The 47 People You'll Meet in Middle School

by Kristin Mahoney

  “Oh.” I’d been hoping she’d say “Dad and I feel bad, and we’ll buy the contacts for you after all!” But I guess that was too much to wish for, considering the week I was having.

  “Okaaaay,” I said. “What is it?”

  “You know Dr. Chen at the hospital?” I did. Dr. Chen is a neurologist. She specializes in helping people with brain problems. She is also one of Mom’s favorites at work. Mom always says some of the doctors don’t listen to the nurses or spend enough time with the patients, but Dr. Chen isn’t like that.

  “Well,” Mom said, “she just had a new baby and she’s on maternity leave. Her husband went back to work, and she wants someone to play with their four-year-old daughter, Ama, while she rests or gets some time with baby George. Just a couple of afternoons a week.”

  I never thought I’d get a job in sixth grade. I figured that would be a high school thing. But Mom said she was my age when she started working as a helper for a family on her street with little kids.

  I wasn’t so sure. I mean, babies and little kids can be cute, but I didn’t want to change any poopy diapers. Mom said that was fine; we could discuss that with Dr. Chen. So I agreed.

  Dr. Chen’s house is on one of those streets our family has always called a “secret road,” but the roads aren’t really secret; they’re just marked with PRIVATE ROADWAY signs and are only meant to be driven on by the people who live there. When you were little and you fell asleep in the car, Lou, we would drive around town looking for all the secret roads while you slept. Those long drives were the only way Mom could get you to take a nap.

  Most of the houses on the secret roads are big, with shady yards and porches that wrap around their sides. On our long drives while you were sleeping, Mom and I would make up stories about the people who lived inside them. Like “I bet that family owns a unicorn named Martha Washington” or “I think the family who lives there lights all their lamps with fireflies.”

  Mom always says those car rides were the best way to get me to talk to her. I’d tell her about my friends in preschool, or my imaginary friend Gritzy, or the things that scared me. (Back then, my biggest fear was that pirates would break into our house and steal my toothbrush.)

  Once the stuff that scared me got realer, it was harder to talk about. Like when Dad spent a week at Uncle Keith’s house without us, and nothing like that had ever happened before, and Mom let us sleep in her room with her every night, which she never did on school nights. And once during that week I woke up in the middle of the night and heard her crying, but I pretended I was still asleep. I wanted to ask her if they were about to get a divorce, but I didn’t because I was afraid of what the answer would be (turned out I was right, of course).

  But I was glad Mom kept taking us for drives on the secret roads, even after I stopped talking to her so much. Once in a while she still got me to play our little game (“I bet that house is owned by a family of gophers!”), and I could tell that made her happy.

  So when Mom hooked me up with the mother’s helper gig with Dr. Chen and I found out her family lived on a secret road, I was pretty excited.

  Of course, as we pulled up to the house the first time I helped there, Mom was making all kinds of goofy references to our game, like “Now you’ll find out if they have indoor polo grounds!” and “You have to tell me if they slide up the banister like Mary Poppins!”

  I shushed her. “Mom. This is my first job. Please be normal, okay?”

  Thankfully Mom clammed up when we got out of the car. And she left as soon as she’d said hi to Dr. Chen, so she didn’t get past their foyer. I knew she’d ask for a full report when I got home.

  The truth is, the house is kind of fancy. They have a big spiral staircase, and windows that go from the floor to the ceiling (plus a round window with colored glass in the stairwell). But it’s also cozy, and there are lots of signs a four-year-old lives there, like finger paintings and toys all over the place.

  I got to see most of the house before I saw Ama. That’s because she was hiding from me. But she was also trying to spy on me, so every time her mom and I rounded a corner, we’d hear little feet running away on tiptoe, and sometimes catch a glimpse of long dark braids disappearing around the next bend in the hallway.

  Dr. Chen seemed a little embarrassed. “Ama, Augusta came here just to play with you!” she kept calling. But I remembered what it was like to be little and feel nervous around a new person. It was funny to think that Ama probably thought of me as a grown-up and was hiding, the way I used to get nervous and shut myself in the linen closet when Mom and Dad had friends over.

