My Life in Smiley (Book 1 in Smiley series)

by Anne Kalicky

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank Clémentine Sanchez for her meticulous help, Alexandra Bentz for her trust, Manon Soutreau and Samantha Thiery for their support and direction, as well as the entire Smiley team.

  For Lola, who always had a smile on her face.

  This work is authorized to be read only after

  Friday, April 19, 2126.

  If you have discovered this notebook before this date, do not open it! But if you’re reading these words, then it means you already have. Your only hope is to close it immediately, or you’ll seriously regret it . . . especially if your names are Dad, Mom, Lisa, Marion, or Raoul! Beware: I have placed a curse on the following pages. If you don’t heed this warning, your eyes will burn and turn neon yellow. Your hands will sprout enormous black blisters that shoot out hundreds of spiders (tarantulas, to be exact). If you have the bad idea (which I bet you would) to pick your nose and then put your fingers in your mouth to eat the boogers, your tongue will triple in size and disintegrate so you can never tell anyone what you’ve just read.

  Close this notebook immediately . . . or you are certain to die a horrible death!

  Sunday

  Dear future human

  You who were forced to leave Earth to migrate to a distant planet, this masterpiece is for. Because, let’s be clear: this notebook is not a diary, OK? It is an autobiographical masterpiece: that of a true hero from a bygone era. I am writing for a noble cause—for the future. No other reason!

  Actually, to fill you in quickly, I just saw a weird show on TV that was talking about a planet called Eratosthenes that seemed oddly similar to Earth. The beginning of the show was really interesting. Scientists described the possibility of living on this new planet one day. But then it went downhill: humans had to quickly evacuate to go live on Eratosthenes because the Earth’s atmosphere had suddenly become unbreathable!

  So after seeing this show, I asked myself, “What if that really happens? What will I have done for the coming generations?” I then had this great idea to write about the big steps of my life so I can become a true hero. In four days, for example, I’ll start middle school. There you have it—a big milestone!

  SO IT’S NOW

  OR NEVER TO

  GIVE IT A TRY!

  One day, I’m sure, someone will discover my memoirs in the safe of an abandoned space shuttle, and I’ll make it into history with a capital

  Monday

  Dear future human

  While waiting to go back to school, I’ll take the opportunity to tell you a little about myself. My name is Maxime, and I live in France. OK, so I would’ve rather been named Bruce or Clark. . . .

  Luckily, everyone calls me Max—nicknames are way cooler. I’m eleven years old, and I have two sisters: Lisa is eight, but she’s still my parents’ little baby. And Marion, she’s fourteen, and she’s so annoyyyyyying!

  Even on Eratosthenes, she’d be sent back to Earth for being so annoyyyyyying! Maybe you future people are lucky enough to have parents who took some kind of a cyber-pill to give you a little brother instead.

  Unfortunately for me, that isn’t the case: I’m surrounded by girls, and for that alone I should be awarded a medal.

  The proof? I looked in the dictionary and “SISTER” rhymes with:

  My parents are kind of lame, or uncool at the very least, but overall, they’re OK. My dad works at S Inc., a company that makes sinks.

  My mom works in a laboratory, but I’ve never really understood what she does exactly. Oh! Oh! Dear future human, want to know my parents’ favorite joke?

  I live in a house in the suburbs. Sometimes it gets a little boring. But I often go on vacation to the countryside in Brittany to stay with Grandpa Joff and Grandma Ragny. Yeah . . . I know what you’re thinking, future human—there’s nothing surprising or exciting in my everyday, mundane life . . . but wait till you read the rest of my work.

  TOM MARTIN is my neighbor and best bud. He’s also been in my class since kindergarten. He’s a real nerd, he’s super skinny, he wears glasses, and he knows TONS of stuff—like how to make invisible ink with yogurt or even a volcanic eruption using carrot juice. He always gets good grades. My dad always says you should have friends who are better than you. But I already knew that.

  Wednesday

  This morning I started sixth grade. I was so excited! I’ve wanted to go to middle school since the first grade, for three reasons:

  But I fell victim to the cruel reality that adolescence isn’t cool AT ALL! OK, so I do have a cell phone—my mom’s old phone programmed for “minimum apps, maximum supervision” mode.

  Then, for the first day, my mom bought me really dorky clothes: Bermuda shorts and a navy-blue polo shirt. I still wore them . . . but only to make her happy. When I found Tom on the way to school, he looked even worse: he had on tan pants that were way too big for him and a pink checkered short-sleeve shirt. We walked together, but we didn’t talk much. When we finally reached the schoolyard, both of us immediately regretted not going back home to change our clothes—or, better yet, being held back for another year in elementary school. I realized pretty quickly, seeing the other students who were five heads taller than me, that I was now one of the little kids. I even heard a big, tough ninth-grader say, “Oh, hey, there’s the class of dwarves!” Tom and I checked the bulletin board to find that we were in the same class. Phew! That was some good news!

