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A Place for Me

by Jamie-Jo Brenner

205 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0003; ISBN 1-55395-640-0; US$20.00, C$22.00, EUR16.50, £11.50

It's the place no one wanted to go, but the only place they ever belonged.

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About the book      About the author      Sample excerpts       Catalogue info

About the Book James Madison is a High School like no other. It was never about who's popular and who's not. It isn't so much what you learn from books but what you learn from experience. And the students that make up James Madison have had a lot of experience with life, and the disappointments that come with it. Students were sent here for one reason or another, and had nowhere else to go. Their world crumbled around them and at James Madison, they were forced to piece their lives back together. They learned that sometimes fitting in is only half the battle, and that he other half is finding yourself. But what they weren't prepared for was to enjoy the school. It may have been the place that none of them wanted to be, but it became the only place they ever belonged.

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About the Author Jamie Brenner was born in Burnips, MI. in 1982. She graduated from Hamilton High School in 2000. After attending Pratt Institute (in Brooklyn, NY) she came home to fulfill her dreams. In the summer of 2001, she directed & produced a small Indie-film, and is currently working on her second novel. Click here to visit the author's web site, JAMIE-JO BRENNER

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Sample Excerpts

PROLOGUE

FINDING THE WORDS

Have you ever been inspired? Has anyone ever made you want to be better than you are, or made you believe you're worth more than you thought? If you're lucky, maybe you could name someone who possesses one of those characteristics. But it's rare to find someone who has touched you so greatly that even when you're not around them, they inspire you.

There are people you know your whole life, who never inspire you. Then there are people you just meet, who impact your life more than you could have ever imagined. In fact, I just had such an experience. I never expected to be inspired the way I was, but it happened and I'm grateful. It's the place in which it occurred that is the most unusual, for it was known as a place of outcasts.

James Madison High was a school like no other. It was the school of losers. The school of failures. And the school of problem children. But as it turned out, it was the only place we belonged. We aren't perfect, no one is. But here, at James Madison, we're like everyone else. And that's all we ever wanted to be.

James Madison is a school in the middle of nowhere; located in Colorado, atop a mountain. A wealthy entrepreneur named Jonathan Jensen, who died a few years back, started the school twenty years ago. Since then, his daughter, Alexandria, has run it. She lives for the school and does her best to inspire her students, but recently the school has been in financial trouble and she's at risk of losing it. Losing the school means that twenty teenagers will have no place to go. That is to say, this was our last chance and many of us have come to call this place home.

So she takes in students, kids with problems and in desperate need of help, and attempts to reform them. The obstacle is that we not only hate the world and all people, but we hate ourselves. We are not, nor have we ever been, worthy of a chance. We lack confidence, direction and more importantly, love. Alex offered us those things, but it wasn't until recently, that we found them.

James Madison my have been called the school of losers, but we came to understand that it was a house of acceptance. It became our place of inspiration.

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"Let's go to the library." Chris agreed. "You'll love it, it looks so cool."

"I even linked it to different sites, especially teen-based ones. I hope we'll find an audience." Ethan announced as he led them to a computer in the library.

"How many pages do you have so far?" Hayley asked.

"I don't know. I have links to each of your pages. And a homepage, which looks really cool." Ethan answered. "Chris put a few of his drawings on it."

"Not of me?" Hayley was mortified.

Sam giggled under her breath.

"You wouldn't want pictures of you on the net." Hayley defended.

"No. But they're drawings, very good ones." Sam teased. "And they flatter you."

Brooke giggled, but Hayley wasn't impressed. She glared at them until they shut their mouths.

"People can post questions, or e-mail us individually." Ethan said as he logged on to the Internet.

"What's the address to our site?" Ryan asked.

"We're at tabookids.com." Ethan answered.

"Taboo?" Brooke questioned.

"Since we, as delinquents, are considered taboo. In our society, we're bad but here, we're accepted like everyone else." Ethan nervously tried to defend his reasoning.

"I like it." Sam replied. And her acceptance was all that was needed.

"What kind of picture do you have for our homepage?" Kate asked.

"Scenery. The lake and trees. One of Chris' best drawings." Ethan answered as the page came into view.

The kids looked at it in awe. Ethan slowly scrolled down the page and pointed out the different features of their site. They were excited about the project.

"And these are your links." Ethan explained when they reached the bottom.

"See, little symbols for each person." Chris added proudly. "I drew them."

"A notebook?" Brooke asked, looking next to her name.

"You write in your notebook and carry it with you where ever you go." Hayley pointed out.

"So does Chris." Brooke complained.

"You don't like it?" Chris looked dejected.

"It's just. My whole life has been simplified into a notebook." Brooke sighed.

"What's this?" Sam asked, looking at her name.

"A megaphone." Chris grimaced.

"When have I ever carried a megaphone?" Sam wondered.

"Probably never." Chris replied. "But when I think of leaders, I think of them in front of a large crowd speaking into a megaphone."

"And who have you seen do that?" Ryan asked, skeptically.

