The Encyclopedia of Me

by Karen Rivers

  And the combination was dizzying.

  I dragged myself to my room and called Freddie Blue.

  “She’s not home, Tink,” said FB’s mom. “She’s gone camping with her dad this weekend.”

  “Camping?” I repeated. “Freddie Blue doesn’t camp.”

  Her mom laughed grimly. “I know, right?” she said. “Well, I’m sure she’s having an adventure, if nothing else. Her biggest adventure yet, no doubt.”

  “But!” I said.

  “I’m sure she would have invited you, but her dad was taking her with some of his friends and they probably didn’t have room,” she said quickly.

  “I don’t care,” I lied. “Just tell her I called.”

  Camping!

  Life was so unfair.

  I lay back on the cold tile, which had stopped helping, and I cradled the phone like it was a tiny kitten on my chest.

  And then it rang.

  “Hey,” said Kai. “May I please speak to Isadora?”

  I knew it was him, right away, but for some reason I said, “Hang on a sec.”

  Then I held the phone away from my ear and screamed, “TINK!”

  Then I pressed the off button very, very softly, like I didn’t want anyone to notice that I did it.

  He didn’t call back.

  I don’t know why I did that.

  I got up off the tile floor and went down to the basement. Dad’s bike was glittering clean; it looked finished. It looked like an artist’s version of a motorcycle and not like an actual motorcycle. I walked by it, careful not to touch it and leave fingerprints, and grabbed Seb’s board from the storage room. Then I headed down to Drop Mac Park. Swooping was obviously the only answer. Maybe swooping is always the answer, in situations where ice cream is not.

  I don’t really have much more to say about ice cream other than that, if you think about it, it’s really pretty good for you. It’s made from milk! Calcium! Have some. Your bones will thank you.

  See also Camping; Haywire.

  Irony

  Irony is when something happens that is funny only because it’s twisted in some way. For example, it’s ironic that I had a crush on Kai and then he kissed me, which made me NOT have a crush on him, but now thinking about the kissing and thinking about Kai gave me back the crush. Actually, that isn’t ironic; I’m just trying to work some things out and sometimes it helps to write them down.

  Janowicky, Austin

  My first kiss. Kind of.

  Surprised? Because you thought Kai was my first kiss?

  Nope. Sorry.

  Kissing games do not count. But if they did, then technically Austin Janowicky gave me my first kiss.

  It happened during a game called “Three Minutes in the Closet” at my and Freddie Blue’s birthday party (Virgorama!) last September. Drawing Austin Janowicky’s name was the “Three Minutes in the Closet” equivalent of losing. Happy birthday to me! It was the longest three minutes of my life. The awkwardness was so intense, I’m surprised I wasn’t crushed to death by it. It was like a giant concrete block of awkward. Worse, Austin stunk. Mostly like garlic and tuna fish, but also of worse things, like bad breath and feet. For the rest of the school year, his buddies teased him about making out with me, like he’d done it voluntarily and also like it was something really terrible. I honestly think I got the worse end of that bargain. At least I’d brushed my teeth!

  Freddie Blue got to kiss Damian Kato, who is/was among the cutest of the boys in our class. I was admittedly jealous. She wore her hickeys like a badge of honor. But I’m over it because Damian Kato is now known as BB Big Barf, due to the fact that he threw up violently during the school’s performance of The Wizard of Oz, right on the Cowardly Lion. (He played the Wizard.)

  Freddie Blue still claims that the kiss “took my breath away.” I mean, honestly, who does she think she is? Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind?71

  See also Books; Bullies; Hickey.

  Jealousy

  Jealousy is a sickly green feeling that comes over you when your BFF tells you that she loves the boy who just kissed you in the ice cream shop. It is the worst feeling in the world, akin to having all your body dunked into a puddle of slug slime and being forced to eat the eyeballs of a sheep.

  I was up in the Tree of Unknown Species, writing.72 The tree was so beautiful. My favorite, like I said. I don’t know if I liked it more now that it was Kai’s tree or if I liked it less because it felt like it was less mine.

