Frazzled #2

by Booki Vivat

  He said it like it was such an easy thing, and it probably WAS for him. Peter could invent something in his sleep and still get first place at the Invention Convention.

  I didn’t ASK for his advice, but I guess what he said actually DID make sense. Peter always liked to stick his nose in my business.

  Sometimes I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely trying to be helpful or if he just enjoyed being nosy.

  Later, he popped his head in the room and started nagging me about my chores!

  Maybe being a big brother meant you were somehow both helpful AND nosy.

  The truth is, I actually HAD forgotten, so it was probably good he reminded me. Mom always said I had a “selective memory” because it seemed like I conveniently forgot things I didn’t WANT to remember.

  And, well, I definitely didn’t WANT to feed the cat. Even with Jess’s help, feeding Felix was a NIGHTMARE.

  As soon as those words came out of my mouth, something CLICKED.

  I looked over at Jess and knew that, in that moment, we were thinking the EXACT SAME THING.

  That was the beginning of the FEED-IT 5000—the ultimate cat feeder.

  Who would’ve thought?

  I guess you never really know when a good thing is going to hit.

  Finally, we had our idea—create the greatest cat food contraption in the history of Pointdexter Middle School . . . an invention so great it would make Mr. Walters cry when we finally revealed it.

  (He often got emotional over great scientific achievements.)

  I was perfectly fine settling for a moderately successful presentation and a decent final grade, but Jess seemed to think this could be something much more than that—something GREAT.

  Of course, I was always a little skeptical when things started going well, but Jess was so excited about our idea that my cynicism felt out of place next to her certainty.

  She was so SURE of herself that her sureness trickled into everything else—including our science project.

  It wasn’t just her confidence that impressed me. It was her ability to keep that confidence even when things weren’t always so great.

  Once we started working, we quickly learned that building an invention was a lot more complicated than just coming up with the idea for one. . . .

  But that didn’t discourage her. Even when our ideas didn’t work or things went wrong, she never doubted the fact that we would figure it out.

  We worked on the project together almost every day after school.

  It was strange how we could look at the same exact thing and see it completely differently.

  Somehow, though, that was what made it WORK.

  As the Invention Convention drew closer, we both knew there was SOMETHING missing. We spent hours trying to figure out what exactly that something was, but nothing fit. Then, right when we were ready to give up—

  EUREKA!

  It was so average and unassuming. We hadn’t noticed it before, but there it was. . . .

  Right there in front of us.

  Once we figured out that missing piece, everything fell into place. It was complete!

  Each part had a purpose, each step made sense. It all fit together. Looking at it, I could barely believe that WE were the ones who made it, something totally new and totally OURS.

  It might have started out as a school project and a convenient solution to my problems feeding Felix, but when I looked at it now, in its completed form, it felt like more than just that. It was something kind of great.

  The real question was whether or not it WORKED.

  Once it was basically complete, Jess wanted to test it out as soon as possible, but I kept looking for reasons to delay it.

  A few more tweaks.

  Some minor adjustments.

  Another round of inspections.

  I double- and triple-checked each part of the machine.

  A weird, uncomfortable knot formed in my chest as I looked over each step. The slightest mistake or tiniest mishap could come along and ruin EVERYTHING!

  We worked NONSTOP to put it together. The idea of our invention not working was almost too tragic to consider!

  If Jess felt the same, she didn’t show it. It was almost like she knew something I didn’t.

  Where did she get that kind of certainty, and how could I get some?

  When it was finally time to put the FEED-IT 5000 to the test, we crossed our fingers and held our breath.

  Felix, who had just caught on to the fact that he was somehow involved in the process, was surprisingly encouraging.

  We tested it at least a dozen times after that—adjusting things here and there, adding a few improvements, making it better and better.

  Instead of just nerves, I started to feel a rush whenever the machine worked. Each successful trial run felt like a small but significant victory.

  Sometimes people say things like that just to say them—not because they’re serious. But when Jess said it, she MEANT IT.

  As we both looked over at our finished project, I secretly wondered if maybe she was right.

  Leading up to the Invention Convention, it seemed like that was all anyone could talk about!

  Even the seventh and eighth graders started to notice that something was going on.

  As much as I had dreaded it in the past, I couldn’t help but get swept up in the excitement of it all.

  It was hard not to!

  There was still a part of me that worried about having to present our invention in front of everyone, but another part of me was actually kind of excited about it. Maybe Jess was rubbing off on me after all.

  On the day of the convention, the auditorium was total chaos.

