Falling Over Sideways

by Jordan Sonnenblick

  To Emma, my wonderfully dramatic girl—I am so glad you never have to be a middle-schooler again! And to Ross, Emma’s amazing big brother—I am so glad that when she was in middle school, she had you for support.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  June 15

  1. Cursed from Birth

  2. If There’s a God, He Has Forsaken My Middle School

  3. Boots of Pain and Shame

  4. My One Safe Place

  5. What They Don’t Cover in Red Cross Babysitter Training

  6. Time Is Brain

  7. The Wet Read

  8. Blood Shooting Everywhere, Plus a Late Lunch

  9. A Really Rough Monday

  10. Blowing It

  11. At Home with Baby Dad

  12. Some Harmless Cannibal Humor

  13. They’re Only Braces

  14. The Oblivious Dance

  15. Rock ’n’ Drool

  16. Good News, Bad News

  17. The Year We Stuffed Dad for Thanksgiving

  18. Not Very Meredith

  19. What Comes After Mayhem Monday

  20. To Be Fair, I Do Figure Things Out Eventually

  21. Breaking Through, Breaking Down

  22. An Interesting Definition

  23. Schooling and Getting Schooled

  24. End of an Era

  25. Babes

  June 15: Showtime

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jordan Sonnenblick

  Copyright

  I’m waiting in the wings, watching all of the fathers dancing onstage. Well, all of the fathers except mine. It’s my annual dance recital, and I have just turned fourteen. This is the first year I am old enough for the Dads’ Dance—the big father-daughter number that closes the first act of the recital every year. I have waited since I was a little girl to be in this dance, but just because you’ve waited for something doesn’t mean you’ll get it.

  All of the other girls around me are whispering, pointing, giggling as their dads ham it up in the bright lights of the theater. There is booming surf music playing, and at the moment, half of the men are pretending to water-ski, while the rest are acting like lifeguards, throwing Frisbees around, hula-hooping, and even flying imaginary kites. It’s incredibly dorky, but also incredibly sweet. My eyes burn, and I step back into the shadows a bit. I don’t want anybody to see me tearing up, but it’s hard to be inconspicuous as I dab at my face with the corner of my ridiculous tiki-girl skirt.

  My best friends at dance school, Alanna Salas and Katherine Byrne, notice, and drape their arms over my shoulders. This only makes the tears come faster. “I’m fine,” I whisper, a bit more harshly than I mean to. They both pull away and give me that look—the sympathetic-but-doubtful one that everybody has been giving whenever I claim to be okay.

  I have probably gotten that look ten thousand times since the morning last September when my father—and my life—tilted and slumped over sideways.

  Alanna and Katherine let me go—or at least, they do after I shrug their arms off my shoulders—and for some reason, I think about when I used to go swimming with my dad when I was five years old. I was in half-day kindergarten back then, and my father, who writes novels for a living, quit his day job so he could spend three afternoons per week with me. We had little rituals for each day. Wednesday was pizza day. Thursday was movies. And Friday was swimming, which was the absolute best.

  We would go to the indoor pool at the township community center, which was always basically empty at that time of day aside from us, plus some random elderly people swimming laps. There was a roped-off area for “free play.” Dad and I owned that part. We played with floating cushions and kickboards and life vests and beach balls and every other toy and gadget the pool had. Before going in, we would stick our towels in the sauna so they would be all warm and toasty when we got out. After we were dried off, we would shower in the family changing room, and then my father would spend what seemed like hours trying to brush all the knots out of my long hair while I laughed and laughed at him. I always told him that Mommy never got the brush stuck in my hair, but of course that wasn’t true. I’m pretty sure he knew that.

  Finally, when my hair looked presentable enough, we would go home, make hot chocolate, and snuggle up together to drink it.

