Tagger: Graffiti Was His Life — and Soul

By Mary A. Monroe

Luis, 14, is finding his soul through a dangerous, criminal addiction graffiti

Freshman Luis Arteaga, 14, cant stay awake in class at Sunrise High School because hes up most nights until early morning working on graffiti drawings for his Black Book.

Once Luis teams up with a crew called Skills, headed by The Beast and Grill, his life gets more and more out of control until hes forced to move to his dads home in a small midwestern river town called Cave-in-Rock, rich in mystery and heritage. Luis feels he is being called to the cave to do something but what?

This is Luis fascinating story, inspired by true events.

Original Grafffiti art designs by Artist Job Narvaez, who inspired this novel

Free materials available at . . .
www.marymonroebooks.com

Tagger is the final book of the exciting trilogy about students from Mr. Martins Drop Out Prevention Class, by the author of Miracle at Monty Middle School and Krazy White Girl.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456750275

Mary A. Monroe

“Teens love this book,” ... “I was pleasantly surprised to see the book fly through the classroom,” -- these are just a few of the many comments teachers have said about Mary A. Monroe’s trilogy of novels for middle and high school students. Her titles include Miracle at Monty Middle School (also available in Spanish as Milagro en la Escuela Monty), Krazy White Girl, Tagger, and now, by popular demand from readers' comments such as, "When will your books be made into movies?" the Theatre/Screenplay version of Tagger! Tagger is inspired by the true story of one of Monroe’s former students whose story just had to be told; he had been hopelessly addicted to graffiti art at age 14, staying out on the streets until early morning. Graffiti was his life, until it jeopardized everything he wanted, including his high school diploma. Recently named Teacher of the Year for Palm Beach County, Florida, Mary Monroe writes about topics that happen in real life to her students – family problems, addictions, abuse – as well as things that are important to young adults – setting and reaching dreams and goals, making friends, having that first crush – and just keeping it real. Ms. Monroe also appeals to teachers by having complete unit questions, activities and reading counts quizzes available free on her website. She is a former freelance writer and advertising copywriter, who currently teaches English at a public high school in South Florida, where she resides with her husband and three children. She is a National Board Certified teacher and has a Masters in Education, Reading. Her goal is to entertain and inspire her readers to get hooked on reading! For more information on ordering her books, and free teacher study guides, visit her web site at www.marymonroebooks.com

Book preview

TAGGER

GRAFFITI WAS HIS LIFE — AND SOUL

MARY A. MONROE

SKU-000451097_TEXT.pdf

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

Although inspired by true events, this book is a work of fiction. Places, events, and situations in this story are purely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

© 2011 Mary A. Monroe. All rights reserved.

Illustrations © by Job Narvaez 2011

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/18/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-5027-5 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-5028-2 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-5029-9 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011903560

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This novel

is dedicated

to all the boys in

my intensive reading classes

who find reading

boring

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Contents

Chapter 1

SLEEPING IN CLASS

Chapter 2

SATURDAY SCHOOL WITH MR. MARTIN

Chapter 3

REBELLIOUS

Chapter 4

HITTING THE STREETS

Chapter 5

THE BEAST AND MY NEW CREW

Chapter 6

WORKIN’ THE NIGHT

Chapter 7

MA’S SICKNESS

Chapter 8

CREW LIFE

Chapter 9

GIG’S UP

Chapter 10

BEHIND BARS

Chapter 11

DISGRACED

Chapter 12

THE HAUNTING TRUTH

Chapter 13

THE LONG DRIVE

Chapter 14

CAVE-IN-ROCK

Chapter 15

HAUNTINGS

Chapter 16

COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS

Chapter 17

MY NEW HIGH SCHOOL

Chapter 18

TINY?

Chapter 19

MEETING MISS SOPHIE

Chapter 20

STILL TAGGING

Chapter 21

COLONEL’S STORIES

Chapter 22

NIGHT VISITS

Chapter 23

REVENGE

Chapter 24

URGES

Chapter 25

FEELING DOWN

Chapter 26

MADNESS

Chapter 27

NOTORIOUS

Chapter 28

THE COLONEL

Chapter 29

DEADLY RIVER ADVENTURES

Chapter 30

POOLS OF BLOOD!

Chapter 31

IN HIDING

Chapter 32

OUTSIDER

Chapter 33

LYING

Chapter 34

CAVE OUTLAWS

Chapter 35

THE CONFRONTATION

Chapter 36

LOCKED UP

Chapter 37

A GUARDIAN ANGEL

Chapter 38

CHRISTMAS

EXTENSION ACTIVITIES

GLOSSARY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE ARTIST

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Tagger_PortraitsFinal.jpg

Chapter 1

SLEEPING IN CLASS

Hey, Bro – wake up! Class is over. We’re gonna be late.

Huh?

