by Geoff Rodkey
But lately, I’m more like, “Hey, I think that’s an actual song.”
CLAUDIA
Thanks, Reese. Ed. Note: (sarcasm) I’m SO glad you don’t think it sounds like I’m chewing on my guitar strings.
REESE
Not as glad as I am. My bedroom’s right next to yours. And the walls are mad thin.
CLAUDIA
FYI, Reese and I live in New York City. Which is very inspiring, because a LOT of famous singer-songwriters have lived here. For example, John Lennon of the Beatles used to live just thirteen and a half blocks from our apartment on the Upper West Side.
And according to OMG Celebrities In The Wild!, my absolutely favorite singer-songwriter of all time, Miranda Fleet, just bought an apartment downtown for 20 million dollars. Which is completely crazy. It seems like if you spend 20 million dollars, you should get the whole building.
Anyway, not only have I worked incredibly hard on my guitar skills, but I’ve been writing tons of songs lately. The one I posted online, “Windmill,” was the tenth song I’d written just that week.
This is because whenever I have majorly intense feelings I don’t know how to deal with, I write songs about them to try to get my head straight. And I was in serious emotional pain that whole week. I’m not going to discuss why, because it’s personal and nobody’s business.
SOPHIE KOH, best friend of Claudia
Claudia, you HAVE to discuss it! You’re still hurting inside! You need to talk it out!
PARVATI GUPTA, second-best friend of Claudia
OMG, Claude, you TOTALLY have to! Not only that, you DEFS need to call out Jens for how insanely cruel he was to you.
CARMEN GUTIERREZ, other second-best friend of Claudia
Seriously. You’re writing this book to teach people important lessons, right? Well, you know what’s an incredibly important lesson that every boy on earth should learn?
“DON’T BREAK UP WITH SOMEBODY IN A TEXT MESSAGE!”
CLAUDIA
Okay, fine. I will discuss the breakup. But just for a second.
PARVATI
More than that! Make it a whole chapter!
SOPHIE
Totally. It should be its own chapter.
CLAUDIA
Ugh! Fine.
CHAPTER 2
JENS KUYPERS BROKE UP WITH ME IN A TEXT MESSAGE
CLAUDIA
Jens Kuypers and I went out for about four months. Ed. Note: “Jens” is pronounced “Yens” (he is from the Netherlands) (where J’s sound like Y’s) And we had gotten pretty close. So I really thought I knew him as a person.
Which is why it was basically devastating when he randomly texted me on a Tuesday night and broke up with me.
Since Jens has only lived in America for about six months, and his English still isn’t great, at first I didn’t really understand what he was saying.
JENS AND CLAUDIA (text messages)
Ok to just be friends from now?
What??
I just want to be ur friend. Not boyfriend
Are you srsly breaking up with me in a text?
Is it ok?
Calling u on FaceTime
Y aren’t you answering???
JENS
Sorry cant talk lots of homework tonight
Ok if we talk tmrw before science class?
No
Not ok
We need to talk NOW
Sorry really busy. Had soccer game earlier
I cant believe this
R u mad
CLAUDIA
For the record, “mad” does not really come close to describing how I felt. It was maybe 10% of my total feelings. Ed. Note: other 90% of feelings were: -shocked -betrayed -confused -sad -barfy -heartbroken -MURDEROUSLY RAGEFUL
REESE
You were SO sad after that breakup! I felt so bad for you, I tried to get Mom and Dad to get a puppy to cheer you up.
CLAUDIA
You were just using my breakup as an excuse! You’ve been trying to get Mom and Dad to get us a puppy for YEARS.
REESE
I know. But I still felt bad for you.
PARVATI
Jens was just the worst. And I STILL think you should get back at him by posting that totally embarrassing pic on your ClickChat page.
CLAUDIA
I’d never do that. No matter how much he deserves it. It’s just too mean.
CARMEN
On the bright side, though, you DID get an awesome song out of it.
CLAUDIA
Like I said, I wrote a lot of songs about the breakup. Ed. Note: FULL LIST OF BREAKUP SONGS I WROTE: -Devastated -It’s Over -Brown Eyes Black Heart -Deleted (aka The Swipe Left Song) -Textless -Jens Is a Yerk (WARNING: explicit lyrics) -Empty Vest -Brand New Me -Windmill But “Windmill” was definitely the best. It had an awesome riff, and the chorus (“One day you’re up and the next day you’re down / Life is like a windmill going round and round…”) was super-catchy.
