Jimmy chuckles shyly. “Of course we’ll still talk. You can be my limo driver or something.”
“Ha-ha. Very funny.” You give him a soft shove. “But seriously, these are amazing. I’m really proud of you.”
He gives you a grateful smile. “Thanks. I’m kinda proud of me too. I can’t believe I pulled it off. I even finished the piece I was working on at school.”
“No way. Where is it?” you ask, scanning the wall.
“Over here,” he says, nodding to where a painting is resting on an easel covered with a cloth. “I wanted you to be the first one to see it.”
He pulls back the cover, and the artwork underneath is even better than you could have imagined. It’s an oil painting of you, Jimmy, Lena, Jessie, Charlie, Jasmine, Lizette, Celia and Delia, and even Holly and Mary, hanging out in the lunchroom. There’s so much detail! You can see Holly rolling her eyes, you can make out three of Jessie’s silver bangles, and you can even read Jimmy’s “Picasso Is My Homeboy” T-shirt. Beneath the painting, a small plaque attached to the easel states:
The Indefinables
Artist: James Morehouse
12 years old
Since you are absolutely speechless, you can’t think of anything else to do but reach over and hug Jimmy for the first time. The day at school wasn’t exactly perfect (understatement alert), but you’re more than happy to put that behind you now and just enjoy the moment. Life, sometimes, can be very, very cool.
THE END
If it’s new, it’s for you! You like to keep life interesting. So there’s nothing you love better than discovering something new and different. Doing the same-old-same-old all the time can get…well, old. So whenever you have the chance, you shake things up—whether it’s by getting the latest hairstyle, exploring a different neighborhood, or just eating at a restaurant you’ve never heard of. Because you aren’t afraid to experience new things, life will never be boring. Just remember: Some things, like friendships, get better with age.
If your friends had told you this morning that you would be ending the day by playing miniature golf with Joey Cruz, one of the most popular guys in school, you would have told them they were crazy. You would have thought that minigolf was too cheesy for a jock like him.
But here you are, at a course right by the school, and you’re having a better time than you thought you would. You’ve actually always wanted to come here, but it’s kind of a cool-kid hangout, and up until now you were too intimidated to enter their turf. With Joey by your side, though, you almost feel like you belong. Besides, you’re enjoying a bit of newfound popularity thanks to your stellar performance at the choir auditions. People who have never even spoken to you before are stopping to congratulate you as they pass you on the course.
“Dude, nice going,” Eli Santini says as he walks by with Shawna. He’s so tall that he has to bend over a little to lean on his putter. “You’ve got some pipes on you.”
“Um, thanks.” After you get over the initial surprise of Eli speaking to you, you ask, “But weren’t you rooting for Mona?”
“Oh, you mean because I played the piano for her during her audition?” He waves that away with one lanky arm. “Nah, I just like playing the piano—doesn’t really matter who for. I was kinda hoping somebody would knock her off her high horse.”
“Eli!” Shawna exclaims, playfully slapping his arm.
“That’s not very nice.”
“But it’s true. I heard she even refused to be in the choir if she couldn’t have the solo. Gimme a break. Besides, you didn’t vote for her either.”
Shawna blushes a little. “Yeah, well…I had to vote for the one who deserved it the most.” Shawna winks at you, says congratulations, and then leads Eli over to the next hole.
“Wow,” Joey says after they leave, appraising you with his caramel eyes. “I feel like I’m golfing with a celebrity! Autograph seekers might mob you any minute. You’re probably too famous to even play minigolf here, yeah?”
“Bite your tongue! If being famous means never getting to putt a ball through a giant windmill, then I’ll never sing again!”
“Oh, but you can’t do that,” Joey replies. “I mean, what about your fans? They’d be crushed.” When he smiles you notice his row of crooked teeth and how white they are against the deep tan of his skin. Cute. Very cute.
“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe I’ll just build my own miniature golf course behind my mansion.” You putt your small red ball down the slope, where it dips right into the clown’s mouth and comes out the other side, landing inches away from the hole.
