I’m so happy,
I could cry.
Of course I don’t
because Liam would tease me nonstop
for the entire week
and probably for all of eternity.
I still want a new nickname but
Crybaby Collin is not what I have in mind.
Instead, I do my best end zone victory dance
and karate chop the Hoard
on my way out the door.
* * *
To prepare for a typhoon, assemble an emergency kit with flashlights, batteries, medical supplies, and food.
Fill the bathtub and other large containers with fresh water.
Make a family communication plan.
Cover your windows with plywood or storm shutters.
Bring in all outdoor furniture and decorations.
Stay inside during the storm.
Keep away from windows and glass doors.
Do not be fooled by a lull-it could be the eye of the storm-winds will pick up again!
If the storm is too severe to shelter in place,
EVACUATE!
PEACE OFFERING
Yo, Shaggy Maggy!
Tyson yanks my hair in the lunch line.
Your locks are gone
but you still reek like a freak!
Jax and his eighth-grade buddies
sit at a picnic table nearby,
egging Tyson on.
He calls me more names,
trying to make himself look BIG
by making me feel
small.
The only things that stink
are your jokes, Liam says, stepping beside me.
Someone makes a sizzling sound,
because Tyson just got burned!
Jax shakes his head,
like his little bro’s suddenly nothing
but a big disappointment.
Liam, it’s not polite
to make fun of someone’s intelligence,
or lackluster sense of humor, says Georgia.
Liam whips around,
blink, blink, blinking.
Georgia strides forward,
her long braid swaying as she moves.
Sorry about that, she says,
flashing a sympathetic smile.
Now Tyson and Jax
blink, blink, blink
at Georgia.
Here. An open palm.
One round red candy.
Truce? she says oh-so-sweetly.
Tyson’s slow bully brain
tries to process
what’s happening.
His older stepbrother shrugs,
gives a nod of approval.
Tyson reaches out
to accept
the unexpected peace offering.
TRAITOR
Seriously? What was that all about? Liam snorts.
Georgia doesn’t answer.
She just walks over to the swings,
smiling.
Her legs pump
out
and in.
Seriously? Liam asks again,
turning to me.
He thinks Georgia’s a traitor.
But I know better.
Sweet revenge, I say,
pointing across the field,
where Tyson folds in half,
grabbing his guts,
spitting a slobbery GrossBomb
into dry grass
while a circle of kids
laughs and jeers.
SHOW-AND-TELL
Ms. Treehorn asks us to bring something
meaningful to class
and explain its importance.
I’m pretty sure show-and-tell
is for kindergartners,
yet my classmates gladly share
ballet slippers,
stamp collections,
action figures.
I squirm in my seat,
wondering if Liam has shaken
some of that itching powder
down my pants.
Sabrina holds up a backpack
with a metal frame and thick straps.
It’s not what I expected her to bring at all.
I used this last summer
to hike the Bradshaw Mountains, she says.
It’s hard to picture Sabrina hiking;
she usually acts so prissy.
But when she heaves the pack over her shoulder,
we all see a different side of her.
I had to carry everything on my back.
I could only bring essentials.
What a fantastic adventure!
How long was your trek? Ms. Treehorn asks.
One week.
When I get older, I’m going to backpack across Europe.
Like my parents did.
They traveled with one bag each for six months.
Only one? Really?
Yes, ma’am.
Dad says it was liberating.
Mom calls it the best decision of her life.
Until she had me, obviously.
Eventually we move on to the next student,
but I’m stuck on that backpack.
Hiking in the mountains is rife
with innumerable dangers,
yet I keep imagining
the freedom and
possibility
of carrying hardly
any things
at all.
MY TURN
At the last minute,
I change my mind.
Instead of my original item,
I open the orange book
and read a chapter
out loud.
Everyone laughs
when they should be
paying attention.
* * *
To stop a zombie attack, shoot the flesh-eating, brain-munching, undead ghouls directly in the head.
As an added precaution, burn the bodies.
If that fails, collect food, water, and other necessities.
Seek refuge. Hunker down.
HIDE!
FOSSILS
Ms. Treehorn holds up
a curved stone.
Now it’s my turn.
Can anyone guess what this is?
A very small armadillo? I venture.
Not quite.
Look closer.
She passes it to me.
I study the tiny armored creature
trapped between
layers of hardened silt and clay.
It’s a fossil, obviously, Sabrina says,
grabbing it from my hands.
Indeed!
A marine trilobite
found not too far from here.
There’s no ocean around here! Sabrina balks.
Not anymore, Ms. Treehorn says.
But there used to be.
In the desert? Really? I ask.
Yes. Time has a way of making
big changes.
About 520 million years ago,
Arizona was home to a shallow sea
that created many of the sedimentary rock formations
visible in our nearby canyons.
The archaeologist who gave me this says
trilobite fossils are quite common in these parts.
What makes it special
if it’s so common? Sabrina asks.
Ms. Treehorn’s face turns
ocotillo red.
&
nbsp; I suppose it’s special
because it reminds me
of someone special.
STRIKE ONE
Swim practice is cancelled,
even though we really need
to train for our upcoming meet.
Liam’s stuck in detention
for putting a chocolate bar
that looked like a turd
in the pool.
He didn’t want to swim extra laps today.
He’s a real knucklehead sometimes.
But he’s never afraid
to act.
SECRET
Georgia and I sit
in a sliver of shade
underneath
the basketball hoop,
watching heat
rise off the blacktop.
It’s quiet when it’s
just the two of us.
Quiet, but not
awkward.
