How to Survive Middle School

by Donna Gephart

  I nod toward the tuba. “How you doing?”

  “Been better.”

  I give Dad a sympathetic look. He doesn’t usually admit stuff like that.

  “Hey, maybe—”

  “Don’t worry. Your old dad’s gonna be fine.”

  “I know,” I say, but I don’t, because Dad still gets really sad sometimes.

  “By the way,” he says, walking into the kitchen, “what’s this?” He presses “play” on the answering machine.

  “It’s Underwear Day at Harman,” Elliott says in this real excited voice. “Don’t forget to wear your Superman Underoos.”

  Dad presses “stop,” and I slump in a chair.

  “David?”

  I sigh. “Things got weird between me and Elliott.”

  “Weird how?” Dad sits beside me and puts a hand on my knee.

  Everything about Elliott spills out.

  Dad listens and nods. When I’m done, he waits awhile, then says, “That explains the fight.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Look, David, things like this happen at your age. You’ll probably make up and forget all about it.”

  “I don’t think so,” I say. “Things are pretty bad.”

  “You’ll be surprised.” Dad gets up and measures ground coffee into the filter and slips it into the coffeemaker. “Things have a way of working themselves out.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Really, David. Give it time.”

  I know Dad’s wrong. Just because he has a column where he has all the answers, it doesn’t mean his answers are always right. “Things don’t always work themselves out.”

  “Huh?” Dad says, turning from the coffeemaker.

  “Some things don’t work out,” I say. “No matter how much time you give it.”

  We both know I’m talking about Mom.

  At school, I rush to the media center.

  It’s a big room with tables and bookshelves, an alcove of computers and a colorful couch in front of a rack of magazines. I take a few steps inside and spot the door off to the side marked WHMS NEWS.

  I hold my breath and push open the door.

  Behind a glass window is the studio. In it, a woman leans over a table where a girl sits. It’s Ellen Winser. A camera faces them.

  “Can I help you?” says a deep voice.

  I turn and see an amazing set of equipment. There’s a sound board and a machine that makes the words on the screen and a TV with—

  “Yo?”

  Sitting behind the equipment is the heavy kid who wore a T-shirt the first day of school. He swivels in his chair to face me. He’s now wearing a T-shirt that says “I’m hungry and you’re in my way.”

  “You need Ms. Petroccia?” he asks.

  “Huh?”

  “You here to see the librarian? ’Cause she’s in the studio now, and—”

  A loud buzz pierces through his words, and I picture Ms. Lovely shutting the classroom door with one seat at the front of the room empty. My stomach plunges.

  “Uh, I was wondering if I could—”

  “Spit it out, kid. I gotta get this going.” He runs his hand over the equipment.

  “I was wondering”—I swallow hard—“if I could work on the news.”

  He looks me up and down. “Sixth grader?”

  I nod.

  “No sixth graders,” he says, and goes back to the sound board.

  “But—”

  Ms. Petroccia comes into the equipment room. “The media center’s closed now,” she says.

  “Kid wants to join the news crew,” the heavy boy says without looking up.

  Ms. Petroccia peers at me over her glasses. “You’re a sixth grader, right?”

  Is it that obvious? “Yes, but—”

  “No sixth graders,” she says. “Sorry.”

  The heavy kid looks at Ellen Winser, holds up five fingers, then four, then three, then two, then points toward Ellen.

  “Welcome to WHMS news. I’m Ellen Winser. Please stand tall for the pledge.”

  The screen in front of the boy switches to an image of a flag, and Ms. Petroccia smiles.

  “Thanks anyway,” I say to no one in particular and leave.

  I get a heavy feeling in my stomach as I walk through the deserted halls. The pledge drifts out of each classroom I pass, then club notices. Before opening the door to Ms. Lovely’s room, I pause and take a deep breath.

  I go in just as Ellen Winser is announcing today’s lunch menu and Ms. Lovely is turning off the TV.

  “Mr. Greenberg,” Ms. Lovely says. “You’re late.”

  “I was in the media center,” I say as I slide into my seat.

  “Where is your late pass, Mr. Greenberg?”

  “My …?”

