Only the Lonely

by Laura Dower

“You guys, I feel like I have been waiting for this moment all my life, waiting to get older, to get into junior high, to start dating finally and become a good dancer and get smarter and just start moving up in the world in general. All my brothers are major successes in everything they do and I have to be that way too.

  “Now the day is here. Seventh grade is here. We’re like, grown-up now. We have to deal with things now. My brothers are telling me that in seventh grade all your friends change and no one likes you. Junior high is all about being popular.”

  Madison took a deep breath. “Aimee?” she asked quietly.

  “Mmm-uh-huh.”

  “Well, what are you wearing tomorrow?”

  “What?”

  “What are you wearing tomorrow, Aimee?”

  “I dunno. Clothes.”

  They couldn’t help but laugh at that one.

  “Well, I’ll probably wear my capri pants and that yellow shirt I got last spring with the embroidery, you know the one with the little ties? Or maybe my flower skirt and a T-shirt.”

  Madison told Aimee that she would wear the same exact shirt, only in lilac. Then they could be alike but not exactly the same so no one could accuse them of being copycats or anything.

  “You should wear those cool sandals, too, with the red straps,” Madison added. “They would look so good with that shirt.”

  Egg was not especially interested in his friends’ fashion plans so he said his good-nights.

  “See you in the land of the lost,” he said, joking about the halls of Far Hills Junior High, where they’d meet up again tomorrow. “Thanks for the eats, Maddie. Too bad all the Pop-Tarts were gone.”

  They laughed and waved and then Aimee stayed for another hour with Madison planning their outfits and outfitting themselves with a plan.

  Madison typed up their list into a new file.

  DO’s and DON’Ts of Junior High

  Do’s and Don’ts: Day One

  by Madison Francesca Finn

  and Aimee Anne Gillespie

  DO coordinate your new school outfit with your BFF the night before 7th grade starts.

  DON’T wear anything see-through and don’t wear a dark-colored bra under a white shirt. No glitter barrettes either or anything too flashy. Blending in is the best plan.

  DO put your clothes out the night before school so you don’t have to run around like a freak on the next morning looking for something cute to wear.

  DON’T wear anything white on the first day unless of course you have a good tan in which case you should wear white on the first day and every day after that until the tan fades away.

  DO bring most of what the faculty put on the school supply list: new notebooks, sharpened pencils, and pens. You will feel like a big loser if you don’t have something to write with.

  DO put all your stuff into a knapsack or backpack or whatever you call it.

  DON’T use the same backpack as you did in sixth-grade. People will notice.

  DO eat breakfast before school starts on the first day but make sure you don’t get food on your new outfit.

  DO bring lunch money or a lunch bag. You need food to keep awake on the first day of junior high. There’s a lot of important stuff to pay attention to.

  DON’T eat anything that looks like it’s moving.

  DON’T chat with the lunch lady or lunch guy.

  DO write down your school locker combination on your palm so you don’t forget it.

  DON’T move into your school locker until you have been at school for at least a week. Test the locker area to make sure that you are okay with your locker location, after which you can paste up pictures and whatever else you need to paste up.

  Madison kept typing their list right up until the moment when Aimee’s ride came to take her home.

  “Madison! Aimee!” Mom yelled out after the door buzzed.

  Aimee’s oldest brother, Roger, was standing at the front door.

  “Hey, Maddie Finn, what’s up?” Roger smiled from the porch step. His teeth sparkled. Madison didn’t remember him being so … cute. Had something about him changed too? He had the same thick blond hair and brown eyes that Aimee had. But he looked different. Very different…

  “So we’ll meet in the morning and walk to school, right?” Aimee gushed. “I missed you so much Maddie and I’m so glad to be back and right here.”

  Madison choked a little. Aimee was squeezing pretty hard.

  “Okay, break it up you two.” Roger joked. pulling on Aimee’s arm. “Mom wants you to get a little sleep before school, Aim.”

  Aimee threw her arms around Madison’s mom, too. “Thank you, Mrs. Finn! I missed you too. ’Bye!”

