Diary One

by Ann M. Martin

  “I know. But scaring us with all that stuff about drinking and smoking and walking around at night. I feel so stupid.”

  “I think that was the point,” said Ducky.

  Wednesday afternoon 10/8

  The assembly wasn’t what I had expected. Since all the teachers knew that the mean upperclassmen had tricked us poor eighth-graders, I had come to believe that the principal or someone would haul the kids who had dreamed up the party onto the stage and lecture them publicly, then ask them to apologize to us and especially to the kids who were picked up by the police. That wasn’t exactly what happened.

  This is what happened:

  Sunny and Ducky and I found Maggie and Amalia at the entrance to the auditorium. They were waiting for us while kids streamed by and scrambled for seats inside. I noticed that Jill was hanging around, several feet away from Maggie and Amalia, maybe hoping to sit with Maggie. But when she saw Sunny and Ducky, she backed off, and when she saw me, she reddened, then hurried into the auditorium alone. Good, I thought.

  “What happened? What happened?” Maggie asked as soon as she saw us. She was bouncing up and down.

  “It wasn’t so bad,” I said. Then Ducky and Sunny and I told her and Amalia about our visit with Ms. Krueger.

  Afterward, we found seats in the auditorium. We couldn’t get five together, exactly, but we found two together in one row, with three together behind them. Then I sat back and waited for the upperclassmen—the ones who had dreamed up the party—to get into trouble.

  What happened instead was that Mr. Dean, flanked by the new headmistress of Vista and one of the guidance counselors, gave everyone a big talk about responsibility, respect, and trust. The kids who’d been picked up at the party by the police, we found out, had been let off with warnings. The kids who had given the party had also received warnings, apparently, but not from the police, just from Mr. Dean. The assembly was like a mass version of what Sunny and Ducky and I had just been through with Ms. Krueger. Except for Mr. Dean’s last words.

  “You are all—every last one of you—as of right now, considered on probation. Upperclassmen, if I hear about any more hazing of the eighth-graders, those of you responsible for the hazing will be suspended immediately.”

  Yess! I thought.

  “And all of you—this includes the eighth-graders—if I hear of any of you drinking, lying to your parents, sneaking out, defacing property, trespassing …” (as Mr. Dean’s list went on, I sank a bit in my seat), “then you will be suspended immediately. I am deeply disappointed in those of you involved with Saturday night’s party. Beyond that, I’m ashamed of you. As a final note, I will tell you that the damage to Ms. Krueger’s personal property totaled approximately two thousand dollars. Ms. Krueger is going to be recompensed for it—with your class funds. That comes to just under four hundred dollars per class. By the way, that leaves the ninth-graders and the eleventh-graders with nothing. In fact, each of these classes will still owe Ms. Krueger about seventy-five dollars. You can pay her back what you owe her as soon as you’ve earned the money with your next class fund-raiser. Neither of these classes, however, will have enough money at the end of the year for their usual trip. All right. This assembly is hereby dismissed.”

  My mouth hung open. So did just about everyone else’s. Around me kids were complaining, groaning, exclaiming.

  You know what? I didn’t expect it. But I know we deserved it.

  At first no one moved. Then, slowly, kids began to stand up (looking stunned) and make their way to the auditorium doors. Maggie, Sunny, Ducky, Amalia, and I joined them.

  “Oh, man,” said Sunny, which she says a lot these days.

  “Whoa,” added Amalia.

  “I can’t believe they’re taking the money out of our class funds,” said Maggie as we made our way to the aisle.

  “We worked hard for that money,” said Ducky.

  “I can’t believe we did two thousand dollars’ worth of damage to Ms. Krueger’s yard,” I said. “I mean, I can believe it—we saw all the stuff in the pool and the ruined lawn and everything. I just can’t believe we did it.” I pictured the ruined yard. I felt horrible. Then I began to get an idea.

  “No class trip for the ninth-graders and the eleventh-graders,” said Sunny. “That really rots.”

