The 47 People You'll Meet in Middle School

by Kristin Mahoney

  Sarah shrugged. “Well, you can be a tough nut to crack sometimes. Like when Nick wanted you to dance, or what you told me about how you wouldn’t let Quincy help you with your gym locker.” And how I never tell my little sister anything about middle school when she asks, I silently added.

  “Yeah, but you can sort of be like that too,” I said. “Poor Syd, for example…”

  She laughed. “I know. Maybe that’s why we’re friends.”

  I laughed too. But I was thinking of the one thing Sarah didn’t know about how I was tough to crack. How I’d barely talked to you, Lou, about anything important all year.

  * * *

  “Okay, Miss Shea, time for Graffiti Cleaning 101,” I heard as I walked past the courtyard door on my way out of the building that afternoon. Mr. Solo sounded more tired than he had with us yesterday. He probably hadn’t counted on having to give the graffiti speech twice in as many days.

  I didn’t want to look into the courtyard. The easy thing to do would have been to speed up and zip down the hallway, out of the building, and into a sunny afternoon spent drinking pretend tea with Ama, Scooter, and Granola.

  But I had to. I couldn’t make my eyes go anywhere else but through the open courtyard door, which was where I saw Marcy, her back to me, putting on rubber gloves and nodding slowly as she listened to Mr. Solo’s instructions. For the first time this year, she looked small, and very alone.

  I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket and texted Dr. Chen.

  Really sorry but I can’t come over today after all. Is that ok?

  While I waited for her to respond, I texted Mom to let her know.

  Dr. Chen texted me back: No worries; hope everything is okay.

  Mom’s text was a little less understanding: Did you tell Dr. Chen? What’s going on?

  I texted the same thing back to both of them:

  Yes. I just need to help a friend.

  * * *

  “What are you doing?” Marcy asked when she noticed me behind her, putting on a pair of rubber gloves.

  “I’m helping you.”

  “This isn’t your job,” she said. “You didn’t make this mess.”

  “Yeah, but neither did you. So we’ll just beautify the school together. Plus, I have experience now and I can give you tips. Like it’s easier if you spray the wall and the steel wool with the cleaning stuff.”

  “Of course, what we really need is a power washer,” a voice behind me said. I turned to see Sarah sliding her backpack off her shoulder and onto a bench. She held out her hand. “Gloves, please.” Elaine was close behind her; after peering around the doorway, she waved and walked in to join Sarah at the supply cart.

  “I thought you kids were off the hook for this,” Mr. Solo said, wrinkling one eyebrow as he looked at Sarah, Elaine, and me.

  “We are,” said another new voice from the doorway. “But it’s only right for us to help now that we’re, like, graffiti-cleaning experts.” It was Nick, followed immediately by Syd. They dropped their backpacks on the bench beside Sarah’s.

  “What, still no power washer?” Quincy was the last to arrive.

  “Did you guys plan this?” Marcy asked.

  “I don’t know…did we?” Quincy asked, looking around at the rest of us. “Or was it just our hive mind at work? Or…did we?” She gave a fake little cackle.

  “You’re weird,” Marcy said. But she said it almost in an admiring voice, not the constantly critical voice she used with Addison and Heidi. It occurred to me that Marcy might actually still be trying to find her people too.

  And I thought about what Quincy had said about our “hive mind.” The truth was that we hadn’t planned to meet out here. Maybe the others felt bad for Marcy like I did. Maybe they wanted to pitch in so we could help each other. Or maybe there was something to this hive mind business. And if it was, this hive also felt a lot like what Ms. Barakat might call a village.

  “All right, then,” Mr. Solo said. “I’m going to check on some loose masonry back here; then I’ll leave you experts alone.” The way he said it almost sounded like he thought we were crazy, but I saw a smile in his eyes as he ducked behind some bushes to check the crumbly bricks. I think Mr. Solo was proud of us. And that he could tell we were starting to form our village, or our hive. Maybe that was the real “reason for being here” he’d been talking about yesterday.

  Then there was another voice from the doorway. This one wasn’t nearly as welcome as the others had been.

  “Hey, losers…you missed a spot!” Of course there was no need to turn around and see who’d said it. I’d know that dry, sarcastic tone anywhere. Same with the nervous giggle that followed it. Addison and Heidi.

  “Oh, look, and there’s a new loser today! Working hard with your new best friends, huh, Marcy?”

  Marcy didn’t turn around. She kept scrubbing, even as she blinked back tears.

  “I’m sick of their crap,” Sarah said. “Let’s tell Mr. Solo; he’s right there.”

  “Wait…,” I said as an idea occurred to me. Quincy must have thought the same thing, because she nodded and whispered, “Yeah, don’t tell him. Not yet.”

  I glanced back into the thick bushes where Mr. Solo had gone to fix the wall. He had been leaning over and chipping away at a brick before Addison and Heidi arrived, but now he was standing up and looking in our direction. I made eye contact with him. I wanted to put my finger to my lips and make a shushing motion, but I didn’t want Addison to get suspicious. (Also, it would have seemed out of line to do that to an adult at school.) Turns out I didn’t need to. I tried to make what I thought was a pleading face, and Mr. Solo got it. He nodded silently and stayed where he was.