  “Without a pass, you’re late. And when you are late to my class, you get a detention.”

  Tommy Murphy snickers.

  “Mr. Murphy,” Ms. Lovely says, “would you like another detention?”

  Tommy shuts up.

  I’ve never gotten a detention in my life. Honor roll breakfast. Lunch with the principal for perfect attendance. But a detention? “Ms. Lovely, I can’t—”

  “You can’t believe that in only the first week of school, you’ve broken dress code and come to my class late? Well, Mr. Greenberg, neither can I.”

  I sink way down in my seat, too embarrassed to look at Sophie. It was her idea to go to the TV studio.

  Ms. Lovely slaps a piece of paper onto my desk. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to teach.”

  In the cafeteria line, I let a guy in front of me while I think about the TV studio. Besides all the great equipment the boy was running, there was a teleprompter near one of the cameras. A teleprompter! Those things cost a fortune.

  Some kids dream about getting an NBA contract or singing on American Idol. I imagine sitting in front of a camera, reading from a teleprompter, just like Jon Stewart.

  But I’m not going to get to do it because I’m only a lowly sixth grader!

  After the lunch lady plops a few fish sticks and french fries onto my tray, I walk into the lunchroom and don’t stop at Gavin’s table. It’s full. But before I make it to the table in the back, Tommy yells, “Yo, David, come sit with us.”

  When I turn in that direction, a flying object hits me square in the forehead.

  “Bull’s-eye!” Tommy yells.

  How does he do that?

  The guys at his table crack up and high-five him. Including Elliott. Traitor!

  I expect more from Elliott. I expect him to remember when Tommy clocked him with that rock and I stood beside him while his mom glued his skin together. I expect some compassion as I stand in the middle of the lunchroom—the middle of the lunchroom!—with an orange at my feet, but Elliott just shakes his head and laughs, like all the other Neanderthals at the table.

  I hunch my shoulders, kick the orange out of my way and slink to the table in the back. When I sit, three kids keep eating and don’t even look up at me. One boy nods, then goes back to his food. And a girl lowers her book—A Crooked Kind of Perfect—looks at me, then puts the book in front of her face again.

  I haven’t felt this lonely since the day Mom left. I choke down dried-out fish sticks and oil-soaked french fries, expecting to be hit in the head by another airborne piece of fruit at any moment, but I’m not.

  When the buzzer blasts, I’m relieved. Made it through another miserable lunch period. Only 177 more to go until summer break.

  As I watch the Neanderthals leave, I shoot death rays at their backs. Someday I’ll be a famous talk show host, and the only way they’ll appear on TV is in police mug shots on the six o’clock news!

  When I hand my assignment to Ms. Daniels in world cultures, I feel like I’m cheating, because I don’t have the space filled in for Mom’s father’s birthplace. Or maybe I feel like I’ve been cheated.

  In science, Mr. Milot tells me twice to stop talking to Sophie, then moves my seat for the rest of the period. Embarrassing!


  At the end of the day, someone slams me into a bay of lockers. There’s a mass of kids, so I can’t see who did it, but I’m pretty sure I hear Tommy’s obnoxious laughter as I rub my shoulder and walk out into the courtyard.

  Friday at school is no better. I end the day getting shoved into the lockers. Again. Going home, I think about my rotten day and realize that the only thing that will make it better is a fat slice of Bubbe’s Jewish apple cake and a cold glass of soy milk.

  I run the rest of the way home.

  On my way upstairs to say hi to Hammy and change into comfortable clothes, Lindsay bumps into me.

  “Watch out,” I say.

  She stops. “What’s with you?”

  I shrug, realizing I’m thinking about Tommy’s slamming me into the lockers and how much my shoulder still hurts. “Where you going?”

  “Out,” Lindsay says.

  “Out where?”

  Lindsay points downstairs. “Anywhere that’s not here. It’s Rock Band night.”

  “Nooooo.”

  “Yeah,” Lindsay says, trotting down the rest of the stairs and out the front door.

