The Secret Life of Lincoln Jones

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  There was no explaining it. Not in ten pages, not in a hundred.

  So while Colby’s feather pencil flapped around and Rayne and Wynne had their noses low over their pages and scribbled away, I sat on the edge of our continent with a blank page, feeling stuck.

  Stuck and alone.

  After that first half hour of writing, we had a math lesson, and then we were back to writing again ’cause Colby raised her feather and begged, “Can we have more time on our essay? Please?”

  I’m guessin’ she’d had a Thanksgiving worth writing about.

  I watched her feather do the mad flap for a while, and then I guess I was staring at Rayne’s paper, ’cause she asked, “Why aren’t you writing?”

  I hunkered down, shielding my blank page after that. And I tried to come up with something, but I was tangled up inside. All I had for my essay when the recess bell rang was a title: “My Thanksgiving.”

  When Ms. Miller released us, I busted out of the room and cut across the blacktop toward where Isaac said he’d meet me. I was hoping his class had to write a Thanksgiving essay. I thought maybe he could help me figure out what to do.

  I was almost at the spot when Troy Pilkers stepped in my way. “I do declare!” he said. “If it ain’t the Missing Link.”

  He was making fun of me being from the South.

  He was also baiting me.

  I didn’t bite, but my heart was beating fast as I tried sidestepping him.

  He sidestepped, too. “Whassamatter, sugar? Cat got your tongue?”

  I tried sidestepping again, but when he blocked me again, I squared up and said, “It’s not my fault you got thrown off the bus.”

  “Well, shut my mouth! If that don’t put pepper in the gumbo!”

  “What?” I gave him a good, hard squint. “That makes no sense.”

  He dropped the Southern thing. “Yeah? So who was it?” He shoved me. “Who got me thrown off?”

  The shove wasn’t that hard, but it set something off in me. I wanted to run. Find a corner somewhere and wait for it to be over.

  But my feet stayed planted, and I drilled him with a look that said he was dumber’n dirt. “You did. Driver’s got a mirror, you know.”

  Before Troy could answer, Isaac stepped in. “Hey! Why’d you shove him?”

  Troy zeroed in on him. “You really taking me on, Dweebly?”

  Out of nowhere, Kandi was there, too, with a four-square ball tucked under her arm. “Oh, grow up, Troy.”

  Troy took in the three of us, then stared at her. “These two? Seriously?”

  “You don’t know anything about them, okay? Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t be so mean.”

  “I was just goofing around,” he said with a shrug. “He could have asked me to stop, you know.”

  I stretched up an extra inch. “Like you need to be asked to quit flingin’ tuna in someone’s hair?”

  “Yeah,” Kandi said. “Only an idiot would need to be told that’s not cool.” And then she did the most surprising thing I’d ever seen at school. She softened her voice like Gloria always does to calm down the oldies and said, “I don’t think you’re an idiot, Troy. So just be nice, would you? It’s not hard.”

  He stared at her some more, then grumbled, “Whatever,” and walked away.

  “Wow,” I said, watching him go.

  Isaac nodded. “That was unexpected.”

  Kandi smiled at us, then looked out at the four-square court, where kids were waiting for her to return with the ball. “You guys want to play?”

  “I’m terrible,” Isaac said, shaking his head.

  “Me too.”

  Kandi punched her free hand to her side. “Oh, just come, would you? Everyone’s terrible. It doesn’t matter. It’s just fun.”

  I looked at Isaac and shrugged.

  He shrugged back.

  And we followed Kandi to the four-square court.

  Trouble was waiting for me inside the classroom. During recess, Ms. Miller had gone around to each desk and looked over our essays. “Lincoln,” she said, and wagged a finger for me to follow her outside.

  As quiet as she’d said it, the whole class knew I was in trouble. And as hard as they tried, their sly-eye watching me go was nowhere near sly.

  “I thought you loved to write,” Ms. Miller said when the door was closed.

  I stared at my shoes.

  “Lincoln? Look at me.”

  I looked up, then went back to my shoes.

  “Lincoln, you can write about anything. Anything that happened over Thanksgiving break. It doesn’t have to be about the dinner.”

  I nodded.

  “Lincoln?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you celebrate Thanksgiving?”

  I nodded, which seemed to send relief streakin’ through her.

  “Well, then, what’s the problem? I thought you would love this assignment! You are my very best writer, did you know that?”

