Trash Can Days

by Teddy Steinkellner

  I venture out of my room at 10:37 p.m. to finish the last of my brother’s Crunch Berries. What a rude awakening he will have tomorrow morning. I smile thinking about it.

  Ah, is this not the life?

  ALL STUDENTS: Next Monday, September 14th, is School Picture Day. Wear nice clothes and don’t forget to bring your smile!

  If you still haven’t purchased a locker, go see Ms. Devlin in the business office. Bring a check for 25 dollars made out to San Paulo Junior High.

  Attention All Athletes! The fall sports season is here! This season’s sports are boys soccer, girls soccer, boys flag football, girls flag football, and co-ed cross country. If you would like to join one of these teams, meet outside the gym after school today for an informational meeting. Tryouts are next week. GO PIRATES!

  The Cesar Chavez Social Justice in Action Club (CCSJIAC) will be holding meetings starting next Tuesday at lunch in room 120. See Ms. Montez for details.

  Please observe the Dress Code. School rules prohibit any wearing of tank tops, clothes with bared midriffs, hats, baggy shorts, or Oakland Raiders jerseys.

  In observance of September 11, there will be a one-minute moment of silence tomorrow during 2nd period from 9:04–9:05. Please be respectful.

  Remember, starting this year, San Paulo is a no gum, no iPods, no cell phones school! Those found with any of the aforementioned items will be given a detention. No exceptions.

  3 • Hannah Schwartz

  Tuesday, September 15

  So, essentially my problem is this: Kristen likes Alex, but Alex is torn between Avery P. and Meghan. Avery P. kind of likes Avery S.—which would be really cute, right? Two Averys dating? But Avery S. is fully, completely, madly in love with Rachel Sloan, and he even hooked up with her for like seven seconds during spin the bottle at Lauren Gardner-Smith’s birthday last weekend. But everyone knows that Rachel doesn’t want a relationship so soon after breaking up with Creepy Tyler, and since that’s like common knowledge, Avery S. told Spenser Walker that if he can’t get Rachel then he wants Kristen instead, and so then Spenser passed that along to me and so now I’m not sure if I should tell Kristen, because that would definitely ruin everything.

  I know. It’s hard to believe that all this could have happened in the last week, but that’s San Paulo for you. If you’re not checking Facebook every five seconds, you’re going to miss something huge. And if you’re the last person to hear the big news, you’re going to look like an idiot.

  I’m just glad I’ve been able to stay out of it so far. I mean yeah, there were some rumors that that unusually cute sevvy Jeremy Farnsworth liked me, and of course it’s only a matter of time before people start asking each other to the Halloween Dance, but mostly I just want to keep away from all the drama and focus on school stuff.

  That’s much easier said than done, though. No matter what, boys will always be a major part of my life. I mean, well, hmm. That came out wrong. I’m not saying that I’m the one who gets so involved in all the relationship drama. I personally think boys are a waste of time. I mean, after all, I’m the only one out of all my friends who’s never had a boyfriend, and I plan on keeping it that way until at least sophomore year of high school.

  But I have to admit that the gossip is fun to follow. Keeping track of all that stuff—who’s dating who, who cheated on who, who gave who a hickey the night before picture day—it’s sort of like our school is Hollywood and I’m like Us Weekly. Someone call the Fashion Police! Oh gosh, I wish we did have a Fashion Police. I would have totally arrested Corinne Allison today on two counts of first-degree frumpy. She needs to save her overalls for when she marries an obese farmer. Which will happen.

  I mean, it’s all in good fun. I think we all realize at the end of the day that while we do say some heinous things, there’s no deeper meaning behind them. Like, just because you call a certain girl slutty doesn’t mean it’s actually true. Well, in the case of Ashley Clarke, it is. But she knows what she did.

  Or rather, who.

  Johnny Graham. Johnny Graham. Johnny Graham. Can I just say bom chicka wah wah.…

  Oh I know, I know. That’s probably not true and I shouldn’t spread it like it is. Okay, time for a New School Year’s Resolution: don’t be a yotch. That’s almost as bad as being a slut.