  Every few weeks, Dad and two of his buddies, Alan Wexler and Alan Drummond, play the video game Rock Band with toy plastic guitars and drums. They’re hopeless at it, and it’s totally embarrassing to watch. I don’t know why Dad doesn’t play his real guitar. Mom said he was better than Eric Clapton, whoever the heck that is. She said she used to watch Dad all the time when he played in his college band, Widow’s Kiss. Dad said she was the most loyal of all his groupies. I hope he was joking about having groupies.

  Sometimes I wonder whether Mom might still be around if Dad had kept playing guitar—if he hadn’t lost that part of himself. But I know that it goes way beyond Dad’s not playing his guitar anymore.

  I change into a T-shirt and shorts, pet Hammy behind the ears and head to Bubbe’s apartment. Maybe after a slice of cake we could go to the movies and then to Rita’s for a custard and a soft pretzel. Or anywhere until the two Alans leave.

  “Hi, Bubbe,” I say, strolling into her apartment.

  Bubbe shoves keys and a fat wallet into her pocketbook. “Hi, bubelah. I’m late.”

  “For what?” I hope she’ll ditch her plans and take me out instead.

  “There’s an interfaith peace activist meeting in town.”

  “An interfaith … huh?”

  Bubbe shoulders her huge bag, and I think it’s going to knock her over, but she steadies herself and puts my cheeks between her warm hands. It’s like she’s got portable heaters in her palms. “I’ve got to go,” she says. “Stay here and watch TV if you’d like.”

  The moment she leaves, I call after her, “But what’ll I eat for dinner?” thinking that might be enough to guilt her into staying home.

  Bubbe appears in the doorway, breathless. “David Todd Greenberg,” she says. “There’s a slab of kugel in the fridge. Think you can handle the microwave?”

  Before I answer, she’s gone.

  I turn off the light in her apartment, close the door and trudge to the kitchen.

  The three Alans are in the living room, plugging in their “instruments.”

  Dad spots me and waves. “Join us,” he calls, dangling the toy plastic microphone.

  “No thanks.”

  “We could use you,” Alan Drummond says, adjusting his guitar strap and looking very serious.

  It’s a toy, I want to yell. A video game. For kids!

  “Can’t,” I call. “Homework.”

  “Hey, David,” Alan Wexler says. “Watch this.” He twirls one of his drumsticks. It falls out of his hand and plops noiselessly onto the carpet.

  I nod, then grab the slab of kugel from the fridge and run upstairs.

  “It’s just you and me tonight,” I tell Hammy.

  Even Hammy burrows in his wood shavings and ignores me.

  I take one bite of kugel, then go to my closet to get my K’nex set. When I remember I tossed it, my shoulders slump.

  I turn on the computer, watch a few video clips on the Daily Show site and eat some more kugel. Then I check my Jon Stewart TalkTime video on YouTube. A piece of kugel drops out of my mouth and falls onto the keyboard.

  There are nearly a thousand views and forty-seven comments! Forty-seven comments!

  I scroll through some of them while I pick kugel off my key board.

  Great vid, dude. Make more.

  2 Funny!

  This rox!

  “Oh my gosh,” I say to Hammy. “I’m famous.” I click on the Hammy Time video and find that it has more than fifteen hundred views and one hundred and five comments. I push my chair back. “Come on!”

  I hit “refresh.” One hundred and six comments. “Oh, my …” I press my face to Hammy’s cage. “You’re more famous.”

  Hammy looks unimpressed.

  “I can’t believe all those people watched our videos. And commented!” I’m dying to tell Elliott, but remember the orange incident in the lunchroom today. It feels like the nice comments fill up that empty space inside me. I wonder if this is how Jon Stewart feels on the Daily Show set when he walks out and hears hundreds of fans in the audience scream for him.

  Take that, Tommy Murphy. My videos aren’t lame. You are!

  I scan the comments.

  Cuuuuuute hamster.

  Luv the hamster.

  Hammy Time sooooo awesome.

  Oh my gosh. They’re eating Hammy up! I need to tell someone. But the three Alans have started playing, so no way I’m going down there. Bubbe and Lindsay are gone. Elliott’s a jerk. And I don’t have Sophie’s e-mail address or phone number.

  Sophie! Your homeschool network. How many people did you tell?

  I pull out a sheet of paper and a pen.

