I'm Jade in Church School Blues, the kid who was under the bottom of the bottom of the heap. All Solo kids suffer, but I was focused on the most by the mean kids. To this day, I'm not certain what it was about me that made them so angry. Perhaps it was that I failed to respond to them, failed to cry, to scream, to run, and they weren't going to give up until they got a reaction, even if it took years.
Well, as I've said in a previous post, I haven't had a problem finding forgiveness for the Dodos. The problem was finding forgiveness for myself for being vulnerable. Writing Church School Blues was a way back to embrace the kid whom I treated worse than a Dodo ever did. It was a way to get in touch with a kid who was a silent warrior. She couldn't take up for herself with the flashing swords of the spoken word, yet she never backed down either. Here are some passages from Church School Blues about Solos.
Even though, being eleven years of age, I am a lot younger than the other Solos in the room, we share too much ill fortune not to strike up a bit of a camaraderie, although I have to tell you that Solos tend to avoid each other. Sometimes I think that we Solos should band into our own Solo gang and be loyal to each other, and then it wouldn't be so bad, but the terrible thing is that nobody wants to be seen with a Solo—not even another Solo! Think about it. You hang out with the kid who is duck walking, or whose glasses are steaming, or who keeps touching the edges of stuff, and people start looking at you to see what you have in common with that person, and that's the sad truth --Church School Blues
She is one of those kids who is obviously a Solo on sight. It's the way she ducks her blonde head and slumps as if trying to be invisible. It's in the way that she doesn't seem to have the hang of walking, standing or sitting. Every movement looks awkward and unnatural. She is a silent kid.
--Church School Blues
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