Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life

by Shelley Tougas

  When she flipped her wet hair, a thick strand smacked my nose. “I’ll just hang out while Rose is in the bathroom,” she said. “So your mom wrote a book about Dr. Seuss? I love his books.”

  “Freddy and I think there’s too much rhyming.”

  Julia said, “So you do not like his books. You do not like his looks. You do not like him here, you do not like him there, you do not like him anywhere. Get it?”

  “I get it.”

  Her earrings sparkled in the sun. What kind of person wears earrings to a water park? Plus she had painted her fingernails and her toenails. They matched the pink in her swimming suit. Fashion girls were the meanest of all girls. “Where’d Freddy go?” she asked.

  I shrugged and looked around. I saw him standing near the edge of the pool, like he was waiting for Julia to swim away. That made perfect sense—I was waiting for Julia to swim away, too—but something about the way he looked at her and shifted on his feet told me my Twin Superpowers might be confused.

  Was he blushing? Or was his face pink from the sun?

  Obviously it was the sun, right?

  Obviously.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  When you’re the new kid, the first day of school is the worst. It’s bad for all students everywhere, because you’re giving up summer, but being new adds an extra layer of stink. Every single time we start a new school, the other kids always talk about their summers while Freddy and I stare at our school supplies like we’re fascinated by pencils.

  Pencils!

  That’s how the first day in Mrs. Newman’s class began: pencil staring. I waited until Mrs. Newman started talking before I studied the room. I never looked around while the kids were doing the summer-catch-up thing because I might make eye contact. I made that mistake in first grade, and this girl named Casey—or was it Lacy?—raised her hand and shouted to the teacher, “That weird girl is staring at me!” For months, kids told me to stop staring, even when my eyes were on the ground.

  Even worse was second grade. I made eye contact with Molly Smith, which resulted in talking, laughing, play dates, and sleepovers. When we moved, she gave me a necklace with half a heart. It said Best. She kept the other half of the heart that said Friends. We cried and promised to write letters to each other. Then Mom lost her phone and everything on it, including Molly’s address. All that time Mom told me not to worry because Molly had my new address. When Molly sent me a letter, it would have her address written in the corner of the envelope.

  But a letter never came.

  So, if you don’t want to get bullied, avoid eye contact. If you don’t want to get dumped, avoid eye contact. Look around during the teacher’s welcome speech, which is what I did when Mrs. Newman started talking. Mrs. Newman had a big smile and small, squinty eyes. You can’t trust a teacher smile. They’re paid to flash teeth. That’s why I always studied teachers’ eyes, and Mrs. Newman had eyes like bullets. Mean eyes. The meanest I’d ever seen.

  There were twenty-four students in our new class, including Julia, Freddy, and me. Six were Asian. Julia was the only Hispanic student, as far as I could tell. Everyone else was white. Eleven girls, thirteen boys. I’d need only a day or two to rank everyone on a popularity scale and sort them into the usual groups: cool kids, smart kids, extra-brainy kids with zero social skills, pre-jocks, and pre-cheerleaders. Freddy and I never fit in any group. We just floated above it all until we left.

  Rose was different. Every time we started a new school, Rose was counting party invitations by the end of the first week. She could walk into a classroom and sniff out the popular kids. Then she charmed her way into the group.

  You know that moment when you’re not paying attention to an adult? When they sound like blah blah blah blah and then suddenly you hear a word bomb that gets your attention?

  Well, Mrs. Newman dropped a word bomb: Ingalls.

  “The folks at the Ingalls museum have an exciting new program. They’re looking for a student to help with some projects throughout the school year. You’ll have an opportunity to learn about the museum’s artifacts and how to care for them. Please give your full attention to Mrs. Johnson.”

  I had been so busy looking at all the other students that I hadn’t noticed a woman standing in the back of the room, a woman who seemed familiar. When she walked past my desk, I noticed the faint smell of fried chicken strips. It was Gloria from the Prairie Diner where kids eat free on Wednesdays.

