How to Survive Middle School

by Donna Gephart

  “Sure,” I say, switching off the TV. “Daaad! Can you drive us to the mall?”

  “David,” Elliott says, shoving my shoulder, “this is going to be the best summer ever.”

  “Totally,” I say, though the way things are going, I have my doubts. “Daaaaaaad!”

  “Yeah, I’ll drive you,” Dad calls from his office. “Give me a minute.”

  “All right!” Elliott punches me in the arm. “This is so great.”

  My arm hurts where he punched me. Yeah, so great.

  I was right about the first day setting the tone for the entire summer.

  Now it’s September, and Elliott and I have gone to the mall a total of twenty-four times. Twenty-four! That’s more than Lindsay and her girlfriends have gone. And they’re girls!

  I can’t believe I’ve spent my entire summer cruising past Victoria’s Secret with Elliott. He says he thinks Cara might shop in there. Yeah, right! He likes looking at the underwear on the mannequins. Get a catalog, perv!

  Every time we’ve walked past, I hoped Elliott would come to his senses and want to do something fun. This was no way for a guy to spend his entire summer.

  But Elliott never caught on that this was incredibly boring. To make things worse, we saw Cara Epstein a grand total of once. She was sitting at the fountain with Ethan Leikach, Elyssa Silverman and Jared Stevens. Elliott didn’t even have the guts to walk up and say hi.

  On the last Friday of summer break, I sip a Mango Madness shake at the food court and shoot mental darts at a little scar on Elliott’s forehead. “We didn’t make one video together all summer,” I mumble.

  “Huh?” Elliott asks, putting down the iced coffee I bought for him.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  Everything. “Nothing.”

  “Good,” Elliott says.

  “Good.”

  Elliott goes back to acting like he’s so grown-up, drinking coffee and checking out the girls walking by.

  I go back to shooting mental darts at his forehead.

  We had so much fun together last summer. We built swords and shields out of empty paper-towel rolls, cereal boxes and silver foil and had superhero battles in my driveway. Once, we built a giant K’nex Ferris wheel and roller coaster that actually worked. Elliott’s not allowed to have friends over when his mom’s at work. And since his dad walked out on them, she’s always at work. That was why Elliott practically lived at our house, and we had such great times together.

  What happened to all that fun? What happened to Elliott? All he wants to do now is talk about girls. More specifically, about whether Cara Epstein likes him. A few times, I considered telling Elliott I thought Cara drew two purple hearts in everyone’s yearbook, but I couldn’t do that to him. Even though he did ruin my summer.

  Well, at least there’s still Labor Day weekend. And Elliott promised to help make our best TalkTime video ever.

  I kick him under the table.

  “Wha?” He bends and rubs his leg.

  “You’re helping me shoot on Monday. Right?”

  “Yeah. Whatever.”

  “Really,” I say, trying to find a glimmer of my old friend. “Are you going to be there or what? We haven’t made one video the whole summer and school starts Tuesday.”

  He glares at me. “I said I’ll be there.”

  “Good. Shooting starts at nine. Be on time.”

  “I said I’ll be there.”

  I take a long, loud slurp of Mango Madness.

  When Elliott looks up, annoyed, I’m glad.

  “My aunt’s pool party is tomorrow,” I say.

  “Have fun,” he says in a way that means the opposite.

  “I will,” I say. But I know I won’t. My cousin Jack will be there, and he terrifies me. Last year, I accidentally fell into their swimming pool, fully dressed and holding a paper plate piled with potato salad. And I can’t swim! Especially through chunks of potato salad.

  “Good for you,” Elliott says.

  “Good for you,” I mock. Then I lean close and say, “You know, it’s not my fault Cara only showed once at the mall.” And you didn’t have the guts to talk to her.

  Elliott makes a face like he swallowed an ice cube. “Shut up!”

  I chuck my empty cup at him and start walking.

  “Hey,” Elliott says. “Where you going?”

  I turn around and yell as loudly as I can, “Out of this stupid mall!”

  “Wait up.” Elliott runs after me.

  I don’t stop until I’m outside at the bench where Dad is supposed to pick us up. I expect Elliott to say he’s sorry, but he just stands next to me, rocking back on his heels.

