So Michael, if you’re listening, don’t spend time living your life in a vacuum. Reach out to someone you can trust—a parent, a teacher, a friend—and tell them what’s going on inside your brain and your heart. Don’t worry about how they’ll react; they may be surprised, and they may not understand, but at least they’ll know.
Which means that no matter what, you won’t ever be alone again.
Michael Griffo performed as an actor throughout the country, off Broadway, and as far away as Hong Kong. He made the transition to playwright in 2001 and his first play, No More Sundays, won the New Jersey Perry Award for Best Original Play. His first novel, Unnatural—the first in a new young adult vampire series—was published in March 2011. Unwelcome (2011) and Unafraid (2012) quickly followed. Next up is Moonglow, featuring a sixteen-year-old girl who falls victim to a family curse. Visit MichaelGriffo.com.
THE SKINNY GIRL
Janet Gurtler
Dear Teen Me,
It’s kind of a rush isn’t it—how thin you’ve become? It started with that boy you’d been crushing on. Your best friend asked him what he thought of you, and in response he reversed the words from the punk rock song by the Monks you all loved so much: Instead of “Nice legs. Shame about her face,” he sang, “Nice face. Shame about her legs.”
Wow! That comment hurt so much you couldn’t breathe for a minute, and a shamed blush stained your cheeks. You hated being the chubby one in a family full of thin kids, and suspected that your size made you inadequate in some way. Teasing sucked, but this was different. This was from a boy you liked. And it was devastating to your already fragile ego. So a diet followed and the weight dropped off.
And for the first time now you’re actually skinny. What a trip! You feel powerful, and really in control. I can see why it’s hard to say no to the attention—the positive attention—that the weight loss gets you. You start hanging out with the popular girls again, as if thinness makes you worthy, but inside you feel empty. Physically and emotionally. They love how skinny you’ve become, though, all those thin girls. When one of them brags about fitting into a pair of your jeans you feel like you’ve made it. Like your thinness is something to be desired.
Unfortunately, taking it off isn’t the hard part. Starving yourself is sustainable for a while, but it’s hard to keep up. You’re basing your worth on how many calories you consume. And so now, when you do eat, it’s pure guilt. Which leads to binges, and more guilt. And then you’re starving yourself again. You’re caught up in a vicious cycle.
But then another skinny girl at school shares a secret with you: throwing up. You try it, but you’re not very good at it. That makes you feel like even more of a failure, and the weight piles back on again, but I’m so happy now that you couldn’t make yourself do it. It’s a dangerous, dangerous way to live, and some people who do it wind up so malnourished that they can even die. But take a look at yourself right now. You’ve got a lot more life in you, and if you look hard enough, you’re going to find a person with strength and real tenacity.
Being skinny seems like a path to happiness, but it’s not. Trust me. Hang in there. There’s not one defining moment when it all changes, but gradually you’ll come to believe that you’re kind of okay. You’re actually going to kind of rock at middle age (if you do say so yourself). It’s a great time for you (and it’s not as far off as you might think). Remember how you always felt like an old woman lived inside you? Well, you’ll grow into your skin, just like you predicted. You’ll worry about your weight on and off your whole life, but it won’t define you. Not like it does now. In fact, you’ll have a pretty good time. You’ll have friends who value you for more than your size, and you’ll accomplish things that have nothing to do with how you look.
Someday you’re even going to meet a boy who thinks you’re beautiful—even with no makeup and with some extra weight. You’ll marry him. He’s going to love you no matter how you look. Because of who you are.
Janet Gurtler is the author of contemporary YA novels, I’m Not Her (2011), If I Tell (2011), and Who I Kissed (forthcoming). Although she is chronologically (way) older, in many ways Janet will always be a sixteen-year-old girl. Visit her at JanetGurtler.com.
