Things to Say to Dad About Mom
- “We miss her.”
- “Be nice to her.”
- “Get her to want to come home.”
10
Wednesday Afternoon
Agnes and Baxter are midway through a game of chess when I get home.
I put my stuff down in the hall and join them in the kitchen. They both greet me without looking up from the board on the table.
“Hey, Glad the Impaler.”
I’ll give this much to Baxter: He occasionally comes up with something I haven’t heard before. Also, he brought bread and cheese and butter, which are spread out on the counter next to a dirty pan and a crumby plate—hello, grilled cheese sandwiches.
I go over to the counter and start fixing myself one or two. (Two.)
“What’s up, Botox?”
“Getting massacred in chess.” He moves his knight, which temporarily disappears in his absurdly large hand.
Agnes moves a pawn and picks up his knight. “He’s letting me win.”
Baxter looks up at me, mouthing, I’m not letting her win.
I fry my sandwiches until they’re gooey, put them on the crumby plate, and sit down to let them cool. Watching Baxter and Agnes play chess is boring. I have some homework to do, but I don’t feel like doing it yet.
“Where’s Mabes?”
“In her room,” says Agnes. “With Lip Ring and Hyena Laugh.”
She means Mabey’s friends Sybil and Nomi. (Whose name, BTW, is really Naomi—she dropped the a right around the time Sybil got her lip ring. Like, “You’re going to pierce your lip? Well, I’m going to pierce my name.”)
A brief wistful look passes over Baxter’s face. Sometimes I forget that Baxter is still in college, because he dresses like he’s seventy-three, and he wears his hair cut super-short. He’s what Mom would call “a normal”—an ordinary, boring guy who plays by all the rules. I don’t think he’s ever hung out in an attic with someone called Lip Ring.
“Checkmate.” Agnes moves her rook and takes Baxter’s queen. “Good game. Want to play again?”
Baxter sighs and starts setting up his pieces for another slaughter. I see an opportunity to interrupt here to get some advice. Dad always tells us, When you don’t know what to do, ask an adult. Baxter qualifies.
“Wait,” I say. “Question for you. If you were in middle school and you needed to make money quickly, what would you do?”
“E-mail scam,” Agnes answers immediately. Baxter and I raise our eyebrows at each other. She should have needed a second to think about the question before going straight to fraud. Agnes looks up from resetting the chessboard. “What? This is hypothetical, right?”
“No, serious question. But not for me. Asking for a friend.”
OMG, I realize. That’s Sophie’s line. And I’m saying it about her!
“Get an after-school job,” Baxter suggests. “Mow lawns, do yard work, walk dogs, babysit…”
“Mmmmm…”
I already got this advice from Google. It’s hard to imagine Sophie picking up dog poop, and she’d need a lot of dog poop to get to $450. “What about something that actually pays?”
“E-mail scam,” Agnes repeats quietly. She pushes a pawn forward to start a new game.
“Well, if it was me,” says Baxter, ignoring the pawn, “I would sell my expertise. Like your dad does. People pay him a certain amount of money per hour because he’s an expert at tax law. What are you an expert at? What can you do for people that they can’t do for themselves? Or what skills can you teach? What’s something you know how to do that other people would pay to learn?”
Huh. What is Sophie an expert at? Air-kissing? Dance-squadding? I don’t think she can sell air-kissing lessons. Air-kissing is pretty self-explanatory. She’s good with makeup and hair and clothes, but there’re a million makeup and hair tutorials online for free. Something with clothes, maybe …
I hear Mabey and her friends coming down the stairs. Mabey marches into the kitchen, and Lip Ring and Hyena Laugh linger in the hall, absorbed in their phones.
“You guys want grilled cheese?” Mabey calls to them, ignoring me and Agnes and Baxter. Some vague syllables emit from the girls in the hall. Mabey flings open the fridge and frowns at the contents. “There’s no food in this house.”
Baxter looks up from the chessboard. “Good afternoon, Mabel,” he says pleasantly. “How are you today?”
Mabey doesn’t even bother to reply. “We need food,” she says, slamming the fridge door. She rejoins her friends and they stomp back upstairs.
“Rude,” mutters Agnes.
“Seriously,” I agree.
The man brought grillable cheese into the house. He deserves our respect.
Baxter looks more amused than upset. “Don’t worry about it.” He takes a bishop from Agnes. “It’s always a joy to see your sister, whatever her mood.”
I assume he’s being sarcastic, but I can’t always tell with Baxter. He could be sincere. He’s sincere about a lot of crazy stuff. One time he said to me, “You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted raw sea urchin,” and I thought he was kidding, until he revealed a take-out container with raw sea urchin inside. So you never know.
I put my dishes in the dishwasher and go upstairs to my room, leaving Baxter and Agnes to their game. Searching online for “sell expertise” gets me a bunch of articles from business magazines about “leveraging your position” and “best biz dev practices.” I’m trying to translate these into English, but it’s no use, so I give up on the Sophie plan for now.
I take out some reading for school and lie there on my bed until Dad comes home and yells at us from the hallway.
“Girls! Dinner! We’re having grilled cheese!”