  She skipped down the stairs, as usual.

  “See you tomorrow, Aimee!” Madison waved back. “See you in seventh grade!”

  Chapter 10

  THE FIRST PERSON MADISON spotted in seventh grade homeroom was Ivy Daly.

  Of course.

  Since 2A was last name letters A through F, Ivy Daly belonged there, just as Egg had said. She was standing at the classroom door chatting with some blond guy Madison didn’t recognize. He had probably attended the other middle school and probably was named Biff or Boff or maybe Doof. Madison was trying hard not to stereotype other people too much—but it was a challenge. Mere moments into the first school day, Ivy was moving in for the kill on the cutest boy in school.

  The first bell hadn’t even rung yet.

  “Look at her, trying too hard as always,” Egg coughed. He whispered in Madison’s ear, “But she looks good, right?”

  “NO!” Madison punched him. “Shhhh!”

  Madison never understood why Ivy had been voted Princess of the Middle School Dance last spring, since as far as she could tell every single girl in school hated her guts. Egg claimed Ivy had bribed fifth graders with chocolate to cast their votes for her.

  Madison hated Ivy for a million reasons, but there was a teeny-tiny part of her that was a teeny-tiny bit jealous, too. She was jealous of the way Ivy knew how to get all the attention. It was like she could walk into a room and suck out all the energy. She was always the teacher’s pet. People listened to her, and she never looked lonely.

  “I am sorry, but she is just a tease.” Egg elbowed Madison, shaking his head. “She’s popular like … in her dreams.”

  Madison looked at the clock. It was 8:04 and seventh grade was two bells away from starting. As kids rushed into the classroom, Madison and Egg said “hello” and “how was your summer” to everyone they’d missed since June. Egg’s friend Drew was in this homeroom 2A too, and he and Egg started chattering about Palm Pilots and RAM as soon as they spotted each other. The entire classroom was a flurry of activity. Plus, no one knew where their lockers were located yet, so everyone had piles of stuff to carry around with them.

  The first bell rang.

  Madison wondered how Fiona was doing on her first day at Far Hills. She hadn’t spoken to her since the other night. Of course Fiona and Chet were probably together, so Madison didn’t think Fiona would feel totally alone.

  Egg poked Madison’s side to get her attention. “Drew’s having a party Friday,” he said.

  “Well, my parents are,” Drew continued. “Like a start-of-school-and-end-of-summer party. A barbecue. It’s the third year we’ve done it.”

  “Oh that’s nice,” said Madison, flashing a smile. “Is that an invitation?”

  Drew smiled. “Yuh. Of course. Yeah.”

  Egg chimed in, looking at his neon watch as he always did. “Second bell will go off in exactly three seconds … three … two …”

  The second bell rang.

  By the time homeroom had ended, teachers were running back and forth, up and down the aisles handing out dittos and schedules and maps. Far Hills Junior High was big, probably about four times the size of Far Hills Elementary. The kids needed a major map to find their way. Even with directions, most seventh graders wandered down the wrong hallways and foun
d themselves trapped on the opposite side of the building from where their next class was being held.

  Madison thought her map looked like it had been written in Japanese.

  “I can’t read maps to save my life,” Madison moaned when she got her pack of multicolored pages. “I have no sense of direction—EGG!”

  There was so much to learn and absorb. Where was she going to be going? How would she get there?

  Madison’s schedule said: ENGLISH, Room 407. Egg had math on the second floor with Drew, so when homeroom bell rang, they waved good-bye.

  Of course, there was no elevator, so Madison went immediately to the jam-packed stairwell, grabbed the banister, and inched her way up two flights. When she got up there, she looked high and low for the classroom.

  “Hey, Finnster!” a voice called out from down the hall. Madison’s eyes searched for the source.

  A very handsome guy with little black glasses, hair that swept up off his face, and dimples, walked up to her and smiled. He was awfully cute for a seventh grader, Madison thought. Awfully cute.

  “Madison, is it you? How are you?”

  Madison thought she recognized the voice, but she couldn’t place the face. “I’m sorry…” she started to say, blushing a little bit.