  It was Quincy’s turn to keep the ball rolling. “As long as you guys are here, why don’t you help out instead of just standing in the hall and barking at us?” she said.

  Addison laughed. “Yeah, that’s a hard pass. Pretty sure we have better things to do than hang out in the courtyard.”

  “Huh,” Quincy said. “Seems like you didn’t have anywhere better to be last Friday night.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Addison. I stole a look at her. Her jaw was set in its usual fearless line. Heidi, on the other hand, was starting to look a bit ghostly.

  “You know, when you were out here painting stupid pictures on the courtyard wall,” Quincy said.

  “Maybe you didn’t notice because you were wearing earbuds and dancing to your own music like a freak,” Addison hissed, “but we were at the dance. Just like you.”

  “You’re right,” Quincy agreed. “I had better things to do than watch where you were all night. But it doesn’t matter what I noticed, because the security camera caught everything.”

  Addison laughed again. “That stupid camera caught nothing.”

  “Yeah,” Heidi chimed in. “If that camera worked, why would Marcy be the one out here cleaning?”

  Addison stepped on Heidi’s toe. Hard. Now Heidi was the one with tears in her eyes.

  “What do you mean, Heidi?” I asked. “Who should be the one out here cleaning?”

  “Yeah,” Quincy said quietly, stepping closer to them. “Is there any chance it was you guys? And maybe Amber? After the dance ended? It wouldn’t have taken very long; I mean, this is terrible artwork.”

  “Whatever,” said Addison. “So what if it was us. No one will ever know. Only losers get caught. And only even bigger losers like you guys would waste your time cleaning up after someone else.”

  Mr. Solo stepped out of his hiding spot behind the corner bushes. “So cleaning up after other people makes you a loser, huh?” he said. “Tell that to my kids who have a roof over their heads because of my job doing exactly that.”

  Now Addison was the one looking ghostly. (Heidi looked nearly comatose; I was waiting for her to pass out.)<
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  “I wasn’t—” Addison started to speak, but Mr. Solo cut her off.

  “I think we’ve all heard just about enough out of you,” he said. “It doesn’t much matter now if that camera’s broken, does it? We have a story to tell Principal Olin.”

  Addison was panicked. “There’s no story. I’ll say I was kidding. You’re not even a teacher here. Why would she believe the custodian over one of her top students?”

  Mr. Solo didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. The final visitor to the courtyard had arrived.

  “Mr. Solo is one of the most trustworthy people I know, Addison,” said Ms. Olin, stepping from the corridor into the courtyard doorway. “And I’ve been standing here long enough to know that you’re quite the opposite, top student or not.”

  Possibly for the first time ever, Addison appeared to be speechless. And Heidi leaned against the wall, slid down to the ground, and burst into tears.

  I got to my locker just before Davis Davis got to his this morning. I opened my lock in a blink and unzipped my backpack.

  “Impressive!” said a voice behind me. It was Davis, of course.

  “Ha,” I said. “Practice makes perfect.”

  “You’re even better at that than you are at graffiti,” he said.

  I squinted at him. “That wasn’t me,” I said. “I didn’t do it.”

  He smiled. “I’m just messing with you,” he said. “You might be annoying, but I know you aren’t a criminal.”

  Some compliment. “How am I annoying?” I asked. “You’re the one who’s always in my way, taking forever to open your lock!”

  This time Davis squinted.

  “I’m just messing with you!” I said, giving him a little smile as I closed my locker door.

  He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Happy Thanksgiving. Don’t be a turkey.”

  A little joke! From Davis Davis! “Same to you, Davis,” I said, and then I made a tiny gobbling sound before I walked away.

  * * *

  Like everyone else, Ms. Barakat had Thanksgiving on the brain the day before break. But unlike the other teachers who were showing movies or killing time by having us talk about our favorite Thanksgiving foods, Ms. Barakat was making us write.

  “Thanksgiving is, for many people, a beautiful holiday,” she said as we were taking our seats. “But it can also be a complicated holiday, can’t it?”

  She made a chart on the board, with THANKSGIVING across the top and two columns below that, one labeled BEAUTIFUL and the other labeled COMPLICATED.

  “Let’s think about this as a group first,” she said. “Who has things we can put in each column?”

  Eric’s hand shot up. “Beautiful: mashed potatoes!” he said. “Ooh, and complicated: yams.”

  Ms. Barakat laughed. “Okay, I think those both are subject to debate, but we’ll go with it for now.” She wrote his suggestions on the board.

  Mekhai raised his hand. “Beautiful: family.” Ms. Barakat nodded and wrote family under Beautiful.

  I thought for a second, then raised my hand when she turned back around. “Complicated: family.”

  A few kids laughed. Ms. Barakat smiled and nodded again, then wrote my suggestion on the board. No one argued with it, which I was grateful for as I felt my cheeks growing warm.

  Eric raised his hand again. “Complicated: history.”

  Another nod from Ms. Barakat. “Can you say more about that?”