  When Dad finally pulls up, I get into the front seat, leaving Elliott to climb into the back by himself.

  “Thanks for the ride, Mr. Greenberg,” Elliott says.

  “No problem. You guys have a good time?”

  “Great,” I say, hoping to end the conversation.

  “Yeah,” Elliott says, kicking the back of my seat. “Great.”

  When Dad stops in front of Elliott’s apartment building, Elliott and I barely nod at each other. I watch him disappear inside the building and my stomach tightens.

  I want to tell Dad that Elliott’s been acting like a total idiot this summer. But Dad is humming and tapping the steering wheel, and ever since Mom left, it’s rare to see him this happy, so I don’t say anything to ruin his mood.

  As we drive away, I squint at Elliott’s living room window. He’s waving.

  I wave back, but I’m sure our car is too far gone for Elliott to see.

  It’s blistering hot by eleven a.m. I’ve applied SPF 45 sunscreen three times to every exposed area of flesh, which isn’t much, since I’m wearing long swim trunks and a T-shirt.

  Lindsay and our cousin Amy, who is one year older than Lindsay, have staked out lounge chairs near the edge of the pool. They’ve slathered themselves with baby oil—baby oil!—hoping to attract sun to their skin. And they’ve already turned an angry shade of pink. Are they insane? Haven’t they ever heard of melanoma? Basal cell carcinoma? Squamous cell carcinoma? I should make a public service announcement about it when Elliott and I shoot our video Monday.

  “Hey, Lindsay?” I say.

  “Yeah?” She doesn’t bother lifting her eyelids.

  “If olive oil comes from olives, and vegetable oil comes from vegetables, where does baby oil come from?”

  “You’re gross!” Amy says, and chucks the baby oil bottle at me.

  Luckily, I scoot out of the way, but she makes me pick up the bottle and bring it back.

  I pace near the pool’s edge, deciding if I want to go in the shallow end to cool off.

  “Don’t slip, David,” Amy yells from her lounge chair. “You know what happened last year.”

  Lindsay, Amy and our other cousin Rachel, who’s six and is paddling around the pool on her dinosaur float, crack up.

  “Ha-ha.” I wish I were home with Hammy, shooting a TalkTime video. In air-conditioning.

  A shadow falls over me, blocking the sun. Thank goodness! I turn and look up, expecting to see a fluffy cloud. Instead, I see Cousin Jack. He’s grown at least six inches since last summer and wastes no time getting me into a killer vise-grip headlock. My nice clean head is millimeters away from Jack’s hairy armpit and about 516,000 bacteria per square inch!

  While crushing my neck with his muscular arm, Jack walks me past Lindsay and Amy. They don’t even look up. He drags me past the gate to where Dad, Bubbe and Aunt Sherry lie in shade on lounge chairs. All the while, Jack gives me noogies and smacks my head in a supposedly friendly way.

  “David and I are hanging out for a while,” Jack says.

  “Have a good time, boys,” Dad says, raising his beer bottle, as though seeing his only son in a headlock is cause for celebration.

  “Have fun,” Aunt Sherry calls, not putting down her People magazine.

  “Don’t do anything
stupid, Jack,” Bubbe yells. “And for goodness’ sake, let go of your cousin. You’ll bruise his neck. Sherry, are you watching your son?”

  Aunt Sherry waves a perfectly manicured hand to show she heard Bubbe, but doesn’t lift her gaze from the magazine. “Have fun, guys.”

  Bubbe huffs and crosses her arms over her floral-print bathing suit.

  Jack drags me through the house and out the front door.

  I make lame gurgling sounds and wonder if I’ll have to wear a neck brace to school Tuesday.

  When we’re out front, next to Aunt Sherry’s Volvo, Jack removes his sweaty arm. I turn my neck in each direction to make sure nothing is broken, then take my first deep breath in a while.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey, little man,” Jack says, hoisting himself onto the Volvo’s roof, his legs dangling over the rear window. It takes a couple of attempts before I’m able to drag myself up.

  Jack whacks me on the back. “So …”

  “So,” I say, hoping to get that perfect mixture of laid-back and cool, but my voice cracks and I manage to achieve two totally different girly sounds in one lousy syllable.