  “It’s Hart. Hart Jones! Remember? When we caught that sunfish? My family moved but we moved back again. Funny, huh?”

  Madison froze. This hunk was HART? Finnster should have been a dead giveaway. Hart called her that in second grade.

  “H-h-h-hello, H-h-h-hart,” she stuttered, barely getting the words out. “Gee … uh … see ya!” she made a U-turn in the opposite direction. She told herself she was speeding off to first period, but of course she was just running away as she always did.

  “Hola, Señorita Finn!” another voice called out. It was Mrs. Diaz, the best Spanish teacher in the world and mother to Walter, otherwise known as Egg Diaz.

  “Hello… uhhh … hola, Mrs… uhhh … Señora Diaz.” Madison said with a lot of effort. She knew maybe ten Spanish words and most of those didn’t even count because they were curse words she’d learned on cable TV.

  “Cómo era tu verano?” Egg’s mother wanted to have a conversation in Spanish in the middle of the hallway and Madison was NOT prepared.

  “Uh … see you later, Mrs. Diaz. I have class…” Madison fumbled for the words. “Ahora … class… Oh, hasta la vista, Señora!”

  The first bell rang.

  Madison’s eyes scanned the doorways for her classroom number. She saw 4D. Then she saw 4C. These looked like language labs, not English classrooms.

  The clock was ticking. The hallways were emptying. Madison felt her stomach doing its usual flip-flop as she desperately looked for the right room. These were all letters! Where were the numbers?

  “Excuse me,” she suddenly asked a male teacher who was about to lock his classroom door, “Excuse me, where is Room 407?”

  He chuckled and said “Ooooooh” and Madison knew she was in deep trouble. “Ooooooh,” he said again, “Miss, that’s over in the other building.”

  “The other building?”

  “Yes. You go down those stairs there, all the way across the quad out there, and then through two sets of glass doors, and then up the middle stairwell, and then across the top floor, which is four, and then there are a whole bunch of rooms sort of kitty-corner…”

  Madison’s head was spinning.

  The second bell rang.

  “Good luck!” he trilled, slamming his classroom door.

  Madison realized that she was the only person left standing in the hallway—without a hall pass.

  “Great going, Madison,” she said out loud to herself, on the verge of tears. Then, she ran. She ran fast, too. So fast, in fact, that she got grabbed by another teacher in the other building who gave her a warning for running.

  “Just because you’re in junior high school now young lady doesn’t mean you can break all the rules and do whatever you please,” the woman said. Madison prayed this crabby lady wasn’t going to be one of her teachers. She just grit her teeth and kept moving ahead.

  By the time she finally did make it to 407, class was already underway. She was the last to arrive.

  Madison was convinced that her nightmares were coming true. At least this one didn’t involve dogs and frogs.

  On the upside, English class looked promising. The teacher went out of his way to get Madison to relax once she finally took her seat.

  “Why don’t you take a few breaths and get your bearings. Class, I’m Mr. Gibbons and this is seventh-grade English.”

  Madison wasn’t sure she knew where her bearings were right about now. She didn’t see Aimee anywhere. And Egg wasn’t here, either. Madison was alone in this English class with none other than Poison Ivy and a bunch of her followers.

  Mr. Gibbons handed out the “syllabus.” Madison glanced at it, expecting to find the usual grammar page assignments, vocabulary lists, and all that razzamatazz. But what she saw was something very different. At the top of the page was “Mr. Gibbons,” and the class unit number, and then in the very center of page three:

  Expect the unexpected.

  “Okay, class, who can tell me what we’ll be studying this year,” Mr. Gibbons asked. He was parading around the room looking for guinea pigs disguised as seventh graders.

  Madison blinked at the page and … of course … started to over-think.

  Seventh grade had already thrown her about four curve balls and it was only nine in the morning.

  And that’s when Fiona walked into the room.

  Madison almost blurted her name out, “Fi—” but she stopped.

  As Fiona took a seat in the next row, Madison leaned over to hand her a copy of the page Mr. Gibbons had passed out.

