From Hero to Zero - Chris Tebbetts

by James Patterson

  “Seriously?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Jeanne said. “We really do make a good team, Rafe. Just not… you know. Like that.”

  I didn’t know what I wanted just then. I mean, I know guys and girls can be friends, no problem. But what about a guy who just told a girl “I think I kind of love you” while the whole world listened in? Can they be friends?

  Maybe not.

  But I guess I was going to find out. Because like I said before, I couldn’t say no to Jeanne about anything. Including this.

  But I did have one other question.

  “What about Jared?” I said. “He knows everything. Isn’t he going to tell Mrs. Stricker about the whole secret partner thing?”

  Jeanne shook her head. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think he wants to make me any madder than he did yesterday,” she said. Then she stuck out her hand. “So anyway—friends?”

  “Chure,” I said.

  And we shook on it. Again.

  Showdown in Room 568

  I guess I could tell you about how much everyone stared at me when I came out of that office. And how much they talked about me on the bus. And laughed at me all the way back to the hotel.

  But I’m not going to. I mean, you get the idea, right? If I told you about every single time I got laughed at, you’d be reading my story into the next century.

  So let’s just skip to the next part.

  When we got to the hotel, the chaperones told us all to pack our bags and be down in the lobby at four o’clock sharp. It was time to go home.

  So I was packing, and Miller went to take a shower. There was a knock at the door, so it was on me to go answer.

  I guess I should have used the peephole or asked who it was, but I didn’t think about it. Not until—

  BLAM!

  As soon as I cracked that door, Jared was inside the room. And he was moving in for the kill, too. I could see it in his eyes. He’d heard about everything that had happened at the school that morning.

  “You’re the reason she broke up with me!” he said.

  “No I’m not!” I sputtered.

  The truth was, Jeanne broke up with Jared because of Jared. But I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  “You’ve been planning this all along,” he said. “And now you’re going to pay!”

  I’m not exactly afraid of fighting. But I was afraid of what would happen if I did—starting with Jared’s fists and ending with Mrs. Stricker.

  So I jumped up on the nearest bed to get out of the way, then down to the other side.

  “Stop running and take it!” Jared said. He came around, but I jumped back up on the mattress and—BOING!—straight over to the next bed.

  Jared dove and tried to cut me off. I jumped back the other way, then down onto the floor by the window. When he came at me again, I jumped up, across, over, and down again, like some kind of crazed kangaroo.

  “QUIT IT!” he said.

  “You first!” I said.

  He made a grab for me again and I jumped to the far bed.

  It was getting beyond stupid. Right up until—

  “What’s going on out here?!” Miller yelled, with a towel around his waist.

  Jared stopped cold. I did, too. It was like some weird game of freeze tag, but with way higher stakes.

  “No offense, Miller,” Jared said, “but mind your own business. This is between me and Rafe.”

  “Yeah, well…” Miller walked out into the middle of the room, with his hair dripping the whole way. “Now I’m between you and Rafe. Got it?”

  “Give me a break,” Jared said. “You’ve wanted to kick his butt since the beginning of middle school.”

  “Been there, done that,” Miller said. “Trust me, it’s not that hard.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said.

  “Shut up, Rafe,” he said. “So, Jared, as I was saying… GET OUT OF OUR ROOM!”

  Even though the situation was beyond crazy, I took a sec to appreciate that Miller called it “our” room. We’d come a long way from him cleaning his toenails with my toothbrush.

  Anyway, by now Miller was looming so close to Jared that he was dripping water right on top of him. Jared was backing toward the door.

  “Whatever,” he said.

  The thing is, Jared’s bigger than me, but Miller’s bigger than everyone. It was pretty clear by now that I’d already spilled all the blood I was going to spill that day.

  I don’t know if you can call that a lucky break or not. But what I do know is that Miller the Killer takes the world’s fastest showers.

  I’ve never been so grateful for someone’s bad hygiene in my life.

  Home, Home on the Range

  So I made it out of that hotel room alive. And back across the Atlantic Ocean without screwing up again, too.

  Life is getting back to whatever it’s getting back to now. I can’t say “normal” because my life is never normal. But it’s good to be home again. The class trip did cause a few big changes, but for now you can just put them on the long list of stuff I’ll never understand.

  As for Jared, it’s not exactly over yet. It’s more like things are on pause for a few weeks. That’s when Miller’s leaving town and moving to Phoenix. In the meantime, the kid formerly known as Miller the Killer is now my unofficial bodyguard. How crazy is that?

