Reformed

by Justin Weinberger

  For teachers who get it, and for kids

  who don’t. You’re pretty great.

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 The Freak

  2 Rules You Already Know

  3 A Little “Fun”

  4 Screwing Up Field Day

  5 Devil Sludge

  6 The Juvenile Academy for Noncompliant and Underachieving Students

  7 Bullies Like Me

  8 Sink or Swim

  9 Stranded with a Stachesquatch

  10 The Last Stall on the Right

  11 The Weird Liar Girl Theory

  12 The Torture Begins

  13 Ballet for Bullies

  14 Remy and Razan

  15 Starting Over

  16 Community Service

  17 The Ruins of a Lost Civilization

  18 Cannibal Fish

  19 Class Participation

  20 Tales from the Cool Table

  21 A Small Favor

  22 Making Things Better

  23 Return of the Cool Table

  24 Ash’s Secret

  25 Swimming Upstream

  26 The Cheesening

  27 Hacked

  28 The Mom and Dad Show

  29 Stall Tactics

  30 Lights-Out

  31 The Two-Faced God of Bully School

  32 Hello from Freedom

  33 Kinder and Kinder

  34 The Showcase Must Go On

  35 Personal Reflection

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Big gobs of summer have been splashing down on East Huron faster and faster. Ice-cream trucks, swimming pools, shouts from kids playing games out in the neighborhood after dinner—every gob is a meteor smashing into the ground just over the next hill, but still we have to pretend that we don’t notice for two more days.

  “Ian,” says Mr. Dunford. “You want to read the next passage, please?”

  “Um, what?” I say.

  Giggles come from the girl behind me. Don’t turn around, I tell myself. Just ignore it …

  “Page four thousand eighty-seven, bottom paragraph,” Mr. Dunford directs.

  “Four thousand?”

  “Bottom paragraph.”

  “My, uh—my book doesn’t …” The giggles spread and I realize how gullible I am. “Oh … I get it.”

  “Ah,” says the teacher. “Well then. There’s hope for him yet.”

  I feel my cheeks getting redder.

  “Ian, buddy, I know it’s the end of the year. But if you want to go to Field Day tomorrow we need to finish strong, okay? Page twenty-one.”

  “Yes, Mr. Dunford.”

  I can feel everything in my guts tighten up as I try to read this passage about Thomas Edison.

  Reading in class is one of my least favorite things to do. Oh, I can read like a fish can swim—but as soon as someone makes me do it out loud, it’s a completely different thing. I just stammer and get embarrassed, which makes me stammer worse …

  It’s so much easier to get people to like you if you stay quiet and let them talk until you can figure out what they want to hear.

  As I read about Thomas Edison, I wonder what he was like as a kid. He probably worked hard all the time, even if it was really nice out. Closed all the curtains and lit some candles, so he could fool himself into thinking it was cold and rainy and easier to concentrate on homework.

  Maybe one day his candle went out and he didn’t have any more and that’s when an idea for a great new invention hit him. A lightbulb sparked in his head, and then he yanked it right out of his imagination and all of a sudden it was real. Chainsaws, Sputnik, the Internet … all because this one kid focused on school, even though his friends were probably having a sleepover without him.

  “Thomas Edison dropped out of school after only three weeks.” The girl who giggled, Amy, picks up reading where I left off.

  A murmur rolls around the room.

  “Don’t get excited,” Mr. Dunford warns us. “Even though he didn’t go to school he studied hard on his own. Very hard. Point is: For Thomas Edison to really get his brain going, he needed to find a personal reason to work hard.”

  Amy’s hand goes up. “What was it?” she asks, like she’s about to hear a secret trick to being smart.

  “I don’t know,” says Mr. Dunford.

  She deflates.

  “More importantly, Amy, what engages you? What gets you excited to learn?”

  Maybe we need to drop out of school and find out! I should say. Why can’t I just raise my hand and do it?

