Angelica

15

‘The sun rose and everything fell. And Alexanderski Dmitriski Budnikovski Jones was a thirteen-year-old Russian refugee with a missing tooth, who saw everything in metaphors and heard what he chose,’ she thinks, recalling the opening sentences of a book she had read long ago, back in the insignificant days of an insignificant reading competition at her insignificant old school. She appreciated what the book was trying to do, which was to tell the gripping story of a sad orphan who has to adjust to a new situation. This, in turn, reminds her of a well-written, critically-acclaimed, award-winning book which she had hated. It, too, was about a boy with no parents, suffering and adjusting as if his life depended on constant misery (which it may have done - she had very quickly stopped reading the despised novel).
This was in the fifth grade, and on the day she set down the praised book with a glower of animosity, her teacher announced that the class would begin a new reading unit, in which they would be experiencing the fictional life of a mid-18th-century girl who has been orphaned on a lonely island, and who will have to adjust to city life with her aunt and uncle.
‘WHY,’ she asks herself furiously, ‘DO THEY ALL HAVE TO BE ORPHANS? HOW MANY ADJUSTMENTS AND EMOTIONAL ORDEALS DO THEY HAVE TO EXPERIENCE? CAN WE AT LEAST HAVE SOME HAPPY ORPHANS OVER HERE?!’ She supposes that she was, in some bygone day of youth, slightly jealous of all of them. It seems unfair that orphans should get all of the adventure.
And then, considering the main characters of all her old favorites, she begins to consider their names as well. The fury resurfaces. ‘Don’t even let me get started on names,’ she thinks to herself with a mental grimace, because she knows that they are either all so utterly common that they ought not even be mentioned, or so utterly strange that they alone define the character. The sole heir to a glorious wealth, thirteen years old and missing for most of his life, discovers his true identity. Formerly John James Smith-Jones, he now assumes the true title of His Royal and Exalted Highness Lord Humphrey Wiggins McWallacetonburg, of the Farthest Isles of Drangwald.
‘Let us,’ she thinks with a smirk, ‘observe Harry Potter.’ His name is, frankly, dull. Yet somehow everyone in the wizarding world has bothered to remember it, which is not due to the mere fact that they can pronounce it without going into cardiac arrest. And would you believe it?! HE’S AN ORPHAN! HE HAS TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS! HE GOES THROUGH AS MANY EMOTIONAL ORDEALS AS YOUR AVERAGE PRISONER OF WAR! HE IS LIVING WITH HIS AUNT AND UNCLE! And, of course, good ole Harry has an arch-nemesis.
She sighs loudly, and decides that the number of arch-nemeses in popular literature is an abomination. If everyone could just get along, most novels would not need to be written. And they all thrive on constant battle between the protagonist and the antagonist. There is essentially a war of good versus evil from the perspective of good, which can get a little tiring. She has read the Harry Potter books several times by this point, and wonders what the series would be like from the point of view of Voldemort, or what would happen if Harry turned to the dark side and stayed there, or what the result of his literal death would be. Yet she knows that if she were to pick up the series and read it again, none of these things would happen and the books would stay firmly divided between the good and the bad.
‘This,’ she decides, ‘is why I like Winnie-the-Pooh.’ And it is a very valid thought. There are no “bad guys.” There is no battle or war. There is not even a major issue, unless you count that one time that the “bear of very little brain” got stuck in Rabbit’s front door. And, best of all, no one is an orphan. ‘Actually, they might be, for all we know,’ she thinks to herself. And this is true. But at least the opening line is not, “A bear by the name of Winnie-the-Pooh was a poor orphan with an existential crisis.” These stories would indeed be much less child-friendly if Tigger were a warlord, and, frankly, much more like Harry Potter. Likewise, what would happen if Harry Potter and Voldemort customarily met each other for snacktime? Would “The Many Magical Adventures of Winnie-the-Death-Eater” be a bestseller?
She makes the executive decision to not even begin to consider the portrayal of romance in books, yet still hopes that one day she will visit a Barnes & Noble and avoid seeing a large section aptly titled, “Teen Paranormal Romance.” She dreams of the #1 New York Times Bestselling Young Adult novel about a teenager born with a mysterious lack of hormones who goes on to be extremely successful at avoiding dangerous situations by not feeling the need to prove herself to a motorcyclist with a leather jacket and a bad haircut. Shockingly, this heroine manages to dodge the infamous non-triangular love triangle and succeed in life.
‘Yes,’ she thinks, ‘that is how it should be. And in that coveted novel, the characters would actually use the bathroom, instead of being improbably and yet unavoidably exempt from full bladders or bowels for the entire story.’ Somehow, however, her thoughts turn back to the Alexanderski of her earlier contemplations, and she recalls how well its plot fits in with nearly all others of its kind.
He is, per the usual, adopted by a loving family of cliche white people. They have a son, who is reluctant to make friends with their new acquisition, and a daughter who is full of teenage angst and spends all of her time lying in her room on a fuzzy pink rug, listening to the worst possible music of her era.
Socially, the “Alexanderski” character is shy. It comes with the territory. Maybe he has unique political views, or just a few obvious battle scars, but for one reason or another he is punched in the face at least once by a quasi-clique of obese, stupid, suburban boys with baseball bats and buzz cuts. But by the end, everyone magically gets along, as helped by a friendly neighborhood sports game which showcases Alexanderski’s undiscovered, prodigious baseball ability, or by a cheerful potluck at which people do not make fun of his name, and instead call him “Alex,” so that he is made to be one of them after all. Maybe Alex has some internal cultural conflict, trying to choose between Mother Russia and Cornfield Suburbia, but by the end he chooses both (often in a eureka moment, as helped along by a sympathetic teacher), and it is miraculously simple. The story will end on an inspiring note, touching the hearts of all of its readers.
‘Alexanderski finally had friends, and was surrounded by people who loved him. Though they were not Russian like him, Alexanderski and his new community shared a bond of trust. Thinking back to his traumatic life as a struggling refugee and orphan, Alexanderski, now Alex, realized that he was happy with the life which had chosen him. The sun rose, yes, and everything fell, but beyond that, the son rose as well. With tears of joy and a newly lightened heart, the teenage boy walked slowly towards the place he could now call home. Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.'