  I thought of a game Grandma Dotty used to play with us when she visited. The next new room Dr. Chen showed me was a bathroom, and I stood in the doorway and said loudly, “Oh, this must be Ama’s room!” I heard a giggle and a high-pitched “No!” from down the hall.

  Dr. Chen caught on fast. She opened a hall closet door, saying, “This is where we keep our towels,” and smiled at me. I knew that was my cue. “Oh, so this must be where Ama sleeps! On all these soft towels!” Again, laughter and “No, no!” floated around a corner.

  The third time proved too much for Ama to take. Dr. Chen opened a door at the end of the hall and said, “This is the master bedroom.” I responded with “Wow, this is such a big bed for Ama! She’s so lucky that this is her room!”

  And with that, a little zip of yellow and orange with two long braids sped past us. She ran into the room beside the master bedroom, a sunny yellow room with a rainbow painted on one wall, and jumped onto a bed with a canopy and a quilted bedspread.

  “This is my room,” she announced. “See?” She pointed to a wall that had the letters of her name hanging on it in big wooden letters.

  “Ohhhh,” I said. “Well, that makes more sense. This is a way better place to sleep than a closet! So your name is Ama, and my name is Augusta.”

  “Does Gusta start with A?” she asked me. “My mom said it starts with A.”

  “Yes,” I said, ignoring the fact that she’d actually just left the A off. “Augusta starts with A. Just like Ama.”

  And from then on we were friends. Ama started introducing me to all her stuffed animals and didn’t even notice as her mom slipped back downstairs.

  By mid-November, it seemed like almost every conversation at Meridian was about the Sadie Hawkins dance.

  The Monday before the dance, in language arts, Eric Hewson was the first one in the classroom after lunch, and he started writing a list of songs on the small whiteboard Ms. Barakat has labeled WOYM: WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND? We’re allowed to write anything we want there as long as it’s not rude or offensive; usually it just says things like I’m sleepy or Weekend! Once in a while someone throws Ms. Barakat a bone and writes something thoughtful about current events or one of the books we’re reading (like Why do you think Stacey in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is friends with TJ?).

  Today Eric had written Dance Songs across the top of the WOYM board and listed five of his favorites in orange. Other kids were going up and adding their own to the list in different colors (including, of course, three Spoiler Alert song titles written in pink by Heidi).

  “Okay, I know everyone’s excited for the dance,” Ms. Barakat said. “So take a couple of extra minutes to write your song suggestions. If you want, I can take a picture of the board and text it to the teachers on the dance committee. Because I’m sure none of you have your phones with you right now, right?” She gave us a knowing look as half the class sweetly chorused “Right!” back at her. And Heidi added, “I’m on the dance committee, Ms. Barakat, so I’ll also write the songs down and make sure everyone sees them!”

  “Thank you, Heidi—that’s helpful in case my old brain forgets.” Ms. Barakat gave her a little smile.

  I wanted to add my favorite dance song to the list. You know what it is, Lou: “Blister in the Sun” b
y the Violent Femmes. Remember how Mom and Dad used to listen to that album on long car trips? And they’d make sure to always play “Blister in the Sun” when we stopped for lunch, so when we got out of the car they could say “Dance break!” and we’d hop out and dance off all our wiggles while the song played?

  But I didn’t add any songs to the list. I doubted anyone in the class had even heard of “Blister in the Sun” (of course Nick would have, but he’s in a different language-arts class), and I didn’t feel like answering a bunch of questions, or dealing with Addison’s eye rolls at more evidence of how weird I was.

  Once the last song request had been added and people were settled at their desks, Ms. Barakat read us “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. It’s a poem about a guy who goes for a walk in the woods and decides to hike on an overgrown path instead of the one everyone else uses. Right when she got to the line that says “I shall be telling this with a sigh,” Ms. Barakat stopped and sighed herself. I assumed she was just being dramatic, because she does kooky stuff like that sometimes, but then I noticed she had closed her poetry book and was staring at Addison, Heidi, and Marcy, who had their heads together, whispering.