If you have a secret,
you should tell it, Georgia says,
out of nowhere.
I grip the basketball
as hard as I can.
I’m afraid
it’ll slip away.
My palms are sweating
that badly.
You should tell your secret
to someone you trust, she adds.
What does she know?
What does she suspect?
I wish I could tell her
what’s really going on in my life,
but the worst-case scenarios
running through my head
roar and rumble,
keeping me quiet.
I already lost my mom.
I can’t lose
my friends, too.
My fingertips follow
rubber lines
across the ball’s bumpy orange skin,
wishing it were a globe
with a path to follow
out.
∞ ∞ ∞
I lied at show-and-tell, Georgia says.
I look at her,
puzzled.
That blanket my mom knit?
I didn’t get it the day I was born.
I got it when I was seven months old.
Okay, I say.
That doesn’t seem criminal.
Why’d you lie?
Collin,
my mom wasn’t there
when I was born.
Georgia,
isn’t that scientifically impossible?
Not if you’re
adopted.
Oh.
That’s my secret.
She doesn’t ask for mine.
She might not even know
I have one.
∞ ∞ ∞
My fingers relax.
The ball rolls free.
I wish I could hold her hand
but my palms are too sweaty.
So I just look at her eyes,
which are looking at her shoes,
staring so hard,
blinking so fiercely,
like she’s trying to fix
the untied laces with her mind,
in a feat of remarkable telekinesis.
I hate
that I don’t know
what to say.
Lately my dumb book
seems no good for anything.
Some days I wonder why, she says quietly.
I try to help Georgia by
making questions become answers.
What if your birth parents couldn’t take care of you?
What if they wanted more for you?
What if…?
She scuffs her sneaker
on the ground.
My head spins,
like that hotshot trick
Liam can do,
with the basketball
balanced on his fingertip.
Don’t get me wrong, she says.
I’m happy.
And lucky.
Still…
She turns to me.
Some days
I feel like
a throwaway.
My heart seizes up.
My father never throws
anything
away.
Especially not people.
Living people, dead people.
He keeps us all.
In spite of the weird, cluttered
life we live,
it’s one of the reasons
I love him.
I lean over Georgia’s foot
and tie her laces into
a looping tight
double knot.
It is a small thing to do,
but I can’t find any words,
and I need her to know
I’ll do what I can
to keep her
from falling.
To keep her
from getting hurt.
Because she’s not
a throwaway to me.
When I finish the bow
that looks like a floppy
sideways infinite number eight,
she cups one of her hands
over mine.
She doesn’t seem to mind
that it’s sweaty and gross.
I knew you were
the right person
to tell.
If you ever need
to tell me something,
I’m here, Collin. Okay?
∞ ∞ ∞
We walk toward the bike rack,
both of us looking up
at the cloudless, uncluttered sky.
Georgia says,
I wish I could’ve met her.
I think she must be talking
about her birth mom.
Turns out
she’s talking about
mine.
PHOTOGRAPHS
I reach into my backpack,
pull out the handful of
memories
I couldn’t bear to share
at show-and-tell.
Now the time feels right.
Georgia studies them
with serious eyes.
She holds each glossy rectangle
with careful fingers.
She lifts my favorite photograph
up to the light.
Tell me about this one, she says,
like an archaeologist gently
chip-chip-chipping
hard stone,
dust-dust-dusting
layers of dirt
from a fossil
that’s been trapped
for too long.
She is so beautiful, Georgia says.
She has the best smile.
She also had the best laugh, I say,
describing the things
a photograph can’t.
Your dad still has those glasses.
And those vests!
So many crazy vests!
Where does he find them?
The Rummage Room.
I laugh, even though it’s not really funny.
Liam looks the same.
Only now he’s bigger
and goofier.
And more annoying, I say.
Georgia picks up another photo:
Mom and me together
in the garden,
squinting into the sun.
Happy.
Wow, Collin. You look…
I wait and wait.
So much like h
er.
You have exactly
the same smile.
STAY
I stay behind at school,
making up some story
about an extra-credit assignment,
when really
I have nowhere else to go.
The pool is being shocked.
Georgia has a dentist appointment.
Liam’s in detention.
Even the Henny Penny is off limits.
Mrs. Finnick told me to quit spooking her customers,
haunting the aisles,
never buying so much as a jelly bean.
Besides, Tyson likes to hang around there.
The only thing I need less than a bag of broken
electronics
is trouble from him.
The janitor finishes cleaning the floors.
The hallway smells like lemons and bleach.
I watch him return his mop to the closet
and wave goodbye.
I’m alone.
Or so I think.
SO CLEVER
You think you and your dork squad
are so clever, don’t you?
Humiliating me in front of Jax and all his friends?
I wheel around, stumble back.
Tyson’s eyes burn with anger.
Getting your freckle-faced girlfriend to do your dirty work, huh?
Did you really think you’d get away with a stunt like that?
The only thing nastier than those prank candies is YOU!
A split second later,
I’m staring at the green flecks
in the linoleum
again.
Except this time
no one’s around
to help.
Filthy!
Pathetic!
Loser!
Slam!
Pound!
Punch!
Now there are little red spots
all over the freshly mopped floor.
STAND UP
Georgia forgot something
in her locker.
When she comes back to get it,
she finds me.
Why don’t you ever
stand up for yourself?
Her eyes are wet.
We should tell someone, she says.
I shake my head. No.
I don’t want to bring
any extra attention
to my life.
I also don’t want
Georgia to ruin
Worst-Case Collin Page 9