  Before we knew it, it was our turn. We carried our project onstage and started to set up the presentation.

  I couldn’t tell if my heart was beating faster because I was nervous or because the FEED-IT 5000 was heavy and hard to get up the stairs. The stage was much higher than it looked, and when I stared down at the crowd, I could see everything and everyone.

  They were all staring back.

  I could feel myself start to panic. Maybe Jess could too because she gave me a nudge and a confident nod.

  Before all this—before the whole locker mix-up, before we became science partners, before even really knowing each other—I probably wouldn’t have believed her. But now I sort of DID.

  Once we started our presentation, the whole room was buzzing.

  They loved it! It was a hit!

  Everything was going according to plan. All that was left was to put the FEED-IT 5000 into action.

  As soon as we finished setting up, there was nothing to do but wait for the timer to go off and start the process. My heart was pounding so hard that I could feel its vibrations all the way from my ears to my toes.

  The alarm rang and I could hear the pieces of our invention in motion, working together just like we planned. This was it—OUR MOMENT. . . .

  ONLY NOTHING CAME OUT.

  We didn’t know what to do. No one else did either. I didn’t know it was possible for a full auditorium of people to be this quiet.

  They were all just THERE.

  Watching. Waiting.

  But by that point,

  we ALL knew . . .

  A hesitant pity clap broke through the awkward silence.

  It built into an uncomfortable chorus of sympathy claps.

  THAT was how tragic this was. People didn’t bother making fun of us—they were too busy feeling SORRY for us.

  As if our humiliation onstage wasn’t bad enough, Mr. Walters forced us to sit and watch all the other presentations. He said it was important, as scientists, to be “good sports,” but it didn’t feel good at all.

  I should have known—the Universe and all its laws were always against us. So what was the point of working hard if things were never going to work out anyway?

  Jess was quiet. She had been quiet the whole day. When she finally spoke, she said something I didn’t understand at
all.

  What did that even MEAN? I had imagined all sorts of nightmare scenarios, but none of them compared to THIS reality and the truly epic failure of the FEED-IT 5000.

  What other way could you possibly see it?

  When I got home that night, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed, disappear under my blanket, and

  But before I could make it that far, Mom cornered me and asked how the presentation went.

  She didn’t push me on it after that.

  I think she could tell that I wasn’t in a very good mood because she didn’t nag me about finishing dinner or doing chores at all.

  Peter gave me control of the remote for the night and Clara let me have the last scoop of ice cream.

  Even Felix decided to give me a break.

  But no matter what they did to try to take my mind off things, I couldn’t help thinking about everything that had happened that day.

  I kept replaying each step of the process in my head, trying to pinpoint where exactly it went wrong and what I could have done to fix it.

  What was the point? It wasn’t just that our invention had failed. It was the fact that all our hard work was for nothing. I couldn’t shake that feeling.

  Jess, however, seemed to brush the whole thing off.

  I didn’t know if I would ever understand her. Maybe we were just TOO DIFFERENT. But if we were, could we even really be friends?

  Suddenly, in the middle of all these thoughts and totally out of nowhere, Felix jumped up from his spot next to me and threw himself onto the TV screen.

  There was something surprisingly true about what Clara said. It got me thinking. . . .

  Maybe I just misunderstood him. I always thought Felix was out to get me and ruin things at home, but maybe that wasn’t it at all.

  I started to think about Jess and how differently we saw things. That didn’t have to be a bad thing. I had been so caught up in trying to understand her that I hadn’t really considered . . .

  maybe things didn’t need to be all figured out in order to WORK.

  Because, despite all our differences, we still really got along.

  And THAT was something I could work with.

  I was dreading school the next day, so I tried to convince Mom to let me skip it. She refused. Instead, she packed a few homemade cookies in my bag (probably as a distraction) and made sure to drop me off herself.

  She told me that it was just a class project and not the end of the world, but I couldn’t fully believe her.

  After all, everyone had been there to witness our invention crash and burn. I wanted to pretend like the whole thing had never happened.

  I didn’t want to hear about it, talk about it, or think about it for at least a day.

  So I guess, in that sense, I got EXACTLY what I wanted—except what happened next wasn’t at ALL what I had in mind.

  When I got to the lockers that morning, Jess was already there! I knew immediately that something was up because I usually never ran into her at our locker in the morning.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  It SHOULD have been great.

  This was what I had been wanting all along—a space that was all my own. No more rearranging books like Tetris pieces, no more shoving lunches into tight corners, no more sharing! But when she said it, it didn’t feel great.

  It felt like, once again,

  And I wasn’t ready.