  But none of that was the best part, the part that I will always hold close to me. The best part was when my father would challenge me to swim from the edge of the pool to him. I had taken some swimming lessons, but I wasn’t very confident in my skills yet. Every week, my father would move a few steps farther out from the wall. Then he would say, “Come on, Claire! Swim to me! I have you!”

  I would say, “What if I can’t get to you?”

  And he’d say the exact same thing every time. “Don’t worry, honeypot. I will always get to you.”

  Some weeks, I would make him promise more than once, but always—always—I kicked off from that wall with all my might, paddled my little hands as hard as I could, scissored my legs, and headed straight for my father’s arms.

  My dad never once failed to catch me. But now things were different. Now my dad could barely even catch himself.

  Almost a year before the Dads’ Dance, at my thirteenth birthday party, I was lying on my back on top of my brother’s old sleeping bag in our backyard. Alanna and Katherine were on my left, and my best friend from school, Roshni Shah, was on my right. We would have been stargazing, but the sky was entirely obscured by clouds, so instead we were staring up into darkness, although I could vaguely see my friends’ faces by the light coming from the windows of my house. The wind was starting to pick up, and even though it was late June, the air was beginning to feel kind of chilly.

  “Looks like we’re going to get rained out again, Claire,” Roshni said.

  “Is this three in a row?” Katherine asked.

  “Four,” Alanna said.

  “She’s right,” I said. “But actually, it’s even worse than that. It’s rained on seven of my thirteen birthday parties.”

  “Hey, yeah!” Roshni said. “I remember that time in elementary school when you had it at the community center, and there was all that lightning, and the food got soaked, and then all your presents flew away into the mud. That was pretty weird. Or in kindergarten when you had the Wizard of Oz party, and the Wicked Witch blew into the pool?”

  “Wait, you’re kidding, right?” Katherine asked.

  “No, seriously,” Roshni said. “Claire was furious when the witch didn’t melt. She kept stomping her foot and shouting, ‘This is fake!’ It was pretty funny.”

  Then Roshni covered her mouth and said, “I mean, it wasn’t funny funny. I’m sorry, I don’t mean we were laughing at you at your birthday. It was just so … so … Claire-ish. Do you guys know what I mean?”

  “Umm … I think so?” Katherine said hesitantly.

  “Totally,” Alanna said.

  I couldn’t believe I was being openly mocked at my own birthday sleepover. I turned sideways and propped myself on one elbow to glare at Alanna.

  “What?” she asked. “You have to admit, you do have a tendency to be dramatic.”

  Just then, I heard the screen door open behind my head as I said, “I’m not dramatic—I’m cursed! I mean, come on! Don’t any of you believe in fate? Let’s review some basic facts. My perfect big brother was born on Presidents’ Day—of course—and I was born on Friday the thirteenth. Honestly, what chance did I have in this world?”

  My mom’s voice floated over the lawn from the porch. “I noticed it was getting cool out, so I made some hot cocoa for you girls. Please feel free t
o come in and sleep in the family room, by the way.”

  “Mom,” I said, gritting my teeth. “We are not giving up on sleeping out until it is actively raining. Maybe this will blow over. It would be kind of nice if, for once in my life, a storm actually did that.”

  “Whatever you say, sweetheart,” she replied. “By the way, did I hear somebody say something about our Claire being a bit … dramatic?”

  “Cursed, Mom. As you well know, since you were the one who chose to schedule a C-section on Friday the thirteenth. Who does that? I mean, besides witches and the undead?”

  “What?” she said. “It was convenient. That way, we had the weekend for your grandparents to visit you in the hospital. You were such a sweet baby.”

  “Sweet, cursed baby.”

  “Okay, the sweet part didn’t last very long, but we love you anyway. Good night, girls. The door is open, just in case it starts actively raining.”

  My friends and I have always had a tradition of making goofy short movies at birthday parties, so while we were drinking our hot chocolate, we decided to use our flashlights and phones to film a scary clip. Pretty soon, we were all taking turns running around the yard, shrieking and howling. With the moonless night, the wind, and the feeling of the storm rolling in, the whole thing was absolutely perfect.

