by Betsy Uhrig
For Lisa: Through thick and thin and seventh grade
Chapter 1
THE ORIGINS OF THE FLOUNDER Bay Upper School H.A.I.R. Club are shrouded in mystery. Or maybe cloaked in mystery. Or at least wearing a heavy cardigan of mystery. As the official club historian, I tried to figure it out, and you can decide whether I was at all successful. I do know one thing, though: None of us would have joined if Glamorous Steve hadn’t gotten there first. And if we hadn’t joined, our lives would have turned out very differently. I’m not just saying this for dramatic effect—it is a fact.
But let’s start at the beginning. A history should go in order, after all.
* * *
It was the second week of seventh grade. I was still finding my way around the building, which was way bigger and more crowded than elementary school, and mentally labeling kids I didn’t know (Vegan Lunch, Stork Legs, British Accent, et cetera). When I walked into school that morning, there were folding tables lining both sides of the main hall. The tables had posters hanging in front of them advertising various school clubs. Two or three upbeat kids who looked way too cheerful for that time of day sat behind each table.
All these upbeat kids were trying to get other, lower-beat kids to join their clubs, offering enticements like mini-muffins, and those rubber bracelets that really hurt if you shot them at people, and even tiny Frisbees with FBUS ULTIMATE FRISDEE (oops) printed on them.
It was my intention to walk right by these tables and keep going until I got to my locker. It was not my intention to sign up for a club that morning. I like to take my time making big decisions, and joining a school club was a big decision. Your choice of clubs could determine a whole new set of friends and also what kinds of labels would get slapped on you. It was way too early—in the day and the year—for me to be making a decision with these kinds of life-changing consequences.
But I didn’t make it to my locker. My friend Glamorous Steve was standing at the last table in the row, and he grabbed the strap of my backpack as I was hurrying past, causing me to lurch to a stop.
“Jason,” he said. “Wait up.”
“What?”
“I’m going to sign up for”—he looked down at the sheet of paper that was the only thing on the table—“H.A.I.R. Club. You should too.”
No one, upbeat or not, was sitting behind the table. There were no posters. There was no swag. There was a sign-up sheet with a coffee ring on it and New This Year! See Ms. Grossman, Faculty Adviser, for Details! scrawled across the bottom in red pen. Ms. Grossman was my US History teacher, and even this early in the year, I was all too familiar with her red scrawls.
“Is this a joke?” I said. I glanced at the sheet with its un-filled-in blanks. There wasn’t even a crummy pencil next to it. “There’s no one signed up at all. And what is Hair Club, anyway?”
“It’s not Hair Club,” said Steve. “It’s H.A.I.R. Club. It’s initials.”
“So what do the initials stand for?”
“No idea. Maybe ‘Hair And Its Relatives’?”
I could see why that might interest Steve. He had perfect hair and he put real effort into its upkeep. It did not, however, interest me and my normal-to-greasy, effort-free hair.
“So it is Hair Club,” I said. “And what’s a hair relative? Fingernails? Sorry. Not interested.”
I had turned to head for my locker when Steve put a hand on my shoulder.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “Whatever it stands for—and it might have nothing to do with hair—H.A.I.R. Club is brand-new. No one is signed up yet. We’d be the first members.”
I shrugged his hand off my shoulder. But I turned back to face him. “So?”
“So if we join now, as seventh graders, we’ll be club officers by the time we’re in, like, eighth grade.”
Now he had my attention.
“If we’re the first to sign up,” I said, thinking out loud, “wouldn’t we be club officers right away? It’s only fair.”
Steve was nodding at my brilliant logic. Or maybe at my willingness to go along with him. He handed me a pen. “We’d be in charge of a brand-new club. In seventh grade. Think about it,” he said.
I was already signing my name.
* * *
A word about Glamorous Steve before we go on. Steve’s family had moved to Flounder Bay the summer before sixth grade. There are three kinds of new kids, as I’m sure you know. There’s the weird new kid, the bland new kid, and the glamorous new kid.