  Gloria—Mrs. Johnson—cleared her throat. “Kids, we’re going to pick the winner based on an essay contest.”

  “The essay is going to be your first assignment. It’s due next Monday,” Mrs. Newman said. Nobody groaned, because nobody groans on the first day. “Mrs. Johnson will tell us what they’re looking for.”

  “You will write about how Laura Ingalls and her story have influenced our community and affected your life.” Gloria paused like she was letting tension build for an exciting conclusion. “You don’t have to be a fan. I know there are students who haven’t read the books, which saddens me greatly, but if you live here, there’s no getting around Laura’s influence. Even if you haven’t read the books, which truly saddens me, you are aware of how she’s shaped our town, and if you’re not aware, that is heartbreaking.”

  Thinking about an essay contest made my head hurt. I rubbed my temples and closed my eyes. I had no interest in an essay contest about Laura Ingalls and some tiny town that couldn’t accept the fact she died like one hundred years ago.

  “Projects at the museum won’t start until after Thanksgiving break. We’ve got a lot of cleaning to do, but we also need to update our records and send newsletters to the families who’ve donated artifacts throughout the years plus lots of other jobs. We’ve got inventory in the gift shop that—”

  I yawned. Man, I was tired. So tired I could’ve dropped to the floor and napped right there.

  Then I heard the words five hundred dollars. Suddenly I was alert. Everyone started clapping. Mrs. Newman said, “If your essay is selected, you can turn down the position and money, but the essay is required. It’s an official assignment.”

  I thought about the things we could do with five hundred dollars. We wouldn’t need churches. Mom could buy enough gas to drive to bigger towns for pizza and movies. We could get cable, or maybe buy a tablet. I was in. I could whip up a winning Laura Ingalls museum essay in an hour. Tops.

  I already knew my competition would be Julia. She obviously was one of those overachieving students. I looked at Freddy, who sat in the corner of the back row, and waited for him to read my mind with his Twin Superpowers. I lifted my hand to get his attention, but he didn’t notice. He was looking intently not at me, not at Mrs. Newman, and not at Gloria Johnson, but to the right. I followed his gaze to see where it landed.

  Julia Ramos.

  She was so annoying Freddy couldn’t look away.

  * * *

  When you’re a new kid, the first day of school is the worst, and the worst part of the worst day is lunch. First, you have to stand in line and not make eye contact, which isn’t easy because everyone is literally inches apart. Second, you get a tray of unidentifiable meat and mushy vegetables, and they’re not even decent vegetables like corn, but lima beans. Third, you have to find a place to sit.

  That’s the tricky part. You don’t want to sit by the popular kids, because they’re mean. Not in-your-face mean, but nasty in the way of saying things like, “Nice shirt! I had one just like it three years ago.” Obviously you don’t want to sit by a bully. You don’t want to sit by the freaky kids or the brainy kids or the dumb kids. You want to sit by the kids who are on the verge of cool, but not too brainy, and definitely not freaky or dumb. Normally I’d need a week to sort it all out, but this school was the smallest I’d ever attended. I could easily do the rankings by the end of the day.

  For now, though, I’d stick with Freddy. The good thing about this new school was that Walnut Grove was so small that Freddy and I were in the sam
e class. We’d always gone to big schools, which meant we got separated. Teachers had this weird belief that twins should have time apart to “build their own identities,” which is the how the principal in our old school described it.

  Build our own identities?

  Obviously they didn’t know about Twin Superpowers. We were pretty much the same person.

  In Walnut Grove, Freddy and I got to find an empty table together. Two tables away, Julia talked to Red Hair Girl and Purple Glasses Girl.

  “Observation: Julia is one of those fake-nice kids.” Freddy was too annoyed to ask for evidence, so I continued. “Evidence: she was really nice to us at dinner and at the water park, but now she’s ignoring us.”

  Then Julia turned around and yelled, “Hey Freddy! Charlotte! I saved places for you.”

  “What do you want to do?” I whispered.

  “We have to go, don’t we?” Slowly he stood with his tray and looked around.