  Mom,

  You will never guess what happened. I met this girl and she came over to work on this project and

  I tap the pen on my desk. It will take too long to explain. Besides, Mom doesn’t even have a computer, so she won’t understand what I’m talking about. I don’t want to write to Mom; I want to talk to her.

  But I can’t.

  I crumple the paper and throw it away.

  I hear Alan Drummond yell downstairs, “Rock on, dudes!”

  It’s going to be a long, long night.

  I’m awakened Saturday morning by guitar music. Real, out-of-tune guitar music. I hear it through the penguin earmuffs I wore to bed last night so I’d be able to fall asleep while the “band” was playing. The earmuffs are too tight—and they made my ears hurt.

  I shove them into the back of my underwear drawer with the penguin bathing suit, rub my ears and follow the guitar sounds to Dad’s bedroom door.

  Lindsay appears from her bedroom, wiping her eyes. “What the …?”

  I shrug.

  Her hand on the doorknob, she whispers, “On three.”

  “One,” I say.

  “Two,” she says.

  “Three,” we say at the same time, and Lindsay flings open the door.

  I’m not prepared for what I see: Dad, wearing pajamas, sits on the edge of the bed, strumming his Fender Strat. The cool Fender Strat that’s been in a dusty case under his bed for years.

  “What? Are? You? Doing?” Lindsay asks, hand on her hip.

  Dad looks up. “Oh, hi. Did I wake you guys?”

  “Um, yeah,” Lindsay says.

  I shake my head, and Lindsay pokes my shoulder. “Yes he did, David.”

  Dad’s finally playing his guitar, Lindsay. Don’t make him feel bad about it.

  “Sorry, guys.” Dad puts the guitar into its case and snaps the clips.

  My heart sinks.

  “I was just …” Dad gets that sad, misty look in his eyes.

  Lindsay must not notice, because she says, “I’m going back to bed. Wake me when we’re normal!” Then she stomps out.

  I sit on Dad’s bed. “So, what’s up with the …” I jerk my head toward the guitar case.

 
; “The guys, they …”

  I know he means the other two Alans from last night. The Alans he’s been friends with since he was my age.

  “They thought we should get a real rock band together.”

  I want to be supportive, but a laugh slips out. I can’t help it. I’m picturing my dad and the Alans onstage with long hair and leather pants, smashing their guitars.

  “I know,” Dad says. “Ridiculous, right?”

  Yes. But Dad hasn’t seemed this excited about anything since Mom left, so I say, “No. It’s an awesome idea. What would you call yourselves? Widow’s Kiss?”

  Dad laughs. “Nah, that was my college band’s name. We’d need something new.” Dad presses his palms onto his thighs. “Alan Drummond doesn’t even have drums yet. It’s just a crazy idea.”

  I knock my shoulder into Dad’s. “It’s not crazy. But you’ll need a name.” I head toward Dad’s door, pausing to nod at his guitar case. “And more practice.”

  Dad rakes a hand through his wild morning hair. “I’m not sure your sister would appreciate that.”

  I nod toward Lindsay’s room. “Practice, Dad. Even if it drives Lindsay crazy.” I grin. “Especially if it drives Lindsay crazy.”

  And I go to my room and write Mom a long letter about how Dad has taken up playing guitar again and how he’s forming a new band. As I drop the letter into the mailbox, I’m sure this will make Mom want to come home.

  At least for a visit.

  Sunday morning, I can’t concentrate in Hebrew school. I look at the cantor but think of Sophie. She found my phone number and asked me over to work on our project.

  Dad drives me to her house. “Have fun.”

  “I will,” I say, even though my stomach flops around every time I think of her soft, curly hair. I carry the bag with the Einstein book and my camera case and ring the doorbell.

  Sophie answers. “Hi, David.”

  In the foyer, I inhale deeply. It smells like our house did when Mom lit vanilla-scented candles for her morning yoga. I remember the morning she asked Dad to join her. He laughed and said, “Not my cup of chai tea.” Mom looked hurt, so I told her I’d do yoga with her, but she just shook her head and walked away. Sometimes I wonder if Mom and Dad were always so different or if they became that way through the years.