The Bubblegum Notes

by Dariana Adams

  If only you were to see this face. It’s like he knows he doesn’t agree with Mom. Still, he tries to look disappointed just because she is, but instead he just looks confused. Dad, just stop it. Please!

  I just wished that for once they’d understand my side of the story and not some four-eyed, squeaky schoolteacher. I’m their only son, for crying out loud. That ought to count for something, at least for a lot more credit than what I’m being given here. I just can’t understand it. Why was this becoming such a big deal?

  I stayed up all night thinking. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t even close my eyes. I just lay there with my eyes wide open, looking up at the ceiling. The thought of it being just Tuesday haunted me. Three more days of school before the weekend; it was going to be a long three days. Now that I wasn’t allowed to hang out with Flynn, the only time I could see him was at school (that is, if he made it out of Ms. Spalding’s office alive). Every time Ms. Spalding personally removed a kid and brought him or her into her office, one of two things happened: the kid was never ever the same again, or we never saw the kid again. Either way you looked at it, it was bad. This whole day was like a nightmare. Actually, a nightmare would have been better right about now because then that would mean I would wake up in the morning and have everything go back to normal, back to the way things are supposed to be.

  Note 6

  The next day I didn’t see Flynn. His seat was empty. No one sat in it. We all waited for him to show up. First period went by…second period…third…fourth…but he never showed up. Right around lunch I felt the urge to break down and cry, but Flynn and I had made a promise never to cry in public, especially not in front of girls. I had no appetite, so I left my food untouched. When I got up to walk to the restroom, Tammy followed me. I turned around and looked her straight in the eye. I knew she had something smart to say. I was ready for it. There was no way I was going to let Tammy intimidate me. Whatever she had to say, I was not going to let it bother me.

  “Hey, I’m sorry about your friend,” she said.

  “Sorry?”

  “Yeah, I really am sorry.”

  “You’re not sorry. You’re glad it happened. Now he’s never coming back.”

  “That may be true,” she said, twirling her dress and spinning on her toes. “If I want it to be.”

  “What? What do you mean?” I said, bewildered.

  But just like that, she turned and skipped away with a smirk on her face.

  “Gotta go, catch you later.”

  What? Who does this girl think she is? What did she mean by “if I want it to be”? Could Flynn really have gotten expelled? There’s no way, not over chocolate pudding? That’s never happened before, ever! I knew I had to find out what really happened to Flynn, even if it was the last thing I did in my entire life. I had to find out where Flynn was.

  Note 7

  The last two periods without Flynn were the hardest, especially with everyone acting so strange. Was it just me? Or was everyone in school really starting to suck up to the new girl? I couldn’t understand what was with everyone wanting to talk to Tammy. I couldn’t see why all the girls wanted to know where she shopped or what she did for fun. She was just like us. There was nothing special about her. All she did was talk about stupid things like her shoes or her nail color or her ugly big hair.

  “I really liked the purple ones and the pink ones, too, so I asked Daddy to get me both,” I remember her saying about her sneakers. “I could have gotten these in orange, too, but I didn’t want them. I think the orange ones are soooooo lame. No one wears these in orange anymore. And if you ask me, the only good colors are the ones I have.”

  All I could remember thinking is “God, she can talk a lot.”

  She can probably talk about her god-awful shoes for hours, days, maybe even weeks and months at a time. I didn’t understand it. There were just shoes. Everyone had shoes. I just didn’t see the need to keep on talking about what you have and don’t have. It was so exhausting and annoying listening to Tammy. No one else thought it was, though. I didn’t get it. They were fascinated. Listen, I’m not jealous, okay? I simply would like to understand why. Why must she talk so much and throw things in people’s faces? Is no one else bothered by this except me?

  A girl asked Tammy about her shoes. “So where do you get them from?”

  “I have them delivered to the house. I like to order them online. I don’t really like standing in long lines for things. It gets so exhausting and really irritating.”

  So exhausting and really irritating? What can be more exhausting and irritating than you, Tammy Grey?