  “The rest of us aren’t going to have money for anything but a class trip,” I pointed out. We headed into the hall. But my mind wasn’t really on class trips. It was on my idea.

  “Hey, here comes Justin!” Sunny suddenly whispered to Maggie.

  Sure enough, Justin Randall and two other guys brushed past us. Justin nodded at us, said hi to Maggie, and eyed her (another admiring look, I might add). Then the boys hustled off.

  And that was when I caught sight of Mandy and her friends. “Uh-oh,” I said under my breath.

  “What?” asked Amalia.

  Before I could answer her, Mandy planted herself in front of Maggie and said, “So. Did you find your wallet?”

  Sunny narrowed her eyes. “How did you know anything about a wallet? And it was my wallet, by the way.”

  Mandy looked disappointed at first, and then confused, but just for a moment. “Oh. Was it yours? You little kids are so hard to tell apart.”

  “I can’t believe you planted my wallet—” Sunny started to say at the same time Amalia said, “Justin Randall doesn’t think so.”

  Once again, I wanted to smirk but didn’t. Mandy scared me. I could tell she scared the others too. Amalia already looked sorry that she’d made that remark. But remembering what Mr. Dean had said about the upperclassmen and hazing, I figured Mandy wasn’t going to do anything horrible to us. At least not right now.

  Wednesday night 10/8

  I was right. Mandy didn’t do anything horrible. She let the matter drop. She and her friends turned and walked away.

  I looked at Maggie and Amalia and Ducky and Sunny. I smiled uncomfortably.

  Maggie and Amalia and Sunny smiled back at me.

  But Ducky was staring after Mandy and her friends, an odd look on his face.

  “What is it?” I asked him. “What’s wrong?”

  Ducky shook his head slightly. Then he said, “I know them better than you do. That’s all.” He frowned.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Maggie.

  “Nothing,” replied Ducky. “Come on. We don’t want to be late for class.”

  Ducky turned on his great grin. He extended his elbows to Amalia and me. We took them. Behind us, Maggie and Sunny linked arms. We headed for our classes. Our big adventure was over.

  Thursday 10/9

  Well, the adventure was over, but the day wasn’t. There was more to come, and it was directly related to the party and the weekend. Related only, though. When I think about what happened on Tuesday afternoon, I don’t entirely understand it. Maybe I never will. People, friends, relationships … they are very confusing things.

  Actually, there are a lot of things I don’t understand. Like, why couldn’t Carol tell Dad the news about the baby over the phone? I mean, eventually she did tell him over the phone, but why did she think she couldn’t at first? And why are Mandy and her friends so mean to me and my friends? It must be more than the swimming pool and Justin Randall and the locker mix-up. The swimming pool was an accident, Justin didn’t come along until later (after Mandy had already decided she hated me), and most people would have been understanding about the locker mix-up. They would simply have said, “Excuse me, this is my locker. Yours is in the next hallway.” Why did Mandy get so mad? I know I broke her mirror, but still …

  There are some nice things I don’t understand either. Why do most people go along with their same old group of friends and then, bang, suddenly they have some new ones? I started out last weekend with Sunny, Maggie, and Jill, and by Sunday I had two new friends—Ducky and Amalia. I feel like I’ve known them all my life, when really I’ve known them less than a week. It’s great. And it’s another mystery.

&nbs
p; Circles of friends widen and narrow, widen and narrow. My circle widened over the weekend. Then, on Tuesday, it narrowed.

  I lost Jill.

  It was my own fault. Mostly.

  You know what? I ran into a lot of trouble over the weekend, and before (with Mandy), and after (with Ms. Krueger and the assembly and everything). But writing about all those things rolled up into one enormous, tangled ball is nowhere near as painful as writing about Jill. I’m going to do it, though. Write about her, I mean. Well, about us. Because I know that afterward I’ll feel better.

  First, I need to compose myself.

  Okay. Here goes.

