The Accidental Genius of Weasel High

by Rick Detorie

  EGMONT

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  First published in the United States of America by Egmont USA, 2011

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  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © Rick Detorie, 2011

  All rights reserved

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  www.egmontusa.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Detorie, Rick.

  The accidental genius of Weasel High / Rick Detorie.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Larkin Pace, a film-obsessed high school freshman, chronicles his experiences as he tries to raise money for a new camcorder and get a date with the girl who has been his best friend since third grade.

  ISBN 978-1-60684-149-5 (pbk.) ISBN 978-1-60684-244-7 (electronic book)

  [1. Motion pictures Fiction. 2. High schools Fiction. 3. Schools Fiction. 4. Interpersonal relations Fiction. 5. Family life Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.D47947Ac 2011

  [Fic] dc22

  2011002776

  Book design by Whitney Manger

  Printed in the United States of America

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  This book is dedicated to all those educators who are passionate about teaching, and in particular to Michael Iampieri, who fueled my interest in the creative arts and has been a constant source of inspiration since that very first day of Art Class 1-A at Loyola High School so many years ago.

  Contents

  1. TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT BEING 14

  2. BROOKE

  3. RANCHO DE LOS REJECTS

  4. MY EIGHTH BIRTHDAY

  5. TEN THINGS THAT BUG ME ABOUT MY DAD

  6. HOW I GOT STUCK WITH LARKIN

  7. MY MOM

  8. ENTER THE BEAST

  9. LUNCH WITH FREDDIE

  10. MEET THE NEW BOSS

  11. SIZE MATTERS

  12. I THOUGHT YOU WERE HER

  13. FIVE THINGS I HATE ABOUT P.E.

  14. GETTING PHYSICAL

  15. I’LL HOOK YOU UP

  16. THE LOVE DANCE

  17. DALTON COOKE

  18. SHE WHO MUST GET HER WAY

  19. TEN THINGS THAT BUG ME ABOUT MY SISTER

  20. THE COWARDLY LION

  21. THE AMY FORDYCE PROJECT

  22. TO MARKET, TO MARKET

  23. A KITTY FOR KELLY

  24. VIVE LA PRANK!

  25. MISS SADIE, THE LOVE DOCTOR

  26. LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

  27. THE MONICA SOLIS PROJECT

  28. HAVE I GOT A DEAL FOR YOU

  29. PANDORA, WE HARDLY KNEW YE

  30. LARKIN PACE, COME ON DOWN!

  31. A CALL FROM FREDDIE

  32. WHY WEASEL’S LIBRARY LADY HATES ME

  33. PAYBACK TIME

  34. THE UNINVITED GUESTS

  35. IT WOULDN’T KILL YOU TO EAT A LITTLE SOMETHING

  36. MEOW, MEOW, BOO!

  37. THE ANY GIRL AT ALL PROJECT

  38. IT’S “TAKE YOUR KID TO WORK ON YOUR DAY OFF” DAY

  39. WHEN A BUDDY NEEDS A BUDDY

  40. THE BIG SECRET

  41. THE SATURDAY AFTER NEXT

  42. MY BIG BREAK

  43. SHOOT!

  44. RAINY DAY BLUES

  45. THE REVIEWS ARE IN

  46. MISSING PIECES

  47. GETTING PERSONAL

  48. MY KIND OF CHORE

  49. SCHOOL’S OUT

  FOREWORD

  On the first day back to school after winter break, Mr. Hawley, freshman English teacher at Arthur C. Weatzle High School (commonly known as Weasel High), distributed spiral-bound notebooks to each of his students in his returning freshman class. He told the class that because he was unhappy with the overall poor writing skills and penmanship many of them exhibited in their work last semester, he was starting off the New Year with a long-term assignment that would run twenty weeks, from January through May.

  The assignment required that each student maintain a personal blog, a notebook blog.

  At least once a week, in their own handwriting, each student was to post an entry of any length. A post could be a couple of sentences, or multiple pages. Over the course of the assignment, Mr. Hawley would be periodically checking on each student’s progress.

  In the notebook blog, bloggers would be expressing their original thoughts and ideas. If their brains contained no original thoughts or ideas, they could write about other people’s thoughts or ideas. They could write about things they’d done and places they’d been, people they know, TV programs they watch. They could write about pets, sports, cars, music, fashion, anything.

  Students were to refrain from using texting abbreviations and profanity. They were also forbidden to use the word suck in any of its variations or connotations.

  The notebook blog would count for one-third of their final grade. However, the blogger with the most compelling, interesting, or humorous blog—as determined by Mr. Hawley—would receive the special grand prize of a sum total grade of 100 for the semester.

  What follows is the notebook blog of student Larkin Pace, who won the grand prize.

  THE DEFINITION OF AN ACCIDENTAL GENIUS

  An accidental genius is somebody who possesses an awesome talent that happens to be totally useless.