  Probably neither. I mean, what makes it great is that it is easy to climb because the branches are fat and solid and densely arranged so as to make convenient footholds and handholds. The first part, before the branches start, is actually a bit tricky, so I have to pull myself up using a rope that I found in the carport. Now that the tree is Kai’s and not the neighbors-who-are-never-home, I hope no one tells me I have to stay out of it or stop climbing it. That would be the worst.

  I heard Freddie Blue Anderson’s familiar galloping run up the driveway. “Tink! Tink! TINKER BELL AARON-­MARTIN!” she shouted. “I AM BACK! I HAVE SURVIVED THE WILDS! TINKY! TINNNNNK!”

  I ignored her, not because I wasn’t happy to see her, but because she knows that anyone who calls me “Tinker Bell” deserves to trip and fall on a samurai sword that someone has accidentally dropped, pointy-end up, on the driveway.

  “WHERE IS MY TINK?” Freddie Blue shouted.

  “I DON’T KNOW!” Seb shouted.

  “DON’T SHOUT AT FRANK!” Lex shouted at him.

  “She’s probably up that dumb tree,” said Seb.

  “She’s so weird!” giggled Freddie Blue. “Right, Lex?”

  I peered down through the leaves. “I don’t think so,” said Lex. “Also it kind of sucks to say that about your best friend, right? I mean ______.”

  Was Lex defending me? I didn’t have time to think about it before Freddie Blue appeared below me. “There you are,” she said. “What are you doing? Trying to spy on your boyfriend?”

  “No!” I said. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m not spying on anyone.”

  “I’m coming up,” she said.

  She didn’t need the rope because she could reach the branches with her bare hands. Obviously, she had a growth spurt when I wasn’t paying attention. I mean, I was always aware she was taller than me, but BAM. Now she’s officially tall. Model-tall. She did a pretty impressive somersault over the biggest branch.

  “This reminds me of when we were kids,” she said, settling in just above me, her feet dangling near my face.

  “Totally,” I said. I was feeling prickly. I should have been happy to see her. I missed her, after all. But “when we were kids”? I didn’t want to say, “Last summer, you mean?” which is what I was thinking. “How was camping?” I asked instead.

  “OMG,” she said. “It was totally the best adventure ever. And you aren’t going to believe who was there. Guess! Come on, guess!”

  I shrugged.

  “Stella!” she shrieked. “Stella Wilson-Rawley! They just like showed up there on Saturday night! And you know what? I know you hate her, but she was actually, totally, totally the most awesome fun. We slept in a tent by the river and there were cougars in the woods, IsweartoGod we heard them, and we were laughing SO hard because what if we were eaten by a cougar! Hilair, right?”

  I squinted up at her. The sun was right behind her head, making her head look like a giant black hole. “Um,” I said. “Seriously? Stella?”

  She laughed, like it was the funniest thing in the world.

  “I don’t think it would be funny to be eaten by a cougar,” I added. “It would probably be really painful and gory and scary.” There was a lump in my throat. Do not cry, I told myself. DO NOT CRY.

  But . . . STELLA? Stella, who draws mean pictures of me on bathroom walls? Stella, who mocks my hair? Stella, my Worst Enemy EVER?

  “So what did I miss here?” FB said. “It’s like I’ve been gone for a billion years! Look at all my mosquito bites! The mo
s­quitoes were, like, totally insane crazy. Stell got bitten so many times, she practically scratched her legs right off!”

  My smile felt like something brittle that was about to drift off my face and crumble on the ground like a dead leaf. “Karma” is what I wanted to say, but didn’t.

  “And OMG, she told me the funniest thing ever, you aren’t even going to believe this,” said Freddie Blue, suddenly swinging around and dropping backward so she was dangling from her legs with her face near mine. “She said that she saw you and Kai kissing at the ice cream shop. I mean, AS IF, right? I told her she was a screaming nutbar, and she was killing herself laughing. She’s as crazy as a crate of chimps!”

  “Really,” I said. “Well. That’s sure . . . crazy. Wow.”

  “Well?” said Freddie Blue. “What do you mean, WELL? If you kissed Kai, you’d have told me already, right? And besides, I know you don’t like him. And even if you did, well, it’s not like he’d just suddenly start kissing you, right?”

  “I do sort of like him,” I whispered.