IT’S ABOUT TO GET WORSE
Kersten Hamilton
Dear Teen Me,
Some people say God doesn’t allow us to see our futures because we wouldn’t have the courage to face all that trouble and heartbreak if we saw it all at once—but I don’t think that’s true. The thing is, I know a secret that you’re just beginning to learn, and this secret isn’t just important for your dream of becoming a writer, it’s also critical to your survival. So I’m going to give you a little peek into the days ahead.
It starts with that litter of puppies. They’re three days old, and their mother is dead. Everyone says you should drown them because they’re going to die anyway without a mama dog to feed them. That’s what they say. You’re thirteen, but you gave up listening to what people said years ago. You’ve learned to think for yourself. You don’t trust adults.
Your mom left when you were six. She fell in love with a man who didn’t want kids, and she chose him over you and your brothers and sister. You haven’t seen or heard from her since you were seven.
Your dad is an amazing storyteller—very charismatic. He can convince anyone that he’s completely, totally sane. He doesn’t tell them about the “voice” that tells him when to quit each job he gets, when to sleep, when to eat, and when it’s safe to walk down the street.
You’ve had it with death and loss and craziness. You decide you’re not going to kill the innocent little puppies. Not going to let it happen. And that’s a good choice, teen self. You’ll save them all, and name the one you keep Shadrach (after they boy in the Bible who came through a fiery furnace and lived to tell about it). He’s a yellow mutt with a black muzzle, and he’ll repay you a thousand, thousand times for saving his life.
Before Shad’s a year old, the “voice” will tell your dad to stop talking to you. You’ll have to make all your own decisions from that moment on, and you’ll make some bad ones. You’ll drop out of high school after your freshman year. Really bad choice. And because you’re not in school, no one will notice when you disappear.
The “voice” says the world is going to end and demands that the family get off the grid before it does. You’ll spend the rest of your teen years moving from one hiding place to another. You’ll live in shacks and abandoned houses. And you will be so, so isolated (i.e., you’ll have absolutely no human contact outside of your immediate family). Your dad still refuses to speak to you. It’s only because of Shad that your heart doesn’t wither and die. You’ll love Shad, and he’ll love you, no matter what.
Listen: As soon as your brothers are old enough to look after themselves, you need to get out of there. Things are different for girls in your family. Run. Wherever you wind up going, it will be good to have Shad with you.
And when you eventually meet your mother—try to understand that she is as broken as your dad. It wasn’t anything you did or said when you were seven that made her leave.
The fact is, we can’t know what the future holds, because it doesn’t exist yet—it doesn’t exist until we create it. No matter where you start, and no matter where you are today, you can dream a new tomorrow. Your parents can’t stop you. You can create it through the choices you make (like the choice to save a puppy). If you have no adult to trust as a child, choose to become an adult that children can trust.
Kersten Hamilton is the author of Tyger Tyger (2010) and In the Forests of the Night (2011), both published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She set about creating her future when she was thirteen years old, and Kersten managed to make more good decisions than bad decisions along the way. She’s still dreaming a new and wonderful future into existence.
GOING ALL THE WAY
Bethany Hegedus
Dear Teen Me,
You stare at the neon green light on your
bedside digital clock. In a few more minutes, you’ll let Drew go—like, all the way. You’ve made up your mind. That’s why you’re here in the middle of the night. That’s why you let Drew’s best friend, Nate, pick you up after you snuck out of bed, crept down the stairs to the kitchen, and out the garage door. Not the big garage door with its electronic switch, but the side door that opens to the backyard—to where your family’s golden retrievers sleep. Both Rainy and Snowy bark at you, and at that point you almost head back inside. Almost. Instead you run. You run for the corner.
When Nate picks you up, you don’t know what to say. He’s your friend. You’ve known him for the two years you’ve been dating Drew on and off. You don’t go to the same high school anymore. (Zoning.) Nate plays saxophone in the marching band. Drew plays trumpet.
