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Mollie Gross

Mr. Taylor-Christie

3rd Period Honors

27 March 2025

Fresh Ink Essay

The three story’s in Fresh Ink that I chose include, Eraser Tattoo, A Boys Duty,

and Catch, Pull, Drive. I believe that these stories are helpful and all teens should read

these specific stories. These stories hold valuable information about specific things like,

relationships at a young age, hold onto your dreams, keep working through tough times,

transgender equality, and bullying. These are seemingly important topics or events that

go on in teens lives and this book, full of stories may help them understand more, or

overall understand better. Topics in these specific stories are critical in a teens life and

sometimes they may need help understanding what they will end up doing at some point

in their teenage years.

Eraser Tattoo

The protagonists in this story, are Shay and Dante, who are in a relationship. Shay is

moving away with her parents and Dante is saying his goodbyes to her. Dante cannot

remember where Shay is moving too and keeps asking her questions such as, “Why do

you have to move so far away?” He seems upset and like his entire world is getting

uprooted by his girlfriend moving away, and maybe to him, it is. I believe that this story

shows that sometimes even though adults may excuse these things as non-important but

to these kids, these relationships are everything. The kids spend time, money, and energy

into trying to have relationships at a young age, and their parents dismiss it as if its
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nothing. They want these things, they put so much into these relationships for parents to

forbid it or completely disregard it entirely. The importance of having these relationships

to these kids is like an adult’s job importance.

A Boy’s Duty

This story starts with a boy, Zachery James who is a runaway from his farm home, where

his father overworked him. Zachery would work 8 to 10 hours a day, while going to

school all at the same time. Because of this, Zachery ran away a total of 6 times and the

final time being when he’s 12. He spends time at this café where his friends steal from all

the time. Zachery often dreams of becoming a teacher, or solving massive ‘what ifs’. The

wife of the owner, Ma Suzie, lost two boys in a miscarriage, so she treats these boys like

her children even while they steal from her. Mr. Jackson, her husband, however does not

like the boys and thinks all of them are thieves. Ezekiel met Zachery when he had just ran

away and they became friends because Ezekiel taught him the ropes of being homeless

and how to live. He holds onto a painting of the solar system that he’s been working on

for 2 or 3 years. In the café, there are multiple other people who have been there since

midnight, like Zachery, but Mr. Jackson, only confronts Zachery about being here for so

long. Zachery argues about the other people and Mr. Jackson lets her stay because Ma

Suzie convinced him to let Zachery stay. Zachery works around the café to pay off his

friends debt, seating people at the counter, and sending their orders to the cook. After

Zachery works for awhile, and talks to some of the customers, his friends rush in and

steal a lady’s purse. Zachary ends up running with them and eventually he goes back to

get his painting. He is met with Mr. Jackson waiting out back with a baseball bat.

Eventually, after some talking Mr. Jackson lets Zachary beck inside and sits down. He
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then finally seems to understand what ‘a boy’s duty is’ and he says that it is to hold onto

his dreams. Personally, I believe this story is very important for people to read, because

as kids, there are lots of things that we think we want to do, but in these years is when we

really start thinking, and if you let things from the past, or people affect your dreams,

you’ll lose them. You wouldn’t be happy because you dropped a dream somewhere in

life and never picked it back up. Holding onto dreams as a teenager and throughout the

rest of your life is important. It’s what makes your personality.

Catch, Pull, Drive

Catch, Pull, Drive is a story of a transgender male, Tommy. Tommy is on the swim team,

but he fears, because of the reason he is transgender, that he wont be able to swim

anymore. He goes into practice and the boys start calling him names, instead of

responding he simply ignores them and walks out of the locker room. Throughout

practice, Roman, calls Tommy names and Tommy is seemingly becoming annoyed from

this. Towards the end of the 3-hour long practice, Parker and Tommy are picked to race

in a lap around the pool. Throughout the beginning Tommy is thinking of all the words

and insults he gets. He’s slowing himself down. But then he starts thinking of the positive

things, of things he can control. Halfway through, he’s bringing his mood up, focusing,

and overall speeding up, and in the end, he beats Parker by a millisecond. Everyone is

silent as they listen to the times and Parker congratulates Tommy as they climb out of the

pool. The boys head back to the locker room and they start picking on Parker for letting a

‘girl’ beat them. Parker finally loses his collection and blows up at Roman and tells him

to shut up. This inspires Tommy. The fact that someone had the thought to stand up to

Roman seems insane to Tommy. But then he starts doing it too. And in the end Tommy
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and Parker walk out together, leaving Roman and the other boys in the locker rooms. I

believe this story is very important for many reasons. To start off, transgender women

and men are not seen as equal to ‘real’ woman and men. Even though you may not agree

with the things that they feel, and most don’t, they should still be treated equally as they

were men and woman from the start of their lives. Another big theme found in this story

is bullying. Throughout the entire story, Tommy is bullied by Roman and no one says

anything about it. I think the end of the story is very beautiful because of the way that

Parker and Tommy finally stand up to Roman. All that bullies want is attention, so when

you call them out on something they feel invalidated, or shocked because they don’t have

power over a certain person or thing anymore.

I chose these specific stories from the book, because I think they portray what

goes on in teens lives, and things from teens lives, very well. These are stories that

everyone should read to get a better understanding of what goes on through teens head

and through their school or sports. These themes that are shown in the book are very

important and significant in many teens lives.