Sprout

seemed Mrs. M. was telling me I couldn’t write what I wanted. That I had to discuss a topic someone else picked out. This was starting to sound less like an extracurricular activity, more like, well, school .
    I glanced down at the dictionary, resisted the urge to start leafing through in search of words to hide behind.
    “So, uh, if the topic’s chosen at random, how can I practice for it?”
    Mrs. Miller did a combination sip-and-nod, which almost sent her straw up her nose.
    “A couple things. The first is: ignore the topic. Anything they’ll ask is basically a version of ‘So what do you want to be when you grow up?’ or ‘What formative experience made you realize that the U.S. of A. is the best country on earth?’ You prepare a stock answer to that question and then adapt it to whatever they actually put in front of you.”
    I nodded, being careful of my straw. “Kind of like when a reporter asks the president about the state of health care in America, and he says, ‘Health care is goin’ great—and so is the war on terror!’ and then rambles on about that for five minutes.”
    “Please, Daniel—”
    “ Sprout .”
    “Sprout. Please. This is a red state. No politics. Although it never hurts to throw in a little God.”
    “A little God?”
    Mrs. Miller held up an imaginary Grammy (’though how I knew it was a Grammy is anyone’s guess). “First of all I’d like to thank Almighty God for this award,” she said in the worst fake black accent I’ve ever heard, then laughed way too long at her own joke. When she’d regained her composure, she said, “God always goes over well, but any strong conviction will do in a pinch.” Another sip. “We can also do time trials.”
    “Time trials? Like wind sprints? Or board races?”
    Mrs. Miller ignored me. Glanced at her watch. Then:
    “You have five minutes to describe the sunset from the point of view of a man who’s just lost his wife to cancer. Don’t mention cancer, the wife, or death. Ready … set … go !”
    I stared at Mrs. Miller, trying to figure out what she did or didn’t know about me. I mean, really .
    “Four minutes and fifty seconds. Forty-nine. Forty-eight. Forty-ni—I mean, forty-seven.”
    She couldn’t have looked less like Ruthie, with her pleated navy blue pants pulled up to her bellybutton, her long-sleeved buttondown shirt tucked into the tightly belted waistband. Yet something about her reminded me of my best friend when we first met. Giving me orders. Telling me what to write. (Ruthie was spending the summer in England with her dad, by the way, which is another reason why I’d consented to meet with Mrs. Miller.)
    “Thirty-two, thirty-one, thirty …”
    Well, what can I say? I like it when women tell me what to do. I reached for my dictionary.
    “Daniel Bradford, if you dare start an essay with ‘Webster’s Dictionary defines … ’ ”
    “Re lax ,” I set my notebook on the dictionary’s front cover. “I just need something to write on.” I grabbed my pencil. As with Ruthie, I wrote three words, then handed the page to Mrs. Miller.
    “You’ve got four minutes left.”
    “I’m done.”
    Mrs. Miller pursed her lips—not a flattering expression when you’ve left half your frosty lipstick on a bendy straw. In a slow voice she read:
    “‘It is dark.’”
    She looked up at me. Opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened her mouth again, but this time to take a drink. Then:
    “It is dark.”
    She didn’t look at the page, but at the horizon, where the sun wasn’t even close to setting. “It … is … dark.” She shook her head and handed the notebook back to me. “You know what? You’re too damn clever for your own good.”
    I bent forwards, shook my green locks in her face.
    “I’m too damn clever for my own good what?”
    Mrs. Miller tried and failed to keep from smirking.
    “You’re too damn clever for your own good, Sprout .”
    “ ’At’s my girl.”
    “Tragedy, adversity, triumph, and a little humor.”
    During the next three months, these were Mrs. Miller’s buzzwords (although sometimes they were “keywords,” and other times they were “talking points,” and occasionally they were just slurred, but I didn’t quiz her about the distinction).
    I.e.:
    Tragedy: dead mom. Duh.
    Adversity: drunk dad; poverty. Again: duh.
    Triumph: in Mrs. Miller’s terms, “articulation, education, and matriculation,” to which I was like “Huh?” But then, when I figured out she meant