Trisha gets kind of obsessed with things sometimes. I think she spends even more time on her computer than I do, which seems almost impossible. She listens to a lot of music that way, checking out bands that are playing in town even though we’re too young to ever go to the shows. The library in our neighbourhood has a collection of local bands’ CDs, and Trisha told me that that’s how she first got into a lot of what she listens to. Who knew that libraries were such a breeding ground for secret rock and roll rebels? Not me.
And what about me? I’m the chunky geek with glasses that always seem to be smudged, wearing ancient hand-me-downs from Z’s old closet, topped off with messy, brown, blah-boring hair. I’m not the prettiest or the smartest or the one with secret rocker dreams. I’m the one most likely to be tapped as a natural oil reserve. But at least I’ve got my sunny personality to keep me warm at night. Ha.
I checked Wikipedia again a little while after I edited the entry on friends.
It said:
I have three friends. Do you think that’s enough?
Of course not. Loser.
And even though I knew it was just some troll who’d written it — someone who didn’t know anything about me or my friends — it still kind of stung.
Later that night, just before bed, I decided to put the tea tree oil to the test.
I pulled my hair back out of my face with an elastic and twisted the cap off the little brown bottle marked ORGANIC ESSENTIAL OIL: TEA TREE. The stuff stank. Like, seriously. It stunk. The bathroom smelled like I was in the middle of some dank, tropical jungle with giant, hulking trees oozing hippie nectar all over me. The smell made me gag and then I started coughing so loudly that Dad had to bust down the door to make sure I wasn’t choking to death.
“Cough it out!” he yelled. “Just keep coughing, Jo, you’re going to be okay.”
I swear I could hear excitement in his voice. Like the first aid course he’d signed himself up for last summer was finally going to pay off.
I shook my head hard back and forth, but he didn’t seem to get the message: that I wasn’t actually choking.
“You’re going to be fine, sweetheart, just cough it out! Keep on coughing, come on!”
He was clapping his hands now, my own personal cheering section, with a look of parental concern on his face. A weird, worried cheerleader.
I finally caught my breath and blurted out, “No, Dad, it’s not —” I coughed again. “It’s — the oil.”
“Oil?” he said, looking frantically around the cramped bathroom for the offending substance. “What oil?”
“The stuff —” I gasped, “Mom brought home.”
“What?” he said, picking the little bottle up off the counter. “This stuff?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That stuff,” I breathed out hard, “is nasty.”
And then Dad spent about an hour laughing at me. “Gale,” he called, when he’d finally calmed himself to a giggle, “I don’t think Jo’s ready for this hippie hoodoo quite yet. We better stick to the drugstore.” And then he started laughing again. Which I’m sure really did wonders for my self-esteem.
Four
Sleepover
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A sleepover, also known as a pajama party or a slumber the best kind of party (even if we are getting kind of old for them), is a party most commonly held by children (see?) or teenagers, where a guest or guests are invited to stay overnight at the home of a friend, sometimes to celebrate birthdays or other special events Trisha passing her grade six piano exam like a total rockstar.
Common Events
Typical participant activities include staying up late (obviously), talking (no, really?), eating (Trisha’s dad makes the best nachos), and playing until falling asleep (as if we ever sleep). Common activities include playing board games or video games (boring), having pillow fights (yeah, right), and playing party games such as Truth or Dare? which nobody ever admits to wanting to play, even though we used to do it all the time. I guess Truth or Dare’s not cool anymore.
Trisha’s sleepover was yesterday, and now I’m so tired it feel like I’ve got million-ton barbells strapped to my eyelids. I did try to get some sleep, but, well, things got a bit weird.
Trisha fell asleep pretty early (she must have been pretty wiped from all her practising), but Chloe and Stacey stayed up almost all night, and so did I. And now my world’s-heaviest eyelids won’t stay open long enough to let me finish my homework for tomorrow morning. We were supposed to be charting the cycle of the moon for the last week, but I totally forgot to keep track. I think two nights ago it was a waxing gibbous, but that sounds more like some kind of monkey than a phase of the moon.