  I followed him to Julia’s table. She pointed at Red Hair Girl and Purple Glasses Girl. “These are my friends Emma and Bao. I was just telling them about you.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from hoping she’d said nice things about us, like those twins are funny, but she probably told them about our mom talking to a dead pioneer girl.

  We sat down, and the table filled up quickly with two other boys and two other girls: Crooked Glasses Boy, Floppy Bangs Boy, Girl with Braces #1, and Girl with Braces #2. Obviously they had names, but by the time we were at the next school, I’d forget the names but remember how they looked.

  A good shortcut, right?

  They all talked at once. Summer vacation, the high school football games, Minecraft, and the crimes Bad Chad the park bully had supposedly committed that summer—fighting, clogging the park bathroom, and throwing rocks at cars. Everyone seemed to know everyone and everything. All the talking made my headache worse.

  Julia said to Freddy, “We go to the high school football games on Friday nights. I swear the whole town goes. You should come, too.”

  Freddy nodded, then shrugged.

  “You still have laryngitis?” Julia asked. “You should see a doctor.”

  “My mom says there’s an early flu going around,” said Purple Glasses Girl.

  “He gets laryngitis all the time,” I said. “Our mom probably won’t let us go Friday because he’s been sick.”

  “Then you should come,” Girl with Braces #1 said. “Everyone will be there. Do you want to?”

  Was she setting me up? Like she’d get me to say yes and then she and her friends would laugh? I wasn’t sure, so I shrugged. Then everyone started talking about the game, a chorus of voices, so I focused on my pile of lima beans. If I ate them slowly, one at a time, I could fill the rest of the lunch period with chewing instead of talking.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  The next morning, I woke up coughing, and my voice was scratchy. After making up the laryngitis story with Freddy, turns out I was sick—really sick. My head ached and my muscles ached and a cough rattled my bones from my skull to my toes. Mom pressed her hand against my forehead. “I hate having you miss the second day of school, but you’re burning up.”

  “I’m fine, Mom.” I couldn’t send Freddy to school alone, especially with the vow.

  In a panic, Freddy pulled out his notebook, scribbled some words, and showed it to Mom. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve taken a vow to not read notes. You’ll have to tell me.”

  He gave the notebook to me. “It says, ‘She looks fine. Give her some Tylenol.’” I started to stand. “I’m not that sick, Mom. I can go with him.” I exploded into another coughing fit.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “But I can’t miss school already. I have to go.”

  “Not a chance. You need some ginger tea and a long nap.” She led me to the couch and tucked a blanket around my lap.

  Freddy sat on the couch next to me and whispered, “Observation: this is going to be the worst day ever.”

  “You’re right. I don’t even need to ask for evidence. I’m sorry, Freddy. If you have to say a few words, it’ll be okay. Bring a cold lunch and eat in the bathroom.”

  “Good idea.”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  Freddy bit his lip. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Freddy slapped a slice of cheese on bread and stuck the sandwich and a granola bar in his backpack. Freddy and Rose trudged up the stairs.

  I snuggled into the couch with pillows and a blanket. Mom sat at the other end of the couch with a book, and I put my feet on her lap. “I’ll read to you for a while.” She showed me the book: Little House in the Big Woods, the first book in the series about Laura Ingalls’s life.

  “Perfect,” I said.

  “You must be delirious from fever. You don’t even sound sarcastic.”

  I laughed, which made me cough. “There’s an essay contest at school about Laura. The winner gets five hundred dollars. I want a tablet. Or maybe you’d let us get a dog. I could pay for all the shots and food and everything.”

  “The tablet is a definite yes, but I’ll have to think about the dog.”

  Mom read about Laura growing up in the big woods of Wisconsin with her older sister, Mary, and Ma and Pa. They had plenty of food and family nearby. They had dance parties and made candy from snow and maple syrup. Ma stopped a bear from attacking their cow. Pa played the fiddle and told stories about panthers. It was a nice story, a slow story, the kind of story you want to hear when you’re snuggled on a couch.

