How to Survive Middle School

by Donna Gephart

  “Oh, great.” Questions swirl around my mind. Is the toilet full of you-know-what? How long do they hold your head down? Can a person actually drown in a toilet bowl? The drowning-prevention expert who came to our school said a person can drown in a couple of inches of water. A couple of inches!

  “Really, David, you have nothing to worry about.”

  “No?”

  “No,” Lindsay says. “Your birthday’s during winter break. You won’t even be in school then.”

  “But Jack said—”

  “I’m telling you, David—there’s nothing to panic about.”

  I’m panicked.

  “Now get out. You’re blocking the sun.” And Lindsay shoves me. Not hard or anything, but I’m so shaky from what Jack told me that I stumble backward.

  As I fall, I windmill my arms as though it will do anything other than make me look like an idiot. Every panicked thought flies from my mind except one: Please, God. Not again.

  I smack the pool’s surface and sink in the lukewarm water. For a terrifying moment, I think I’m drowning in a giant toilet bowl.

  But I can’t be drowning, because my head’s already out of the water and I’m holding on to the edge and looking at my cousin Rachel, who’s clutching her dinosaur float and spluttering.

  I can tell by her squinty eyes she’s pissed.

  I bumped into something when I fell into the pool. Must’ve been her.

  “David!” Rachel says, squeezing the dinosaur’s inflatable neck with one hand and pinching my arm hard with the other. “Stop. Falling. Into. Our. Pool!”

  “It’s not like I … At least I wasn’t holding potato … oh …” My arms tremble as I hoist myself out. I’m coughing and dripping and surprised Dad isn’t standing beside the pool to make sure I’m okay. I squint toward the back of the house. Of course Dad’s not standing beside the pool. He’s lying on his lounge chair, beer in hand.

  Amy and Lindsay laugh as though the sight of me, nearly drowned, is hilarious. Even Rachel laughs and makes faces.

  Well, at least I’m not thirsty anymore. I swallowed tons of chlorinated pool water.

  “It’s like an annual tradition,” Amy says.

  Shielding her eyes from the sun, Lindsay asks, “You all right, David?”

  I don’t answer. I walk away from them, toward the house.

  Dad gives me a strange look as I pass.

  “Oh, Davey,” Bubbe says, pressing her palms to her cheeks.

  Aunt Sherry laughs and shakes her head. “Not again, sweetie.” She points toward the house. “Towels in the guest bathroom.”

  I ignore everyone and walk to the guest bathroom, not even caring that I’m dripping water all over Aunt Sherry’s carpets and floors. Does she think I have the IQ of a Twinkie? I know there are towels in the guest bathroom. It’s a bathroom.

  While I’m drying off, I glance at the toilet and feel my chest tighten.

  If I, David Todd Greenberg, can’t survive my aunt’s stupid pool party without nearly drowning, how am I going to survive middle school?

  Late Sunday morning, Dad walks into my room, carrying a huge plastic bag. “Mind if I come in?”

  I shove the letter I’m reading for the sixth time under my pillow. “You already are in.”

  “Well, look at that,” Dad says, sitting on my bed. “Guess I am.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  It’s quiet for several seconds, then Dad lets out a big breath. “So, how you doing?”

  Scared to death about starting school. “’Kay. You?”

  “’Kay.” He hoists the bag onto the bed. “School clothes.”

  Mom used to take me shopping for school clothes at Target, then to Nature’s Way Café for lunch. She always ordered the sprouts and avocado sandwich on pita, and I always ordered a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich with a fruit smoothie. It was a big deal, because Mom didn’t go out of the house too often.

  “David?”

  I shake my head. “Yeah?”

  Dad pulls out three pairs of jeans—two blue, one black—that don’t look too bad, two short-sleeved collared shirts and three long-sleeved collared shirts. “Remember?” Dad asks. “Dress code.”

  “Yup. Collared shirts. I remember.” The principal’s letter explaining the dress code is stuck to our fridge with the guitar magnet Mom gave Dad the day he found out that his advice column—“Alan’s Answers”—was going to be nationally syndicated. “Don’t forget about this part of you,” Mom said, and pressed a button on the magnet, causing a guitar riff to play for about five seconds.