  It’s like the guy who can solve the Rubik’s Cube in ten seconds, or the girl who can multiply huge rows of numbers in her head and come up with the right answer every time.

  And then there’s me, who’s seen, like a million movies in my life (my dad teaches a film course and brings home tons of DVDs), and if you name any movie I’ve ever seen, I can tell you the plot, the cast, the director, the studio, and the year it was released.

  And that’s not all. I can even recall entire scenes and repeat, word for word, big chunks of dialogue. But because most people find it really annoying when I do that, it’s a superpower that I tend to keep hidden.

  Most of the time.

  — LARKIN PACE

  TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT BEING 14

  My mom has to drive me everywhere.

  I never have any money.

  Even girls are taller than me.

  My sister Kelly (no matter what age I am).

  Zits.

  I can’t think of five more right now. I’ll have to finish the list later.

  BROOKE

  Yesterday afternoon, Brooke and I went to the mall to hang out.

  Hanging out is pretty much all we can do at the mall, since neither of us has enough money to actually buy anything.

  In the window of the electronics store I saw my dream camcorder. When I have enough money saved, I’ll probably buy it off the Internet, but seeing it in person is truly a beautiful experience.

  I pressed my face against the glass and shouted.

  I had really been hoping to get that camcorder for Christmas— you know, under the tree—but no such luck.

  Brooke is totally cool. I’ve known her since third grade when we played each end of a rainbow in our class play, “The Monkey Puzzle Tree.” I had really wanted to play Bob, the lead monkey, but Ms. Holzinger gave the part to Joey Bernucci. I personally think it was because, of all the kids in our class, he was the hairiest.

  Since the rainbow thing, Brooke and I have been very close. We do a lot of stuff together and tell each other everything. She’s been my girlfriend for so long that we even think alike.

  We spent most of the morning at the mall Larkin
Snarkin’. That’s what Brooke calls it, but she’s actually a lot better at it than me.

  Snarkin’, I mean. You know, watching people, then making snarky comments about them.

  That “We are becoming aggravated” line is from Matrix Reloaded. Brooke is almost as good as I am at remembering lines from movies. She can’t repeat all the dialogue from an entire scene the way I can, but she’s good at recalling the corniest lines. Brooke’s sort of an Accidental Genius in training.

  Later we scraped up enough change to split a sub for lunch.

  While waiting for our order, we did a few lines from the movie Scarface.

  Yes, Brooke is awesome.

  The thing I especially like about Brooke is that she’s easy to talk to. I can kid around with her, and she gets most of my jokes, even the lame ones. We laugh at most of the same things.

  When you try to kid around with most girls, they take everything personally and get all offended. And they say things like, “What’s that supposed to mean?” and “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  Oh, give me a break.

  Okay, maybe I do have a hard time talking to girls I don’t know very well, but it’s not because I’m shy or anything. It’s just that they’re hard to figure out.

  Okay, so maybe I am kind of shy around girls.

  So Brooke and I spent the rest of the day at the mall walking around and making each other laugh.

  What could be better than that?

  RANCHO DE LOS REJECTS

  The barking woke me up. The clock said 5:18 A.M.

  I knew the Buddies had to be barking for a good reason. Either a fox or a raccoon was looking for a free chicken dinner.

  Sure enough, out on the roof of the chicken coop sat a big fat raccoon fiddling with the fence.

  I ran outside, tossed a stone at it, and just missed. The raccoon turned and gave me one of those “Is that all you’ve got, dude?” looks. So I opened the kennel gate and let the dogs out.

  All sixteen dogs (all named Buddy because many of them came without names, but they all answer to Buddy) took off after the raccoon, who jumped off the roof and disappeared into the darkness.

  Then, as I do every morning, I slid open the squeaky barn door and fed, watered, and cleaned up after the turkey, nine cats, five rabbits, seven hamsters, and Troy and Vanessa, the potbellied pigs who live there.

  Where did all these animals come from?

  The city and the suburbs.

  What typically happens is that people buy their kids a baby chick or a bunny for Easter, or a puppy or a kitten for whatever, and sooner or later, those cute baby animals grow up. And they become messy and noisy and farty, and the family decides to find them a new home somewhere, usually the woods.

  But it just so happens that our place is the last farm before the woods. So people looking to dump their unwanted pets figure: “Why not leave them on a farm instead? That clueless old farmer probably has so many critters running around on his farm, he won’t even notice one more.”

  Wrong.

  We do notice them. And we take good care of them.

  And we’re not farmers.

  We don’t grow any crops and we moved into this place with only one nonhuman, our dog Buddy.

  Make that two nonhumans, if you count my sister Kelly.

  You see, my mom and dad bought this place as a “nonworking” farm, but let me tell you, for a nonworking farm, there sure is a lot of work to be done around here.