  Until my brother came home.

  I was right in the middle of improvising what I felt was a devastatingly brilliant werewolf song with Roshni, when the screen door banged open and Matthew barged into the scene. “What are you doing?” he yelled. “It’s late, and I have early soccer training tomorrow! Go to sleep!”

  My friends just looked at me like, What is happening, and why is Matthew possessed? I couldn’t really help them out, because I was wondering the same thing. After several seconds of standing there frozen with my flashlight pointed up under my chin like a total moron, I managed to stutter, “But … but … it’s my birthday!”

  “It’s not even your birthday,” he said. “Your birthday was weeks ago. It’s just your party. It’s not like it’s my fault you decided to wait until after your dance recital to celebrate. And it’s not like I’m sending your friends home. I’m just asking you all to stop running around and embarrassing our family in front of all the neighbors so I can go to bed.”

  My father opened the door and both of my parents walked out onto the increasingly overcrowded porch. If many more people joined us, we’d have to apply to the township for some kind of special zoning permit.

  “Tell her to—” Matthew blurted.

  “Tell him to—” I started to say, reasonably.

  “Claire won’t be quiet, and I need to be on the soccer field at seven a.m.”

  “Matthew, please go inside,” my mother said.

  “But she—”

  “I’m sure your sister and her friends weren’t trying to offend you, Matthew. They were just having fun. But we’ll talk with them about settling down, okay? Now go ahead in and get ready for bed. You don’t want to have a big fight on your little sister’s birthday, do you?”

  Matthew turned around and went in, but I’m pretty sure he muttered, “It’s not her birthday,” as the screen door swung shut behind him.

  I said to my friends, “You know what Matthew should have gotten me for my birthday? A big banner for my door that says CLAIRE GOLDSMITH: BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA’S #1 MINOR ANNOYANCE FOR THIRTEEN CONSECUTIVE YEARS!”

  Mom said, “I think they were out of those at the store.”

  Dad added, “But you shouldn’t put yourself down, honey. I’m sure your brother doesn’t think of you as a minor annoyance. Now good night, sweetheart. Good night, girls. Try to keep it down. Because if you don’t, we might have to send Matthew out here again. Mwa ha ha ha!”

  When my parents were back inside, my friends and I got ourselves comfortable in our sleeping bags and whispered about random stuff for a while: what eighth grade was going to be like, our embarrassing families, the worst things that had happened at everyone else’s birthday parties. Roshni fell asleep first, so only my dance friends and I were awake. That’s when Alanna whispered, “So, uh, what did you guys think of the email?”

  “Umm, what?” Katherine asked.

  “You know, the email from Miss Nina? All the moms got it yesterday. I’ve been dying to talk to you guys about it!” Miss Nina is the owner of our dance school. I got a sick, nervous feeling in my stomach. If my mother had gotten a major email from Miss Nina, I was pretty sure I’d know.

  By now, all the lights in the house were off, so it was basically pitch-dark outside, and I couldn’t see Katherine or Alanna at all. I wondered whether Katherine looked as nervous as I suddenly felt.

  “Uh, Alanna, what does the email say, exactly?” I asked.

  “Well, the beginning is all about how much hard work we’ve done this year, how much we’ve improved, blah blah blah. Then it says we’re being moved up to the high school group a … whole … year … early! Can you believe it?”

  I could believe Alanna was being moved up. She is an amazing dancer. We started together at the studio when we were little kids, and Katherine started a few years later. We all loved it from the start, but Alanna has incredible natural talent. I have to work super hard all the time at home for every little bit of improvement, and of course Katherine has been playing catch-up, since she started after we did. Alanna works hard, too, but when she dances, it never looks like she’s working.

  It looks like she’s flying.

  For the longest time, Katherine and I didn’t say anything. Now I was glad I couldn’t see my friends’ faces, and that they couldn’t see mine. Then, finally, Alanna said, “Uh, well, I’m sure your moms just haven’t checked their emails. Or something. Right?”