So I kind of suspected it was good. But I didn’t realize HOW good until I played it for my guitar teacher, Randy.
RANDY RHOADS, Claudia’s guitar teacher
I’m not jiving you, Ed. Note: Randy is from the 1970s kid. “Windmill” is a HOT song.
CLAUDIA
But you say that about all my songs.
RANDY
Well, yeah. But… I’m a guitar teacher. Being encouraging is half the gig. So even if some cat brings in a tune that makes me want to stab myself in the ear with a pencil, I gotta be all, “Great job, kiddo! Keep at it!”
CLAUDIA
Umm… this is actually kind of awkward. How many of MY songs have made you want to stab yourself in the ear with a pencil?
RANDY
Don’t go there, kid. We’re just talking “Windmill” right now. Which is HOT! No jive. That song could be on the radio.
CLAUDIA
After Randy told me it was great and helped me write a bridge for it, Ed. Note: bridge = part in mid-song that’s different from the rest of the song I played “Windmill” for my friends while we were all on a ClickChat video hangout.
And they pretty much loved it.
SOPHIE
If that song came up on a playlist, I would DEFINITELY check to see who the artist was. And I would get ALL her songs.
PARVATI
OMG IT WAS THE MOST AMAZING SONG EVER!
I was like, “I can’t believe this! You’re going to be a star! And I’m going to be in your entourage! SQUEEEEEE!”
CLAUDIA
Until my friends heard it, I hadn’t even been thinking about putting “Windmill” online. I knew for a fact that my idol, Miranda Fleet, didn’t start putting songs out until she was fourteen. So I figured I should wait until I was at least in seventh grade.
But after I played it for them, all three of my friends told me I absolutely had to put it out there and get huge.
So I did.
CHAPTER 3
GETTING HUGE IS MUCH HARDER THAN IT LOOKS
CLAUDIA
The first thing I had to do was make a video. Because on the Internet, you can’t just ask people to listen to a song—you have to give them something to look at while they’re listening.
Carmen is very artistic, and she agreed to direct the video for me.
CARMEN
I’ve been wanting to get into filmmaking for a while. So this was a great opportunity. And it was kind of a challenge. Because you wouldn’t let me show your face in the video.
CLAUDIA
I didn’t want Carmen putting my face in the video because A) I wanted to keep the focus on the music, and B) sometimes when I play guitar, I scrunch up my eyes in a weird-looking way, and I didn’t want people seeing that and trolling me for it.
REESE
It’s hilarious when you make that guitar face! You look like you’re pooping!
CLAUDIA
This is EXACTLY what I mean by “trolling.”
Instead of filming me playing the song, Carme
n shot close-ups of my hands playing the guitar. Then she intercut those with shots of a pinwheel that we filmed on the roof garden of my building.
The video turned out great. And Carmen was totally right that a pinwheel was just as good as an actual windmill. So I’d like to officially apologize to her for the fight we got into about that.
CARMEN
It’s all good. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t WANT to use a real windmill. It’s just that it’s basically impossible to find them in New York City. And when you do, they don’t look like windmills.
CLAUDIA
After Carmen finished the “Windmill” video and all I had to do was upload it to MeVid, I got incredibly nervous. Because the way my friends were talking, this video was going to be MAJOR. And it seemed like once I put it online, my whole life might change forever.
CLICKCHAT POSTS (PRIVATE CHAT)
c_to_the_g Ed. Note: Carmen can’t wait for this vid to blow up
sophie_k_nyc Ed. Note: Sophie srsly. Its going to break the Internet
Parvanana Ed. Note: Parvati U R GOING TO BE A STAR @claudaroo!!!
Parvanana U WILL TAKE ME ON TOUR W YOU RIGHT???
claudaroo Ed. Note: me I dunno you guys. I’m kind of scared to post it
sophie_k_nyc But it’s awesome! And u worked so hard on it! You should post right now
c_to_the_g If u dont post it I will @claudaroo
Parvanana POST IT SO WE CAN GO MENTAL
c_to_the_g u r already mental @Parvanana
Parvanana TRUE. IM ABOUT TO PEE MYSELF
sophie_k_nyc Eeeeeeew
Parvanana JK
c_to_the_g Cmon @claudaroo post it!!!!!