  “Okay, everyone, back to your seats,” Ms. Terry said. “Take out your world history books please. Who would like to continue reading from chapter six?”

  Zack raised his hand as he always does. No one else in class liked to read history, especially not out loud.

  “I will!” Tammy shouted, and Ms. Terry said, “Great!” with a happy look on her face (and ignoring Zack’s hand).

  Everyone in class turned to look at Tammy as she flipped open her book and began to read boring old history out loud.

  “Before the mid-nineteenth century, dentures were commonly made with teeth pulled from the mouths of dead soldiers…”

  Her voice was so annoying. She was almost screaming the words, but no one seemed to notice except me. Everyone just thought she was giving good enunciation. No, no, no people. There is no need to scream to enunciate. Please stop this girl! Stop the madness! Please! I couldn’t listen to her any longer. I felt like the more I listened, the more my hearing would slowly diminish, and then I’d really be like Granddad. She’s like an evil goblin dressed in Cinderella clothing. It wasn’t hard to see, but why couldn’t anyone else see it?

  “Great reading, Tammy. Wonderful emphasis on those words. Do you like to read a lot?”

  “Yes, Ms. Terry.”

  “Wonderful. Would you like to read some more?”

  “I would love to, Ms. Terry.”

  Suck-up! I wanted to shout as loud as she read from the passage, just so she could get a gist of how loud she really was. Tammy Grey is a suck-up, and I wanted her to know it. But I knew I’d only get into trouble.

  “I’ll read, Ms. Terry,” I said, raising my hand up high. Two can play this game, Tammy.

  “Most of these early forms of dentures were not designed for eating with…” I read like I never read before. I even made sure to read just as fast as Tammy did, and all I got was a “well done.” I felt like Ms. Terry wasn’t even listening to me read. Like I was just a one-year-old pretending to read. Like all I spoke was “gaga goooooo.” In Ms. Terry’s eyes I wasn’t smart—I was just an average Joe—and Tammy was a star. Whatever happened to Ms. Terry? The nice one who used to give us treats and bake us cookies. And guess who was the first to get them? Yup! That’s right, yours truly. Can you believe so much has changed? Now she only wants to hear one person speak: Tammy Grey.

  It was bad enough I was all alone—there was no one to understand my frustration toward Tammy because everyone thought she was like the new “it girl.” I couldn’t stop asking myself, Why was this happening? Why was everyone so obsessed with Tammy? Is it the shoes?

  “Can anyone tell me how many men were killed at the Battle of Waterloo?” Ms. Terry asked the class. I didn’t know the answer, but I raised my hand anyway just so she wouldn’t call on Tammy. I just didn’t want Tammy to get called on.

  “Forty-three thousand five hundred,” Tammy called out.

  “She called out!”

  “Great job. You have a good memory,” said Ms. Terry.

  “But Ms. Terry, she called out.”

  “That’s okay.”

  That’s okay? Whatever happened to the rule of raising our hands when we wanted to say something? It was like the rules didn’t even apply to Tammy. She was the queen of Westhill, and she hasn’t even been registered properly. She had shouted out too many times, whereas the rest of us would have been told
to raise our hands. This day was one of the worst days I’ve ever had. She was sucking up only because she wanted to be on Ms. Terry’s good side. She wasn’t really all that smart.

  Note 8

  The next morning I overheard Mom and Dad talking as Dad held the newspaper and Mom sat beside him. They both had their heads buried in the paper. I was supposed to be getting ready for school.

  “Daughter of famous comedian, Joe Grey, attends Westhill Middle School,” Dad said to Mom, reading the headline from the newspaper. “It says it’s her first time in a public school,” Dad continued.

  “Wow, Joe Grey? That’s really something. He’s a huge millionaire. That little girl must be so spoiled. But wait a minute, if her father is so rich, why is she going to public school?”

  “That’s a great question, honey, but there could be a lot of reasons. Maybe she just wants to be treated like any other kid. Normal. You know?”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “Do you think that’s the reason Flynn was punished so harshly?” Mom said.