Yeah, you got Ms. Taylor really angry. She put the timer next to your ear and you still didn’t wake up!

My eyes were beginning to focus now. I wiped some drool off my mouth. My friend, Roberto, was talking a mile a minute, his silver chains swaying to his movements.

You mean Testy Taylor tried to wake me up and couldn’t? Man, that’s lame.

The whole class was cracking up. That alarm buzzed right in your face and you didn’t even move. You were breathing heavy, like you was snoring, and your face was resting on your forearm and your lip was all pushed up like a duck.

Why didn’t you shake me or something? I asked him, as we walked to our next class at Sunrise High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

I couldn’t – I was on the other side of the room. Marisol tried to say something to you, but nothing helped, he laughed. I have to admit, it was funny, watching Ms. T getting more and more angry and you just sleeping away like a baby.

Oh, Man, I thought to myself. Marisol had to see me like that! Marisol . . . I could just see her big brown eyes watching the whole thing, the same big brown eyes that have me so into her. Again, I was the fool. Tiny, puny Luis, the laugh of the classroom.

You see, at 14 and only 5’4, people always called me by my nickname, Tiny," the same tag I used in all of my graff drawings in my Black Book. But lately, I tagged by my new name, Rheōno. My drawings were getting sick, and through them, I was becoming recognized as a talented graffiti artist. They had a strong hold on me and many nights, I was up until early morning, drawing sketch after sketch, perfecting different styles and techniques. Like last night – I must have finally fallen asleep about 3 a.m., so no wonder I fell asleep in my intensive reading class at 7:30! Who wants to read at 7:30 in the morning? All I wanted to do was work on my Black Book.

It was hard to explain, but graffiti had become my life, my soul. I had spent hours and hours on my computer researching different graff styles, first here in America and then overseas. As an artist, when you look at another artist’s work, you usually can tell what he’s feeling, and when I saw graffiti, I saw soul. I would always get lost looking at it because I’d always try to find out what the artist was saying or what message he was trying to get across, and after a while it became really easy for me to read graffiti, so I got into it. I started comparing styles from New York and Los Angeles; it was very interesting, the way that Graff would look in one region and then look totally different in another region. I did some research on the internet. I started with the art style in Florida and then New York and Los Angeles and then after that, I realized that the American population has their own style and colors. Then I researched French graffiti and I started checking out their style and they were more about imagery, but they also used caricatures a lot. Once I explored the art work in France, I researched all the art work in Germany and their colors are full – they use a lot of red; they are very strong. Then I studied Mexico, and they’re all about their culture, basically Mayan, heavily influenced by the revolution.

Hey dreamer, what are you in such deep thought about? Marisol asked me. How could I describe Marisol? She was gorgeous with smooth, caramel-colored skin from her native Dominican Republic, curly shoulder length hair and big brown eyes that just connected with me. I had a major crush on her, but so far, we were just friends.

Just trying not to be late for art class. Ms. Zacker is cool, but she doesn’t like you being late.

Just try to stay awake for her class! Marisol laughed, hitting me on the shoulder, playfully. Her touch ran through me. Ms. Taylor was really angry with you this morning when you didn’t wake up.

That image of me stung – me sleeping when Ms. Taylor put that alarm clock next to my ear with the whole class laughing at me, especially because Marisol had to see it all. I tried to play it off, like it didn’t matter.

Hey, I was up until 3 a.m. last night, working in my Black Book. I got involved in a collage drawing with lots of different images – couldn’t stop if I tried, I said. It was the truth, graffiti was my thing. It’s what I do. It was slowly taking up more and more of my life. Would I be ready to go to the streets with my art? I felt the time was coming, soon.

Okay, see you at lunch, Marisol said. I didn’t have to explain myself with Marisol. She totally understood. That’s why we’re such good friends and why I like her so much. I’d like to see if we could be more, but if it hurt our friendship, then it wouldn’t be worth it. Marisol was just too important to me. She was one of the few girls I knew who appreciated graffiti for what it was – art and expression, not a criminal activity. Sometimes, after school, we’d just sit together and draw. She was partial to monkeys and loved to draw monkeys, while I loved to draw everything – people’s names, symbols. I got lost in my drawings, and took great pride in them. When I’d do a piece for someone, I’d think about that person and use the colors I thought they’d like, the shapes that would appeal to them. I wanted to venture out into the streets to do my work on a more public arena, but couldn’t stand it if the city officials painted over my work. My designs were like my babies, and I couldn’t bear to have people shun them and try to paint over them.

As I sat in Ms. Zacker’s art class, listening to a lecture on Expressionist Art, our Assistant Principal, Mr. Docker, strode in. He was one of those APs you didn’t want to mess with – 6’7, African-American, and not prone to smiling much. He had a few words with Ms. Zacker, showed her some papers, and then said, Luis Arteago, come with me."