  Anyhow, after the Buddies returned (raccoonless, as usual), I fed them and headed back to the house, where Dad was making coffee. He was already dressed in his professor clothes. You know, a real tie (not a clip-on) and shiny black shoes. And pants, of course.

  His full name is Martin Aldo Pace Junior, and he teaches English literature at the college and a class called Classic American Cinema. That means movies. Old movies. Many of them are in black and white and most of the people in them are dead. I mean, they’re dead now, not back when they made the movies.

  My dad brings home tons of DVDs, so I’ve watched maybe a thousand movies, and I can remember everything about them, including huge stretches of dialogue. I have some kind of total recall, but it only seems to work with movies, and not with history or math or anything that might be useful to me in school.

  So while he wasn’t awake enough to be thinking too clearly, I told my dad about the camcorder at the mall and asked him if he’d let me get a work permit to get a job so I could earn the money to buy it.

  But he said:

  Then he told me he’d speak to my mom about me working part-time for her or something.

  Yeah, whatever.

  MY EIGHTH BIRTHDAY

  I remember four things about the day I turned eight.

  Grandmom Pace said my long hair made me look like a girl. So, on the morning of my party, without my parents knowing about it, she took me to her hair salon to get it cut. Before they cut it, though, a girl named Kristi washed my hair in a shiny black sink. She was the shampoo girl, and she was very gentle and didn’t let any water get into my eyes or ears. Kristi was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

  During the party at the pizza place, Freddie Schnase got a dry-roasted peanut stuck up his nose, and the paramedics came and took it out. Then we had to hurry and cut the cake because the next party was coming in at two o’clock.

  When we got home, my mom and dad gave me my best present ever: a 6.0-megapixel optical-zoom digital camera. It was my first grown-up toy.

  Later that night I stood in front of the closet mirror and tried to imagine what I would be like in ten years.

  I was pretty sure I’d look a lot different: bigger, taller, and older looking. But I wondered, would I still be the same me?

  Would I still be into Legos, Transformers, and cookie-dough ice cream? Would I still want to be a professional soccer player? Would I still like to hike in the woods with my dogs and watch old movies with my dad?

  And would my sister Kelly still be a total monster?

  Well, yesterday I checked myself out in the mirror again, and it’s sad to report that not much about me has changed physically. I’m only four years away from being eighteen, but I don’t seem to have gotten any bigger.

  I don’t play with kids’ toys anymore and I don’t want to be a soccer player.

  Now I want to be a film director, like Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg or Jason Reitman.

  Some things that haven’t changed: I still like cookie-dough ice cream, hiking with my dogs, and watching old movies with my dad.

  I still have that same dinky little 6.0-megapixel camera.

  And my sister Kelly is still a total monster, only now she’s twice the size.

  TEN THINGS THAT BUG ME ABOUT MY DAD

  10. He’s always correcting my grammar.

  9. He’s anti–video games. He says video games make you fat and lazy.

  8. He’s no fun anymore. It seems like not so long ago, we used to go out and do stuff together. Not lately, though. I guess because he’s old.

  7. He’s old.

  6. He doesn’t laugh when I say something funny. He’ll tell me it’s funny, but that’s about it.

  5. He brings home tons of movies, but won’t go with me to see any of the current popular ones.

  4. He never plays catch with me, or football, or basketball, so I can’t do any of those sports. All he ever does is ride his bike dressed up in weird bike shorts and a weird helmet, which makes him look like the monster from the Alien movies.

  3. He drives too slowly. He even lets old people in hats pass us.

  2. Whenever we go someplace and they give him back too much change or an extra order of fries by mistake, he returns it.

  1. He won’t set me up with a professional-quality camcorder so I can get started in my career as a director.

  HOW I GOT STUCK WITH LARKIN

  My mom’s name before she married my dad was Diane Larkin.

  That’s right. I got her old name when she dropped it for
Pace. My mom liked the name Pace because it’s Italian for “peace.”

  Sometimes my mom gets all Italian on us, but that’s cool.

  As for me, I never had a problem being named Larkin until middle school. That’s when all the usual losers started making fun of it.

  Yeah, I’ve heard them all.

  Oh, and one more thing about my name.

  I’ve been friends with Freddie Schnase since we were in preschool. We’ve gone on vacations together. We were in Cub Scouts together. We’ve had sleepovers at each other’s houses. We have lunch together nearly every day. We’re closer than most brothers are to each other.

  But recently I’ve come to realize that I’ve never heard Freddie say my name. Larkin. Maybe he says it to other people when I’m not around. I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard him say my name to ME.

  From now on, when I’m with Freddie, I’m going to start listening for my name. He’ll have to say it sooner or later, right?

  My mom said I ought to just talk to him about it, but she doesn’t realize that even when Freddie and I do have a conversation, we don’t really talk about anything.

  MY MOM

  Yesterday afternoon, while I was watching this week’s recordings of The Price Is Right and, of course, taking notes, my mom came in to tell me something.