  I was talking with my mom tonight when we went out for sushi, and she said that when she went to middle school, there was hardly any gossip or social scene at all. Like, they had maybe one dance a year, and if they even so much as said a boy’s name, a nun would slap them across the face with a ruler. All I have to say about that is thank GAWD my mom moved to L.A., went to USC, and met my dad. And thank JEHOVAH they decided to let me go to public school when I begged them till I cried.

  I could not imagine going to a boring junior high. I would definitely die a slow and painful death without my friends to keep things interesting. I mean it’s not like I totally hate the school part of school—I get A’s and everything. It’s just that I find it difficult to really care about isosceles triangles and sedimentary rocks and the effing Preamble.

  It’s funny because my little brother is the exact opposite. Like, he could not be more into school—he takes notes for all his classes and reads for fun and stuff. But when it comes to the social side of things, I mean yeah, Jake has his friends, but they’re all pretty lame and dorky in a sevvy-type of way. Well, except for Danny, I guess—but Danny doesn’t even really count, because he’s the son of our maid and gardener. Of course he and Jake are going to hang out.

  I actually kind of want to help my brother out now that he’s at middle school with me, but it’s hard—he’s just so clueless. Like, get this: a couple of weeks ago, Jake and I were back-to-school shopping at the mall with my mom and Danny. We were at the Gap and I had the credit card and I tried to buy Jake these cool jeans. They were standard fit, vintage wash, pretty expensive, and I showed them to him and I said, “These are yours if you want them.” And do you know what he did? He actually flinched. Like these were haunted pants or something. Like these were Horcrux jeans with a piece of Lord Voldemort’s soul in them. Like it was going to kill him to actually wear something acceptable for once. God. I guess if they’re not sweatpants or pasta-sauce-stained shorts, then Jake’s not gonna wear them.

  Danny took me up on the jeans offer. He knows what’s up.

  Look—it’s not as if I’m totally obsessed with being popular, like a skinny blond cheerleader from a Disney Channel show or something. It’s just that I’ll take being a little bit cool over being completely lame. Jake is so close to becoming one of those kids who becomes defined by what a loser they are, and I just don’t want that. Like, that’s embarrassing for me. There’s this other sevvy I heard about, this Asian girl Dorothy something, and I’ve heard the funniest stories about her—like I heard that at her old school, she had no friends, and so she’d just walk around during recess, talking to herself and making animal noises, and when someone came near her, she’d meow and ribbit until they went away or whatever. I just don’t want Jake to be considered in the same league as her.

  But why waste my time talking about such irrelevant humans. Allow me to move on to a subject much nearer and dearer to my heart: Chad Beck.

  I heart Chad Beck. I heart him so much. I know I said before that I would never date until sophomore year, but… well…it’s Chad. I mean, his name is CHAD, for God’s sake. That’s pretty much like, “Hotness: the name.”

  (Other contenders for Hotness: the name—Sky, Brody, Heath, Aiden, Luca. But sorry, I just don’t see how any of those can beat Chad.)

  Chad is basically unattainable as far as guys go. Even though every girl from Arlington has been secretly in love with him since like, 4th grade, he’s never had a real relationship. And honestly, why should he? I mean, he’s just better than the rest of us. I have no chance. So I should just be like, indifferent, right? I should just forget about it and treat him like any other boy.

  But oh GAWSH—when I saw h
im on the first day of school this year it just really really clicked for me. He’s like this crazy science experiment—every hot guy element mixed together into one perfect package. He’s got the cute surfer/skater look, the sandy hair, the gorgeous green-blue eyes, the butt to end all butts, he’s super-nice, and I even heard that he writes poetry in his spare time.

  And I think he might like me, too. I mean, when we talk to each other in science or P.E. or whatever, both of our flirt-o-meters are definitely set on “pursue.” So yeah, I’m not making any promises—I don’t want to jinx it—but as we get closer to Halloween we’ll see where this thing goes.…

  But I mean, like—I don’t want a boyfriend. I definitely do not want a boyfriend.