  “Mom, how does she remember all this stuff from when she’s four or whatever? I can’t remember preschool at all.”

  “She’s probably putting together stories from her parents and sister and other relatives. Besides, it’s a novel.”

  “But it’s her life story, right?”

  “A novelization of her life story.” Mom put her hand on my forehead. “I’ll read more later. Your fever is down, but I think you should nap.”

  Mom read to me between naps until Freddy and Rose came home from school. My Twin Superpowers told me his day had been awful—so awful he couldn’t even tell me about it. He went straight to his room to do homework. I wondered if he’d hidden in the bathroom or if he’d sat alone at lunch. Then there was recess. I worried the boys were picking on him. Usually when kids saw the tiny wires around his ear, the questions started, and those questions led to teasing, and sometimes the teasing led to bullying. Once a boy asked Freddy if he could hear the sound of being punched; then he punched Freddy in the stomach.

  Boys bully with their fists. Girls bully with their words.

  Weird, huh?

  I didn’t have to worry at all about Rose. She bounced out of friendships as easily as she bounced into them. In a year, we’d be moving, and Rose would never talk to her sleepover buddy again, or any of her Walnut Grove friends. She’d find a new group faster than we could unpack. Freddy and I had our Twin Superpowers. Mom connected with “energy in the universe,” and Rose connected with every single person she met. Then she disconnected. Just like that.

  For the next three days, I coughed and ached and worried about Freddy. But I couldn’t talk to him. Mom made me go to my room when Freddy and Rose came home so I wouldn’t spread the flu. Rose was sleeping with Mom all week. One morning before school, Freddy and I got a few minutes alone while Mom was in the bathroom.

  “How’s it going at school?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know. Fine, I guess. Not as bad as you would think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He rolled his eyes. It was the second time he’d rolled his eyes at me. The first time was when Julia had hassled us about eating dinner. He’d started an eye-rolling kick—that’s how bad his week was going. I knew from my Twin Superpowers, though, that he just didn’t want me to worry about him. He was worried about me being so sick.

  “Why aren’t you using the tape at night?” I asked.

  “Mom threw it away.”


  “Figures,” I said. “But you’re not talking, right?”

  “Hardly at all.”

  I crossed my arms. “What does that mean?”

  “Mom is scheming. She keeps sending me upstairs with stuff so I have to talk to Julia.”

  “Like what?”

  “First it was cookies. Then I had to borrow eggs. Yesterday it was next month’s rent check.”

  “Mom paid rent early?” The shock set off a coughing jag.

  Freddy gave me a glass of water and patted my back. “I better not be late.” He headed up the stairs before my cough settled down.

  I snuggled into the couch and waited for Mom to read more Laura. So far, I’d heard about Laura’s family moving to the Kansas prairie. For Christmas, Laura and Mary got their very own cup, a piece of candy, and a shiny new penny. They thought it was the best Christmas ever. Then everything went wrong. A neighbor almost died in their well, Pa almost died in a blizzard, and the whole family almost died from fever ’n’ ague.

  What even is that?

  I’d asked Mom if I had fever ’n’ ague. She’d laughed and said fever ’n’ ague was malaria, and practically no one in the United States ever gets it. I had the regular old flu.

  And Ma, who is the sweetest character in the book, hates Indians, and I mean hates hates hates them. Maybe it was because the Ingallses built their cabin on Indian land, and the Indians weren’t too happy about it. In the end, both the Indians and the Ingallses pack up their stuff and move. The Indians are forced to leave their hunting lands, and the Ingallses end up on the banks of Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, because all Pa wants to do is move. That man will not stay in one place.

  Here’s what you call irony: Laura and Mary meet a nasty girl in Walnut Grove named Nellie Oleson. She’s like the pioneer version of Julia, all nice around adults but mean to the kids. Then everything goes wrong again. The Ingallses have to live in a hole in the ground called a dugout, the grasshoppers eat their crops, and Pa almost dies in another blizzard.