s an art

    to read the stars, baby." I never wanted to leave

    his side—my sure song for so long. Now? His eyes

    are stone changed. Just looking at them hurts my heart.

    Doing the Dad Math

    1 year, 9 months

    336 résumés

    897 phone calls

    13 flights to 8 states

    25 interviews

    Zero luck.

    Dad Stats

    Height, 6 foot 2

    bad he hunches now. His

    weight was 180, and 2 times

    is a complete circle. He’s

    56, and half of that is 28 years

    he put in at Revco. He used to

    sleep 6 hours, times 2 now is

    12 every night, plus couch time. He lost

    9 pounds, 2 sets of car keys, 3 wallets,

    his smile.

    My Brothers

    Call me flatfeet, funny face,

    Missy Trippy, Vicki Wicky.

    They tease me, squeeze me,

    hug me,

    shove me.

    Love me.

    If I Was a Perfect Person

    I would write in this notebook every day, and only beautiful things, and I would give up wanting a dog, which is probably just a bad habit, and I would never be annoyed at Thom for sneezing or wheezing, which is the chief reason we can never have any animals, not even a little wheely-going gerbil, which is just as well because I’d probably get bored with an animal who could only communicate by running in circles, and speaking of animals, which we all are, biologically I mean, if I was even half a perfect person, I would stop thinking that Dad asleep on the couch again looks like a zombie, which I guess, to be exact, is not an animal, but not exactly a human being, either, because zombies don’t do anything but sleep or go around half dead or, should I say, half alive, like Dad these days, which is a mean, nasty, and really bad thought, especially for a daughter, but it’s a thought I think, which I wouldn’t think, I’m sure, if I was a perfect person.

    Mom Cinquain

    Her skin

    smells like lemons

    and soap, and when I lean

    up against her, I’m a baby

    again.

    Bright Red Socks

    On field-trip day I wore jeans, a sweatshirt,

    woolly red socks, and badly beat-up boots,

    which had belonged to my brother Thom.

    My darn feet have grown from size five to eight.

    Bethani Ollum, smooth-as-syrup girl,

    also wore red socks and old hiking boots,

    also her brother’s. Her motive: coolness.

    My motive: cashless. Bethani’s clan girls

    screamed and oohed and aahed over her boots

    and new bright red socks. So cool … I’m going to

    ask my brother … old boots, oh, beautiful!

    She took my arm. Girlfriend, we planned it,

    didn’t we? Quick as light, the clan began

    oohing, cooing over my beat-up boots.

    That’s how I became the new Best School Friend

    and Chief Amuser to Bethani O.

    It’s a

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