CLAUDIA
It took me a whole day to get up the courage to put “Windmill” on MeVid. When I finally did, I posted on ClickChat to let everybody know about it:
24 likes
claudaroo Hey everybody! My new music video is up at http://mevid.com… I hope you like it! Thx to @c_to_the_g for doing an awesome job directing! And to @Parvanana and @sophie_k_nyc for all the support!
CLAUDIA
Then I shut down my computer, because I didn’t want to spend all night constantly reloading the MeVid page to see how many views I’d gotten.
But I couldn’t help myself. So after half an hour of pacing back and forth in my room and reminding myself to stay totally down-to-earth no matter how huge I got, I went back online… Ed. Note: WANT TO LEARN ALL ABOUT THE SHOCKING DISCOVERY I MADE WHEN I WENT BACK ONLINE? Check out my next book, THE TAPPER TWINS GO VIRAL!!!! COMING SOON!!!! (And it’s MY BEST BOOK EVER!!!) xxoo Claudia
SPECIAL THANKS
Liz Casal, John Hughes, Allegra Wertheim, Lucia Frank, Joe Newman-Getzler, Nick Spooner, Brittney Morello, Tal Rodkey, Alessandra Durstine, Jeeves The Dog, Isabel Mignone, Catherine Mignone, Rahm Rodkey, Ronin Rodkey, Nikhil Soltau, Michael Frank, Russ Busse, Andrea Spooner, and Josh Getzler.
All photographs are copyright © 2016 by Geoff Rodkey except for the following, reprinted with permission.
1: Moffett Studios, Chicago
2: Currier & Ives N.Y.
3: Harper’s Weekly
4: U.S. Government (photograph by Pete Souza)
5: William Woolett (engraver), Benjamin West (artist), 1781
6: Studio Levy and Sons
7: California Historical Society
8: Lance Corporal Fredrick Coleman (USMC)
9: National Museum of American History
10: Wikimedia Commons; Thue
11: David Shankbone
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
Liz Casal: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46
Nick Spooner: 1, 2, 3
John Hughes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Tal Rodkey: 1
Joe Newman-Getzler: 1, 2
Lucia Frank: 1
Allegra Wertheim: 1
Amanda Newman: 1
Dafna Sarnoff: 1
* not actually interviewed
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
An Oral History of The Culvert Prep Middle School Sixth Grade Class Election (Second Semester)
Prologue
1 Doggie Terror from the Skies
2 Our Apartment Has a Supreme Leader
3 My Political Career (All Seven Years of It)
4 Reese’s Political Career (All Two Minutes of It)
5 I Should Not Have Gotten Mom and Dad Involved
6 Campaign Kickoffs (and Poster Problems)
7 My Frenemy Problems
8 The Secret Plot to Destroy Me
9 I Get Ambushed at Friday Assembly
10 I Have a Serious Crisis on My Hands
11 I Hire an Evil Genius
12 Reese Gets His Hands Dirty
13 Sophie Steps on My Face
14 I Keep Mom and Dad Out of It
15 My Totally Cute Photo Op
16 The Secret Reese-Nerd Alliance
17 The Debate Debate
18 Media Bias Is Killing Me
19 Shocking Developments on Metaworld
20 The Rush to Judgment
21 Debate Prep: My Only Hope
22 Showdown in Room 432
23 Nutty’s Nuclear Fallout
24 Worst Snow Day Ever
25 The Fembots Awaken
26 The Secret Starbucks Summit Meeting
27 I Get Advice from George Washington
28 Best Snow Day Ever
29 The Voters Vote
Epilogue (aka A Brief Conspiracy Theory)
About the Author
A Sneak Peek of The Tapper Twins Go Viral
Special Thanks
Photographs
Illustration Credits
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Except as described below, names, characters, places, product names and services, organizations and events in the book are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, locales, products, services, or events is coincidental.
In order to create a sense of setting, some names of real places have been included in the book. However, the events depicted in this book are imaginary and the real places are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2016 by Geoff Rodkey
Cover art and design by Liz Casal
Cover © 2016 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Here constitutes an extension of this copyright page.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104
lb-kids.com
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
First ebook edition: October 2016
ISBN 978-0-316-38038-6
E3-20160907-JV-PC
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