My Life in Smiley: I Got This! (mostly...)

by Anne Kalicky

  December 25

  It’s Christmas, and you are never going to guess what was waiting for me under the tree:

  I’d totally forgotten about the advertisement at Grandpa Joff and Grandma Ragny’s house this summer, and they’d found the little piece of paper rolled into a ball at the very end of the backyard. What’s funny is that they had the amazing idea to give it to me, but they had no clue it was THE game I’d been dreaming about for the past six months! I think my luck is finally turning around.

  As for my present ideas, I didn’t have to think too hard. As you know, I’m the gift-giving champion! My parents were easiest—I gave them a present in the form of “stocks.”

  Marion is way harder to buy for. Usually, she doesn’t like any of her presents and has to exchange them.

  I knew my parents had bought her a rainbow sweater with huge stripes. I also knew she wouldn’t like it one bit, so it occurred to me to dig up the receipt. I made her a card, and it didn’t cost me a penny:

  For Lisa, I remembered the website www.stupidpresents.com. It’s the site my whole family used to make that goody bag for my birthday. And I found THE perfect gift for my little sister.

  I know my presents are going to be a total home run. Merry Christmas, dear future human!

  Saturday

  Between Christmas and the New Year, Marion and Lisa left for a few days to see Grandpa Joff and Grandma Ragny in Brittany. Well, if we’re being honest, Marion really went to see Tristan Le Bouzec.

  Dad and Mom had asked Grandpa and Grandma to “keep an eye on them,” but I don’t think they’ll really follow orders. . . .

  As for me, I decided to stay here and make some progress on IAG. I mainly saw only Nico—Tom was apparently too busy with Célia. I sent him a bunch of texts, but each time he told me he was going to the movies or to the library or to a dance or to knitting club. . . . Célia this, Célia that, Célia blah blah blah.

  Plus I saw that Fastburger just launched a new advertising campaign for Valentine’s Day. The gist of it was to hug or kiss at the register in order to get their “Enormo Fastburger.”

  A GOLDEN opportunity to invite Naïs!

  But two days later I was passing in front of Fastburger, and I found out that old slug had betrayed me YET AGAIN.

  I’m starting to think that my friendship with Tom is fading. Girls are cool and all, but when one tries to get between two dudes, it’s pretty much hopeless.

  Luckily, Nico and I are

  getting somewhere. He showed me lots of other faces he invented for our brand: one crying from laughing, one green with fright, some that aren’t happy, others sticking out their tongues. . . .

  I helped him scribble out the faces so Tom could draw them later . . . when His Majesty is finally AVAILABLE, that is. Like I already said, we decided to make shirts and baseball hats.

  And the good news is that Nico’s mom works at a company that might be able to print them. We only have to convince her to help. This guy has loads of good ideas!

  Nico and I also played Dogs of Hell (maybe a bit too much), and I have to say he’s super good.

  We also watched two whole seasons of Middle School Madness.

  It’s a great show about some teenagers who start a rock band. They practice in a garage and suddenly become famous thanks to a clip posted on Zikpoint, a video-hosting site.

  My parents and I went to visit Mimi yesterday to wish her a happy

  New Year. I haven’t had the chance to tell you much about her, but Mimi is one of a kind. She’s my dad’s mom.

  We don’t see her that often, but Dad calls her the “Dinosaur”: she is really old and almost as vicious as a T. rex.

  Her house always smells like good coffee, because she lives on the second floor right above an “itsy-bitsy café,” as she likes to say. When I grow up, I’m going to drink gallons of coffee . . . like a real businessman.

  When you enter,

  you have to walk down a really dark hallway before coming to a room that she uses for a little bit of everything: living room, kitchen, and even bedroom. Every time we visit, this hallway seems never-ending, because Mimi walks super slow!

  But the strangest thing is that she’s always seated in the exact same armchair, which is completely deformed. If you want my opinion, it’s taken on the shape of her butt after all those years of sitting on it.

  I’m always worried the chair will break, Mimi will fall through it, and she’ll end up in the coffee shop below.

  My mom says Mimi isn’t very pleasant and she has a “sharp tongue.” That totally freaked me out when I was five years old. One time, I asked Mimi to stick out her tongue, which caused a big mess.

  Mimi always thinks Marion wears too much makeup, Lisa is too skinny, and my parents work too much. But me? She adores me!

  You see, I’m the family’s only “heir.” Thanks to yours truly, the looooooong line of Cropins is sure to continue!

  I should also admit that I have a trick: each year, I draw a picture for her. And believe me, I don’t have to work too hard.

  Mimi has them all in a big stack on her counter, because she appreciates all my “little acts of kindness.”