  “Well, it was very inappropriate.”

  “What punishment?” I yelled from the hallway. I ran into the living room. “Which punishment did Flynn get?” I pressed.

  “Well, he was damn near expelled, but he got off lucky,” Dad said.

  “They decided to suspend him for a few days instead.”

  “For how long?”

  “Three days, I believe.”

  “Three days! That’s outrageous. That is absurd.”

  “We know how you feel, son, and it will all be okay. Just keep an open mind.”

  “It’s not that simple. And I don’t know what keeping an open mind even means!”

  “It means being willing to try new things and not judging anyone or anything just because you don’t know what or who it is.”

  Note 9

  I urgently needed to talk to Flynn about what had been going on. I sneaked the ipod back into my room and hoped that Flynn was able to connect to his. After what happened at school, Mom and Dad made sure I had no way of communicating with Flynn, so I had to make sure I wasn’t caught red-handed. If Flynn had succeeded in sneaking in his iPod, I knew I’d find a message from him. I had to be extra quiet because it was late and I was supposed to be in bed. When I turned the iPod it vibrated, then flashed twice. I knew it was an e-mail from Flynn. It read:

  To: You

  From: Fly

  Subject: The girl from hell

  DUDE!! Tammy lied on me, dude. I got suspended for three days. I won’t be back till Friday.

  To: Fly

  From: Me

  Subject: LIFE SUCKS

  Dude, I know. I totally overheard my parents talking about it. I can’t believe they suspended you for that long. That witch. They’d believe anything she says. It’s not fair. You should see the way everyone’s acting.

  To: You

  From: Fly

  Subject: LIFE DOUBLE SUCKS!!

  Dude, life triple sucks right now, dude. I’m not allowed to play any games at home for a week. My parents really think I did all of that. If only they knew the half of it. Then they’d be flipping out on the right person instead of me. We can’t let her get away with this. We gotta expose her for who she really is.

  To: Fly

  From: Me

  Subject: ROGER THAT!

  DUDE, we got major work ahead of us. I’m calling a code 11. I’ll contact Casper and let him know.

  To: You

  From: Fly

  Subject: Noted

  We got a rotten egg on our hands.

  It was war. I knew exactly how to get back at Tammy for trying to break us apart.

  Note 10

  Look and listen here, very closely. I’m not a bad kid. I’m actually one of the best ones. The kindest kid you’ll ever meet. That’s me. Yes, I make jokes, but never anything hurtful. I’m the type of kid who likes to get along with everyone. But when you mess with one of my friends, it’s war. Flynn didn’t deserve to get suspended for three days, and the only reason why he did get so many days was because of Tammy. She’s a liar. She started it and said that Flynn did, when the truth was, if she hadn’t said what she said to Flynn, none of this would have happened. Then she was so angry that she stormed out and stumbled, falling flat on her face onto another kid’s lunch box. Yeah, we had a big laugh when that happened, but she did it to herself—literally. We cracked a couple of jokes—yes, that’s true. But when Ms. Spalding came, it wasn’t so funny anymore. It’s all her fault! Now I can’t hang out with my buddy. Do you feel my pain? Do you get why I had to do what I did when I did? It was for the greater good.

  Now the pictures…

  Flynn, Casper, and I were the only ones who didn’t like Tammy. We didn’t find her cool like everyone else did. She wore too much makeup, and her attitude stunk. So when Flynn came back to school, we decided to do a little collage in honor of Tammy. We had only a few minutes each day to do it, so we worked fast; we got it done in three days. We’d leave the lunchroom ten minutes early to sneak into the lab room, where we worked on Tammy’s pictures. That’s right, we got hold of a couple of pictures from the Internet (Ms. Spoiled Brat was all over the Internet because of her popular dad). So we took those pictures and changed them to make her look just as ugly as she really was on the inside. We passed them around to show a couple of guys. We didn’t want any girls to see them because they’d only go and tell Tammy. Every girl in school was her friend; even the older kids hung out with her.