  I shook my head.

  “You have a wonderful way with words. I always look forward to reading your essays.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She stood lookin’ at me for an endless minute. Finally she said, “Is everything all right at home?”

  I nodded.

  “Lincoln?”

  She had a look on her face that was all parts doubt, and it set a wave of panic crashing through me. “No!” I said, lookin’ straight at her. “Things at home are fine. They’re great. Actually, they’ve never been better!”

  “So…?”

  I shrugged and went back to looking down. “So there’s no explainin’ the Thanksgiving I had.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand this. You love to write, everything at home is fine, you celebrate Thanksgiving—”

  “Well, I don’t know if you’d call it celebratin’.”

  She gave me a curious look. “So what would you call it?”

  I thought about that. “Surviving? I survived it?” Then, under my breath, I added, “Which is more’n I can say about some folks.”

  She crossed her arms. “Okay. Now I am completely confused.”

  “I know, ma’am, see?”

  “No! I don’t see!”

  “Exactly! There’s no explainin’ it.”

  “Well.” She studied me hard while I did the same to my shoes. Finally she said, “How can anyone understand if you don’t at least try to explain?” Then she softened up and said, “I know you’re new here, and I know that’s not easy. I have no idea what you’re going through or why your vacation was…difficult. But I can see that you have a story to tell, and your story matters.”

  I peeked up at her.

  “I promise you, Lincoln, it matters.” She gave me a little smile. “Can you please just try?”

  “I have tried, ma’am. I don’t know how to start.”

  My not knowing how to start seemed to make her very happy. Her eyes popped wide and her finger popped up. “Ah!”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Start anywhere! In the middle. At the end. It doesn’t matter. Just start. And once you start, weave your way back. Or forward. Don’t worry about where—just start.”

  —

  Ms. Miller made it sound so easy, but it was Kandi who made me think I should actually figure out a way to do it.

  “Lincoln! Lincoln, wait!” she called, catching up to me on my way to Brookside.

  It was a little strange to be happy to see her. Might’ve had something to do with the way she’d brought Isaac and me into playing four square again at lunch and made sure no one cheated us. I’d made it to first square for three whole serves, something that qualified as a miracle.

  And a happy one at that.

  She got straight to the point. “I wasn’t going to tell you, but I think you should know—Colby showed around your essay while you were out with Ms. Miller today.”

  “What?”

  “She said you must be too embarrassed to write about your Thanksgiving.”
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br />   “What?”

  “I told her to shut up and mind her own business.”

  I felt like I’d been put in an alternate universe, what with Kandi tellin’ someone else to mind their own business and all. But before I could get my bearings, she said, “Are you blocked?”

  “Blocked?”

  “You know—when a writer can’t figure out what to write, they call that being blocked.” I didn’t say anything, so she went on. “I’d be blocked, too, because I had the worst Thanksgiving ever. But you know what? I’m not writing about that. I’m writing about a made-up Thanksgiving. The decorations are great, the food is delicious, everyone’s happy and having a good time….Fiction is fun, and I totally see why you do it.”

  “You been readin’ up about bein’ a writer?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Well, you know way more about it than I do.”

  We walked along until what I was thinking finally popped out. “Isaac told me about your ma. I’m sorry.” I slid a look her way. “I’m guessin’ that’s why you had a bad Thanksgiving?”

  She nodded, and her eyes got all glassy. “I’m just trying to do what she said: keep my chin up, remember that life is precious, and be a force for good in the world.” She burst into tears. “But it’s so hard! Sometimes it’s just so hard.”

  Talk about unexpected. I stopped walking and stared.

  Kandi wiped her eyes on her sleeve and sat down on a walkway step, her arms propped against her legs, her head sagging like she was just too tired to carry on. “People don’t know what it’s like,” she choked out. “They just don’t.”

  I sat beside her. I couldn’t claim to know what it was really like, but just the thought of losing my ma put a rock in my throat. And it was coming to me clearer now that all this time I’d figured Kandi was one thing when it was turning out that she was another.

  Finally I ventured, “Maybe you’ve been workin’ so hard at hiding what you’re going through that folks have no idea, and no way of understandin’ it.”

  She turned her weepy eyes on me. “Isn’t that what you do?”

  The truth in that was undeniable, but I denied it just the same. “No!”