  Expect the unexpected.

  “He seems cool,” Madison whispered.

  “Seeing you in my English class is unexpected,” Fiona said, pointing down at her page as if she was answering a question. “I guess I already expected the unexpected here.”

  Brrrrrrrrrrrring!

  “Huh?” Madison smiled. As far as she could hear, the only thing that could be expected at Far Hills were the bells. Every time Madison got comfortable in a seat.

  Brrrrrrrrrrrring!

  These twenty-minute first-day classes were giving her a headache.

  Chapter 11

  AFTER ENGLISH, FIONA AND Madison blabbed between bells and agreed to meet later in the lunchroom. They’d be serving some kind of snack to keep the kids’ motors running.

  “This new school is so weird! California was way more mellow.” Fiona tossed her head back and the beads on her braids clinked. “So I’ll see you later, then? Meet me at one of the tables.”

  Fiona was one of the few people Madison was seeing in classes. It seemed like Aimee and Madison had been officially “separated.” Her BFF was nowhere to be seen.

  Madison went to the computer tech labs next, where she saw Egg and Drew again. Of course, they were goofing around at their adjacent terminals and paying absolutely no attention to her. Madison doodled on her tech schedule, drawing little stick people with giant heads.

  “Hey, Maddie,” Egg elbowed her from the side, “Can you believe we’re really in junior high? Just look at these computers!”

  Their new technology teacher Mrs. Wing was telling the class “to be super-careful with the ‘mice’ and the keyboards.”

  Mice?

  “Isn’t she cool?” Egg said as they walked out of the tech lab. Egg always fell for every new female teacher he ever had. He had been doing that since Miss Jeremiah’s kindergarten class.

  Madison was grateful that at least someone was having a good day, even if it was Egg. Today was not turning out the way she’d planned it inside her head.

  Madison sighed and looked at her map again. Lucky for her, technology and her next class, science, were near each other, so she probably wouldn’t get lost again. But first, she had to eat.

&nbs
p; The bell rang.

  Madison walked into the cafeteria. It was as busy as the mall on Saturday. Kids were everywhere, talking, screaming, hugging, and eating little containers of yogurt, bagels, and fruit cups. Madison searched the sea of faces. Where was Aimee? Where was Fiona?

  From across the room, she saw Fiona sitting at a table with some other people who Madison couldn’t see—at first. As soon as Madison started walking closer to the table, her stomach flip-flopped.

  Fiona was gesturing for Madison to sit in a seat next to—Poison Ivy?

  “Hey, Madison! How was your day so far!” Fiona blurted. “Sit here!”

  “Yeah, Madison sit here,” Poison Ivy groaned, not moving over. Rose Thorn and Phony Joanie laughed but Fiona didn’t catch what was going on. She kept right on talking, unaware of what was happening. She was being a little spacey again.

  “Madison, do you know Ivy and Roseanne and Joan?”

  Madison stared and nodded. “Yes, yes, and yes.”

  By now, Ivy was grinning. “Fiona, we’ve known each other since third grade, actually. Right, Madison?”

  Madison’s head screamed, “RUN AWAY!” Fortunately, it was at that exact moment that Aimee bumped her from behind.

  “We saved you a seat over here, Maddie.”

  Madison looked at Fiona and then at Aimee. Poison Ivy was ruining everything about lunch.

  “Look Fiona, thanks for the invite, but I have friends waiting for me over there. I’ll see you around, okay?”

  “Madison?” Fiona’s jaw dropped. “Madison? Where are you going? I thought you said …”

  She stood up to stop her, but Madison had already hustled away.

  “Check you out! Talking with the enemy!” Egg teased as Madison passed by his table.

  “Hey, Madison,” Drew called out sheepishly, “What’s up?”

  Madison didn’t even hear Drew. She made a beeline for the long orange table at the back of the room.

  “Was that the Fiona girl who called you the other night?” Aimee asked, sliding in beside her.

  Madison nodded. “How can she be sitting with Ivy, Rose, and Joan?”