  “Everybody’s passions are different,” Mr. Dunford goes on. “Your job, guys, is to figure out what makes the world come alive for you. It’s tricky, though. And it never gets easier. And sometimes it’ll change, or you’ll lose it for a while and then find it all over again …”

  He trails off and waves his hands as if scattering a cloud of smoke. He does this a lot and I kinda like it.

  “Anyway,” he adds, “you won’t believe me until you experience it yourself. Luckily, for one day longer you have to do whatever I tell you. So: This is your homework assignment….” He pauses for the weary groans of complaint. “Stop. Your homework is a personal reflection. Tonight I want you to write about what you learned about yourself this past year—and try to remember that Thomas Edison was just like most of you. He was an indifferent student, right up until he wasn’t.”

  “What’s indifferent mean?” asks this kid Kyle.

  “Who can define the word indifferent?” Mr. Dunford asks.

  Just at that moment, the bell rings and thirty textbooks close with a ragged chain of thwumps.

  “Yes, that’s pretty much exactly what it means,” Mr. Dunford mumbles to himself.

  Chairs screech and somebody taps me on the back: “He’s talking to you, Ian,” says Amy.

  “What?”

  “You’re indifferent. Like Thomas Edison. You gotta find something to care about.”

  She lifts her eyebrows like it’s a dare, and I blink in confusion.

  The girls I know are hard to figure out sometimes. I mean, on one hand, I’m pretty sure Amy’s teasing me, but on the other? She just said I was like a young Thomas Edison—which is basically calling me a genius. It’s like, you know how flammable and inflammable both mean the same thing? Okay, well they totally do. They both mean “this thing loves to catch on fire!” except one doesn’t take as long to say. Which is useful when things are on fire. Except if you’re me. Because I’d be standing there in the middle of a burning building, staring at one thing labeled flammable and another labeled inflammable and get totally distracted trying to figure out why we have two words. I don’t know why I’m even telling you that.

  Oh yeah, because that’s what it’s like for me when I’m looking at Amy. The questions all bounce around inside my brain, and I just wind up staring like a freak, not saying anything.

  Amy frowns. “I just meant—if you need any help with your reflections, I could help you.”

  “You think I can’t figure out a dumb homework assignment?” I say. It comes out too loud.

  She looks down, like she’s the one who’s embarrassed.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I add.

  “Whatever.” She grabs her stuff to leave. “I was just trying to help.”

  Nice going, Freak, I tell the monster inside my head. It’s always lurking there, and loves to do awkward things to ruin my life.

  “If Ian Hart needs help with something, he knows better than to ask a know-it-all like you,” another voice interrupts.

  I feel an arm around my shoulder, and I smile up at my friend Devon Crawford as he pulls me away. Devon’s like that—there when you need him, wit
h just the right thing to say. He’s always the cool one.

  “See ya later, Lamey!” Devon calls over his shoulder.

  Okay, sometimes he can be a bit of a jerk.

  As I turn back toward Amy and see her face all clouded up, she spins away and I kinda feel bad.

  Devon just looks at me. “What, do you like her or something?”

  “Huh?” I say. “No.”

  “Then forget about it. Dunford was talking to you, right?”

  I nod.

  “Yeah,” he continues, “so it’s none of her business. What’s she doing butting in, telling you you’re indifferent?”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  “I know I am,” says Devon. “Plus? You’re definitely different, dude.”

  “Uh huh?”

  “And anyway, you’ve got me.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Good thing too,” he says. “Otherwise you would’ve fallen in, like, a well or something by now.”

  “Gimme a break,” I say. “More like a volcano.”

  He grins. “Where would you even find a volcano around here?”

  I open my mouth to answer but he cuts me off. “Okay, my bad. I totally believe you could find one, don’t take it as a challenge or anything. Let’s go find Mark and Ash.”

  I’m not sure whether to be hurt or flattered. So I shut up and follow.