  Ms. Barakat smoothed the back of her hair, took her glasses off, and gave her neck a little rub. She never loses her patience, but I’ve noticed that she does this hair-smoothing, neck-rubbing move when it seems like she’s trying not to yell. Kind of like the way Mom takes a very deep breath when we’re fighting (but then sometimes Mom still yells anyway).

  It seemed like a full thirty seconds before Addison, Heidi, and Marcy noticed that the class had ground to a halt and stopped their whispering. Since the rest of the class had already quit talking, we all heard the end of Heidi’s last sentence: “…and let’s all wear cowgirl boots to the dance!”

  Ms. Barakat sighed again. “Okay, folks, I think I’m going to try a road less taken myself today. I feel like we won’t give Mr. Frost the attention he deserves while our minds are elsewhere, so let’s talk about the dance. What do you want to say about it?”

  It was the quietest the class had been all year. Most of us did want to talk about the dance. A lot. But with each other, not with a teacher.

  “Come on,” Ms. Barakat said. “This is probably the only chance I—or most other teachers, for that matter—will give you to talk about this in class. So speak up! Any questions?”

  “Okay, I have one.” Eric Hewson looked around. “Who’s Sadie Hawkins?”

  “Well.” Ms. Barakat took a deep breath. “She wasn’t a real person. She was a character in a comic strip. Hang on…let me see if I can find a picture.” She went to her laptop and did a quick search.

  “Here we go.” An image popped up on the Smart Board. It was a rough black-and-white drawing of a pitiful-looking girl with a giant nose, bumps all over her face, and a braid that stuck straight up into the air.

  “UGH!” Most of the class—especially the boys—gasped like their eyes were burning.

  “Yes, well,” Ms. Barakat said, “Sadie lived in a place called Dogpatch, and it seemed that everyone in town shared your opinion of her. But her father was rich and powerful, and he was determined to find her a husband. So he announced that every unmarried man in town would have to run in a race.”

  “And the winner would marry Sadie?” Eric asked.

  “No.” Ms. Barakat sighed again. “The loser. Her father knew no one in town wanted to marry her, so he was treating her as a punishment, not a reward.”

  It made me think of Mom, and what she says about commercials that objectify women.

  “And either way, he was treating her like she was a thing,” I said, without even realizing I was speaking out loud.

  “That’s right.” Ms. Barakat nodded at me.

  “So what does that have to do with a dance where the girls ask the guys?” Eric asked.

  “What do you all think?” Ms. Barakat asked.

  “I mean, for the dance, it’s like the girls are in charge,” Mekhai said. “But Sadie wasn’t in charge; her dad was.”

  “It’s like the boys are being forced to dance with the girls,” I said. “Just like some guy was forced to marry Sadie.”

  “But we don’t have to dance with girls who ask us if we don’t want to,” Eric said. “Wait—do we?”

  Ms. Barakat smiled. “No, of course not. But it is interesting to think about where customs like the Sadie Hawkins dance come from. I’m glad you asked about it, Eric.” Eric leaned back in his chair and stretched, like he was pleased his work was done for the day.

  Ms. Barakat looked like she was about to open her poetry book and go back to Robert Frost, but she paused and looked at us. “Do you all have any questions about that?”

  “Do you mean, do we have any questions about why our school is having a dance that’s named after this awful story?” I knew my out-loud voice was working now, and I was okay with that. Something about the way Ms. Barakat was looking at us made me feel like it was safe to say what I was thinking.

  “That’s one question.” Ms. Barakat smiled at me.

  “Yeah, but…whatever,” Heidi said. “I mean, it’s just for fun, and it’s not like anyone has to go if they don’t want to. Who cares what it’s called?”

  “And that’s another question,” Ms. Barakat said.

