Same Sun Here: List 1

All the girls love him, which makes him very conceited.

This year, my parents will apply for naturalization. They just got their I-551 Alien Registration Cards in the mail, so in about a year, maybe, maybe, they will be citizens.

Cuba sat on the stoop and watched.

Is this true? My mamaw says it is probably a stereotype, which I looked up in the dictionary and it means “an oversimplified opinion.”

First, I got into the Arts and Humanities Summer Program by writing an essay about Mrs. Lau and how we are friends.

Last month we went to the Van Cortlandt House, where Dutch people lived a long time ago; the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where the red hibiscus is blooming; and the Tenement Museum, where we saw what life was like in Chinatown in the 1880s.

When we go fishing, Rufus just lies down on the creek bank with his chin on top of his paws—until we start to reel in a fish.

We learned about activists last year on Martin Luther King Day. I wrote a paper about how he was like Gandhiji, who fought the British. Can you tell me what is your mamaw fighting for?

When I heard the thunder, I went out the window and stood on the fire escape so I could see the sky. It was grey and OMINOUS.

The rain sounded different all over, hitting the garbage bags on the curb, the tops of air conditioners, the big cloth awning above the bodega, the windows, and the rusty fire escape.

My favorite new word is SUCCULENT.

I could see seven or eight church steeples and my school down there right at the foot of Town Mountain.

He has jowls, which tremble when he waves.

Today in school, my science teacher, Mrs. Heap, was talking about “cohesion” and giving us instructions on this exercise we had to do in class where we got into groups and tried to see how many drops of water we could get onto one penny.

She ignored me for a little while, but then finally she put her hands on her hips and looked aggravated and said, “Yes, River? What is SO important?”

“Mountaintop removal is a controversial topic in these parts, as you well know,” Mr. Wright said.

Like the other day in science, we were comparing buoyancy in plain and salt water, and Marvel dropped a beaker and it broke.

The delis on Delancey are selling pumpkins and gourds, and the big oak on 12th is full of acorns.

She is a white parakeet with a yellow crest, and when she is out of her cage, she sits on Cuba’s rump and cleans herself.

Then she gave me some cocoa lotion that burned, and said the hair will grow back thick and coarse and I will have to shave my legs for the rest of my life.

No one is grazing their goats by the river.

So I just gave him the dirtiest look I could muster up.

“He’s just stupid, honey. Ignorant people don’t know any better, but stupid people WANT to be stupid. So just forget it.”

Every once in a while he would look up at me and smile, his tongue lolling out. He’s the best dog.

Coach says that if I keep up the way I’ve been playing in scrimmages, he’s going to start me this year.