  Devon paces down the aisle toward the back of the bus and plants his feet right in front of Max’s seat, with that smile he gets when he’s looking for trouble.

  “What’s up, Maxy?” he says. “You excited to get out there tomorrow?”

  “What’s tomorrow?” says Max.

  “Field Day!” says Devon.

  “Oh,” Max says. “Yeah, not really.”

  “Aw, come on, Max,” says Devon.

  Here’s the thing about Max Willis. He’s exactly like me, only it’s like no one ever told him the rules for being the new kid. You know the rules, right? They’re not written down or anything, but everyone seems to just know them. First rule—

  “Just don’t forget to bring your inhaler,” says Devon.

  No, not that. I mean, for sure, if you need an inhaler, then yeah, but the first rule is—

  “Don’t forget to zip up your pants, bonehead,” says Max.

  Devon glances down at his pants and then back up at Max. His expression goes dark as he realizes he fell for the old made-ya-look.

  This is not good. There’s a feeling of pressure right in between my shoulders.

  “Zip up my pants?” Devon says with a gleam in his eye. “Oh right—thanks for the reminder. I wouldn’t want to lose them. Stuff around here seems to disappear ever since you moved in. I think it gets sucked up into your butt like a vacuum.”

  First rule is BE QUIET AND FIT IN, MAX.

  And I’m not sure if it’s because he can hear me screaming that warning at him inside my brain, but Max does get quiet. And then he notices the snip of laughter coming from Mark and the way Ash fidgets with his sleeves.

  “Screw this,” he says, shouldering past Devon.

  “Where ya going, Maxy?” says Devon. “Hey! Don’t worry. We’ll have a Lost and Found for you. You just take your time removing all that stuff. Wash it with soap.”

  The busload of kids is like a pack of prairie dogs poking their heads over the seats to look at the new kid.

  “What’s going on back there?” the driver calls out, far too late to do any good.

  “Nothing, Lisa,” says Max, slumping into the seat behind her.

  A glance passes between Max and Ash before Ash looks back down, embarrassed.

  “See ya tomorrow, Ash,” says Max.

  Devon waves. “See ya tomorrow, Max!” he calls out in a big, cheerful voice.

  I take the seat next to Ash, but he won’t look at me. Even though we’re best friends.

  We’ve been best friends for, like, I don’t know. Seven million years. I mean, ever since we tried to bike all over East Huron and explore everything we could in this boring town: the weird empty lots where nobody lives, the library at the top of the steepest hill in the known universe, the barn by the highway with the creepy tourist attractions from 1957 …

  We didn’t tell our moms about that last one, though, and after they found out, we weren’t allowed out of the neighborhood anymore. Which only made us closer, since we were stuck circling the same block.

  It’s also the reason we agreed to play soccer with some kids from school one fateful day, even though we both knew we’d fail hard at it. And about seven seconds into the game someone who may or may not be named Ashley Darius Franklin kicked the ball and sent it flying into the neighbor’s front window.

  The whole glass pane spiderwebbed. Then half the neighborhood boys scattered as this huge guy in a robe slammed the door open … but Ash and I froze in fear as he marched toward us.

  Which is how we met Devon.

  No, not the guy in the robe. The kid standing in the doorway behind him. Hard to see right away, because we were focused on the goon hurling insults at us. Insults that would only make sense later, after a lot of googling. (About the googling, I will just say one thing, and that thing is: eew.) But that’s Devon’s older brother all right … super gross. He probably should’ve been locked up in the basement, if we were living in a more civilized world.

  And then Devon stepped into the sunlight. “Colin, knock it off!”

  He stood there on the porch with a phone in his hand, his thumb hovering over it like it was a detonator—

  Colin straightened up like he was about to explode, but instead just stomped away, muttering something about Devon cleaning up the mess.

  “What just happened?” I asked him.

  “Well … you broke my house, dude,” said Devon.

  “I meant with that guy.”