  But, like a lot of changes, it happened so suddenly that I barely had time to wrap my head around the idea at all.

  The bell rang. . . .

  And we were both off to class.

  That was one thing about middle school.

  We were so busy trying to get through classes and figure out what was going on that sometimes it felt like there wasn’t enough room in our brains to think about anything else!

  As soon as I got to math class, Ms. Skelter surprised us with a pop quiz!

  Then there was that particularly painful volleyball match during PE. . . .

  Not to mention the horrifying video about germs that Ms. Mackey showed us in health class.

  In English, Mrs. Fielding made us read scenes from this Shakespeare play called All’s Well That Ends Well, which, in my opinion, was a weird name for a play.

  It didn’t even fully hit me that Jess had moved lockers until I stopped by to grab my history book on the way to class, only to realize . . . IT WASN’T THERE!

  Then, it dawned on me. My book wasn’t there, but I knew where it was.

  It was at home—probably with all the other books I never brought to school once Jess and I started sharing a locker. I realized then that the book we had been sharing had been HERS.

  She had Mr. Monroe’s class in the morning and would always drop it off in the locker just in time for me to pick it up in the afternoon.

  Now that history book was probably in her NEW locker with the rest of her stuff. With separate lockers, sharing books didn’t really work out the way it used to.

  Things had changed, and I wasn’t ready.

  When I showed up without my textbook, Mr. Monroe lectured me about being prepared and made me use the

  Most of the pages were ripped or covered in weird drawings or stuck together with who knows what.

  As I flipped through the crusty pages of the shared class textbook, it really hit me that things would be different now.

  I thought about that all through history class, and then again all through lunch when I didn’t see Jess at all because the office lady, Ms. Hayes, asked her to help with some kind of boring filing project.

  The next time I saw Jess that day was in science class, but since our partner projects were over, Mr. Walters decided to rearrange the class into new groups.

  I started to really think about everything that was changing around me and what change meant.

  I wondered what Jess thought about it all. Honestly, she was so good at dealing with change that she probably wasn’t that worried.

  We were VERY different.

  For a while though, we figured out a way to work together and become . . . friends. But could we still be friends if all the things we shared were suddenly gone?

  I honestly wasn’t sure.

  At some point, I thought Mr. Walters would stop talking about the Invention Convention and move on to his next “exciting” science initiative, but he kept bringing it up ALL WEEK.

  Unlike Mr. Walters, I was feeling pretty down about the whole thing.

  On top of the fact that my new science group was totally unbearable, we were getting our final grades back on the invention project and I knew exactly what ours would say.

  The FEED-IT 5000 had failed, and by association, so had we.

  Still, I didn’t want to look.

  It didn’t make any sense.

  It had to be a mistake.

  I checked to make sure he hadn’t gotten the papers mixed up. NOPE. I added up all the points to see if he got the scoring wrong. NOT THAT EITHER.

  When I looked across the room at Jess . . . she was looking right back at me, and her face said it all—

  As much as I liked the idea of getting an A on our project, it felt like Mr. Walters had missed something.

  Jess must have had the same thought because when the bell rang, we BOTH stayed behind to talk to him about it.

  When we told him why we were there, he smiled like he knew something we didn’t.

  I couldn’t really wrap my head around it, even after he promised us that that grade was real and that this wasn’t some kind of prank.

  The way I looked at it, the FEED-IT 5000 was a total DUD. So what did he see in it that we didn’t?

  “Your invention didn’t work that day, but it’s not just about that. Your presentation, your reports, your research—you did the work.

  And it was good.

  That counts too.

  “You see, science is all about trial and error. You don’t KNOW if things will work out. That’s part of the process.

  “
The NOT knowing is what makes it fun.”

  We left Mr. Walters’s classroom in a daze. It took a while for reality to sink in. Usually that meant something bad, but in this case, reality was kind of GREAT.

  We had to celebrate, and there was only one proper way to celebrate something THIS good.

  But not only had Jess never been . . .

  she had never even HEARD of it.

  I couldn’t believe it!

  Everyone knew that Antonia’s was the best bakery in town—arguably the whole world. What kind of friend would I be if I let Jess go another day without understanding why?

  I knew exactly what to do.

  I mean, what else are friends for?

  Once Maxine and Logan got to Antonia’s, the celebration REALLY began.

  Turns out, the Invention Convention had given us plenty of things to celebrate!

  Maxine got the lead part in the school play! Normally, only eighth graders auditioned for those parts, but when the drama teacher saw her present her invention onstage, he offered her the chance.