  “What?” she said. Her face was tomato red. “I can’t hear anything! The blood is all in my ears! Woooo!” She swung back upright, nearly falling off the branch and crushing me to death. Her foot bumped my ear.

  “OW! Be careful,” I said. “That hurt.” (It didn’t. But it COULD have!)

  “I’m OK!” she said. “I’m OK! Wow, I’m seeing stars, though. Neat. I never really knew that happened, I thought it was just an expression. Anyway, the stars when we were camping were AMAZING. You wouldn’t have believed it. There were millions of stars. You never really see them from here. Stella says it’s because of the light pollution. Hey, did you know she’s really smart? She’s got an IQ that’s like a billion or something. It’s the highest in the school. She isn’t allowed to tell anyone what it is because they might get all insecure and jealous. Mr. Hamm swore her to secrecy.”

  “Super,” I said. I stared down at Kai’s house. You kissed me! I thought, looking in his window, even though I couldn’t see anything due to the angle of the sun. YOU KISSED ME!

  “Anyway, what are you doing up here?” she said.

  “I’m working,” I said. “Thinking is work when you are writing a book.”

  “What’s your book about, anyway, kiddo?” she sighed.

  “FREDDIE BLUE,” I said. “It’s an encyclopedia. You already know that.”

  “Duh,” she said. “I knew THAT. I just forgot, I guess. Are you almost done?”

  “Never mind,” I said.

  “Huh,” she said. “OK, be that way. So what’s new? I mean, other than kissing Kai in the ice cream shop.” She started to laugh violently, instantly getting the hiccups. Hic. Hic. Hic.

  “Don’t pee,” I said. “You’ll get me all wet.”

  “Gross,” she said. “Don’t be hic mean. Tell me what hic you did while I was gone. It’s been ages. Have you been in the tree the whole time? Tinkers, you’ve GOT to be more sociable if we’re going to be the HIC It Girls of our class. You know that.” She burped. “There,” she said. “That always fixes it. No one knows that, Tink. Except me.” She smiled in the way that someone would smile if they’d just cured cancer or won the lottery, or both on the same day.

  “The Everybody magazine thing is tomorrow,” I said, to change the subject. I wanted to talk about it because I wasn’t at all ready. And I didn’t know what to do to get ready. Was readiness even required? What would FB do?

  “It’s tomorrow?” she said, like she was all excited. “You’re soooooooo lucky.”

  Just then we saw Kai wheeling down the sidewalk toward our (OK, his) tree. The skateboard wheels made their gorgo ball-bearing-ish type noise on the pavement.

  “I don’t know why you don’t like him,” said Freddie Blue. “You still don’t, right? I mean, nothing’s changed? Even though you’re all into boarding now?”

  “Right,” I said, even though just looking at him was making my hands shake. In the best way.73

  He kissed me! Did I mention that? Kai kissed me!

  “You know what?” Freddie Blue said. “He’s a totes awesome boarder and I like his name. He’s soooooo cute too, if you like the messy look.”

  “If you do,” I parroted. I was having a hard time talking, to be honest.

  “I do,” she said dreamily, staring at Kai with the moo-moo eyes she usually saves for Seb and Lex. “I think I really do.”

  “What?” I said.

  “I think I’m actually in love with him!” she squealed in a whisper, which only she can do. “My heart is totally racing!”

  “So’s mine!” I wanted to say. But I didn’t. Because mine stopped racing and fell right out of the tree and rolled down the hill, where it was squashed flat by a bus. If Freddie Blue liked Kai again, I might as well be a piece of dryer lint being blown away by a strong wind.

  She said, “I’m in love! Oh, this is awesome! It’s exactly like falling, Tink. You’ll understand when you’re older. I just knew it would be like this.”

  Which made me want to stick a sizzling-hot safety pin directly into the center of my palm.

  Or hers.

  FB was staring at Kai in a way that she probably imagined was “starry-eyed” but actually just made her look like she was having a seizure. “Well,” she said. “I totally like him. I’m so glad you decided not to like him, Tink.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. There was a lump in my throat the size of a tumor. The sun glinted on her golden highlights and she looked prettier than she ever had before. What did I do? Did Freddie Blue just steal my boyfriend?74 Or did I just hand him over without a fight?