  “Oh, my brother? Don’t worry, I got blackmail on him. Just stick with me and he won’t bother you.”

  And he was right.

  Later, when Devon showed me his blackmail, I would learn that it was a really embarrassing video of that huge dude in the bathrobe breaking down and bawling when Devon’s mom told him to “grow up” as she set fire to his favorite stuffed animal in their fireplace. I remember laughing, because that’s what Devon was doing … but inside my head, there was a small voice that thought it was totally messed up. Back then, I could still tell that voice to shut up, though. Back then, in those simpler times, it wasn’t a fully formed Freak.

  First thing the next morning it hits me: FIELD DAY! Pillows fall everywhere as I hurl myself out of bed and toward the unsuspecting world. And by unsuspecting world I mean my dog Scarlet, who gets excited by my sudden movement and lunges for me, tail wagging.

  Scarlet gets excited whenever people around her are excited. Or when there’s someone at the door. Or when there’s nobody at the door, or when you brush your teeth, or when you spell out a word of a thing she’s excited about. How does a dog know how to spell, you ask? She doesn’t. She has to be excited all the time, just to be safe.

  “Ian, come on!” Mom calls up the stairs to me.

  “Coming …”

  I pull on my jeans and a shirt, and my shoes make their way onto my feet by magic, I think. Or without help from my hands, at least. I stumble through the house and a series of crashes marks my progress, Scarlet the Blunderpup bouncing next to me all the way to the door.

  In the distance, I see the bus turning the corner as I burst into the sunlight.

  “Don’t forget your lunch, Ian!” Mom calls.

  “Crap.” I turn on my heel and try to snag a brown paper bag off the counter, but I knock it on the ground and everything falls out.

  “Gimme a break,” I complain as I pick it up again.

  Then I see the sludge inside.

  “Peanut butter, Mom? It’s my last day.”

  “And I hope you have a good one!” she says, holding open the door.

  I run to the end of the block and the bus
almost drives off, but I wave my arms like I’m stranded on a desert island and this is my one chance for rescue, and the driver takes pity and waits.

  “Thanks, Lisa,” I pant, barely able to speak I’m breathing so hard. She just shakes her head and drives off.

  I plunk down next to Ash halfway back.

  “You didn’t do your reflection,” he says. It’s not a question.

  I make a face. “Ehh. Can I copy yours?”

  “No cheating. Anyway, it’s the last day. I doubt Mr. Dunford will keep you inside.”

  “But he said—”

  “Come on,” he pleads. “I wanna do a puzzle. Did you bring it?”

  I grin and open my backpack to pull out this creepy old book we found in a creepy old bookshop—it’s full of weird, impossible riddles. The sort of riddles that just might open up the door to some weird, impossible world, you know? Because books in old bookshops are usually magic.

  I mean, even if this one isn’t … there’s a warning on the front that says “This book will break your brain!” and I’m never not going to investigate a claim like that. But joke’s on you, book: can’t break something that was born broken, so Ash and I are immune.

  “Which one should we do?” Ash asks.

  “You pick.” I hand over the book.

  He flips through and his eyes light up. “Okay. There’s a dead body in the middle of a room. There’s no way in or out—”

  “Did it already.”

  “Without me?” says Ash.

  I feel a pang of guilt. “You were there in spirit.”

  Ash frowns. “I didn’t even read the whole thing. Are you sure you did it?”

  “There’s a puddle next to the body, right?”

  “Lame,” he says, heaving with disappointment. “All right, fine. What was the murder weapon?”

  “I don’t remember. The killer had a cool name, though. Had something to do with …”

  A head pops up over the seat in front of us: “It was an icicle!” says Max. “He was stabbed with a knife made out of ice, and after he was stabbed, it melted.”

  Ash turns to me with a frown. “Well that would’ve been a fun one to figure out.”

  Max nods. “The murderer should be called the ici-killer.”

  “You have this book too, Max?” asks Ash.