“Nice,” Joey observes, taking his own shot. “I hope you’ll invite me over to your mansion sometime. You know, if I’m not too busy winning the World Series.”
“Is that what you want to do? Play professional baseball?” you ask as you putt your ball into the hole.
“It would be cool,” Joey admits. “But if that doesn’t work out, well…don’t laugh. But because of Mrs. O’Donnell, I’ve kind of been thinking about being a librarian or maybe a writer. I’m pretty good at computers too. Maybe being a graphic artist would be fun.…”
As soon as the word “artist” comes out of his mouth, you feel a pang of guilt in your belly. You had planned to spend only a little while with Joey and then head off to the community center to see Jimmy, but you started having so much fun (and, okay, basking in everyone’s adoration) that you lost track of time. It’s been so cool getting to know Joey, but just thinking about Jimmy nervously hanging his paintings makes you want to head over there immediately.
“Um, Joey? I really hate to putt and run, but I have somewhere I need to be.”
Joey looks up, confused. “What—now? But we haven’t even made it to the waterfall yet.”
“I know…. And I hate bailing on you, but, well, you know Jimmy Morehouse?”
Joey squints as he searches his mental Rolodex. “The art kid who always has paint on his clothes and untied shoelaces?”
You smile at the sweet image. “That’s the one. Well, he’s in an art show at the community center and I promised I would go.”
Joey scratches his prominent chin. “Uh-huh, I see. Sooo…you like him or something?”
Wow. It’s been a while since anyone asked you point-blank like that. Is your crush that obvious? “Um…well, he…I mean, we…” You trail off before finally saying, “We’re friends.”
“Right,” Joey says, nodding knowingly. You think he looks just a little disappointed too. “Well, I understand. Maybe another time?”
“Definitely,” you say, smiling as you hand him your putter and the scorecard. “You were beating me anyway.”
As you turn to leave, Joey touches your hand and says, “If you change your mind, I’ll be right here, probably trying to dig my way out of the sand trap.”
You grin. “I’ll keep that in mind.” As you walk away you speed dial Jessie and Lena and tell them to meet up with you. They won’t want to miss this.
So you got to know someone new, and it turned out to be pretty fun! Joey is far from the too-cool-for-you jock you thought he was. He’s actually kind and smart and likes the same cheesy stuff you do. Who knew? It just goes to show that you can’t judge a book by its cover. You’re so flattered by all the attention you’re getting that you’re tempted to stay right there with Joey. But your heart says there’s somewhere you’d rather be.
QUIZ TIME!
Come on, don’t you know yourself well enough by now? There’s only one place you want to be. So get over to Chapter 20 and make it fast.
In your humble opinion, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. That’s fine when it comes to homework and chores. But when you start trying to control your friends and family, you might hit a few roadblocks. Ruling the universe is a lot of responsibility! It may be scary, but once you realize that you can’t control everything, you’ll be a lot less stressed. There’s a certain freedom in taking life as it comes.
As you sit
there in the locker room, those last moments with Jessie play over and over again in your mind. What was that about? She just flitted away with those popular girls as if it was no big deal. Well, it’s a big deal to you, and if she thinks you’re going to stand by while she becomes one of them, she’ll have to think again!
You throw on your jeans and T-shirt, and instead of going directly to your next class head right for the music room, where Jessie said she’d be practicing with her new “friends.” In minutes you’re standing outside the door, fully expecting to catch them hanging out and goofing off. Before long, she’ll be sitting at their lunch table instead of yours. She might even do the unthinkable and (gasp) start hanging out with Mona! It’s high time you take this whole Jessie-and-the-in-crowd thing into your own hands.
But when you barge in, the scene is actually pretty innocent. Eli Santini is sitting at the piano, playing different chords; Shawna, Steven, and Adam are rifling through the costume bin from the last theater club’s production of Xanadu; and Dionne is sitting on the choir bleachers listening to an iPod and taking notes.