  “Whoa, bro, is that really her nose? Why is her nose that big, bro? That thing looks like she’s been telling too many lies, ha ha. Pinocchio. Get it? Ha, ha, ha, ha.”

  We all laughed hysterically. It was too funny. Too many lies? It was hysterical! The bottom line was that even though we fabricated the pictures a little, she deserved it. She deserved to be seen as ugly because that’s what she really was!

  We did have to lie a little bit so people wouldn’t think we did this to the pictures ourselves. It was perfect; everyone seemed to be buying it.

  “Yeah, dude, that’s what she used to look like,” Casper said.

  “Yeah, she’s not that pretty, bro.”

  “And to think that all this time I was drooling over her.”

  “Yeah, bro, just make sure you warn everyone else,” we told some kid.

  And that’s exactly how we did it. Everyone heard about the pictures and most people believed they were real. Everything was going as planned. It was becoming more believable as we approached more and more people from our school. Everyone was like, “Yo, dude! That is crazy, man. This is what she really looks like?” It was all too hysterical.

  Note 11

  Samantha and I had been friends since the third grade, but we hadn’t spoken since Tammy’s arrival. Same story with Josie. They even started to dress differently. All the girls began to dress differently and act differently, too, like there was nothing more important than the way you looked. It was scary. Real scary. But that wasn’t the half of it. When the rumor started to spread that Tammy was really rich and famous, all the girls wanted to be like her even more. Even my friend Samantha, who I’ve secretly had a crush on for like three years now, started acting strange. I wanted to talk to her just to ask her why she didn’t want to hang out anymore. I needed to know why. Now all she did was walk past me. Didn’t even look my way. How could she do that? We had never gone this long without talking. I had to figure out what they’d done to her.

  “Hey, Samantha.”

  “Hey,” she said, looking past me and walking away.

  I went after her without even thinking about it. Maybe she was having another bad day? I thought. I only wanted to see if she was all right.

  “Do you want to get some ice cream after school? I have five dollars.”

  “No, she’s going to be much too busy after school,” Tammy said, grabbing Samantha’s arm. “We’re hanging out at my house. Sorry.”

  Sama
ntha, don’t go! I thought. But the words didn’t come out. My jaw just dropped, almost reaching my shoelaces, as I watched her get pulled away by evil Tammy.

  Note 12

  During gym period I had to go back to homeroom because I had forgotten my hat. It’s my lucky hat, and I never climb ropes without it, so I had to go back and get it. That was when I heard the conversation. Ms. Terry was sitting at her desk, and Tammy was crying, claiming that Casper called her all kinds of names: stupid, ugly, fat, and so much more.

  “My God, Tammy, how long has this been going on?”

  “Three days now.”

  “Have you told anyone else?”

  “No. He’s just so awful, Ms. Terry. He’s so mean. He told me that if I told someone he’d only deny it.”

  “Well, I’m glad you told me. I will speak to Ms. Spalding immediately about this matter. We do not tolerate name-calling in this school.”

  Now, at first I didn’t believe this was happening. I seriously thought I was dreaming. I do sleepwalk every now and then, so I was waiting for something to wake me up. But it never happened! I saw Tammy about to walk out, so I knew I had to hide quickly. I opened a locker and hid in there.

  I wanted to barge in and tell Ms. Terry the truth, right there and then. Casper never said a single word to Tammy. He’s the one who thinks she’s hot. I had to find the right words to tell Ms. Terry so that she would believe me. That’s when I saw Tammy wiping away her tears and reapplying makeup. Then she danced and skipped away smiling.

  Boy, wait till I tell Casper what just happened. He was not going to believe this, but I had to get to him before it was too late.

  Note 13

  “Casper, you won’t believe what I just heard!”

  “What? What is it?”

  “I overheard Tammy talking to Ms. Terry. She said that you called her names and that you were bullying her and if she told anyone you would only deny it.”

  “What? Why would she do that?”

  “Dude, I don’t know, but she did.”

  “But why?”

  “Casper Wash, please report to the principal’s office,” a voice announced over the PA system. “Casper Wash, to the principal’s office.”