11
Thursday Morning
Izzy just punched me on the bus.
It’s good, though. She meant it in a good way. She got on the bus at her stop, the one after mine, and as she passed my seat, she socked me in the bicep and said, “What’s up, jackweed.”
“Ow.” I shifted away and rubbed my arm. “What’s up.”
Izzy swaggered toward the back to sit with her sports friends. “What’s up, you jackweeds,” she said, punching Taye and Jackson, who obligingly punched her back.
“Shut up, jackweed.”
“Shut up, dairy fairy.”
It took most of the twenty-minute bus ride for the pain to subside, and for me to realize: To Izzy, punching someone and calling them a jackweed is a sign of friendship. Izzy and I have our private business relationship, of course—yesterday, she passed me three T-shirts, two sweatshirts, and a pair of sneakers that smell like rotting roadkill. But for her to punch me like that? That’s not business. That’s personal.
So now I feel pretty good.
I’m making my way through the various cliques standing around in front of school when I see the flannel-clad blur of Jasmine the drummer in my peripheral vision, hurrying my way. She catches up to me, grabs me by my sore arm, and drags me a few feet away from the crowd.
“Hey,” she says. She’s out of breath and her face is flushed. “I need another excuse for missing band.”
“Another excuse? So soon?” I frown. This is pushing it, in my professional opinion. Gerber may have swallowed the “auditioning for a band” story I gave her on Monday, but Jasmine shouldn’t try to cram another story down his throat until he’s had time to digest the first one. “You can’t keep skipping band and needing excuses.”
Jasmine’s surprise shows on her face. She’s not used to hearing me say no—nobody is. “I know. I won’t, I swear, just help me out, please.”
I don’t like this. I don’t like how intense she’s being, how nervous she seems. This is not the Jasmine who sits in class tapping her foot methodically to the beat of an internal song. This isn’t the girl who sprained her ankle while playing softball and proudly took a million pictures of her gnarly foot as it was getting bandaged. Now she’s cringing and gnawing at
her fingernails (what’s left of them).
“Please,” she begs. “Last one. Please, Glad.”
Yeah, something’s not right here. Problem is, I’m too good at what I do. The answer has already formed in my head, and it wants to come out of my mouth. Jasmine looks at me with desperation, and I give in.
“Okay. Your garage band audition went so well, you got a second audition. That’s why you missed practice.”
Jasmine lets out the breath she’s been holding. “Oh my God, Glad, that’s perfect. Thank you so, so much. I owe you one.”
She turns and skitters away.
I have taken maybe three whole steps toward the door, when I hear, “Pssst! Glad!” Madison Graham is urgently beckoning me from a nearby bush.
Ugh. Didn’t I just send some “James” texts to Madison yesterday? It feels like I keep dealing with the same problems for the same people. I’m starting to think getting punched by Izzy is the best thing that’s going to happen to me today.
“Hey.” Madison darts out from her hiding place and pulls me behind the shrubbery. “I need more texts.”
Okay, what is going on this morning? Why are people coming up to me and asking for follow-up favors? I am not soda. There are no free refills. And why does everyone want to push their luck? Is today National Terrible Idea Day?
“Madison, this has been going on for weeks now.” I try to say this gently but firmly. This was supposed to be a one- or two-time thing, not an ongoing three-week job, and I’m a little sick of texting love notes to Madison Graham all the time when I barely even like her. “I really think you should let this go.”
Madison looks as confused as Jasmine did. I’m not supposed to turn down requests; that’s not how it’s supposed to work with me. People are supposed to come to me for favors, and I’m supposed to shut up and do them.
“Please, Glad. I can’t stop getting texts.”
I sympathize, I really do. I understand how embarrassed she’d be if her friends found out she was using a fake boyfriend to make them jealous.
“But this is just going to go on and on,” I explain. “You can’t keep this up forever.” More important, I can’t keep this up forever. “Why don’t you ‘break up’ with James?”
Madison is shocked by the suggestion. “But … but I love him.”
Her voice, when she says I love him, is 100 percent sincere. And that is 1,000 percent insane. I might need to take her by the shoulders and slap her a few times to bring her back to reality: You do realize that I am James, right? You do remember that you’re here outside of school, talking to me, Gladys Burke, so that I will text you from my phone number, which you have saved under the name James, right? I know that I am very good at pretending to be somebody else, but we’re both clear that there is no real person named James who lives in Canada and is your boyfriend, are we not?
From our secluded spot, I see Madison’s friends standing by their usual bench, looking around to see where she might be. It’s almost time to go inside.
“Please,” she begs. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Okay, okay, fine.” I just want to get her away from me. “He’ll text you by lunchtime, okay?”
“Phew,” she says, finally calming down. She even manages to smile. “You scared me for a second there.”
And you scared me for a full five minutes, Madison. In fact, you’re still scaring me.
Madison walks away from our shrub and I linger for a second to collect myself. This day is already crazy, and school hasn’t even begun.
“Gladys!”
“Ahh!”
I jump about eight feet in the air. If I was holding a hot beverage, I would be showered in it right now. I twirl around in a panic to see who startled me. Of course, it’s Schellestede.