Waxing Gibbous
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Waxing Gibbous is the fifth studio album by Scottish singer-songwriter Malcolm Middleton, released on June 1, 2009 on Full Time Hobby.
Not even the faithful Wiki can help me today.
Anyway, the sleepover was a little weird, but it was still a lot of fun. I was especially glad to see Trisha’s dad putting the final touches on a giant pile of his famous nachos as soon as I got in the front door. I charged downstairs to the basement and saw that Chloe and Stacey were already setting up their sleeping bags. I asked why we were laying our beds out so early when we were going to be hanging out in the basement all night.
“My back’s been sore all week,” Chloe said, making a face and massaging her lower back with both hands. “So I really need to sleep against a wall tonight.”
“Yeah,” said Stacey, “and I told Chloe that I’d sleep next to her because I know what to do if her back starts hurting in the middle of the night.”
“So what do you do?” I asked, dumping my backpack and rolled-up sleeping bag on the couch.
“It’s complicated,” Chloe said, frowning, “but my mom does it for my dad all the time.”
“Oh, okay,” I said, picking up my sleeping bag again. “Then I guess I’ll sleep next to you, Stace.”
“Actually,” Chloe said, “Trisha just called that spot.”
“So I’m on the other end?” I said, trying to hide the disappointment in my voice.
“Yeah,” Stacey said, looking apologetic, “I guess so.”
Then Trisha came down from the kitchen, following her dad, carrying napkins to go with the giant nacho platter her dad was cradling in his oven-mitted hands. He put the tray down on the coffee table by the couch.
“Careful not to burn your tongues off, okay?” Trisha’s dad said, taking off one of his oven mitts and wriggling his fingers at us. “This cheese is seriously molten.”
Don’t get me wrong, I loved that he’d made us this mega-snack, but did he think he was talking to kindergartners?
Still, the nachos were as delicious as always. I really did almost burn my tongue from all the hot, gooey cheese and homemade spicy salsa. The only one who didn’t totally chow down was Chloe. And after a few minutes of stuffing our faces we finally noticed that she hadn’t joined in.
“What wrong?” Stacey asked. “Are they too hot?”
“No,” she said, “they’re fine. I shouldn’t say it.”
“Say what?” I asked, mid-bite.
“Yeah,” said Stacey, “what do you mean?”
“I just mean …”
She paused like she really didn’t want to be the one to break some particularly gruesome news to us, but a bit like she was really enjoying herself, too.
“Do you guys know how much fat is in those?” she said finally, flicking at a particularly cheddary chip.
“So?” I said, my mouth still full of salty goodness.
“I’m just saying,” said Chloe, “that I want to start being more careful about what I eat. I read this article about how we all eat way more sodium than our bodies know what to do with. It’s basically killing us.”
When did everyone start reading articles that told them what to do?
“Who cares?” I said.
“We’re kids.”
“Maybe you are,” Chloe said. She said it pretty quietly though, almost like I wasn’t supposed to hear it.
Anyway, it was pretty strange hearing her talk like that. She’s never seemed to care about healthy eating before — even when Stacey goes on and on talking about the calories in the juice we drink at lunch, which is totally annoying and definitely something she picked up from her sister Becca. As long as I’ve known her, Chloe’s always bought cookies and chocolate bars at the corner store after school — she’s even more of a junk-food addict than I am. So it was super weird to hear her suddenly spouting off about fat and salt. Okay, sure, I know that if I want to stop being the chubby kid in class I could stand to eat less junk food, but when there’s a giant tray of nachos sitting in front of you that you’ve been looking forward to eating all week, those thoughts go pretty much right out the window.