  “Congrats on getting out of that baby school,” Jack says. “Must be a relief.”

  I nod, thinking that’s the right response.

  Jack pulls a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from the pocket inside his swim trunks. I’m scared he’s going to make me smoke, but he just puts a cigarette between his lips and lights up. He turns his head away and exhales grayish white smoke.

  Jack squints. “Ready for Hormone Middle?”

  “Harman?” I ask, thinking that Jack mispronounced the name of the school. Bubbe says Jack’s elevator doesn’t go all the way up to the penthouse. “Harman Middle School, right?”

  Jack laughs and starts coughing. “Yeah, yeah. Harman. Isn’t that what I said?”

  No.

  “I’m telling you, little man … it’s a pit there.”

  Maybe Harman was bad for you because you’re bad, I think. I’m sure Elliott and I are going to love it … if he ever stops obsessing about Cara Epstein.

  Jack gets this serious look on his face that actually scares me.

  “You gotta watch out, David.”

  “Watch out?” My throat goes burnt-bagel dry. I swallow repeatedly, but it doesn’t help. “Jack, I need to go inside and get a drink.”

  He pats my thigh. “In a minute, little man. We’re still talking.”

  The backs of my legs are melting. I don’t want to talk to Jack about this. Jack blows smoke and flicks his stubby, still-lit cigarette into the street. “If you don’t watch out, you’ll …” He looks down and shakes his head.

  “I’ll what?” My heart hammers before I remember that Lindsay went to Harman and didn’t have problems. Then I get it. Jack’s trying to scare me. I play along. “I’ll bet there are monsters in the boys’ bathroom. Right?”

  “I’m not kidding.” Jack looks right into my eyes, and I smell cigarette smoke on his breath. “I’m trying to help you here.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “No monsters,” Jack says, lighting another cigarette. “But don’t use the sinks in the boys’ bathroom. Guys pee in them when they’re in a hurry and the urinals are taken.”

  “No way.” How will I wash my hands?

  “Yeah way.” Jack pokes me in the chest.

  At Longwood El, Ms. Bonino, the principal, hugged the students when they walked in each morning. Even fifth graders. And most of them hugged back.

  “And there are always fights at Hormone. When a fight breaks out, it’s okay to watch as long as you don’t get in the way. Or, if there’s a fight in the hallway and it’s your lunch period, run to the cafeteria. Everyone will be watching the fight, so there won’t be a line.” Jack nods.

  I nod, too. It seems like the right thing to do, but inside, my heart takes off like Hammy running full tilt on his wheel. When our fifth-grade class toured Harman, there was a policewoman in the cafeteria. I thought that was scary at the time. While we were there, she broke up a fight between two girls. Girls! One of the girls pulled the other’s hair, and that girl yelled something I’m not allowed to say. The next thing I knew, the policewoman ran over and got kicked in the stomach during the scuffle. I thought that was really scary.

  Our tour guide—the cheerleading coach at Harman—rushed us out of the cafeteria toward the science wing. I got so excited about the cool microscopes and lab equipment that it took my mind off the incident. I haven’t given it much thought since then. Until now.

  “If you don’t want to get in a fight,” Jack says, blowing smoke, “don’t get on anybody’s bad side.”

  “I won’t,” I say, meaning it, because I, David Todd Greenberg, do not fight.

  “Also,” Jack says, “don’t stand around after school in the courtyard, ’cause that’s where the bad kids hang.” He lights another cigarette. “I should know.” He laughs at his own joke.

  I laugh, too, but it’s a nervous, I-don’t-want-to-die-in-middle-school kind of laugh. “But you got through okay.” I look at Jack, hoping for encouragement.

  “Sure. Sure,” he says. “But even for a guy like me”—he touches his chest—“sixth grade stunk.” Jack looks me up and down and flicks me in the stomach. “You should bulk up, little man. Lift weights. Do push-ups. Something! And whatever you do …” Jack’s so close I have to keep from gagging on cigarette odor. “Stay away from the bathrooms around your birthday, especially the one on the second floor near the science wing.”

  I wipe sweat from my hairless upper lip. “Why?”