  4 • Danny Uribe

  Saturday, September 19

  Today was a good day. I had the Schwartz mansion all to myself. Jake and his sister and his parents were off at some bamitzvah in L.A., and my parents were cleaning the house they work at on weekends, so I got to kick it wherever I wanted on the property. The master bedroom. The dining room. Jake’s room. The TV room. The other TV room. The pool. The hot tub. The wine cellar. The Sport Court. The putting green. Anywhere as long as it wasn’t my family’s stupid little shack.

  This morning I mostly hung out in Jake’s room and played Xbox. Then I got hungry, but the Schwartzes ran out of Hot Pockets so I ordered a pizza with the money that Mrs. Schwartz left for me. It’s funny how much she gave me. Forty dollars. If it had been my mom, she would’ve given me three dollars. She would’ve said, Go get two things off the dollar menu, and a drink, and don’t forget to give me back that change. But it was Jake’s mom, so I got forty instead. Livin laaaaarge.

  I took a shower in Jake’s bathroom just because I felt like it. He had mad good-smelling shampoo. I need to borrow that stuff from him more often. If I’m gonna start getting some ladies this year, I need to have nice-smelling hair. Girls are all over that. I used Jake’s deodorant too. It was super fresh. I don’t think it even got opened before today.

  After that I was thinking about shooting a few j’s or playing some more Xbox or maybe trying out the sauna, but I realized that I still had some homework left to do. At first I was all kinds of pissed to have work over the weekend, but it wasn’t that bad. I just had a couple of math problems and this work sheet for English. I’m glad I finished it early. So far the work at San Paulo is pretty cinchy.

  The people at SP are sick. There’s lots of different kids with different backgrounds. A lot more color in the hallways. Everyone’s way chiller than at Arlington, too. They’re not all obsessed with who has the nicest things or whatever. They don’t treat me like a Mexican charity case, either. I just like it better than I’ve ever liked school. I don’t think Jake’s that happy with his classes so far, but he’ll be okay. He’ll stop whining. He’s always loved school before.

  Before the family left this morning, Mrs. Schwartz gave me one responsibility for the day and that was to feed the koi fish while the family was gone. But right when I was about to get the fish food, I got a text from my cousin Javy. Him and my other cousin Carlos were hanging out and they wanted to know did I want to come over to the Eastside and chill. Getting that text was kind of a surprise. I haven’t seen my cousins that much in the years since me and my parents moved to the rich part of town, only at some random family birthdays and Quinceañeras. It’s cool that I get to see them more now that we go to the same school. It’s cool that they thought of me today. I texted them, Yeah let’s kick it, and put on my shoes and left the house right then. So I forgot to feed the fish. That’s okay. Fishes can live without food for eight days or something like that. I think that’s true, at least. I’ll ask Jake.

  My bus ride over to the Eastside was mad funny. There was this gray-haired woman, like a bag lady woman, and she had like, five gray hairs on her chin. It was so funny. Old white people are crazy.

  When I got to my cousins’ house, them and some of their friends were all just kicking it in the front yard. It was their usual crew.

  There was Javy and Carlos, of course, who have always been cool to me. They’ve never made a big deal to their other friends about how I live in Seabrook and stuff. Javy is just one of the chillest guys. He makes me feel tight with dudes I just met, just by talking and making everyone feel part of the same group. Carlos is quieter, but just as nice and one of the best taggers you’ve ever seen. His graffiti is seriously like art.

  Edgar dominates everyone at soccer. He doesn’t even have to try. He rules every sport and he knows it. When he gets famous he’s going to get himself free Gatorade for life, and sometimes he’ll give me sips. That’s what he said.

  Junior knows all these good dirty jokes. He’s probably the hardest on me out of the guys, but he still treats me good. He’s a little bit older, that’s all.

  Then there’s Martín, who is really fat, so we all call him “Gordo.” It’s funny how every group always has a fat guy. Gordo can make me laugh so hard. Like this one time, Javy fell asleep at one of my baby cousin’s baptisms, and when no one was looking, Gordo woke Javy up by rubbing his man boobs all up in Javy’s face. He was all, Who’s getting baptized now? It was the best. I can’t help but smile more when I’m around Gordo.