Steve, who was from California and had that perfect hair and a smile that pretty much made a cartoon twinkly ping whenever he flashed it, was as glamorous as it got in Flounder Bay. His glamour was upped by the fact that a hopelessly bland kid also named Steve had moved to town at the same time. So there was Steve and there was Glamorous Steve. And then, for most of us, there was just Glamorous Steve, the other kid having been forgotten. Or maybe he changed his name. Doesn’t matter. He won’t appear in this history again.
Glamorous Steve had a talent for doing even the geekiest things with such infectious enthusiasm that he made them not just acceptable but downright trendy. He was a long-distance runner. Boring, you say? Yes, indeed. Unless Glamorous Steve was moving effortlessly past you, his glorious hair streaming behind him. He collected stamps. Game over, you’re thinking. And ordinarily you’d be right. But he made it work. Somehow, he made it work.
So I knew I was safe signing up for anything Steve was a part of. In fact, even as Steve was writing his name below mine on the H.A.I.R. Club sign-up sheet, his glamour was rippling through the hallway and other kids were falling into line behind him. They didn’t care what he was signing up for—if Glamorous Steve was in, they wanted in too.
I should add that fully half of them balked when they got to the point of actually writing their names. After all, they had no idea what H.A.I.R. stood for. And they could see for themselves the empty table and its pathetic sign-up sheet. Even Steve’s glamour wasn’t enough for them to risk their reputations on what looked like the losingest club ever. I don’t blame them. And I’m glad only ten kids signed up.
Those others will never know what they missed.
Chapter 2
THE FIRST-EVER MEETING OF THE Flounder Bay Upper School H.A.I.R. Club took place on September 9, a Tuesday, at three o’clock in the afternoon. Eleven people were present, and I’m going to describe each of them briefly, since almost all of them have a major part in this history.
* * *
First, there was Ms. Grossman: history teacher and club adviser. She had a big vocabulary and a mean red pen and wasn’t afraid to use either.
Next, Jason Sloan: me—your narrator. I hate those scenes in books where the poor narrator tries to describe what they see in a mirror and point out their flaws to seem humble. I was extremely ordinary, kind of scrawny, often mistaken for a sixth grader when I was in seventh. Will that do?
“Glamorous” Steve Hendricks: who has already been introduced. I don’t think he needs any more description.
Nikhil Singh: a friend of Steve’s from cross-country. I sat behind Nikhil in history, so I was familiar with the unusual angle at which his ears attached to his head. I also knew that he was easily irritated, based on his grouching about my “tuneless humming” during quizzes.
Harriet “Hoppy” Hopkins: daughter of the owners of Hopkins Hairnets, the second-biggest company in Flounder Bay. Hoppy was noticeable around school for her ultra-curly hair, which would have driven her hairnet-manufacturing ancestors up a wall, and her, um, commanding voice.
Andrew Vernicky: the tall redheaded boy from my science class whose laid-back attitude almost covered up how smart he was. He never raised his hand, but when he was called on, he was always right. He once co
rrected the teacher.
Sonia Patel: possibly the most agreeable person I’d ever encountered. Even her outfits were agreeable. She managed to color-coordinate her backpack and shoes with her clothes every day. Sonia had huge brown eyes and always wore a (matching) hairband in her dark brown hair.
Laura Andersen: the shy blond girl from my math class. I swear I’d met clams that were more outgoing than Laura was.
Vincent Chen: How do you describe your best friend since kindergarten? Vincent had messy black hair and a goofy smile. Good enough? He had joined all the school’s clubs on a dare from his older sister. Vincent never could resist a dare, something I myself occasionally took advantage of.
* * *
Two other kids whose names I never found out. Their descriptions aren’t important, for reasons I’ll get to later.
The interesting thing to note here is that all the club members were seventh graders. Coincidence? Not really.
