The 47 People You'll Meet in Middle School

by Kristin Mahoney

  “A date. A movie with…a gentleman. I’ve been out with him a couple of times before, and I thought you should know.”

  “Does Dad know?”

  “Not yet. I’ll tell him eventually. But I’d appreciate it if you keep this between us for now.”

  “Why did you tell me? I’m not going to be here; I didn’t even have to know!”

  “Well, it’s someone you know, and I thought you should hear it from me instead of from someone else.”

  “Who is it?” My brain started racing, thinking who I possibly knew who might take our mother out on a date.

  Mom took the deepest breath I’d ever seen her take. “It’s Charlie Singer.”

  I was relieved. I had no idea who that was. We didn’t know any grown-ups named Charlie. He must be, like, some old college friend of Mom’s who I’d met once and she assumed I remembered, but nope.

  “Who is that?” I asked. “We don’t know any…”

  And then it hit me.

  “Wait. Singer? Like Mr. Singer? My fifth-grade teacher Mr. Singer? No. Wait. It’s not him. Isn’t his first name Charles?”

  “Yes,” Mom said. “But he goes by Charlie. It’s a nickname for Charles.”

  “I KNOW THAT CHARLIE IS A NICKNAME FOR CHARLES! But I can’t believe you’re dating my teacher!”

  “He’s not your teacher anymore,” Mom said. “He’s not a teacher at all anymore.” That seemed like an even more ridiculous point.

  “Mom, you know what I mean,” I said. “It feels like he’ll always be my teacher.”

  “I know, I know,” she said. “I realize this must be strange for you. It was strange for me too when it started.”

  “If it was so strange for you, then why did you go out with him?”

  “It kind of just happened, Gus. I ran into him at the Meridian Music Festival over the summer when you girls were at Dad’s place. We started talking and decided it would be nice to have dinner together sometime, so we did.”

  I couldn’t believe it. The Meridian Music Festival is in early July. “This started that long ago? And you’re just now telling me?”

  “A minute ago you were annoyed that I was telling you at all.”

  “A minute ago I didn’t know you were dating my teacher!”

  Mom opened her mouth to respond, but I cut her off. “And don’t say that he’s not my teacher!”

  “I wasn’t going to say that,” Mom said. “I was just going to say that I really do understand why this is weird for you. And that you can talk to me about it whenever you want. But that I hope you’ll keep it between us for now.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this with anyone, including you,” I said. “So you don’t have to worry about that.”

  Mom looked like she wanted to say more, but just then we heard a car door close, and you came running in from Clarissa’s house.

  “Hey, sweet Louie,” Mom said, giving your head a rub. “We have to go soon. Gus, you should start getting ready for the dance.”

  I know it’s exciting for a fourth grader to think about a middle-school dance. I know because it had been for me when I was in fourth grade, and because when Mom told me to get ready, your eyes got big and you said, “Ooh, can I watch?!”

  But all I was thinking of was Mom, and Mr. Charlie Singer, and getting out of the house as fast as I could without talking to a single soul.

  So that’s why I ran up the stairs, said a quick “Nope!” and slammed my bedroom door.

  “What kind of music will there be?”

  “Do you get snacks there?”

  “Do the teachers go?”

  “Who are you going to dance with?”

  These were just a few of the questions you asked in the car on the way to the dance, Lou. And I’m pretty sure I said “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know” over and over again. I didn’t want to talk about anything. This night was off to a terrible start. Besides the Mr. Singer news, when I went upstairs to change, I couldn’t find my favorite black shirt anywhere. The shirt that I’d been planning to wear to the dance. And then I remembered: it was at Dad’s. I’d left it there after he took us out for sushi a couple of weeks ago and told me I should be “a little dressy” and not wear my Longwood Art Camp T-shirt. Yet another way our parents were messing up my life. So now I was stuck wearing a stupid old purple shirt.