And in the middle of all this is Jessie, standing next to Kevin at the piano happily singing scales. Okay, so she really is practicing for the audition. But does she have to do it with them? You can tell that if you don’t do something, you’ll lose Jessie to this crowd forever.
“What’s going on here?” you shout over all the noise.
“La-la-la-la-la—hey! What are you doing here?” Jessie shouts, interrupting her scales to wave at you.
“Saving you,” you say dramatically. (Never let it be said that you don’t know how to bring the drama.) You cross your arms and narrow your eyes as you look at all these…best-friend stealers.
Jessie looks big-time confused. “Um, saving me? From what?”
“From them!” you shout, gesturing to everyone around you. “They’re only being nice to you now because they think you might get the solo spot and be worthy of their little clique. But why haven’t they spoken to you all this time, huh? Have you forgotten that up until today, they didn’t consider you cool enough to be seen with?”
Shawna seems genuinely offended. “What are you talking about?” she says incredulously. “Jessie came to my birthday party last summer, remember?”
“Yeah, but only because Lena won a ticket and took her along, not because Jessie was actually invited,” you snap. Okay, that is technically true, but bringing it up is unnecessarily cruel. You can see the shame all over Jessie’s face, but you can’t seem to stop yourself.
“And what about in third grade when we went on that school trip and you wouldn’t let Jessie sit with you guys on the bus? Or how about when you had that Halloween party when we were eight and you didn’t invite either one of us, huh? How about that?” Yes, all those incidents are ancient history, but why should that matter? If they did those things to Jessie back then, they might treat her that way again now. You’re not letting them off the hook.
Even though you’re taking this very seriously, Dionne laughs as if she can’t believe her ears. “Are you for real? You’re still holding a grudge over stuff that happened when we were eight?”
Adam doesn’t say a word but whistles and makes the “cuckoo” sign with his finger, getting another big laugh from Dionne and Shawna.
Jessie, on the other hand, is completely silent, clearly too mortified to utter a single word. Instead, she gathers up her backpack, looks at you with tears welling in her eyes, and runs out of the room.
“Smooth move, genius,” Eli says after Jessie’s exit, continuing to tinkle the piano keys.
“Y-y-yeah,” Kevin adds, your irrational outburst bringing out his stutter. “D-did it ever occur to y-you that we were hanging with Jessie ’cause we think she’s c-c-c…” He shakes his head. “…awesome?”
You try to hold on to your hostility, which for some reason you thought was totally justified a few moments ago. But now, with all these kids looking at you as if you have two heads, you feel…well, pretty silly.
Tsk, tsk, tsk…. It would be nice if you could convince yourself that you just did Jessie a favor, but you know better. That whole outburst wasn’t for her sake, but for yours. You saw her making new friends and you wanted to force her not to. But the only thing your control-freak maneuver accomplished was to make Jessie not want to be your friend anymore. And can you blame her? You embarrassed her in front of some of the most popular kids in school (who were only trying to help her, by the way), and you made yourself look like a lunatic. You need to do some major damage control if you hope to salvage your friendship.
QUIZ TIME!
Oh, you wish you could take a quiz to get out of this. But there’s no escaping what you have to do. Go to Chapter 16 to apologize to Jessie.
Peer pressure is no match for you. Sure, your friends occasionally try to talk you into doing things you don’t want to do, but you have mastered the fine art of saying no. As a result, you live life on your own terms and don’t bow to anyone’s wishes but your own. What you may want to open yourself up to, though, is positive peer pressure. If your friends encourage you to do better in school when you’ve been goofing off, for example, or to seek help when you have a major problem, that kind of pressure can be a lifesaver.
As far as you know, you don’t have asthma, but you sure are finding it hard to breathe. Maybe that’s because, as Mona comes to the stage, you are crossing all your fingers and toes and wishing as hard as you can that she’ll be as terrible as her personality.
