94: How To
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It's a how-to manual, just six pages long, written by a sixth grader in Brooklyn, named Peter. He handed it into his teacher three years ago. She still has it. "I keep it on my bulletin board by my refrigerator in case I, both for amusement and also, and all, you know, in case I ever need to consult it." The manual gives step-by-step instructions on how to protect yourself from all sorts of unwanted visitors. That's all sorts of unwanted visitors, says the teacher, Melissa Cantor. There are a number of them. The first is the Wolfman. Then come Aliens. Then there's one which is sort of a, it's kind of a subtle digression, but it's along the same lines. It's if you have a bad dream. Which in a way is an unwanted visitor? It so is, really. It really is. And the final one is dinosaurs. If you have an unwanted visitor at dinosaur? Right. The chapter in the Wolfman begins with this little pep talk. First thing it says, "Why would the Wolfman come to your house out of all the houses in Brooklyn?" But, if you're afraid, here's what you do. Number one, sleep with a glass with water in it. Number two, Peter tells you to close the blinds, get under the covers, put a fan on. Number three, if he comes in, put covers over your whole body. Move. He'll never suspect you're there. Exactly. This is what to do if a Wolfman with a low IQ comes to your house. Four, if you want the satisfaction of killing him, take the glass and splash the water in his face. Then it switches out, it says B. Wait, we've gone from one, two, three, four, and now we're going B, C, D? Right. What's interesting is that one instinctively knows, even in the sixth grade, that if there's going to be a how-to, there're going to have to be steps and sub-steps. Yes. I think in sixth grade, I don't know if this is a digression or not. It is a digression. Can I digress or should I stick to the text? I don't know. Digress away. In sixth grade, I think there's a general sense of that the universe has an order, and they know a few key terms that guide that order, but some of the specifics sort of escape them, and so for example, I had a sixth grader who wrote a story, and I knew it was a very, very steamy story, because when he went to give it to me, he was surrounded by all of his friends who were kind of giggling madly and sort of quite shocked, and he sort of
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