  The bad news . . . our homeroom teacher is Mr. Schmitt, the English teacher. He’s weird: he taps his foot all the time on the desk. I think that he’s actually afraid of students. In five hundred years, maybe teachers will be replaced by robots. WHAT LUCK! In the classroom there were little labels on the tables. Mr. Schmitt had already assigned us seats. And guess who I found myself sitting next to? RAOUL KADOR!

  He spent the entire morning sticking his boogers on Maud’s chair in front of him.

  There’s no point in trying to get along with these morons. Mr. Schmitt gave everyone our class schedule and made us fill out registration forms: last name, first name, birthday, parents’ jobs, and what we want to be when we grow up. “Future Genius,” I wrote. OK, so I may have set the bar a little bit high.

  Tom and I decided to meet up every day to walk to school together. We found a trick to get there quicker and avoid running into Raoul Kador and his gang of losers: we go through the “secret passage.” NO ONE but us knows about it. OK, I’m exaggerating a bit! It’s really just a shortcut . . . a little street with a building on one side and a big wall on the other. Behind the wall there’s an empty lot, I think. I’ve never really taken a close look over there. On the wall, there’s a big spray paint inscription.

  Friday

  Dear future human

  After a pretty quiet week, today was the WORST day of my life! This morning it was impossible to get up. First my mom came in to give me a hug, and then she left for work. Later my dad came and knocked on the door and yelled something in Russian.

  I thought that it might mean, “Get up, little lazybones, it’s time!” but my dad explained to me later that it only meant, “I do not speak Russian very well. . . . ” (He’s been taking Russian classes for work for a few months. He doesn’t seem to be studying a lot. . . . ) Then after about ten minutes, Marion came to tell me I had five minutes left before she was leaving for school without me.

  It was basically my last chance to arr
ive on time, because I’d missed my rendezvous with Tom. Going with Marion is always my last resort.

  That definitely woke me up. I jumped into my tennis shoes, jeans, and sweatshirt. I grabbed my backpack and took off for school.

  I had math, French, and English in the morning. During recess I played marbles and lost five in the sewer drain. I noticed Célia and Naïs doing each other’s hair. . . . Naïs is pretty, but her new hairstyle was kind of strange.

  In the lunchroom, they were serving some unidentifiable vegetables. Anyway, it was after lunch that my day really became a MESS. We had gym, and (of course) since I wasn’t really awake this morning, I’d forgotten my gym clothes. But the worst came when I realized in the bathroom, about ten minutes before the start of class, that not only did I forget my sweatpants but I had my pajama bottoms on under my jeans! And not the really cool soccer bottoms with Pietro on them, oh no!

  My life is so unfair. I ALWAYS get Marion’s little pajamas. . . . Long story short, what you need to know is that Mr. Ramoupoulos is DEFINITELY a tracksuit psycho!! (Mr. Ramoupoulos is the gym teacher, he’s Greek, and he has two quirks: when he’s happy, his nostrils twitch, and he wears nothing but tracksuits!) I immediately thought about last year when a student—who wishes to remain anonymous—had his sports bag eaten by a mangy stray dog. . . .

  Well, at least that was his excuse. He then went to gym class wearing jeans, but he wore them really saggy . . . like a rapper. Mr. Ramoupoulos told him that because he was trying to show everyone his underwear, he didn’t need his jeans. . . . Jérémy (Oops! I said it! ) had to run ten times around the track in his boxers . . . HORRIBLE! In short, I had a flying saucer problem—I had to make sure that NO ONE saw them. Not Mr. Ramoupoulos, not anyone in the bleachers, and nobody in the locker room! Otherwise, it would be guaranteed embarrassment!

  I came up with three possible solutions:

  One, I could hide in the bathroom and skip gym class (but risk dying alone, cruelly asphyxiated by the infamous odor that dominates that part of the school).

  Two, I could go in pajamas and claim that during the night, Martians had chosen me as an experimental subject (which could maybe make me a hero in the eyes of Naïs).

  Or, three, I could go talk to Tom, who always has great ideas.

  After thinking about my horrible predicament for way too long, I realized I had only five minutes left. Temporarily renouncing the idea of becoming a hero, I got dressed at top speed and went to see Tom. He was crouched behind the school garden in the middle of running a three-snail race. I told him everything.

  After a never-ending silence, his response was as slow as his little mollusks.

  “Just go look in the lost ’n’ found— there might be a pair of old sweats in there.”

  This guy was a genius! I rushed across the playground and searched in the bin, and there miraculously waiting for me was a pair of red sweatpants! They went perfectly with my . . . yellow shirt. I could already hear Raoul calling me a red and yellow pepper salad, but that was a lot better than looking like I’d just rolled out of bed. I had only two minutes to spare. I went back to the bathroom, I took off my clothes and pajamas, and I hid them behind a pipe. The bell rang, and I threw on the sweatpants. . . . I arrived a little late to class, but I was already dressed, so I was ready before everyone else. Mr. Ramoupoulos even congratulated me on being prompt—at least I think so. I’m sure I saw his nostrils twitch.