At Flounder Bay Upper School, seventh through twelfth grades are in one building together because the town is too small to need separate ones. This meant that any kid who was older than seventh grade already knew about the school’s clubs and wouldn’t have bothered with that lone H.A.I.R. table at the end of the row. They knew what clubs they wanted to join, and they joined them.
In fact, Vincent could have gotten away with not signing up for H.A.I.R. Club, because his sister had no idea it existed. But Vincent has a strong code of honor. Plus, I made him.
Anyway, back to the first meeting…
Ms. Grossman started things off.
“Welcome to H.A.I.R. Club,” she said, trying to sound enthusiastic in the face of this small and skeptical-looking group. “This is the first year that Flounder Bay Upper School has offered H.A.I.R. Club, and I’m so glad you’ve decided to join!” You could hear her tossing in that exclamation point with effort. “I’m Ms. Grossman, as those of you who are my US History students know. And I am your club adviser. Which is awkward, because I have to admit that I have no idea what H.A.I.R. stands for.
“Here’s the backstory,” Ms. Grossman went on, taking a seat on the edge of the desk at the front of the room. “This past summer, a very successful entrepreneur who wishes to remain anonymous offered the services of his company to install a state-of-the-art security system here. He very generously donated this to the school with one stipulation.”
Ms. Grossman, I knew from being in her class, constantly used words like “entrepreneur” and “stipulation” without defining them. When someone asked what one of her words meant, she’d tell them to “write it down and look it up—you’ll learn it better that way.” I tended not to bother, which might explain the number of red corrections on my papers.
“That stipulation,” Ms. Grossman continued, “was that we start a club here at school called H.A.I.R. Club, and that its members take charge of the security system.”
Now we were all sort of eyeing one another.
“Ha!” barked Ms. Grossman. “I see some questions on your faces. And maybe the first one is, who in their right mind would put a student club in charge of a brand-new state-of-the-art security system? The same thing occurred to me. But the donor was quite clear about it. Club members only will monitor the system.” She raised a finger and added, “Which might be a good thing, because I don’t think any of the adults here could even begin to figure it out.”
One of the nameless kids raised his hand.
“Yes?” said Ms. Grossman.
“So this club doesn’t have anything to do with hair?” he asked.
“No, it doesn’t,” Ms. Grossman said. “H.A.I.R. must stand for something, but the donor never indicated what it was.”
The kid who’d asked the question stood up, along with the girl next to him.
“We thought H.A.I.R. spelled hair,” the girl said as they headed for the door.
“Well, it does, of course,” said Ms. Grossman. “Although in this case—”
But they’d already opened the door. The girl practically dove into the hallway. The boy lingered long enough to look around and say quietly, “ ‘Welcome to Dweeb Club’ is more like it” before he made his escape. I think I was the only one who heard him, since I was nearest the door.
Okay, so this new club involved security cameras and computer equipment. But that didn’t make it Dweeb Club just because some chucklehead said so. Did it? This wasn’t a roomful of dweebs. We had Glamorous Steve and… and…
Uh-oh. What had I gotten myself into?
Chapter 3
“OKAY,” SAID MS. GROSSMAN. “I CAN certainly understand the confusion. Did anyone else think this was a hair club?”
“I did,” Hoppy said. “Since my family’s in the hairnet business, I thought I’d join to do some opposition research. But state-of-the-art security sounds interesting.”
I looked at Steve. So did most of the other kids in the room. He was the main reason we were here, after all. He ran a hand carefully through his own hair as though asking it a question. A question like Is it okay if I join a club that isn’t devoted to you and your relatives? I guess the answer was yes, because he said, “I thought it might be about hair, but I’m good either way.”
“Excellent,” said Ms. Grossman. “And the rest of you are still on board?”