  Dad kissed Mom on the forehead. “How could I forget, Anita?”

  He forgot. His übercool Fender Strat lies in a dusty guitar case under his bed. And no one’s pushed the button on that magnet since.

  “And now,” Dad says, ruffling my hair, “the pièce de résistance.” He pulls out a gray T-shirt. “Ta-dah! Just don’t wear it to school, okay?”

  “No worries.” On the front of the T-shirt is a TV set with these words inside the screen: “Be nice to me. I might be famous someday.”

  “So true,” I say, puffing out my scrawny chest, which reminds me I haven’t even tried to bulk up, like Jack suggested. And school starts in two days!

  “Try it on,” Dad says.

  I can tell that my liking the T-shirt means a lot to him, so I slip it over my head, look down at myself and say, “My new favorite shirt.”

  Instead of acting happy, though, Dad gets this far-off look in his eyes, like he does when someone mentions Mom.

  I can’t stand seeing that look, so I nudge his shoulder. “Thanks for all the great stuff.”

  He blinks a few times and pretend-punches me in the shoulder. “I’m sure your mom would’ve gotten better stuff, but …”

  But she, um, moved to Maine to live with an organic-beet farmer two years ago. “It’s perfect, Dad. Really.”

  “Well, I’m just going to …” Dad crumples the empty plastic bag and moves toward the door.

  I nod.

  “Okay, then.”

  “Yup.”

  He slips out of my room, and I grab the letter I was reading before he came in.

  Dear David,

  I can’t believe it’s time for school again. I wish I were there, helping you pick out your clothes (or are you too big for that now?) and having lunch with you at Nature’s Way Café. I miss that place. I miss you!

  Even though I’m reading this letter for the seventh time, my stomach still seizes.

  I especially miss being around you and your sister at the start of a new school year. Please tell her I wish she’d answer my letters.

  I blink a few times. “Maybe if you got a phone …,” I say to the letter and swipe at my eyes.

  Well, it’s getting very cool here. I’m working on another patchwork quilt to keep us warm during winter. Did I already tell you that? And I’m canning steamed beets and several pounds of string beans that Marcus got in trade from a neighbor’s farm.

  Good luck at school, David. I hope you have a wonderful experience at Harman. Tell your sister I wish her luck at Bensalem High.

  I’m glad you write to me, David. It means a lot. You’ll do great in middle school, but it can be rough. Just remember: don’t break any rules, especially on the first day. (Like you’d ever do that!)

  But mostly, remember how much I love you.

  Peace and pancakes,

  Mom

  “Peace and pancakes,” I mumble. “Whatever that means.” I wonder why Mom had to move to a farm in Maine to “find herself.” Couldn’t she have found herself right here in Bensalem with us, instead of running off with the Farmer? His real name’s Marcus, and he’s too cheap to have a computer or a phone or even electricity in their house. Mom would have to go into town to call us, which she never does.

  Lindsay says Mom’s not finding herself; she says Mom’s just selfish and has some sort of disorder.

  I breathe hard, slip the letter back into its envel
ope and shove it into a shoe box in my closet, along with the other dozens of letters from Mom telling me about their organic beet crop and freezing weather and crazy quilts she makes. Mom says she sews our names into every quilt.

  I’d trade the whole box of letters for one lousy visit.

  Monday morning, Elliott’s late as usual, so I tape fake New York on my wall and start making TalkTime without him.

  After shooting the introduction, I find Lindsay and get footage of her face, which looks less zit-infested today.

  “David, get out!” she screams, then throws her shoe at me.

  Fortunately, I have good reflexes, and the shoe hits me, not my camera.

  Back in my room, I decide that these words will go with Lindsay’s face: Today’s acne forecast: sunny, with a light scattering of zits later in the day.

  Elliott’s still not here, so I put the camera on the tripod and create the list segment of the show: “Top Six and a Half Ways to Survive a Summer Pool Party. One: Don’t go! The other five and a half ways don’t matter.”