  All of those guys are eighth graders. I’m the only one who’s in seventh. I used to be by far the shortest out of all of them too, so when I saw them they would always call me “Danielito.” Now that I’ve grown so much over the summer, up to like five feet eight now, I’m actually taller than all of them except Javy, but they all still call me “Danielito” anyway. I’m tired of that nickname.

  All of us are Mexicans, of course. Well I’m only half Mexican since my dad is from El Salvador, but basically I’m full Mexican like them. To everyone at SP, I’m full Mexican.

  To everyone at Arlington, I was the only Mexican. That was a lot to deal with. Sometimes I wonder if that was the reason I didn’t really have friends there besides Jake.

  It’s weird. At Arlington it felt like I was, I don’t know, too Mexican or something. But today I was worried that my cousins and their friends would think I’m less brown than them since I’m the only one out of all of us who went to Arlington.

  It’s messed up. Yeah, it’s tight to have my parents working for the Schwartzes, and yeah, I do like living on their huge property with the pool and the basketball court. And yeah, it was a good opportunity for me to be able to go to a nice, smart school like Arlington. But it’s still been frustrating for me. Like today, all of the guys were asking annoying questions about where I’ve been all summer, why wasn’t I at Javy’s birthday, why wasn’t I at church on Sundays. What am I supposed to say to that? Do I tell them that I spent July at a swank summer camp in Maine with my best friend, Jake? Do I say that during August I went on a big expensive cruise across all of Europe with the family of a famous movie producer? Not unless I want to get laughed at and left out of the group. Not unless I want them to start calling me “Jew-lover” or “gay” or “gay Jew-lover.”

  I got them to stop bugging me by telling them that I’d been busy with summer school. Summer school is something they can all understand. “Sorry man,” they said. “That sucks.”

  We didn’t do much. Went over to the courts and played some basketball. I played okay. My shot wasn’t falling, but I got some good rebounds and put-backs and a couple nice steals. After we were playing for like, an hour, some older and bigger guys joined our game. Real cholos, like from gangs. Like from gangs where they stab people. People like that kid who died. Anyway, I’m pretty sure these guys were from San Paulo High. They all had like, mustaches and hats with the sticker still on and everything, and they were mad hard to play against. It’s not so much how skilled they were, but they were strong and they had all kinds of dirty tricks.

  In the middle of the last game, there was this one fool. He was real tall, like taller than me, like almost six feet, I think, and I can still picture him because his head was shaved all gangster-style and
because he had like this one big, thick eyebrow that went across his forehead. Jake said it’s called a unibrow. He said it’s like something a werewolf would have on his face when it’s in people form. Anyway, this guy was a scary-looking fool. Way thugger than a wussy wolf. I was running up the court on a fast break, and the dude came up to me and pushed me to the ground really hard for no reason. It skinned my knee up pretty bad, but I didn’t want to show anyone how much it hurt. And the eyebrow guy was just laughing with his friends the whole time.

  Once the high school guys basically kicked us off the court, we went to Chapala Market to get Gatorades. Junior and Gordo also stole some Pica Limon when the cashier wasn’t looking. I’ve never seen them steal anything before today. But they said that it’s just candy and they’ve been doing it all summer and that I’d know that if I hung out with them once in a while. Then they called me a gay Jew-lover. Those guys are wack sometimes.

  We got back to Javy and Carlos’s and I told the crew that I had to get back home. I didn’t say my reason why, which is that I still felt bad about not feeding the Schwartzes’ fish. We all bumped fists, and they said that it was really cool having me over to hang out and that I should do it more often. I told them I would, and I will. It’s tight hanging out with those guys now that we’re all at the same school, part of the same world.

  On my bus ride back I saw the bearded lady again. I don’t think she ever leaves the bus. What a crazy, crazy lady. I wish I had a beard like her, though.

  I got back to the Schwartz house and fed the fish first thing. Then I ordered another pizza and watched some TV on their plasma screen for a while. Finally I was tired, so I decided to head back to my room, lie down on my bed, and relax. That’s when the Schwartzes got back, so Jake came over and asked if I wanted to play video games. I told him that my thumbs were tired from playing all day. He said okay and went back to his house. I’m not sure why I lied.