Everyone else nodded. I hesitated for a moment. Now was the time to get out if I was going to. I could follow the nameless girl and boy out into the hallway, leaving Steve and Vincent and the rest to Dweeb Club. But I couldn’t do that. Vincent and Steve were my best and second-best friends. Besides, however dweeby this might turn out to be, it was already better than Hair And Its Relatives. I nodded. Not that anyone had been waiting breathlessly for my approval.
“I’ll leave the rest to you, then,” said Ms. Grossman. “Today you need to elect your club officers: president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary. You meet Tuesdays and Thursdays, so on Thursday I’ll show you the equipment. Got it?”
We all nodded again.
“All righty. See you then.”
And she was out of there as if she had somewhere better to be.
“Okay,” Steve said as soon as Ms. Grossman was gone. “Let’s elect some officers.” He smiled, knowing he was about to be elected H.A.I.R. Club president in a landslide.
But he wasn’t counting on the ambitions of one Jason Sloan, who wasn’t an athlete or a stamp collector or a naturally good student. I needed this more than he did.
I cleared my throat. “Maybe we should go by who signed up first,” I said. “Wouldn’t that be the fair thing to do?”
Steve’s smile remained in place. “That’s an interesting idea, Jason. Though if we were going to take it in that direction, why not start with whoever was at the table first?”
He had me there.
“I think we should vote,” said Hoppy. “Otherwise aren’t we just basing it on whoever got to school earliest yesterday? How is that fair?”
She had me there too.
My whole idea was ridiculous and I knew it. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s vote.”
We all looked around expectantly. And we all came to the same conclusion at the same time: We had no idea how to start voting for club officers.
“Are we supposed to run for office?” Vincent said, like he was asking if we were supposed to eat live grubs.
“That seems like a waste of time,” said Hoppy. “Let’s just vote for who we want for each position.”
“But what if someone ends up getting elected who doesn’t want to be?” said Laura in a voice barely above a whisper. As soon as she’d spoken, she retreated back behind her protective curtains of blond hair.
“How about this,” said Steve, already showing leadership skills. “Anyone who doesn’t want to be an officer, raise your hand.”
Laura’s hand went up first, followed by Vincent’s and Andrew’s.
“Okay,” Steve said. “Now you can choose who you want to be president from the rest of us.”
H
e grinned again as if he expected we were going to rise up and cry out in unison, “Steve is our president and king!” No one did that, obviously.
“Oh, for pete’s sake,” Hoppy said when Steve’s grin started to go stale. “We have to vote anonymously. Hand me some blank sheets of paper and a ruler.”
“Coming right up,” said Sonia, though it wasn’t clear Hoppy had been speaking to anyone in particular. Sonia extracted a turquoise notebook from her turquoise backpack and tore out a couple of sheets of paper. She opened a turquoise pencil case and handed Hoppy a ruler.
Hoppy tore the paper into strips using the ruler and handed them out. “For each position, you write a name on the slip. Got it?”
“Good plan,” said Steve, trying to reclaim some authority. “But we need to put the slips in something when we vote, right?” He looked around for a container.
“Here,” said Hoppy, fishing around in her backpack. She held out to Steve an object that looked like a large dust bunny.
“Gross,” said Steve, not taking it.
“It’s a hairnet,” said Hoppy.
Steve still wasn’t buying.
“I’ve never worn it,” Hoppy added. “It’s a sample.”
“Okay. But you hold it,” said Steve, showing admirable skill at compromising.
I could have written my own name on my slip, but what was the point? Steve was the better candidate. I got one vote, and I’m sure it was Vincent’s. All the others went to Steve.
There followed the votes for vice president (Hoppy), treasurer (Nikhil), and secretary (Sonia). I voted for myself for each of these, but clearly our new democracy was already broken. When the votes for secretary had been tallied and Sonia declared the winner, it became embarrassingly obvious who the one person was who hadn’t taken his name out of the pool and yet hadn’t been elected to an office.
I was starting to wish I had curtains of hair like Laura’s to hide behind when Steve (already an awesome president, I’ll just say it) broke the excruciating silence.