  Forty-seven minutes late, Elliott finally walks through the front door with a book in his hand. “Look,” he says, and offers me his yearbook.

  “You’re late,” I say, not taking the stupid yearbook from his stupid hand.

  “Big deal,” Elliott says. “I’m always late.”

  My nostrils flare. “It is a big deal. I started shooting without you.”

  “So what? Don’t be such a jerk, David.”

  “Jerk? I’m not being a jerk.”

  Elliott pokes me in the chest. “Yes, you are being a jerk. And you were a jerk and a half at the mall on Friday.”

  “Me?” I say, touching the spot on my chest where he poked me. “You were a jerk and three-quarters. Maybe I didn’t want to spend my entire summer at the mall looking for Cara Epstein.”

  “Yeah, that was dumb.”

  I reel back. “It was?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Kind of a waste of a summer, huh?”

  “Definitely.” I’m glad to see a glimmer of the old Elliott. “But we’ve still got today. Right?”

  “Right,” Elliott says, and we bump fists. “Now, look.” He hands me his yearbook again.

  Sadly, I know right where to turn. I go to the page where Cara Epstein drew those lousy purple hearts. The entry is completely blacked out and smells of permanent marker. I close the yearbook and hand it back. “Wow.”

  “Cool, huh?” Elliott takes a deep breath. “You were right.”

  “What?”

  “I said you were right.”

  “I know. Just wanted to hear you say it again.”

  Elliott punches me in the shoulder. “I need to stop thinking about Cara. I mean, we’re going to middle school tomorrow, right?”

  “Yup,” I say, wishing I’d spent the weekend lifting weights and doing push-ups.

  “And Harman will be loaded with girls, right?”

  I know where he’s heading. “Yeah.”

  “Sixth-grade girls. Seventh-grade. Eighth. Am I right?” Elliott gets a dreamy look in his eyes that totally creeps me out.

  He’s heading down the tracks at a hundred miles an hour. “Uh, I guess.”

  “So who needs Cara Epstein?” Elliott says. “She’s not even going to Harman.”

  Toward an oncoming train.

  Elliott puffs his chest out and declares, “I, Elliott Isaac Berger, am gonna make out with every single girl at Harman Middle School before I graduate!”

  Crash!

  “Great,” I say in a less than enthusiastic tone. “Can we please get started now?”

  “That was supposed to be a joke.” Elliott shoves me.

  “Ha,” I say, pulling away.

  Elliott shrugs and sprints up the stairs.

  I follow him into my room. “I shot everything except the interview and a public service announcement.”

  “Cool,” Elliott says, tapping on Hammy’s cage, which annoys me. “Who are we interviewing today?”

  “Ashton Kutcher.”

  “Awesome,” Elliott says. “I can do Ashton.”

  “Then I wrote a public service announcement about preventing skin cancer.”

  “Sounds like fun.” Elliott makes a face. “Can’t we do something about girls instead? Like how to get them to fall madly in love with you?”

  “Uh, and why would we want to do something dumb like that?”

  “Because it’s way better than your stupid idea.”

  I exhale through clenched teeth. “We’re doing the Ashton Kutcher interview and the PSA about preventing skin cancer. I already wrote it.”

  Elliott steps back. “What if I don’t want to do the stupid cancer PSA? What if I want to do the girl PSA?”

  Prickly heat creeps up my neck. “What if I do the interview and the PSA without you?”

  “What if you do? Moron.”

  “Supermoron.”

  He shoves me. “Megamoron.” Then he turns away like I’m not worth looking at and mutters, “Schmo.”

  I breathe in short bursts. Then it pops out of my mouth, like a firecracker: “Cara Epstein drew two purple hearts in my yearbook.”

  There is electrically charged silence between us.

  “Liar!”

  I grab my yearbook, find the page with Cara’s entry and shove it in Elliott’s face. “She probably put two hearts in everybody’s yearbook.” I slam the book and throw it onto my bed. “Who’s the schmo now?”

  Elliott’s lips pinch together, and he glares at me before exploding. “You suck!”

  “You … ssssuper suck!” I breathe hard through my nose and try to think of something meaner to say. “And maybe if your dad was around, my dad wouldn’t have had to drive us to the mall twenty-four times!”