  “Right! That’s probably it. I guess?” Katherine said.

  Nobody said another word for what felt like hours. Alanna’s breath deepened and slowed. I almost jumped when I felt a hand poking my sleeping bag. “Claire,” Katherine said sleepily, “it will be okay. Right?”

  I worked one hand free of my bag, reached out, and found hers in the darkness. “Sure,” I said, squeezing her cool fingers. “It’s dance. And it’s us. How bad can it be?”

  I lost track of time, but I know I eventually fell asleep.

  Because when the rain and thunder finally came, they scared the heck out of me.

  I always get a gigantic zit right near the tip of my nose when I’m about to get my period. It’s like a built-in warning light, but more painful and disgusting. So naturally, on the night before my first day of eighth grade, I looked in the mirror and noticed the cherry-red Queen of All Acne Land holding court in the exact center of my face.

  Apparently, I hadn’t had enough to be self-conscious about yet. Over the summer, I’d gotten contact lenses to replace the glasses I’d worn since the third grade, which meant I would be facing a whole makeover review board based on just that alone. Then there was my schedule, which had come in the mail the day before. As kids compared schedules by text and social media all day, I had found out that Roshni was basically the only person I really liked or trusted in my homeroom, which was a big deal, because in our school, your homeroom traveled with you to all of your major classes. Then there were two girls, Jennifer and Desi, who were sort of okay. I mean, they were the kind of girls who are fun to be around ninety-three percent of the time, until they suddenly and randomly say nasty stuff about people for the other seven percent of the time—I never knew when it might be my turn to get the seven percent treatment. I could hang out with them, text with them, and stuff like that. I just couldn’t trust them.

  The rest of the homeroom was like the group you’d put together if you wanted to shove them all onto a deserted island and then film an extremely dramatic reality TV show as they bickered, then fought, then eventually started killing one another off one by one. We had bullies and victims; we had kids of various ethnic groups who didn’t usually mix well in our school; we had popular girls who were mean to e
veryone; we had band kids and jocks; we had nerdy Boy Scouts and wild party boys; we had an extremely smart boy with autism, Christopher Marsh.

  And then there were the teachers. Every single one of them had taught my genius-role-model-of-a-student older brother three years before, so that meant they would all make comments about how wonderful it was to have another Goldsmith in class, and how wonderfully they knew I’d do. This would accomplish two things: put me under stupendous pressure, and make everybody else in the class despise me for sucking up—even though all I had done was show up and have a brother.

  Aaaannnddd … for the bonus round … Satan was in my homeroom!

  Picture the Lord of the Underworld. Eternal Tormentor of the Damned. Hissing, evil, catcalling destroyer of all things pure and good. Now shrink that bad boy down to about five feet and expand him greatly outward in all directions, and you’ve got Ryder Scott. He’s been in my classes on and off since elementary school. You might even say we’ve grown up together, but—well—Ryder hasn’t. His maturity level froze when we got to middle school, and he seems to have a special problem with tall, thin girls.

  Like me, for example. We used to talk when we were little kids, but in the first week of band camp in sixth grade, he suddenly decided I was his worst enemy. And he’d kept it up for two years, which was why I was horrified when I found myself at a desk in the back of our homeroom, trying not to bend over and wince with each new wave of awful premenstrual cramps, and looked very slightly up to see Ryder staring daggers at me. With an immense act of will, I forced myself to straighten all the way into a sitting position. Like all predators, Ryder could smell weakness and fear.

  “Hey, Storky, what a pleasure! Imagine us being in class together all day, every day. What are the chances? I’m a lucky man. How’ve you been the past couple of weeks? I went with my family to Costa Rica right after band camp ended in August. What did you do with the rest of your summer? I hope you didn’t waste too much time practicing your saxophone, because no matter what, I’ll always be better than you.”