  “Maybe we should care, though,” Mekhai said. “I mean, that story is harsh.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” I said. Having Mekhai back me up made it easier to keep talking. Until I looked over at Addison and saw her make a super-prissy pinched face and mouth That’s what I’m thinking to Marcy, who started cracking up.

  “Addison, did you have a thought to share here?” Ms. Barakat asked.

  “No,” Addison said, straightening up in her chair but clearly still proud of herself for making Marcy laugh.

  Ms. Barakat looked at her for another few seconds, then put her reading glasses back on.

  “Okay, well, I think it’s almost always the case that more thoughtfulness is a good thing,” she said. “And I like the way some of you are thinking.”

  Then she finished reading the poem, about how taking the less-traveled road made all the difference.

  Late that Friday afternoon, when I heard Mom approaching the front door I suddenly remembered I was supposed to have taken spaghetti sauce out of the freezer. I got up from the sofa where I’d been lying down and texting with Sarah and scrambled to the kitchen. You were having a sticker-trading session and dinner at Clarissa’s house.

  “Hey, Gus,” Mom said. She glanced at the sofa, and I wondered if she could tell I’d just been lying there. “Texting with Layla?” she asked.

  “No, Sarah.” I hadn’t texted Layla much since I’d gotten my phone back, and I hadn’t heard from her many times either. Once or twice she’d send me something dull like UGH! Hate math! but there wasn’t much to say to that other than IKR? It was like neither one of us knew how to act after the awkward Jocelyn meet-up.

  “Oh…weren’t you guys supposed to be planning a sleepover?”

  “Who, me and Sarah?”

  “No, you and Layla.”

  “Oh. I don’t know. That was a while ago. We kind of forgot about it.”

  Mom didn’t push further, either because she could tell I didn’t want to talk about it or because she was suddenly preoccupied with the rock-solid bag of frozen spaghetti sauce on the kitchen counter.

  “When did you take this out of the freezer?” she asked, trying to smush the bag around in her hands to see if any part of the sauce was in liquid form.

  “When did I take what out?”

  “Gus. This spaghetti sauce.”

  “Oh. A while ago?”

  She gave me a look. “I’m going to go upstairs to shower and change. Dump the sauce into a bowl and nuke it, and put some water on to boil for pasta. Please
.”

  When Mom came back downstairs in jeans and a sweater, the sauce still had frosty blobs in it, even though I’d kept taking it out of the microwave and hacking at it with the handle of a wooden spoon the whole time she was in the shower.

  “What are you doing to that poor spaghetti sauce?” Mom asked.

  “I’m stirring it.”

  “Looks more like you’re murdering it. Let’s just see what we can salvage for now,” she said. “I’m hungry.” Mom tipped the bowl and let the liquid part of the sauce pour over the pasta, then she put the rest back for another round in the microwave.

  “So you know this is your weekend at Dad’s, right?” she asked after we sat down, as she sprinkled Parmesan cheese over her spaghetti.

  “Yeah, why?” Usually when it was Dad’s weekend, we’d eat with him on Friday night, but tonight he had to go to dinner with a big radio station advertiser. Mom’s hospital shift ended early that day, so she said it was fine to start the weekend with her and that she could take me to the dance.

  “Well, he’ll be picking you up from the dance.”

  “That’s okay.” I didn’t know why Mom seemed weirdly nervous about this. We were getting used to the every-other-weekend-at-Dad’s-place routine. It wasn’t a big deal.

  “Okay, good,” Mom said. By now she had sprinkled about half a cup of Parmesan onto her plate.

  “Mom, what’s up with all the cheese?” I asked.

  “What?” She looked down and seemed shocked to see how much cheese was there. “Oh geez. Or should I say ‘Oh cheese’? Ha!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Um, no, you shouldn’t say that.” Mom was normally not nearly that corny; that was usually Dad’s department. “Are you okay?”

  She took a deep breath. “Well, I sort of have a date tonight.”

  I lowered my fork. “What do you mean, ‘a date’?”