Gotta Love the Girls

This afternoon I sat down for an hour-long Q&A session with the members of the Poveda Quill writing club. Twenty girls in all, and they fired one question after the other at me and Russell Molina. It was completely unlike my three previous Q&A engagements with various college classes in UP, where it's pretty tough to get a student to even want to ask you about your work, and the phenomenon of dead air is a common occurrence that lasts at least twenty seconds every five minutes. I had never been interviewed before by girls from the third and fourth grade, so I didn't know what to expect. Ever the pessimist, I thought they'd behave the same way. Happily, I was totally wrong. I should never have worried that I would either bore the class to death or that the number of questions they'd have for me would be roughly equal to zilch. I wasn't in that room for two minutes before I saw hands, hands, and more hands waving in the air. There was one fourth-grader named Belli who had a really long list of questions ready. What's your favorite book? Who's your favorite author? Did you really plan to be a writer? What do you do when you get stuck in the middle of a story? Who or what inspires you to write stories? Are you on facebook? How old are you? (that was the moment Russell walked in and I managed to dodge that question for a while. In the end I raffled off one of my new books to whoever could guess my age, and I told them it was greater than thirty but lower than a million. Aaargh! I actually heard one girl shout "42!". It was little Francine who guessed right...38, and one of girls quickly mentioned that I was only one year younger than her mom *SIGH*)

The twitchiest girl in the club was Audrey -- smart as a whip, and a bundle of nerves. She couldn't stop moving and always had words tumbling out of her mouth, but I know this kind of kid very well, thanks to my equally twitchy nephew Jakob, so I was cool with all her nervous energy. I hope, though, that she never learns to drink coffee. Her polar opposite was tall, reserved Melissa, who made me laugh when she stood over the much shorter Audrey and chanted "Calm down, calm down" while patting her on the head.

Pizza was served about ten minutes before the class ended. I got first pick of the slices when a bunch of girls brought the box over to me and made me go first. Every now and then one of them would sidle over and ask me about my work. It turns out that I have writing habits in common with smiling Sab, who likes to draft on paper and uses a special pen when she writes. Before the girls all rushed off at the end of the hour, they surrounded me and asked me to sign my autograph on bits and pieces of paper.

The Quill club gave me a lovely hard-bound journal as a gift for coming to see them today. It says on the cover "Stuck today, inspired tomorrow. Make more notes." Absolutely sound advice. As I stepped out of the school's Edsa gate on my way to Galleria, Audrey ran after me and gave me a rolled-up piece of paper. As I said my thank yous she wrapped her arms around my middle and gave me a hug. I unrolled the paper when I got to my car, and saw that it was a welcome note with little drawings on it. I'm posting it on my refrigerator along with the rest of my treasures from my favorite kids. Gotta love those girls. Even a spinster with a heart of stone can have no defense against really nice kids. I haven't felt this cool since a million years ago.