  I learned a lot in London. And one of those things is that Miller isn’t so bad after all. Not once you get to know him a little, get tortured by him for a few years, and then get to know him a little more. If he weren’t moving away, we might have even gotten to be friends. Which is something I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever…

  … ever, ever, ever…

  … ever thought I’d say.

  But I guess that’s how it goes. When life closes a Miller-sized door, it opens up a Jared-shaped window. Which means I’m getting ready for a whole new kind of battle. So stay tuned on that one, and wish me luck. I think I’m going to need it.

  Things with me and Jeanne are different now, too. And you might not believe this, but I’m not completely sorry I told her about… you know what. (Don’t make me say it again.) Like, I’m obviously sorry about the PA mic being on at the worst possible time, but things aren’t so bad now.

  See, all that stuff with Jeanne was like this giant weight I’d been holding on to since the very first time I saw her. And even though I basically dropped it on my foot when I put it down, I also don’t have to carry it around anymore.

  And guess what else? Jeanne wasn’t kidding when she said we made a good team. We actually put together a whole movie night to show our families and everyone else at school what we did in London. People put up posters and printouts of their mini-modules and all the pictures they took, and everyone’s parents came to see it. Then we all sat down in the library and watched the videos on a big screen, too.

  They could have just seen that stuff online, but Jeanne thought it would be cool to have a screening party. Ms. Donatello thought so, too, and helped make it all happen. We had popcorn and drinks, and everyone applauded at the end.

  And it was cool. Really cool. Especially seeing how much they all liked those videos. I’m not going to say they were mine, exactly, because it really was a group project.

  But between you and me and Leo the Silent? I think I made a pretty good Artist in Chief.

  I also made a new friend in London, like Mom said I should try to do. Or maybe it was more like a new friend and a half, if you count what happened with Miller. So it turned out that I followed Mom’s advice after all. Just not in the way I ever expected to.

  Which I guess is my new version of normal.

  I Don’t Know About Honorable, but I’ll Take the Mention

  P.S. I know you’ve been wondering. And the answer is sort of.

  We didn’t win first place in that Living-Learning Contest. There were over two hundred entries, and some school from Oregon snagged the win without even leaving the U.S. (They did the Grand Canyon.)


  But the good news is, those contest people also gave out twenty-five honorable mentions. And GUESS WHO GOT ONE?

  Hills Village Middle School, that’s who! When they sent the letter to the school, it said, “The judging panel was particularly impressed with your creative video additions to the standard report.”

  Yeah, my head swelled up a little bit about that. Just a little, anyway.

  Not only that, but every honorable mention came with a hundred-dollar prize. It was supposed to go into a random drawing, but everyone from our trip voted and gave it to me, if you can believe that. (I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a unanimous vote. Right, Jared?)

  So maybe I didn’t win a thousand bucks, but I did win a hundred, which was awesome. Even if it got cut down to fifty dollars after I shared it with Jeanne. And then down to $42.29 when we went to Bosco’s to split a pizza and talk about what our next project is going to be.

  I’m thinking giant blockbuster action film. She’s thinking of expanding the online school newspaper, with more articles and art and videos. We haven’t exactly decided yet.

  But if we ever do start cranking out huge, mega-successful movies, then I know exactly what our company’s going to be called.

  Because like I said before, Jeanne has the brains and I have the creativity. She’s got the friends to help out, and I’ve got… a few more friends than I had before. She has good ideas spilling out of her brain, and I have a few leaking out of mine.

  So watch out, world. We’re just getting started here.

  You haven’t seen anything yet!

  James Patterson received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community from the National Book Foundation. He holds the Guinness World Record for the most #1 New York Times bestsellers, including Middle School, I Funny, and Jacky Ha-Ha, and his books have sold more than 350 million copies worldwide. A tireless champion of the power of books and reading, Patterson created a children’s book imprint, JIMMY Patterson, whose mission is simple: “We want every kid who finishes a JIMMY Book to say, ‘PLEASE GIVE ME ANOTHER BOOK.’” He has donated more than one million books to students and soldiers and funds over four hundred Teacher Education Scholarships at twenty-four colleges and universities. He has also donated millions of dollars to independent bookstores and school libraries. Patterson invests proceeds from the sales of JIMMY Patterson Books in pro-reading initiatives.

  Chris Tebbetts has collaborated with James Patterson on eight other books in the Middle School series as well as Public School Superhero, and is also the author of The Viking, a fantasy adventure series for young readers. He lives in Vermont.

  Laura Park is a cartoonist and the illustrator of four books in the I Funny series and six books in the Middle School series. She is the author of the minicomic series Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream, and her work has appeared in The Best American Comics. She lives in Chicago.

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