  What is wrong with me?

  “Grrr,” I said in my throat.

  Freddie Blue started climbing down the tree, her hair shimmering in the wind.

  “What is that sound?” she said from below me. “Did you hear that? I thought I heard a dog growling.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” I managed to choke out. What was I going to say? “I was growling at you for stealing my not-boyfriend-who-kissed-me-in-the-ice-cream-shop?” I don’t think so.

  “See you, Tinkster!” she yelled from the ground. “I have to go call Stells and fill her in!”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Uh-huh.” I swallowed. My throat hurt, like it was closing tight around the lump. Kai was gone. Freddie Blue was gone. It was just me, in my tree, feeling a thousand times more alone than I ever had before. And sort of sick.

  With jealousy.

  I was jealous about camping. Jealous about Stella. And 100 percent extra super jealous that Freddie Blue was going to win the Boyfriend Race, and not just with ANY boy, but with the boy who I was hoping would be mine: Kai.

  Jealous, jealous, jealous.

  Jealous.

  “Jealous” is also one of those words that does not fit its meaning. The real word for “jealous” should have a lot of k’s and h’s in it and hard sounds, like a mouthful of chewed glass. The word “jealous” itself sounds more like the name of a dessert made from Jell-O and something delicious.

  Unlike what jealousy actually is, which is the ugliest, worst feeling in the world.

  See also Anderson, Freddie Blue; BFF; Boyfriend Race, The; Camping; Crush List; Everybody Magazine.

  Kai

  The boy next door. Blue-haired. Boarder.

  In trying to write this entry, I’ve realized that I don’t know his last name.

  How could I have a crush on someone when I don’t know his last name?75

  Obviously, I don’t have a crush on him at all and so it’s perfectly OK that Kai is Freddie Blue’s number one crush, and so he can’t be mine.

  There is nothing else I can say about Kai that you do not already know, as everything I know about him I have already written in this encyclopedia, thus guaranteeing that I will never let anyone read it, ever.

  Seriously, did I say you could read this?

  STOP RIGHT NOW.

  See also Boy, Blue-Haired, Who Just Moved in Next Door; Copwell Beac
h; Crush List; Ice Cream Incident, The.

  Karate

  The sport of kicking wood and/or other people and breaking it/him/her.

  My brothers have both taken karate, and as a result, Lex can chop a piece of wood in two with the side of his hand. Seb sometimes karate kicks the door when he’s mad. Once he put a hole in the wall with his foot, then got stuck there.

  Neither of my brothers still takes karate, and there is still a gaping hole in the drywall downstairs to remind us of why this is the case.

  Karma

  Karma is when you do something unforgivable to someone else and then something rotten happens to you. Maybe you are riding your bike and you accidentally scrape the side of someone’s car with your handlebars and you don’t stop. Karma will fix you by inserting a pothole into the road in front of you, causing you to fall over your handlebars and scrape your nose on the pavement,76 regardless of the fact that the owner of the car probably deserved to have it scraped. Karma is probably also at work when you steal your BFF’s crush and destroy her completely, whether you mean to or not. I mean, who knows what karma has in store for someone like that?

  I have obviously stacked up some bad karma because today is the Everybody photo shoot and I have a pimple in my nose cleavage77 that is the same size as my right nostril, but because of where it is located, it is actually pushing my nostril over, giving me one normal nostril, one half nostril, and one giant boil. That’s right. A nostril-sized pimple.

  “Impossible!” you say. And you are wrong. It is possible.

  It is so large, it hurts. I think it might have its own heart because I can feel it pulsing. A nostril-sized boil is a perfect beginning to any day, especially a day when you are going to be photographed for a national magazine. Glam!

  “Thank you, O Mighty Fate!” I said out loud after I finished examining my nose in the mirror. I should add that Fate is in charge of Karma, and tempting it is stupidly asking for capital-T Trouble. I stomped down the stairs for breakfast. Stomp, stomp, stomp. No one was still at the table, which was littered with filthy dishes covered with egg smears and toast crusts. Gross. I made a smoothie and drank it on the Itchy Couch, with only Hortense for company.