A Poem for Carl Hiaassen's HOOT

There and Back, There and Gone again

A poem for Napoleon Bridger, inspired by learning the word “gestalt.”

The whole is bigger than the sum of its parts

Such as fins, tail, mouth and eyes.

Put that together and you get a whole fish

Not easily caught, not at all, with your fingers.

Run a whole race, and it is the sum of your steps.

Run a whole street, and it’s the blisters on your bare

Feet. Of course, ask the finish line, they don’t give a hoot.

You arrive at the end, exhausted, feelings laid bare,

And see your family sitting on the front steps

Taking the credit. Give them a salute of two fingers

For their trouble, and let them pout, a fine kettle of fish

They are anyway. You saved the day in my eyes!

You’re the hero – hold my hand, cowgirl, I love these parts.

Another perspective on Curious Incident

A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

(From the point of view of Brett, a middle school child with Autism that rides the bus with my Dad, who is the “Jimmy” in this piece. Brett’s record for city buses collected in one day is 25.)

I collect buses on the way to school. City buses. Every weekend, Mom takes me someplace on the city bus if I had a good week. This week was a good week. I read a whole book about a kid who collects red cars. He doesn’t like yellow. There are yellow stripes on my buses, so I think that means he would have a bad day on the way to school with me.

Some things about Christopher, the boy in the book, I liked a lot. He was good at math, and I am, too. He doesn’t like busy places, and sometimes I don’t either. Mom figures out the transfer schedule so we never have to go in the downtown depot. But Christopher likes to hide in small places. I don’t like that at all; I put a chair against the walk-in closet doors when I go in so no one can close it on me. I would not want to ride to London hiding behind suitcases.

Mr. Shears is like my neighbor. When we barbeque together, he pats my head like I am in kindergarten, even though I am as tall as he is now. He calls me a “retard” sometimes when he thinks I am not listening. Mom says he is the retarded one, but I think he is just mean. Some adults are like this. I used to think only kids were like this, and adults had to be nice to you, part of setting a good example and all that. Christopher sees adults being mean, too. It scares him, because you are supposed to be able to rely on the adults in your life. I would not like to live with my neighbor, or rely on him for anything at all.

Jimmy, who rides the bus with us, noticed my reading. He is a lot like Siobhan. He told me has problems with reading. At first, I don’t believe him, because he has this great job riding the bus with us, helping the kids with walkers and wheelchairs. Adults don’t always tell the whole truth, like Christopher’s dad and mom do not. Jimmy said that if you read a whole book, you can do anything. I believe him this time. Christopher said he could do anything because he wrote a whole book, and that is kind of the same.