  Elliott’s eyes open wide.

  My stomach plunges. I know that was a low blow. I know better than anyone how awful it feels for a parent to up and leave. I have no idea why I just said that.

  “Well, maybe if your mom—” Elliott’s voice cracks, and not because his vocal cords are lengthening.

  I bite my lip, wishing there were a rewind button on my mouth.

  Elliott snatches his yearbook and storms out of my room.

  Even though “sorry” bounces around my brain, I stand there, stupid and silent, and watch Elliott Isaac Berger, my—gulp—former best friend, stomp down the stairs and out of my house.

  I attempt to shoot the Ashton Kutcher interview without Elliott, but my throat tightens. I hope he calls, so I can tell him I’m sorry, because I am.

  I let Hammy out of his cage and pet behind his ears, which usually makes me feel better, but not today.

  If Mom were here, she’d probably sit on the edge of my bed, push my hair out of my eyes and tell me to call Elliott and apologize.

  And I’d tell Mom I can’t call Elliott and apologize, because even though I know what I said was mean, it’s Elliott’s fault, too. He was a jerk all summer. I was only a jerk today.

  Mom would probably tell me to call anyway. She’d talk to me about things like karma and how my spirit would be enhanced if I called and apologized. She’d remind me that Elliott’s been my best friend for years.

  I hold Hammy in one hand and the phone in the other, but I can’t make myself press the numbers. I can’t shoot the interview. I don’t feel like making the PSA. This was supposed to be a great day, but it’s just another lousy day in a string of lousy summer days.

  Hammy seems completely uninterested in my plight. Until he pees on my hand.

  “I deserve that.” I put Hammy back into his cage and scrub my hand.

  Then I reach into the back of my closet and pull out an old birthday gift from Mom. I sit on my bed and work the Rubik’s Cube but can’t get more than one side the same color. Mom said to close my eyes and envision myself solving the cube. I try it, but that doesn’t work, either. Even when I cheat and look up how to solve it on the Internet, I get only two sides the same color.

  When Bubbe ca
lls me for dinner, I’m glad.

  But when I see what we’re having—creamed spinach, brown rice and liver with fried onions—I’m not glad anymore. I eat a few forkfuls of rice and move the other stuff around on my plate.

  “You’re quiet,” Bubbe says, shoving a chunk of liver and a dangling onion into her mouth.

  I don’t say anything.

  When the phone rings after dinner, I lunge for it, hoping it’s Elliott. But Lindsay gets to it first.

  “Hello?” she says, twirling a piece of hair around her finger. “Yes, I’m Ms. Greenberg.”

  “Liar,” I mouth.

  She shrugs.

  “No,” Lindsay says. “We don’t want a year’s worth of prime beef delivered fresh to our door.” She bites her lower lip. “Oh, I’m sure. Our family is vegetarian. All twelve of us.”

  I smile.

  “Even the dog,” Lindsay says.

  “Woof. Woof,” I bark.

  Lindsay hangs up and bursts out laughing. “Good dog, David.” She pats my head.

  I stand, do a fake bow, then grab the phone and retreat to my room.

  By bedtime, I realize I’m not going to call Elliott and he’s not going to call me, either, but I stay up till eleven with the phone beside my bed just in case he does.

  When the phone rings in the morning, I smack the snooze button on my alarm clock. The ringing doesn’t stop even though I smack it again and again.

  “Answer the phone!” Lindsay screams, and pounds on her bedroom wall.

  “Stop banging the wall!” Dad shouts, and pounds on his own wall.

  That’s when I realize my alarm clock doesn’t ring; it beeps. I answer the phone. “Yeah?”

  “Hey, buddy.”

  It’s Elliott. He called me buddy. I try to think of something nice to say to show him I’m sorry and want to be friends again. But all that comes out is a sleepy “Hey.”

  “You ready for school?” Elliott asks. It sounds like he’s laughing, but I’m still too tired to process much.

  “Elliott,” I say, wiping gunk out of my eyes, “I’m really sorry about yesterday. What I said was—”