  She stared at me, then shook her head and wiped away her tears. “Never mind. Sorry.” She stood up. “I’ve got to go.”

  She was already hurrying off. “Wait!” I called, chasing after her.

  “It’s okay, Lincoln. I had a little breakdown. Sorry. I’m fine.”

  “But—”

  “Look, you don’t want to talk about yours, I don’t want to talk about mine. And even if I did, the truth is, nobody really cares.”

  My mouth shot open. “I do!”

  The words stunned me, but there they were, stopping Kandi in her tracks while they shot a bolt of fear through my heart.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  I wanted to run.

  Hide!

  My heart was galloping in my chest. My mouth was dry. But I could see now that being brave—truly brave—was about more than facing off with Troy, or derelicts at the Laundromat, or even Cliff.

  It was about facing off with the truth.

  So I stood by my words. “I do,” I said, then looked at her square-on. “Writing about some phony Thanksgiving isn’t gonna make anyone know what you’re goin’ through. And you’re right—I’ve been doin’ the same thing as you.” I took a deep breath. “I love writin’ stories, and I’m gonna keep writin’ stories. But I’m starting to see that there’s a time for stories and there’s a time for truth, and I’m thinkin’ this is a time for truth. So how about we make a deal: you write about your real Thanksgiving, and I write about mine.”

  She looked at me for an endless minute. “You’re serious?”

  I was sweatin’ bullets, but I held my ground with a nod.

  “Deal,” she said. Then she stuck out her hand.

  And I shook it.

  After Kandi went her way and I went mine, I started losing my nerve. I wanted to hold up my end of the deal, but…how could I ever explain my Thanksgiving?

  How could I write about my secret life?

  I thought about it the whole rest of the way to Brookside.

  I thought about it when Geri said, “Good afternoon, Lincoln! Isn’t it a lovely day?” as I signed in.

  I thought about it when Suzie York asked me, “Do you know how to get out of here?” and Debbie Rucker called, “What is your name?” and Alice said, “Why, hello, sweet pea,” and grabbed for my backside.

  I thought about it when Teddy C wolf-whistled at Gloria, and when Ma gave me one of her sweet smiles and asked if I was wantin’ a snack. I thought about it when I saw that there was a new oldie in Room 102 who had the window-side bed, instead of Wilhelmina.

  I thought about it as I passed by Droolin’ Stu, and when June and Linda shouted for somebody to make Paula quit tapping.

  But how could folks understand if I didn’t find a way to explain? How could they understand why living in a place with no heat and a sagging floor or sitting up all night with a dying stranger were things to be thankful for, if I didn’t explain?

  I sat at my table and pulled out my notebook and thought about it for a long time. There was so much stewin’ around in my brain. So many ingredients in the story. Some sour, some sweet, some salty, some spicy…I wasn’t sure what to put in.

  Or, especially, what to leave out.

  And where in the world should I start? I couldn’t explain Thanksgiving without explaining stuff that happened before. It wouldn’t make any sense! But how far back did I have to go? A week? Two? Back to zombie chicken? Back to the first time the Psychic Vampire struck? Back to when we moved? Back to why we moved? It all tied together, and none of it made sense standin’ alone.

  So…where to start?

  I was deep into stirring my mental stew when a sound came out of one of the oldies’ rooms.

  A warbly sound.

  Singing.

  I snapped to attention and turned away quick, knowin’ what was comin’ next.

  Everyone knew what was comin’ next.

  Even the oldies who couldn’t seem to remember anything else knew what was comin’ next.

  “Stop her!” Teddy C cried.

  “Not again!” Pom-Pom Pam wailed.

  But there she was.

  Ms. Miller’s voice popped into my head—Start anywhere! In the middle. At the end. It doesn’t matter—and just like that, my pencil took off writing.

  Ruby Hobbs came out of her room, dancing and singing, buck naked, again….

  About the Author

  Wendelin Van Draanen is the author of many award-winning and beloved books, including Flipped, Swear to Howdy, The Running Dream, the Sammy Keyes mystery series, the Shredderman quartet, and the Gecko & Sticky books. Read more about her books at WendelinVanDraanen.com or follow her on Twitter at @WendelinVanD.

  Wendelin lives in central California with her husband and two sons. Her hobbies include the “three R’s”: reading, running, and rock ’n’ roll.