Jack Gantos - Writing Radar: Using Your Journal to Snoop Out and Craft Great Stories

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For Anne and Mabel and Nacho & Scootch

So, let me tell you a story about how stories happen to me all day long and why keeping a journal has been my greatest writing tool ever since I was a kid.

The other day I spoke to students at a school in Boston about how to set up their writing journals. Everything about the school was bright and shiny with furniture polish and fresh paint. Each room was well organized, and so neat and tidy the kids looked like mannequins as they sat motionless with their hands clasped together and wide eyes zeroed in on mine. They didnt twitch or wiggle. They didnt wince when I told them stories about the fountains of blood squirting out of me like lawn sprinklers after I pulled warts off my body with rusty pliers. They didnt blink when I told them about how I was shot across my neighbors yard on their homemade human catapult. Nothing got a rise out of these kids, but I was determined to inspire them to show some emotion __ some pleasure __ some storytelling joy! I told them about riding bikes off the neighbors roof and into their swimming pool, sticking forks into electric sockets and shattering my fingernails, roller-skating through flaming hula hoops, eating cockroaches __ nothing worked. These kids were not human. I glanced at their teacher for a clue as to what had turned these kids into sculpted zombies. She avoided my eyes and stood in a corner with slumped shoulders as if she were a defeated flag on a pole.

This utter lack of emotion was something I had seen before. But where? When? I felt as if I had written about it in another life, as if I was living an event all over again.

This feeling of dj vu had started earlier, when I had entered the schools front office and signed in as a guest speaker. The secretary had given me a sticky VISITOR pass to slap onto my jacket lapel. From experience, I knew not to put it onto my jacket because sometimes the glue didnt come off properly and left behind a permanent ugly smudge. I held the sticky pass by the corner and planned to slap it onto the bottom of some kids desk when I got the chance.

At that moment, a strong bleachy smell began to blow from the overhead air vent. I took one sniff and my eyes began to water. I spotted a box of tissues on the office counter. As I reached forward, the secretary saw my hand.

Not so fast, she advised. Youd better read the tissue box pledge.

On the side of the box was taped a three-by-five card that said:

I dont want an issue

So before you take a tissue

More than one is an excess

Blow your nose without a mess

Poetic advice from: MISS FIDELITY

I carefully took just one tissue. As I dabbed at my nose I raised my eyes and noticed a radiant gold-framed portrait of the tanned principal, MISS FIDELITY , staring down into my eyes.

She was in a yellow suit, and across her neck hung a triple strand of glowing pearls that harmonized with the luminous sheen of her pearly smile. Her pewter hair was piled upward on her head and sculpted into the shape of an old school bell. Between her red well-scrubbed hands she held a book titled There Is Always a Better Way .

I wonder who wrote that book, I said to myself. My guess was soon confirmed.

I was buzzed through the office security door and entered the main hallway, where the sunny Miss Fidelity waited to welcome me with her hand extended.

I marched forward, and as I did so my sticky name tag broke away and floated toward the floor. It landed glue-side down, and in my haste to be polite I stepped on it as I shook her hand.

Thank you for inviting me into your school, I said warmly.

I hate to begin a friendship by asking for a favor, she said directly, but could you pick up your fallen name tag?

Sure, I replied, and dutifully squatted down. But the name tag had flatly adhered to the floor. I tried to dig a fingernail under one corner and peel it up, but I only succeeded in tearing away thin shreds of paper.

Cant get a grip on it? she remarked impatiently. Well, there is always a better way.

Im sure there is, I replied, and smiled awkwardly as I hopped up.

Now, if you will excuse me, she said, I have to supervise the morning announcements. Today our student Respect Team is performing. Then she gave a final harsh glance toward the stuck name tag before marching into the office.

A moment later, Good morning, students! boomed from the ceiling speakers and out the open doors of the classrooms. Her no-nonsense voice was as severe as barbed wire. Let us all start our day by shouting the schools Respect Pledge along with our Respect Cheer Team!

Once again, I felt as if I was living my past all over again. But I had no time to reflect on it because the Respect Team took the microphone and shouted, R is for respect!

Respect echoed down the shiny hallway.

E is for effort was next.

That was followed by a rousing S is for studying!

And P is for perseverance!

E is for energy!

C is for caring! (I thought I heard some kid shout out cleaning!)

T is for teamwork!

When they had finished, Miss Fidelity took the microphone. Could someone send a Respect Ambassador to the main hallway with a sharp-edged scraper? she said. We have an issue on the floor.

When she said Respect Ambassador I suddenly realized why I felt I had lived this day once already __ because, in a way, I had.

* * *

That day I spoke to several groups of students at Miss Fidelitys school, and when I finished I eagerly dashed home and began to search through my collection of old journals. It didnt take long to find what I was looking for.

I was in fifth grade when I wrote about being a school Respect Detective. I was the new kid at school that year and on my first day the principal called me into her office. I have a job for you, she said. Nobody knows you yet and you dont know the other kids, so you will be the perfect detective for me.

Detective didnt sound very friendly to me. But I was a pretty good snoop. If you keep a diary, you must be a bit of a snoop in order to sneak up on people, listen to what they say, watch what they do, and write it all down.

The principal continued. There are two things going on in this school that Im determined to stop, she said with her voice full of determination. First, some kid is chewing gum and sticking it under the desks and cafeteria tables and sinks in the bathroom __ everywhere. I scraped off a dozen samples of gum and showed them to my dentist. He said the tooth pattern in the gum belongs to one kid __ and I want you to catch that kid.