And wow! Who knew my heart could beat this fast? My whole body says run, but I’m caught, unable to look away as Schellestede narrows her eyes at me. Amazingly, her narrow-eyed stare is even stronger and more concentrated than her overpowering normal-eyed stare. Soon my brain will turn to slush and start leaking from my ears.
“Is there a reason you’re holding a conference with Ms. Graham behind a bush?”
“Uh…”
So many reasons spring to mind. Madison split her pants and needed a safety pin. Madison and I are working on a botany project involving local shrubbery. Madison and I are secretly in love, and you just interrupted our tender moment, you crackly old witch.
“No,” I say meekly.
Schellestede breaks into her chilling smile. “Then you might want to go inside right now and begin the school day.”
By golly, she’s right! I have never wanted anything as much as I want to go inside right now and begin the school day. I scoot away from Schellestede and dash through the doors like they’re giving out free unicorns in first period. School. Yes. Perfect. Ideal.
Note: When the idea of being in class starts to sound appealing, it’s time to rethink your life choices.
12
Thursday Lunch
Harry Homework isn’t looking so hot.
I noticed it earlier in science, when he said nothing, not even to himself. Harry learned long ago not to answer every question just because he could, but usually he mutters the answers under his breath. Today he sat in silence, resting his forehead on his desk, staring straight into his lap.
Now he’s sitting at our table in the lunchroom with his face in his hands. I slide in next to him with my greasy bag of leftover grilled cheese, and he doesn’t look up.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Not much,” he says into his hands. “I’ll just be dead soon. No big deal.”
“What happened?”
Harry lifts his head and looks at me with a woozy expression. “Schellestede called my parents in for a conference yesterday and told them I’m close to getting suspended. I told her, ‘All these study guides are in a million places online! It’s not against the rules to share them!’ But now she’s saying I’m not allowed to give any student any kind of study aid.” He looks up at me, plaintive. “She shut me down, Glad. I’m through. The eighth graders are going to kill me.”
My mind automatically starts working on Harry’s problem. Who is the largest person who currently owes me a favor? It’s about time I cashed in a few of those. Is there any way for Harry to get from the bus to the classroom and vice versa without walking through the throng of students? Can somebody distract Schellestede for the next three months of school? Not likely, as I am reminded, watching her from across the room. She’s not even looking directly at us, and I can still feel the suffocating weight of her stare.
“Did you tell your parents why you do it?” I ask.
Harry looks at me like I’m crazy. His parents are so overprotective, Harry barely gets sunlight. If they hovered over him any more, they’d be umbrellas.
“Do you know what my parents would do if they thought I was being bullied?” Harry ticks off the list on his fingers. “They would file a lawsuit against the school district. They would sue the other parents. They’d write letters to the newspapers. They’d start petitions online. They’d try to get on the local news. And knowing them? They’d send me to school with a paid escort.”
I almost choke on my sandwich. A paid escort? Lord, have mercy.
Where is André the Anti-Bullying Aardvark when you need him? Why can’t he hold an assembly for parents and tell them how not to deal with bullying? Adults never seem to get it: They live in Adult World, and kids live in Kid World, and those are two separate planets. Here on Kid World, going to an adult about bullying is like going to a Laundromat about groceries. You’re probably not going to get what you want.
“So what do you do now?” I ask.
He smiles ruefully. “I was just about to ask you that.”
“Could you tell your parents you’re not being challenged here? Like, Elmhaven isn’t providing the right ‘learning environment’ for you? Maybe your folks would switch you to a new school.”
Harry nixes this. “Believe me, I’ve thought about switching schools. My parents and I toured this special private school last year. It looked great at first, but the minute I went to the bathroom, I saw some older kid picking on a kid like me.” He shakes his head at the memory. “Wherever I go, there’s going to be bullies.”
“But at least you could start over. You could get back into the homework game. And there’d be no Schellestede to shut you down, so—”
Harry interrupts, his face flushed with frustration. “You don’t get it. Nothing would be different at a new school. This is always going to happen to me, because this is who I am. I’m the little brainiac who gets picked on. I can’t change being smart. I can’t get bigger overnight. There are always going to be bullies. I am always going to have this problem.”
I have no answer for this.
Society has no answer for this.
The whole human race has no answer for this.
“It’s not worth switching schools,” Harry concludes. “At least I have some friends here.”
He means me, I realize. Me and a hyperverbal sixth grader named Forrest and Leila Marshan, who is such a Goody Two-Shoes, she is on the verge of sprouting another foot so she can level up to Goody Three. I don’t know if there’s any way for Forrest or Leila to help Harry, but I will do everything I can for him.
Harry and I finish lunch relatively undisturbed. Taye tries to get my attention with a discreet wave, but I jerk my head in Schellestede’s direction and shake my head, so he stays away. When we’re done eating and I go to toss my garbage, Sophie gets up from her table to do the same, and our vectors converge at the trash can.
“Hey,” she whispers, in case I thought this was an accidental meeting.
“What’s up,” I murmur.
Sophie is bubbling with barely contained glee. “Step one went great. They loved the bank story. But we’re less than two weeks away from the dance. What’s step two?”
Let Me Fix That for You Page 5