But once Chloe got going listing off the horrors of saturated fat, Stacey stopped eating, and, instead of devouring all that gooey deliciousness in front of us, just sat there picking at the chips that didn’t have cheese on them. Skinny little Trisha kept eating, though, and so did I. But the chips didn’t taste quite as good after Chloe’s big speech, and with the giant nachos split mostly between Trisha and me, we both ate way too much and afterwards I felt sick.
I spent the rest of the night feeling like I had a greasy cheese baby in my belly. I still had fun and everything, but it sort of felt like I was moving in slow motion, like I was out of sync with my friends.
Trisha lives just down the street from our school (I live close by too, I’m only a few blocks away from Trisha), so we decided to go for a walk and see if anything weird was going on in the schoolyard after dark. Well, we didn’t all decide to, it was definitely Chloe’s idea, but everybody else thought it sounded like fun. I didn’t really want to go at first. My mom and I go for walks at night together sometimes — “Just pretend we’re walking the dog,” she says, even though she’s allergic and would never let me have one — but she and my dad are pretty clear about not wanting me to go out alone at night. “You just never know who you’ll run into,” she says, even though we live in a really nice neighbourhood. But even Trisha was into the idea, and I didn’t want to be the odd one out so I said okay.
I mean, really, we weren’t even being all that sneaky about it. Trisha’s parents knew we were going out (we promised we’d only stay out for half an hour and that we’d all stick together) and Trisha had her mom’s cellphone with her with her — plus Stacey and Chloe had theirs — in case anything happened. So it’s not like we were being particularly deviant, or maybe T’s parents just didn’t suspect that anything might be up. Still, I wondered what would happen if we came across a suburban drug deal or a late-night love connection. Fortunately, for the PG-ness of this story, we didn’t. Chloe seemed pretty disappointed.
Still, it was kind of fun hanging around the schoolyard late at night. It was sort of spooky seeing a place we knew so well after dark. We chased each other around the building to keep warm — it was still pretty cold outside — and peered into the windows to see if we could spot late-night janitors getting up to anything suspicious. Like I said, we didn’t find much. Chloe claimed she’d found a condom, but she kicked it away so fast it could have just been a balloon or even a stray Kleenex. Other than that, all we saw were a couple of squashed cigarettes next to a pile of dirty snow by the parking-lot doors.
“You don’t think any of the teachers smoke, do you?” I asked.
“Didn’t you ever notice how bad Mr. Fischer’s breath smelled every time we came back inside from recess last year?” Chloe asked. Mr. Fischer had been our teacher for grade six. “He’d just sit in his car, chain-smoking and listening to jazz on the radio. He’s been majorly depressed ever since his wife left him for another woman.”
“How’d you figure that out?” asked Trisha.
“I have my sources,” said Chloe.
“Yeah,” Stacey piped in, “he’s so pathetic. He smokes so much that he smells like my Aunt Louise, and her teeth are practically brown.”
“Gross,” I said. “I’d never kiss a smoker.”
“Ha!” Stacey said, “You wanted to make out with Mr. Fischer?”
I said no really fast, but everybody laughed at me anyway. Even though I obviously hadn’t meant it that way.
“No, of course not,” Chloe said, making her face all serious, trying to stop herself from giggling, “She wants to do it with your Aunt Louise!”
The three of them laughed forever about that one. I was embarrassed, but I was kind of mad, too. I didn’t really think I’d said anything weird; it felt like Chloe had twisted my words around. I’d never been out of the loop with my friends like that before, the centre of the joke. I didn’t like the feeling at all.
“Yeah, right,” I said. “Stop it, guys, it’s not funny.”
But that just made them laugh harder.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Jo,” Chloe said between giggles. “I think you guys would make a great couple.”
And they kept laughing, and maybe it was just my out-of-sync brain talking, but I really couldn’t handle being a joke to my three best friends.
“I’m going home,” I said.
“What, to your house?” Trisha said.
“Yeah, I’m leaving.”