"Gym teachers?" Brooke teased, still upset with the notebook drawing.

"The point is that Sam is our leader." Chris answered. "She made us do things we wouldn't normally do, and she helped us find ourselves. She helped us find the good things."

Sam was honored. Brooke and Hayley nodded their heads in agreement.

"Chris." Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm not trying to be your leader. I'm just showing you what I wished people had shown me. You're not alone. There are people who understand what you're going through."

Chris smiled.

"And Chris, no one has ever said something so amazing to me. Thank you." She kissed his cheek. "I'd be honored to be the megaphone."

When Sam kissed Chris, he smiled then he looked at Hayley.

"It's never going to happen." Hayley quipped when she saw the way Chris looked at her. Kate playfully hit him, and his attention was back on the matter at hand.

"I'm happy to be a notebook. " Brooke replied, reconsidering her initial disgust.

"You like to write." Chris answered. "When Sam asked us our talents, you said you were a writer."

Brooke felt guilty for not graciously accepting his gesture. After all, it made sense to make her talent her call sign.

"And I'm a piano?" Ryan asked, almost mockingly.

"What is with you people?" Ethan jumped in. "He did this for you, and you're making him feel bad."

"Of course you like it, he made you a television." Ryan protested.

"It's a computer." Ethan corrected. "I'm good with computers."

"How come Kate is a musical note, and I'm a flag?" Hayley asked.

"Flag?" Sam repeated, taking a closer look at the screen.

"Yes, you know how people stick a flag in the place they conquer?" Chris began, but was interrupted.

"I conquered what exactly?" Hayley said, upset.

"This school, life; you name it." Chris looked at her and noticed that she tightly crossed her arms, so he went on. "You are who makes this school what it is. You did it. And we all love you for it."

"She's staking her claim in life." Sam replied, noticing Hayley was less upset.

"I like it." Hayley replied coldly.

The others laughed at Hayley, who had seemed to regress back to her cynical self for the time being. After several seconds, she joined in the laughter. They were laughing so hard that they didn't hear Miss Brenner approach them.

"This is a library." She shushed as she came up behind them.

They stopped laughing immediately.

"Sorry Miss B." Sam replied.

Miss Brenner look at her callously.

"Miss Brenner, sorry." Sam corrected her error. "You didn't like the nickname?"

Her friends hid their smiles.

"We were just talking." Ethan replied quickly.

"In a library?" Miss Brenner asked as she took a seat by a computer next to them.

"I'd like to thank you for teaching us today." Brooke said, honestly. "I've been waiting for you to increase the difficulty for a while now. I came here because I had to and I didn't want my education to suffer because of it."

"Had I known you were eager to learn, I could've tutored you separately. Got you ahead in your classes." Miss Brenner answered.

"What about the rest of us?" Hayley interrupted. "She's not the only one who wanted to learn algebra. I've wanted to learn it forever."

Miss Brenner eyed her suspiciously.

"I was riding a bus with a tenth grader once, and I remember him showing me his math book. I thought it would be cool to be as smart as him." Hayley paused, fondly remembering the boy. "I never say him again though, because Mom and I moved as soon as I got home that day."

"You never knew when you were going to move?" Sam asked. "She just packed up your things and left?"

"No, she'd pack her things. Mine usually stayed behind. We didn't have enough room for nonsense." Hayley thought about her mother. "Besides, if she took everything she owned, then she wouldn't have enough room for me."

"Is that the excuse she gave you when she left you here?" Brooke asked.

Hayley recalled the worst day of her life. "She didn't need an excuse. She told me that nice people lived just beyond the mountain and I should go find them. I thought she was going to park the car, so I headed off without her.

Hayley paused.

"She never came to find me. I waited and waited. I walked back down the mountain, but the car was gone. I was so stupid because I laid in the ditch waiting for her to come back for me. She never did."

Sam rubbed Hayley's shoulders then gave her a hug. Brooke hugged her as well. Ryan firmly held Hayley's waist, his touch made her feel safe.

Miss Brenner didn't know how to respond to the story. She was a teacher, not a psychologist. But the kids know what to do; they knew how to comfort their friend without saying a word. She found herself wishing she knew what was going through their minds, though she was terrified of what she would find. With that realization, she no longer wanted to know. She wanted to be far away from the pain and sadness. She wanted to believe that they were just kids, and forget that they were kids with problems. But after she saw and heard, she knew she would never forget.

"I'm sorry that I underestimated you." Miss Brenner said.

"We don't blame you, you're like everyone else. We've never held that against you." Hayley replied.

"But I don't want to be like everyone else in your lives, I'd like to think that I was a little different."

"It's ironic," Sam said. "You hate the thought of being like everyone else, while all we've ever wanted was to be just like everyone."

Her followers nodded in agreement.

"I'm all set here. Are you ready?" Ethan asked, needing to escape.

Hayley led the way out. Ryan grabbed her hand, and led them to Alex's house.

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Catalogue Information

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