  Before going home I discreetly returned the sweatpants to where I found them, and I put the spaceship pajamas back on, but shhh! Don’t tell my mom—it’s a secret.

  Saturday

  I dreamt that I was kidnapped by Martians who wanted to steal my pajamas. Their leader, Mr. Ramoupoulos, was all green with antennae on his head, big bulbous eyes, and, of course, gigantic nostrils. He commanded me in Russian to get into his spaceship by climbing up a smooth rope. I was giving it my all, but I couldn’t even get above the knot. The more I tried to climb, the more tangled I became in the rope. The spaceship, driven by Ramoupoulos, carried me into the air, tied up like a sausage. I yelled, “Let me down! Let me down!”

  When I woke up, it was six in the morning. I couldn’t go back to sleep. I think all of this talk about extraterrestrials and the unknown planet is getting inside my head! But what more do you want, dear future human—that’s what heroes dream about!

  Monday

  Today at the beginning of social studies class with Mr. Boulfou, the principal came and told our class that we’d been chosen by the city for a field trip. We all cheered. But that was BEFORE he told us what the field trip was: “We are exceedingly pleased to give you the opportunity to create and perform a show in honor of Pleasant Gardens!” When you realize that “Pleasant Gardens” is the name for a RETIREMENT HOME, you understand why the principal was talking about us “doing a good deed.”

  Afterward, he told us that the people in the old folks’ home were preparing surprises for us and, in exchange, we were going to have to practice a song with Mr. Boulfou every Wednesday until fall break. The song is called “Hope and Life.” The principal left, and Mr. Boulfou just couldn’t wait until Wednesday. He asked for a volunteer to sing the refrain as a solo. Raoul Kador leaned over, pretending to pick up a crayon. He pinched me, and I yelled. The teacher thought I was volunteering and . . . the soloist chosen . . . was ME!

  Before I could defend myself, the stereo suddenly started playing, and it let out such a terrible crackle that I thought sparks would burst out of the speakers. I crossed my fingers and hoped the teacher would start a fire. But the melody of a violin began playing at the same time as the croaky voice of Mr. Boulfou.

  Since I had to sing the chorus solo, I repeated the words after the teacher. I had a huge lump stuck in my throat from the humiliation. Tom, he had a runny nose. At first I thought he was crying because of the lyrics, but actually it was just because the classroom was really cold. The song is totally stupid.

  Besides that episode, Tom and I went through the secret passage on our way home, and the message on the wall had changed.

  It’s strange; I get the feeling that these messages are for me. . . .

  Wednesday

  Dear future human

  After recess, we ALL practiced with Mr. Boulfou, and I sang the refrain ALL ALONE. And, of course, Raoul died laughing. It’s so embarrassing! I’ve got to find a way to get out of this field trip. After school, I asked Tom if he wanted to come to my house to finish Zombieland on the Xbox. I only had two more worlds left before I beat the last level. And Tom just had to witness my crushing victory! That video game is awesome. It’s about the undead that rise from their graves to invade the Earth. The players have to fight the zombies with canned food. The more zombies you take out, the more points you win in order to advance to the next level. And I am SOOO GOOD at it!

  When we got to my house, I heated up some leftover pasta in the microwave. Tom slopped a ton of mayonnaise on his pasta while humming “Hope and Life” the entire time. AS SOON as I started the game, Marion and her two friends showed up! Since I’m not allowed to play video games during the week, you can be sure she was going to jump at the chance to rat me out to our parents! They went straight to the bathroom and closed the door, but the peace didn’t last. A quarter of a second later Marion came out to bug me.

  She always has to bring up something in front of her friends to make herself seem important!

  SHE IS SO ANOOOOYYYYYYIIIIING!!!

  She slammed the bathroom door. I decided to ignore her—it was game on, and I was going to demolish Tom! But no! My sister and her friends came out of the bathroom to go into Marion’s room. Wham! Slamming the door again. I jumped so high that I lost the game, just at the very second when I was going to squash the zombie bos
s. That was too much for me! I got up and went to her room, ready to scream at my sister, when I saw that all of the girls’ faces were caked with makeup.

  I asked them what they were doing. They told me that they were taking “selfies,” then they slammed the door in my face. Girls can be so stupid! The door closed before I could even ask, “What are selfies?” I went back to ask Tom. He’s a walking dictionary. But he didn’t seem to know this time, given his fishy expression. While waiting to figure out what the girls had meant, he had time to steal my controller and was focused on his turn. I went over to my dad’s computer. I know his password—too easy: it’s Lisa! I looked up:

  Wikipedia told me that they’re “self-portraits” that are often distributed on social media.

  Dear future human, if you are in possession of these kinds of portraits from the twenty-first century, know that they are not works of art, OK? Don’t bother selling them at big art shows with dreams of becoming a millionaire; they aren’t worth A THING! Especially those of my sister and her friends! Anyway, I’d have my revenge: if Marion told my parents I was playing video games during the week, I’d tell them she was posting pictures online of herself with too much makeup.