“Oh, come on,” Stacey said, “don’t be like that. It was just a joke.”
“It wasn’t funny.”
“Yeah, it was,” Chloe said. “It was hilarious. Your face got so red.”
“It did not.”
“Come on,” Trisha said, “who cares? It’s freezing, let’s just go back to my house. You coming, Jo?”
I was still embarrassed, but I was more ashamed that I’d made such a big deal out of the joke. These girls were my best friends, my only friends, did I seriously think they were trying to be mean to me?
“Fine,” I said. “It’s no big deal.”
We were all pretty quiet on the walk back to Trisha’s house. It was getting late, and when we got in, her mom told us that it was probably time to get ready for bed. I took the little plastic jar of Oxy pads that my dad had picked up for me at the drugstore out of my overnight bag along with my toothbrush, and headed upstairs to the bathroom.
I’d had my hair down all day to cover up a giant zit on the back of my neck, but I put it up in a ponytail so I could clean my face. I took my glasses off and put them next to the sink, unscrewed the lid of the Oxy jar, and took out one of the little pads soaked in something that smelled a whole lot like toxic chemicals. It stung like crazy when I wiped the pad against my giant volcano of a zit, and I clenched my eyes tight and tried not to swear.
No one else I know has to deal with this, I thought. And as much as I know that it’s not the end of the world, I hate having something that sets me apart as different. No, that’s not really what I mean — all my friends are different, it wouldn’t be any fun if we were all the same. I guess I just hate having to deal with this alone.
Just as I was finishing up, I felt an itch on the back of my neck. I reached up to scratch it and accidentally raked my nails over my enormous pimple instead. Then I really did swear. Pretty loudly. Trisha’s mom stuck her head out of the bedroom door and gave me a look — though it was probably more of surprise than anything. She looked like I’d just popped a balloon in her face. I felt so guilty that I rushed back downstairs before I could say I was sorry.
Trisha passed out pretty much as soon as I got downstairs. Like I said, she must have been seriously wiped out. But Chloe and Stacey were lying in their sleeping bags, too, so I figured I’d get into mine.
“Aren’t you guys going to brush your teeth?” I asked.
“No,” Chloe said, “I forgot to bring my toothbrush.”
“Yeah,” said Stacey, “me, too.”
They stayed up practically all night talking together, and their giggling kept me awake. I know I should have just dragged my sleeping bag ove
r and joined in, but it kind of seemed like they didn’t want me to. Chloe kept saying the names of other girls in our class, girls we’re not friends with.
Chloe: Oh yeah, mumble mumble mumble, but Maylee said mumble mumble.
Stacey: Yeah? She mumble?
Chloe: Mumble mumble, and Janet.
Stacey: Mumble mumble mumble?
Chloe: Mumble, and Nadja, too.
I couldn’t tell if my stomach hurt so badly from all that nacho cheese or just from being left out.
Five
Meeting
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In a meeting, two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal setting like our living room, where none of the furniture matches and the carpet still smells like last year’s science fair project (when I tried to teach my old hamster Mariette to run through a maze, and she escaped, leaving a trail of wood shavings behind her. That wasn’t how she died, though. Dad eventually found her hiding behind the couch, and I wound up experimenting on a mouldy piece of bread instead. She died about a month after that and we never found out why.).
In a family meeting — which is something we’ve never had to have before — Zim comes home with his girlfriend, Jen, and Mom and Dad sit down with them in the living room to have a serious talk that doesn’t include me. Nobody has the bright idea to send me out of the house, though, so I can hear everything they say anyway.
Adults can be pretty short-sighted, even when they don’t need glasses.
Ha ha ha.
Wow.
Wow.
Whoa.
This changes everything.
This huge, unbelievable thing that is so much bigger than all of my stupid little problems — the reason why Mom and Dad called the family meeting is (I still can’t believe it — it’s too weird, it’s way too weird) J, Jen, is pregnant.
Something Wiki Page 2