Nate fiddles with the car radio and mentions that Drew’s car is in the shop. You make small talk. Uncomfortable small talk. Your best friend, Andrea, dated Nate for a few weeks. They broke up when she wouldn’t give him a BJ. Dad thinks black guys are only after one thing—sex—but you know that’s not true. You and Drew have been dating for a long time. You make out. You touch one another. But you’ve never gone all the way. He hasn’t threatened to break up with you if you don’t.
Tonight is the night—you know it.
You’re in his bedroom. Drew nuzzles your ear. You’ve been kissing for what feels like hours. The bed creaks and your bodies shift. Your journal is filled with poems about Drew. About how Drew feels about you. About how hard it is to date a black guy. To deal with the stares of people in the mall. Or the movies. Not that you guys go out very often. Neither of you likes the stares.
Your friend Alicia lives in the same neighborhood as Drew. Her dad is a colonel in the army. Drew’s dad is in the army, too, but you haven’t ever met him. Before Drew turned the lights off, you saw his family picture. His mom, his dad, his little sister. Why haven’t you met any of them? Is Drew ashamed of you? Of your whiteness?
You stare at the clock. The deadline has passed. You’ve been doing that all night. Adding five more minutes—working up your nerve. You’re ready to go all the way. You’re about to whisper, “I love you, Drew,” when he shifts his body. He rolls away from you, pulls up his jeans, zips his zipper. “You better go. It’s getting late.”
You pull down your skirt, slide back into your bra. You stand like strangers in the dark.
Drew never knew that you wanted him to be your first. Five days later, you find out he’s started seeing someone else. A girl who goes to his high school.
A few years later, when you do go all the way, it’s a joint decision—something that’s spoken about beforehand and attempted over and over again. (Who knew losing your virginity would take more than one try?) And when it does happen, no one’s best friend picks you up. You drive yourself there and you drive yourself back home. And looking back, you’re gloriously relieved that your decision wasn’t dictated by the flashing of a bedside clock, but by your own internal clock instead.
Bethany Hegedus is the author of Between Us Baxters (2009), Truth with a Capital T (2010), and the forthcoming Grandfather Gandhi. She serves as editor for the YA section of the popular literary journal Hunger Mountain. A longtime resident of New York, she now lives in Austin, Texas.
YOU ARE THE ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
Geoff Herbach
Dear Teen Me,
Humiliation and hilarity are closely linked, my little friend. Don’t lie there in bed, your guts churning, as you replay the terrible scene. I’m glad your shirt stuck to the floor.
I love your break-dancing crew, okay? You and your friends from the rural Wisconsin hills have that K-Tel how-to album (including posters and diagrams). You pop. You worm. You spin on your backs. You windmill. In fact, you’re not even that bad!
I love your silver “butterfly” pants (with forty-six zippers) that burst red fabric when you spin. Beautiful.
I love it when you take your giant piece of cardboard (mobile dance floor) down to the corner of Kase Street and Highway 81 to dance for traffic. Maybe you’re right. Maybe a talent scout will be driving between Stitzer and Hazel Green. Maybe you will be discovered…Keep at it!
I love it that you have the guts to go into Kennedy Mall in Dubuque, Iowa to dance across from Hot Sam’s Pretzels. You and your buddies go for broke in front of a small, glum crowd (who all eat Hot Sam’s pretzels), and when security comes to escort you out, you scream, “Dancing is not a crime!” I love that.
I especially love what happened at Dubuque’s Five Flags Center a few months later. You and your crew (Breakin Fixation) challenged Dubuque’s 4+1 Crew to a dance-off. You practiced. You got T-shirts with your crew name emblazoned on them. You worked hard, and you daydreamed harder. You imagined the roaring crowd lifting you onto their shoulders. You didn’t expect the Five Flags floor to be so sticky. You didn’t expect to sweat through your new shirt. You didn’t expect the flesh of your back to be gripped and twisted so that it felt like it was on fire. You didn’t expect it, but that’s how it was, and it hurt so bad that instead of spinning into a windmill—the main part of your routine—you just writhed on the floor, howling.