  Usually I would complain to Mom about this, or even ask if I could borrow something of hers, like her jean jacket to wear over the boring shirt. But I couldn’t speak to Mom about my outfit, or anything else. All I could think during the whole ride was Mom is going out with Mr. Singer. Mom is going out with Mr. Singer. Mom is going out with Mr. Singer. Up until then, I’d thought the worst news I’d ever hear was that Mom and Dad were getting divorced. But this might just have been worse.

  Mr. Singer was one of the first people outside our family who knew about the divorce, other than Layla and a few of Mom and Dad’s friends. And I guess you probably told Isabella. We never talked much about it, did we?

  Anyway, Mr. Singer didn’t hear about the split from me. I didn’t want anybody at school other than Layla to know. I figured if I didn’t tell anyone, life at school wouldn’t have to change the way life at home was changing.

  I guess I should’ve told Mom and Dad that plan. Because, unbeknownst to me, they sent an email to Mr. Singer telling him what was going on. I found out about it when he asked me to talk to him in the hallway one day while the rest of the class was watching a movie about the deepest part of the ocean.

  That conversation went something like this:

  Mr. Singer: Everything okay, Augusta?

  Me: Yes.

  Mr. Singer: Anything you need to talk about?

  Me: No.

  Mr. Singer: (Pause.) Okay.

  Me: Can I go back inside now?

  Mr. Singer: It’s just that I got an email from your parents about what’s going on at home.

  Me: Oh.

  Mr. Singer: They said you aren’t talking much to them about it. I think they wanted me to sound you out and make sure you’re doing all right.

  Me: Yup. I’m good. (I desperately, desperately wanted the conversation to be over so I could go back inside and watch the ocean movie and just be a regular kid with no Big Serious Problem that all the adults wanted me to talk about.)

  Mr. Singer: Okay. (Pause again.) Well, if you think you need to talk, my door is always open.

  Me: Okay.

  I didn’t point out that his door was actually usually closed because our classroom was near the gym and it got noisy. I guess “my door is always open” is just one of those weird expressions that doesn’t mean exactly what it sounds like.

  Anyway, for the rest of the year, Mr. Singer never tried to get me to talk about anything I didn’t want to talk about. He didn’t make it into a big deal when I said I’d left my math folder at my dad’s apartment and wouldn’t be able to get it for a few days. And he certainly didn’t act like it was a big tragedy like weirdo Ms. Tedesco did. He was just…normal.

  But suddenly I was seeing all that differently. That day in the hallway, was he just asking how things were because he wanted to know if Mom was available? When I said I left my folder at Dad’s, was he secretly happy to hear they were still living apart? Did he send home love notes to Mom in the sealed envelopes with my report cards? Ick.

  * * *

  So maybe now you understand why I was so quiet on the way to the dance. I couldn’t wait to get away from Mom and leave her to drop you off at Dad’s. Which is why I opened the door before the car had even fully rolled to a stop, causing Mom to yell “Augusta! You’re going to break your neck!” right in front of some eighth-grade boys who were arriving at the same time. And who, of course, started cracking up and screeching “You’re going to break your neck, Augusta!” over
and over again in high-pitched voices.

  I glared at Mom, slammed the car door, and tried to act like everything was normal and cool as I pulled my jacket closed in front of me and walked as quickly as I could past the cackling eighth graders.

  At least the parental-embarrassment part of the evening is over, I thought as I climbed the steps to the front door.

  Turns out I was wrong.

  It was weird being at school at night. With everyone in the gym, the hallways were darker and quieter, and the floors seemed shinier. I tried to shake off thoughts about Mom and Mr. Singer so I could focus on the plan Sarah and I had discussed:

  Meet at my locker, which is around the corner from the gym.

  Put my glasses in my locker so I wouldn’t have to wear them into the dance. (Would this make it harder for me to see? Yes, of course. But I had practiced walking around at home and at Dad’s apartment without them, and even though everything looked really blurry, at least I hadn’t walked into a wall or fallen down a flight of stairs. I was confident I could handle it. Besides, right then I cared more about how I looked to other people than how they looked to me. Come to think of it, I guess I’d always felt that way.)