  “The way the white settlers treated the native people. Not exactly something to be thankful for.”

  Marcy raised her hand. “Yeah. So I think ‘feeling thankful’ could also go on both sides.”

  “Okay, that’s an interesting thought, Marcy,” Ms. Barakat said, adding feeling thankful to both sides of the chart. “And you’ve also set me up nicely for today’s assignment.

  “Relax, it’s not so bad,” she said when a few kids groaned. “You may have to think a little, but I think you might enjoy it. I want you to do something you’ve probably been doing since kindergarten, and that’s to tell me about what you’re thankful for. But not just the basic, easy stuff, like your dog and your mashed potatoes. Although those things could certainly be included. Is there anything you’re thankful for that’s especially beautiful? Or even a bit more complicated? You can make a chart like this one, but you don’t have to. And you don’t even have to show this to me at the end of class. Just think and write for a while.

  “Oh, and in case I forget to say it later, happy Thanksgiving.”

  I looked at the chart on the board. I looked out the window. I glanced at Addison and Heidi, who had definitely been quieter since the two-day suspension they got last week, for defacing school property and for failing to come forth as other students were punished for their crime. (Yeah, that was satisfying. I’m glad Mr. Solo and Ms. Olin were in the right place at the right time to catch those three in their lie. I guess there actually can be justice in middle school, Lou.)

  I glanced at Marcy, who gave me a little smile as she fiddled with her butterfly earring. I looked at Ms. Barakat, who was twisting her hair into a lopsided bun as she read student papers.

  I started writing.

  I am thankful that…

  We get a four-day weekend, with no homework.

  Mom and Dad are spending Thanksgiving together this year, and that I’m okay with it (unlike last year when Dad went to Uncle Keith’s…although I was still okay with it, because for all of us to spend Thanksgiving together three weeks after they split up would have been way too awkward).

  Ms. Olin believes us now.

  My parents believed me almost from the beginning.

  Ms. Olin also seems to have believed my anonymous note about the Gooser. Elaine told me she saw him going into her office the other day, and as far as I know, he hasn’t pinched anyone since. (And I’ll always be thankful to Elaine for tripping him at the dance!)

  Mr. Solo says he’ll help us make the courtyard as nice as it used to be, and we can even plant flower beds.

  I have a happy, slobbery, goofy dog; even when I don’t want humans in my personal space, I’m always okay snuggling with Iris. Dogs are different.

  I have a job taking care of a cute little kid for a nice family who live on a secret road.

  I’m going to meet Layla’s guinea pig this weekend. She changed her name from Officer Nibbles to Muriel, which is fine with me. I’ve met enough officers this year.

  I’m going to sleep over at Sarah’s on Friday.

  Uncle Keith is bringing his famous pumpkin cheesecake to Thanksgiving.

  Mom’s friend Bonnie is bringing her taco dip (even though it’s not Thanksgiving-y, but she knows I love it).

  Mr. Singer. Well…I guess I’m thankful Mom has found someone nice, and that she seems really happy lately. But I’m also thankful that he’s not coming to our Thanksgiving. Still too weird.

  I have almost enough money saved for contacts. But I’m not in as much of a hurry to get them as I was a few months ago. I might even still wear my glasses once in a while after I buy them.

  Even though I still wonder what people think of me (like, at least once a day), I don’t worry about it as much. The people who I like, like me back. I know that’s really all that matters.

  I’ve gotten to know Syd, who will probably always eat tomatoes like they’re apples, no matter what anyone says.

  Elaine and Sarah became friends even without me making them do it.

  I can talk to Sarah about Mom and Dad, and she never makes me feel weird.

  Marcy seems like maybe she’ll land somewhere between her old clingy self and her newer Silver self, and maybe we can be friends again?

  Quincy sav
es me from losing my mind in homeroom and gym. And she makes me want to be brave.

  Layla goes to a different middle school. Because now I know she’ll always be my friend, but if she went to Meridian, I probably wouldn’t have gotten to be friends with Sarah, and Elaine, and Quincy. And even Syd. And Nick.

  Nick and I like the same music. And he makes me laugh. And even though I’ve known him since we were three, he still feels like a new friend somehow.

  I might have found a village after all.

  The bell was about to ring. I opened my language-arts folder and was putting the thankful list in when I remembered something else.

  24. Also, I’m thankful for my little sister, Louie. Because she wrestles with Iris to distract her when Iris wants to eat my homework. And she actually is pretty good at braiding hair, so I think I’ll ask her to braid mine on Thanksgiving. And because she is trying to keep our special family memories together in one little shoebox. And because even though it annoys me and I never really answer, it’s kind of sweet how she keeps asking me what middle school is like.

  Here’s the thing, Lou: middle school has felt so big to me. Not the building itself (although it is). But all of it: the classes, the homework, the teachers, the problems, the people. All the people.

  Sometimes it feels so big that it takes up my whole life, and other things—like little sisters—get pushed into the corners. Does that make sense? Maybe not. But you’ll see for yourself in a couple of years, Louie. And…you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but maybe then you can tell me about the people you meet in middle school.