So okay, sure, people laughed at you—and you know why? Because you looked really funny.
Don’t stay awake worrying about it, though. Don’t wonder what you should have done differently. Don’t beat yourself up, gut boiling with embarrassment. Don’t imagine punching out the members of 4+1—you can’t blame them for wearing slick Adidas tracksuits that didn’t grip the floor. Just go to sleep, kid, and get ready for the next dance. It’s all going to be great, okay?
How do I know?
Because now, so many years later, you can barely remember your victories (although there were some). What you think about now are the high-wire acts, the epic falls, and the punishing jeers of your classmates. You think about how excellent it is that you got up, dusted yourself off, and with utter seriousness of purpose, tried again.
Your immense dorkiness as a teen will be the center of your artistic life, the center of your sense of humor, the center of ongoing friendships with so many of the kids you knew back then. (You guys never discuss the relatively boring victories—you only talk about the grand, majestic, hilarious failures.)
What if you hit it big at that contest? Would you be a professional break-dancer now? Would success have gone to your head? Or would you be a rich banker? Or a lawyer? Terrible!
But instead, you stuck to that floor, with your back on fire with the pain, and you screamed.
Don’t beat yourself up over it, okay? Just relax. Keep dancing by the highway, you splendid little dork.
Geoff Herbach is the author of two young adult books, Stupid Fast (2011) and Nothing Special (2012). He teaches at Minnesota State, Mankato, where he lives in the woods in a log cabin, like Laura Ingalls Wilder (except with air-conditioning and a nice gas fireplace).
Faith Erin Hicks has written and drawn thousands of pages of comics, some published, some online. Her previous work includes Zombies Calling (2007), The War at Ellsmere (2008), Brian Camp (art only, 2010), and Friends with Boys (2012). She can be found online at FaithErinHicks.com.
WHEN DANCE WAS YOUR WORLD
Nancy Holder
Dear Teen Me,
Excuse me for interrupting you while you’re hard at work. In the picture I’m looking at, in the moment I’m thinking of, you’re choreographing a piece to “Lady Jane,” by the Rolling Stones. You’ve organized your dancers into three groups, weaving them in and out of the intricate threads of guitar and harpsichord and dulcimer. Every time you work on the piece you can’t catch your breath. You’re nervous and exhilarated and you wonder if you’re crazy because getting this right means so much to you; you feel every note so deeply. The song sounds plaintive, sinister, and sexy all at the same time. You keep seeing Mick Jagger sneering as he gazes at some poor Tudor girl sobbing because he’s dumping her. In your imagination, he looks like David Bowie as the Demon King
in Labyrinth. Different rocker, same edge.
You are firmly convinced you have no edge. Though it’s hard to believe here in the future, you’re still very shy right now. You don’t tell anyone how deeply that song moves you, especially since you’re not totally sure what it’s all about. But when you listen to it, you feel as if there’s a world living and breathing inside the music. It seems like, in a way, the Stones live there, and that if you get the dancers to feel as much as you’re feeling through the movements you give them, the Jaggerverse will shimmer into existence, and you’ll suddenly find yourself living a Bohemian existence downtown.
Grossmont is your third high school. No one there knows that less than a year ago, you dropped out of your second high school and moved to Europe to become a classical ballet dancer—and that you came home six weeks later because your father died of a heart attack. When it happened your stepmother got you a ticket home—for the funeral, you thought. You fully expected to return to Europe to keep dancing, but your stepmother talked you into staying in California and finishing high school. Which seemed like the sensible thing to do at the time. But later on you find out that Mrs. Newman, your stateside ballet teacher, didn’t think it was such a good idea. She felt like you’d lose your chance to become really good. But she never got the chance to speak to you before you got on the plane.
Dear Teen Me Page 6