  Walk into the gym.

  Find a corner where we could sit or stand while we figured out what everyone actually did at a middle-school dance.

  Take it from there.

  Right off the bat, things didn’t go as I’d hoped. When I got to my locker, Sarah wasn’t there, but Davis Davis was.

  “Why are you back here?” he asked as soon as he saw me.

  “I have to put something in my locker,” I said. “Why are you back here?” Maybe it was just because we were further into the school year, or maybe it was because I had better and speedier lock skills these days, but I wasn’t feeling intimidated by Davis Davis anymore just because he was a year older than me. Also, I think my brief life of crime and punishment had made me tougher.

  “None of your business,” he said as he lifted a large, drippy can of white paint into his locker.

  “It will be my business if that paint leaks from your locker into mine,” I said, wondering if it was still safe to hang my jacket in there.

  Davis Davis sighed. “If you must know, it’s official JROTC business.” JROTC stands for Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps; it’s a club where kids practice being in the army, or something like that. Davis Davis takes it very seriously.

  “Do you guys have to paint your pretend guns or something?”

  He rolled his eyes at me. “They’re called drill purpose rifles. And again, this is for official JROTC business. Not your business.”

  “Fine,” I said, leaning against the lockers beside ours.

  “Why are you still here?” he asked me.

  “I’m meeting someone here! Also, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m still waiting to get into my locker.”

  He rearranged the things in his locker—two more cans of paint, brushes, and something that looked like an old sheet—then slowly and deliberately closed the door. “All yours,” he said.

  Sarah came running up just as Davis Davis turned to walk away.

  “Hey! Sorry I’m late,” she said. “My parents had a mix-up about who was supposed to drive me.”

  I knew how those mix-ups could go. Sarah seemed almost as flustered as I was when I first got here, although I assumed her evening hadn’t also included the news that her mom was dating her fifth-grade teacher.

  “It’s okay. Want to put your jacket in my locker?” Sarah took off her jacket, and I could see she was dressed pretty much the same as I was: black leggings, long T-shirt. This wasn’t a surprise since we’d texted back and forth a bunch of times trying to figure out what we should wear. As if it weren’t bad enough that this dance had a theme that was insulting to girls and women, we also were encouraged to “dress Dogpatch!” which apparently meant to dress like farmers or cowgirls or something, the way the people in Sadie Hawkins’s town had dressed. Which was why the Silver Sisters were planning on matching cowgirl boots. No thank you.

  Sarah and I had agreed on the following: no “Dogpatch” gear, no dresses, no skirts. But look a little dressy, which we decided meant no T-shirts with writing on them, and black boots instead of sneakers. Sarah looked great. I was stuck in my old purple shirt, but she was wearing a light blue one that was a little sparkly. And her hair looked wavier than usual. And she was wearing lip gloss. And dangly earrings. I peeked at myself in my locker mirror and suddenly decided that I looked like a mess. Besides the old shirt, my hair looked stringy. A zit was threatening to pop out on my chin. And was there actually something hanging out of my nose?

  I found a tissue in my jacket pocket and tried to fix that last one.

  “Do you have a hair tie I can borrow?” I asked Sarah. “I feel like I want to pull my hair back. And maybe some lip gloss?”

  Sarah dug around in her jacket pockets and found both for me.

  “Are you okay?” she asked as she handed me the gloss.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just a weird night.” I didn’t feel like telling anyone the news about Mom and Mr. Singer just yet. Or possibly ever.

  “How does this ponytail look?” I asked her after I’d finished pulling my hair back.

  “Cute. You look nice!” Sarah was a good friend.

  “Not as nice as you. Your hair looks amazing.”

  “Gah, whatever.” She blushed a little as she rolled her eyes. “My mom convinced me to use her hot rollers; I guess it came out okay.”