  Anyway, she spent the whole visit criticizing our family. And Dad and Mom spent the whole visit nodding their heads and saying, “Ah! Oh! Yes? Really?” Both of them seemed really tense.

  But above all, Mimi has a strange device in her ear, which makes this loud, awful whistle. It’s like her ear is superhuman—even bionic. And since she leaves the TV on, it’s a total cacophony.

  It’s impossible to stay in that room for more than ten minutes. So I went to walk around the apartment and the “real” living room, which is used only for “special occasions.”

  When no one’s around, it feels like some kind of haunted museum.

  It’s all dark and super creepy.

  There are also lots of framed photos of people I don’t know. Except . . . I noticed that one of them was Auntie Yum Yum.

  I’d totally forgotten about her! It’s been forever since I last saw her. Want to know why we call her that? It’s because when Mimi was still able to organize family get-togethers, Aunt Yum Yum was always first in line to eat.

  I think that she only

  came for the food. And once she was in the front, she would always sing, “Yum, yum, yum,” with her plate in hand. We’d make fun of her every time, and it became a family joke.

  Before we left, Mimi gave me an envelope and said it was for me alone. She said my sisters simply had to come and see her if they wanted the same thing.

  BURN!

  Then she gave my parents a box of chocolates, but inside, half of the chocolates were already gone.

  Besides all that, during break I took advantage of the time to sift through our basement. I always unearth stuff Mom and Dad have forgotten about. Like . . . these REALLY strange pictures of them from when they were “young.”

  Another time, I ran across a pacifier collection, and there was no mistaking who they belonged to.

  In that box, I also found fake cardboard tokens that my mom had made. On them was written:

  1 night-night without pacifier = 1 point

  5 points = 1 present

  First, I’d just made one heck of a discovery: Marion used to have a pacifier!!! RI-DI-CU-LOUS

  Second, I realized that, on the topic of presents, she had a considerable head start on me!

  Third, this intel could prove to be extremely useful in months or years to come, if you know what I mean!

  This time around, I ended up with a faux-fur blanket as a result of my subterranean expedition. I have no idea who could’ve possibly owned such a treasure, but since it’s freezing cold right now, it seemed perfect! I brought the blanket upstairs, and every
night since I’ve curled up with it to watch TV.

  Monday

  I’m back in school, and guess what: there were quite a few changes to accommodate the “disabled” student, who the principal talked to us about before vacation.

  In fact, there are access ramps EVERYWHERE: in front of the lunchroom, the gym, and the computer room. A bathroom two times bigger than the others was even put in, but we aren’t allowed to use it.

  The classes were even rearranged so that every room for our class is on the first floor.

  So the disabled student arrived this morning, and it’s . . . A GIRL!

  She’s seated next to Naïs, so almost in front of me. Her name is Lena. “Disabled” seemed a bit vague to me, so I had imagined all sorts of horrible things before she got here.

  All of this was because one day I read lots of weird things online about rare diseases: people covered with hair or pustules. . . .

  I even heard some people can pass out if they laugh too hard—it’s called “laughter-induced syncope.”

  As for Lena, except for the fact she’s in a wheelchair, it’s not at all obvious that she has a “problem.” Truthfully, I think she’s quite pretty—but NOT as pretty as Naïs.

  The entire time in French class, Nico was totally hypnotized. But I heard that big idiot Raoul say, “Looks like we’ve got an old granny!” I found that to be extremely mean.

  Tonight during dinner, after I told my family about Lena’s arrival, Lisa kept asking me a million questions about disabled people. The subject seemed to really interest her! In other news, ever since I found that fuzzy blanket, Marion’s started to sit at the other end of the couch, and it ANNOYYYYYS me so much!

  Monday

  This morning, something funny happened in German class.

  We were supposed to memorize the German alphabet during winter break. Mrs. Strauss asked if there were any volunteers to recite it by singing the song we learned. I raised my hand without any hesitation: it was the perfect chance to snag a good grade. I cleared my throat and tried to muster my most beautiful voice (to impress Naïs).

  I did pretty well, given that I was put on the spot, and I got a 20/20! Since there were no more volunteers, Mrs. Strauss quizzed Raoul. But this dimwit still had bubble gum in his mouth.

  In his haste, he tried to throw it over his shoulder, but the sticky glob fell back down . . . on his head!

  Very, very bad idea! The teacher tried to stop him right away, but it was too late. We spent the rest of class watching Mrs. Strauss try to remove the globs of gum tangled in his hair.

  She didn’t make much progress, so she sent him to the nurse. When he came back, he had a huge bald spot in the middle of his head. What a DISASTER! The nurse had to shave his head in order to get out all of the bubble gum.

  Thursday

  We started endurance training again with Mr. Ramoupoulos in PE. It is everything I feared—and more.