  Jack reels back. “You haven’t heard? Come on.”

  I shake my head.

  “Everyone knows.”

  My throat constricts.

  “On your birthday, eighth graders drag you into the bathroom, then shove your head into the toilet and flush while making you sing ‘Happy Birthday.’ You know, a swirlie.”

  “No!”

  “Yeah. I’m telling you so you can look out for yourself, David. If I still went there—if I flunked or something—I’d totally look out for you, but I won’t be there.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” I feel dazed, light-headed.

  “Your sister won’t be there, either, so you’re gonna have to take care of yourself.” He punches me in the arm and it really hurts, but I don’t rub it. “A guy like you has to watch out.”

  A guy like me? “Well, um, thanks for the advice.” My hands tremble. “I’d better get back.”

  “One more thing,” Jack says. “There’s a kid named Tommy Murphy.”

  “I know Tommy Murphy,” I say. “He lives in Elliott’s apartment building.”

  “That kid’s crazy mean,” Jack says. “Stay away from him.”

  “I will,” I say. “He once threw a rock at Elliott’s forehead and split it wide open.”

  “I believe it,” Jack says. “Once at Harman, he flipped a kid over the railing. An ambulance had to come and everything.”

  “Was the kid okay?”

  Jack shrugs. “I heard he broke three ribs and fractured his skull.”

  Sweat drips from every pore on my body. “No.”

  “Yeah. Just stay away from him and from that bathroom on the second floor near the science wing.”

  My stomach coils into a tight knot. Before Jack can even flick away his cigarette, I slide off the car, burn the backs of my legs even more and limp into Aunt Sherry’s house. I drag myself through the house to the backyard and stumble to the pool area, hoping Lindsay is still there.

  She is, on her lounge chair—a giant bull’s-eye for the sun’s cancer-causing rays. But that’s not important now.

  I kneel beside Lindsay and tap her warm shoulder. I know that even though I irritate her on a daily basis, she’ll tell me the truth. She always tells me the truth. “Um, Linds?”

  “You mind?” she says, brushing off her shoulder where I tapped her. “I’m tanning here and you’re blocking the sun.”


  Amy raises one eyelid, looks at me, sighs and closes it again.

  “One question, Lindsay. Please.” I nudge her shoulder. “It’s important.”

  Lindsay’s eyelids open, and she leans on one elbow as though it’s incredibly strenuous. “Make it quick.” She sniffs. “David! Were you smoking?”

  I tilt my head and look at her.

  “Probably Jack’s,” Amy says.

  “Oh, right,” Lindsay says, then focuses on me. “What’s your question?”

  “You went to Harman, right?”

  Lindsay swipes at her forehead. “You know I went to Harman, David. That was one question. You’re done.” She flops back on the lounge chair and closes her eyelids again.

  “Lindsay, please.”

  “Whaaaaat?”

  I take a deep breath and whisper, “On your birthday, do eighth graders drag you into the bathroom and make you sing while they flush your head?” I’m positive she’s going to laugh and say I’m an idiot. At least, I hope she does.

  Lindsay laughs.

  I sigh. Jack wasn’t trying to warn me; he was trying to scare me. Jerk!

  “I’d forgotten about that,” Lindsay says. “When I was in seventh, they did that to Trevor Johnson, a sixth grader, on his birthday. Remember?” She pokes Amy’s arm.

  Amy nods without opening her eyelids. “Yeah, I heard about that.”

  Lindsay continues. “He came to P.E. dripping. Dripping! Coach Shank wouldn’t let Trevor go to the nurse or anything. He made him take a shower and dress out for P.E. It was sooooo funny.”

  Funny? My stomach squeezes. “What happened to him?”

  Lindsay waves her hand. “I heard he transferred to another school or something.”

  “Oh,” I say, as though it’s no big deal. But it is a big deal. I can’t have my head flushed. I may never recover from the psychological trauma. What if some weird bacteria from the water travels up my nose and infects my brain and I die a slow, horrible death?

  Despite the blazing sun, I must look paler than usual, because Lindsay says, “Don’t worry, David. It’s not like they do that to every sixth grader.” She pats my knee. “Just the really weird ones.”