  “Okay, I think I’m ready,” I said. I took my glasses off and set them on the top shelf of my locker. My reflection in the mirror was a little more reassuring without them (possibly because now it was a bit blurry).

  “What do you think?” I asked Sarah.

  “Looks great,” she said. “So are we going to be like Laura and Mary tonight?”

  “Who?”

  “You know, Laura and Mary, in the Little House on the Prairie books.”

  “Yeah…but how are we going to be like them?”

  “Because after Mary became blind, Laura had to describe everything for her all the time.”

  “Ha. Yes, will you be my Laura tonight? Describe the land of wonder that is the Meridian Middle School gym, please.”

  “I’m on it,” Sarah said. “Let’s do this, Mary.”

  “Huh,” Sarah said as we walked through the double doors into the gym. “Laura and Mary would probably feel really at home here, actually.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I could just make out the letters on the big banner across the entryway that said WELCOME TO DOGPATCH! but that was about it. The rest of the room was a blur of cloudy lights and dark figures moving around.

  “Well, there’s lots of hay,” Sarah explained. “And straw hats and cowboy boots.”

  “Any bonnets?”

  “Not yet,” Sarah said. “I will let you know the second I see one.”

  “Please do.”

  “There are drinks and snacks over there,” Sarah said, pointing to the opposite side of the gym. “Want to get some?”

  “Sure,” I said. I wasn’t particularly hungry or thirsty, but it would give us something to do. I stuck by Sarah’s side as we made our way around the edge of the gym to the refreshment stand. Walking directly across the gym would have been faster, but that also would have meant crossing the dance floor. I could see the blurry outlines of a few kids dancing as a DJ switched from one song to another and called out things like “All right, cowpokes! DJ Dave wants to get this party started!” It was somewhat terrifying.

  When we got close to the refreshment stand, I could see that it was decorated with a banner made of red bandanas, and the food had labels like CRUNCHY TATERS (potato chips) and TASTY FIXINS (dip and salsa). It seemed like
a lot of work, making labels for food that everyone could easily identify anyway. If anything, the labels made it confusing. (This is one reason I was not a member of the dance committee. Unnecessary decorations annoy me.)

  My gym teacher, Ms. Lewis, was standing behind the snack table. Her blond ponytail was tied in a red bandana for the occasion. Sarah started to fill a paper bowl with “crunchy taters” when Ms. Lewis leaned toward her in a move that was part reach, part nervous lunge.

  “Allow me!” she said, putting a handful of chips in Sarah’s bowl. Ms. Lewis eyed Sarah nervously as she moved away from the table with her food. “Watch out for crumbs!” Ms. Lewis said with a smile, but I knew she was dead serious. The dance was clearly threatening to mess with her vision of the perfect gym.

  As we moved away from the snacks, I got a closer look at the booth beside the refreshment stand. This one had a banner across two poles that read GET YER PITCHER MADE, and a professional photographer was snapping a picture of a girl and a boy who looked like eighth graders, both dressed in checked shirts, bandanas, and straw hats. The girl was beaming and sitting on the boy’s lap, and the boy was sitting on a bale of hay. There was a line of kids trailing along the gym wall, waiting to have their pictures taken. Some of them were coupled off, but there were groups of friends—mostly girls—waiting too. Of course this included the Huggers and the Silver Sisters, who were up next.

  Sarah noticed me squinting up at the banner. “ ‘Get Yer Pitcher Made,’ ” she read aloud.

  “What’s with the assumption that people who live in the country don’t know how to spell?” she said. “Geez, this dance is all kinds of offensive.”

  “Why are you guys even here, then?” a voice from the line asked. “I mean, if it’s all so offensive.”

  I looked down from the banner and let my eyes focus on the person who was talking. But I didn’t have to. I already knew it was Addison.

  Heidi chimed in. “Yeah, a lot of people worked really hard on this dance, you know.”