Too bad crossing your toes never works when it really counts. After announcing her name and her song choice—“Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus—Mona takes the microphone off the stand and launches into the song. And you are sorely disappointed to hear that she’s not bad. Actually, she’s pretty good. Her voice is perfect for the up-tempo hit, and she even works the stage like a pro. When she gets to the part where she sings “I put my hands up, they’re playing my song,” a bunch of kids in the audience put their hands up too and start dancing along. Say what you will about Mona, but she definitely knows how to perform. When she finishes, she slides the microphone back into the stand in one smooth movement and bows to the crowd. She steps off the stage with loud applause trailing after her.
It’s a hard act to follow. And unfortunately, Jessie is up next. You know it’s useless, but you cross your fingers and toes again, this time hoping that Jessie rocks it.
“I’m Jessie Miller and I’ll be singing ‘Seven Things’ by Miley Cyrus.” She gives you a nervous smile and you flash back a thumbs-up. You can do it! you shout in your mind, just in case she can read it.
And it’s a miracle, but the toe-crossing actually works! As Jessie starts singing about the seven things she hates about an unnamed “you,” you are relieved to hear that she doesn’t sound anywhere near as bad as she did this morning. She might not make it to the finals on American Idol, but she would at least make it past the first round. Phew! You’re thrilled for her, and clap wildly when she’s done.
But before you get too caught up in the celebration, Lisa nudges you with her elbow and whispers, “Don’t forget what we talked about earlier.” Oh, how you wish you could. While most of the judges are clapping and smiling at Jessie, Maria and Lisa are looking right at you with intense stares. Sheesh! It’s like they’ve had intimidation training or something. Next thing you know they’ll whip out a ceiling light with one bare bulb in it and point it at your face.
Shaking the image away, you look into the audience instead, finding Lena and Charlie sitting a few rows back from the stage. After Jessie takes her seat next to them, all three smile confidently at you. Argh…you know that your pals expect you to vote for Jessie. But they have no idea that Lisa is holding a loaded elbow to your rib cage. What to do? What to do?
As you start to give in to the early stages of a first-class freak-out, Jasmine Viera takes the stage. You’ve never heard her sing before, but judging from her fairly quiet speaking voice, you doubt she’ll be
able to contend with Mona.
She announces that she chose “Apologize” by One Republic, opens her mouth, and the most beautiful voice you’ve ever heard in real life comes out. OMG! How many times can you be dead wrong today? It’s like you’re going for a record or something. Did you actually just think that Jasmine wouldn’t be able to compete with Mona? Wow, you were way off! As she sings the very high “It’s tooo laaaaate,” Jasmine’s voice is smooth and sweet, lingering easily over the high-pitched note. She even uses a little vibrato, deepening the sound.
Bottom line? She’s fantastic. No one could deny that she is soloist material. Even Mona’s light blue eyes are opened wide in amazement.
After a few more auditions (none of them as impressive as Jasmine’s), Mr. Parker gives the judges a few minutes to vote. When it comes time to reveal the outcomes, the voting is all over the place.
A few of the teachers vote for Jessie, saying that they like her attitude. Jessie breaks into a huge smile. Most of the others vote for Jasmine. But when the student judges all vote for Mona, the score is tied. And guess who gets the tiebreaking vote? Yep. That would be you. Everyone in the room seems to be holding their breath, waiting to see what you’ll do.
You know that you’re going to let down some people—and probably add to your list of people who hate you from the popular clique—but you have to do the right thing. You hold up your ballot so that Mr. Parker can see it. “I voted for Jasmine.”
There is an uproar as the room fills with thunderous applause. Jasmine takes the soloist spot! She is an instant celebrity, which must be weird for someone who’s used to getting that kind of attention only from teachers. Good for her! Your friends and the mean-girl duo look equally shocked.
“That was really stupid,” Maria hisses at you.
“Yeah, you blew it,” Lisa insists.
Your Life, but Cooler Page 15