Purple Daze Read Online Free Page A

elementary school. I can tell her anything, repeat anything. But when I started writing, all these feelings about my mom started coming out. I’m not going to put them down, because they’re personal and I don’t know if you plan to read these out loud. Since I have 48 words left, I will say this—I can count on my mom and that means a lot when you’re a teenager.
    â€”Cheryl
    Â 
    LONELINESS
    Â 
Now that I’ve lived 17 years, I realize it’s better not to let any one person get too close to you. That way you’ll be used to being by yourself, so when real loneliness marches in to rip your heart out, you won’t feel it.
    â€”Nancy
    Â 
    FRIENDSHIP
    Â 
I know lots of people, both in and out of school. But I wouldn’t call them all friends. Bubba is more than my brother, because he listens to me like what I’m saying is important. That’s an out- standing quality. Cheryl listens too. But even more than that, she understands when I get hysterical and wipes my tears when I cry. That should be in Webster’s as a definition of best friend.
    â€”Ziggy

Nancy
    Phil’s in Vietnam
in Jungle Fatigues.
    Â 
    I’m in an apron,
balancing plates of pancakes.
    Â 
    The old people order $2.49 specials,
short-stack, crispy bacon, black coffee.
    Â 
    I pocket sticky tips: Nickel and dime
my way to college.

Don
    Dad’s baking grass brownies for
tomorrow’s march, while Mom
paints signs:

    PEACE
    Â 
    The newspaper shows a police barricade:
    Â 
    TURN LEFT AND GET SHOT
    Â 
    My parents think they can walk the 45-mile
perimeter of “troubled activity” in downtown
without getting trapped in a crossfire.
Mom picked flowers for the cops.
    Â 
    They’re nuts.

Cheryl
    Thank god Don is still in high school so I don’t have to worry about him getting drafted until after graduation and maybe by then the war will be over and all our soldiers will be home and marrying their girlfriends and moving into gingerbread houses and having kids and growing old together and dying in each other’s arms and being buried in the same cherry-wood casket and more than anything I want this for Phil and Nancy and I promise to write Phil everyday because some guys in Vietnam get lost in their minds and believe jungles and killing are the real world and forget what it’s like back home and I don’t want that to ever happen to him so I’m going to write about Boss Radio’s Top 40 and The Fugitive tracking the onearmed man. ...

Ziggy
    Ms. Hawes asks us to come up
with ideas we’d like to research,
because she thinks we should spend
more time in the library.
    Â 
    â€œIt doesn’t have to be long,” she says.
“Any ideas?”
    Â 
    Cheryl raises her hand. “How about
interesting quotes?”
    Â 
    Don nods. “Yeah, about war?”
    Â 
    Today we’re peeling and eating roasted
chestnuts because we’re reading Hemingway’s
memoir A Moveable Feast .
    Â 
    Ms. Hawes talks with her mouth full.
“Can you be more specific?”
    Â 
    Nancy folds up in her chair.
“Is old guys dreaming up wars so
our brothers and boyfriends get shot
specific enough?”

Nancy
    I’m teamed up with Don for the research project.
We meet at the library during lunch,
where he unearths a quote in a dusty book by
British historian, James Anthony Froude,
    Â 
    â€œWild animals never kill for sport. Man is
the only one to whom the torture and death
of his fellow creature is amusing in itself.”
    Â 
    The following day we wear black to school,
as planned. I have a fake bullet hole in my neck,
food-coloring blood spilling.
    Â 
    Ms. Hawes asks each pair to read in front
of the class. Ziggy and her partner chose one
by John le Carré,
    Â 
    â€œYou should have died when I killed you.”
    Â 
    Everyone laughs.
    Â 
    Me and Don are next. I found this one
myself,
    Â 
    â€œThey wrote in the old days that it is