ELLEN HAGAN

Take all the metal detectors apart and build imaginary cities with them. Then my 7th graders can build a utopia and walk around in it. Tell Harold, the security guard, who sings only Tito Puente songs, that he can have his own music room, and buy gold trumpets and trombones that slide like hot oil. Buy drums that rumble the whole school: da-dum, da-dum. Build a garden as big as the football field at Taft High School and feed everything. Tell Myles he can have a quiet room to fall asleep in, because I know he is tired. I know you are tired, Myles, but you cannot keep calling Russell a fat fuck, “Yo Russell, you fat fuck,” over and over until Russell has to stand up and punch Myles where he deserves it most. And why not? Call Russell a genius, who sure knows how to write about his grandma and the shiny wheelchair she rolls in. Tell Shelquan to get down from the air conditioner. He is singing, “This is why I’m hot,” with sunglasses he stole from Crystal, whose best friend Kiara has carved the word HATE in her arm. Remind Crystal and her girl Kiara that a woman should never mark her body with a word meant to destroy. Yell at them loudly and when Crystal’s nana shows up at the school, tell her anyway, even though she does not speak English and Crystal might not translate. She might. Tell Yaneira that she is a hot skillet when she writes, and not a “retard,” which is what Eduardo calls her under his breath. A fire woman. Really. And when Fatumata stops you in the street in front of the McDonald’s to say good morning, tell her she is late again, but yes, good morning. And tell her to get out of 339, or ask her to help you make it better. You know she can. Listen to Racheal’s poem over and over again. She needs it when Angel, who you cannot believe has turned on you, makes fun of the lilt in her voice, stare him down with your witchy eyes. Tell him, teach him how to say, “I will look at you Racheal and I will see you,” 1,000 times over. Racheal, where Trinidad and Guyana meet. Tell her the truth, that you never knew where she was from until you asked, and when you finally asked it was way later than you wanted. Put the principal in class with all the run-down teachers, no pencils, paperless notebooks. Don’t give him books because you know he is lazy. Call him lazy. Because he is. Make him walk in and out of the metal detectors, saying, “Next school year I will do better, and serve you better.” Make him mean it. Show up. Pencils and papers at the ready.