  Apparently “endurance” means ten laps WITHOUT STOPPING: pure torture for an intellectual such as myself!

  I felt like I was going to die . . . and that was just after the warm-up! What’s more, I thought that after welcoming a student in a wheelchair, this practice was totally inappropriate because Lena couldn’t participate.

  I also realized that Raoul’s bald patch gave him a competitive edge. After all, plenty of athletes shave their hair so they can be more aerodynamic. So that meant Raoul could probably pass us all! And he’d also be faster since the teachers made him take off the cowboy hat he was wearing to cover up his chrome dome.

  Anyway, we took our places on the starting line, Ramoupoulos blew the whistle, and we were off. After two minutes, though, he told us to come back to the starting line because Inès and Fatiha had done something dumb:

  The false start had already sucked up at least 68% of my energy.

  Thankfully, Nico ran next to me, and he suggested we keep Ramoupoulos in our sights so we could slow down and walk as soon as he wasn’t looking. This trick proved to be quite effective—especially when, after two laps, Louison Toinou barfed while running past Ramoupoulos.

  The teacher was too busy cleaning to keep track of us, so Nico and I walked calmly until the end of the run.

  Then we bragged about finishing the five laps, which actually would have been a record for me.

  I walked home with Tom this afternoon. It’d been ages since the last time we’d done that. We talked about our brand, the new designs that Nico’d come up with, and the products that we wanted to develop. I was afraid that this wimp would tell me he wanted out of our adventure, but not at all. He was still ready to move forward with it and promised to come over to my house next Wednesday.

  I’d heard that Célia, Naïs, and Lena were going to spend that afternoon with “just the girls” . . . which explains why Tom will finally be FREE!

  Besides that, I’m starting to think my blanket is losing its effectiveness because of Marion. . . .

  Wednesday

  A lot happened this afternoon for our brand. Nico, Tom, and I shut ourselves up in my room, and I made sure no one would enter . . . especially Marion and Lisa.

  We showed Tom the first drafts of the faces that we had scribbled with Nico’s ideas. He thought they were sick.

  Since he’d brought his spray cans and markers, he redesigned them in his own style. I even found an old plain T-shirt that we could try a stencil on. The result was honestly pretty good.

  Seeing it gave Nico an idea: we could make a video and post it online to make a name for ourselves, kind of like in Middle School Madness.

  I remembered that my parents had an old video camera in the basement and went to go find it. We had to wait quite a while for that thing to finish charging, but sure enough it still worked! Except the tape inside wasn’t exactly recent. . . . It was a video of me at seven or eight years old!

  On the screen, I was wearing a baseball hat backward, and I was belting out a song I’d made up. It was called “The Biker Bears.” One look and you could tell my style wasn’t all that great at the time.

  Since I didn’t really know how the camera worked, it took me forever to find the stop button. It was too late! Tom and Nico had seen it all, and they

  exploded with laughter. The shame!

  Well, I guess the fact that this video was forgotten in the basement meant it wasn’t of interest to ANYONE. And while I’m still completely anonymous, I must remove any trace of my ridiculous nonsense.I rewound that tape so we could record our video over it.

  We created an entire set behind us with our brand logo and the figures Nico invented. We positioned the camera so you could see all three of us in front of the backdrop, then I pressed RECORD. I explained the concept of the brand, Tom did some “live” graffiti, and Nico presented the products that would soon be “available for sale.”

  I was worried it looked a little amateurish because we didn’t have any real models yet, but in two takes it was a wrap. We decided Nico would post the video, since he knows the most about social media and he’s the only one who has his own computer.

  Then he shared some good news with us: he’d talked with his mom about our project, and she’d decided to supply us with about a hundred T-shirts and hats.

  That gave me a much-needed boost after the whole home video incident! Finally, our plans were materializing for REAL! I’ve got to say—I see nothing but glory, success, and fame in my future!

  My parents came home, and Nico and Tom left. After dinner, I asked my mom if I could use the computer for just five minutes so I could check out our video online.

  I went to NewTube and discovered that our “promotional” film was a total fiasco.

  On the screen everything was OK, but the sound was all messed up.

  Not the slightest bit amusing, if you ask me! I sent
a text to Nico to alert him to the emergency so he could delete every trace of this agonizing failure from the internet. . . .

  Sunday

  I was planning on a nice, chill night on the sofa, but the furry blanket was missing . . . along with Marion!

  Monday

  This morning in Life Skills class, Mrs. Ficelle took the whole hour to remind us of the importance of respecting people with disabilities and, more specifically, of respecting Lena.

  She told us that about 15% of the world’s population lives with a disability, but most of them are able to overcome adversity with more strength than people who are considered “ordinary.” Can you imagine, future human? That’s crazy!