  After the assembly on Tuesday, life at Vista seemed to return to normal. A lot of kids had gotten in trouble, but at least we knew where we stood. No more surprises. The party was behind us. Not forgotten, but over. We could get on with things. And us eighth-graders could get on with things without worrying about hazing. Plus, I was still thinking about my idea, and I liked it a lot. I planned to organize groups of kids to go to Ms. Krueger’s over the next few weeks and fix up the lawn, maybe plant some new stuff in the gardens. We could even find a way to raise some more money to buy plants and things. I knew kids would like the idea.

  Life went on. We went to our morning classes. I ate lunch in the cafeteria with Sunny, Ducky, Maggie, and Amalia. Jill was sitting at a table with Peg and some other friends of hers. Not usual, but not exactly unusual, either. When lunch was over, we went to our afternoon classes. And after the final bell rang, we went to our lockers.

  I was just closing the door to mine, juggling books, a jacket, an umbrella, and a bag full of dirty gym clothes, when I sensed someone standing directly behind me. Mandy, I thought, and whirled around.

  But I found myself facing Jill.

  “Dawn,” she said. “Hi. I was—I wanted to talk to you.”

  I let out a breath. “Me too,” I said.

  “You did?”

  “Yup.”

  “You go first.”

  “Well,” I began, now feeling slightly unprepared.

  “Did you want to say you’re sorry? Because that’s what I wanted to say.”

  “Um, I guess—yeah, that’s what I wanted to say. I’m sorry I yelled at you. I shouldn’t have gotten so mad.”

  “And I’m sorry I opened my mouth. What’s that phrase? Open mouth, insert foot?” (This happens to be a phrase I can’t stand.) “Well, that’s what I did. I opened mouth and inserted foot. I do that sometimes.”

  Even though I have that phrase I smiled at Jill. “That’s okay.” I felt relieved to be talking to her again. We hadn’t spoken since our fight on Monday. One whole day.

  “So,” said Jill as we began to walk down the hallway, “what happened with Ms. Krueger? Anything?”

  I told Jill about the meeting in Ms. Krueger’s office with Sunny and Ducky. “Mostly, we just got a lecture.”

  “A lecture?” Jill looked vaguely disappointed.

  “Yeah. You know. She tried to scare us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She told Sunny about alcohol poisoning, and she pointed out all the dangers of walking around late at night, and going out without telling anyone where you are. That kind of thing.”

  Jill just stared at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “That’s all?”

  “Well … yeah. Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It seems to me that a lot of kids who didn’t do anything wrong—like me—got into trouble for what you guys did. Plus, none of you guys got into very much trouble for what you did do on Saturday.”

  “Did you want us to get into trouble?”

  “Well …” Jill said slowly, not quite looking at me. She stopped walking.

  “Oh, that’s nice, Jill,” I said. “That is very nice.”

  “Nice? You call ditching your friends nice?”

  “No. I don’t call it nice. But I already apologized to you for that. What do you want, Jill? What do you want from me?”

  “I want—I want—” Jill stammered.

  “Whatever it is, I’m not sure I can give it to you.”

  “But it’s not fair,” said Jill.

  “What’s not fair?”

  “You guys did something wrong and you’re hardly getting into trouble.”

  “Jill, what is your problem? We have already been through that. Look, things are not always equal. They’re not always fair or even. They’re not always black-and-white. Maybe we try to make them that way when we’re kids, but when we get older we see that the world just isn’t that way, no matter how much we’d like it to be. You have to let go of that, Jill. Quit being such a b—. Just grow up.”

  “Hey, Dawn?”

  I turned around at the sound of Sunny’s voice. She was calling to me from halfway down the hall. “Yeah?” I said.

  “Maggie’s waiting outside. Are you coming?”

  “I’ll—I’ll be right there. You go ahead.”

  Sunny left, and I turned back to Jill.

  When I looked at Jill’s face I knew that our friendship was over. Something had changed. Jill had changed. I had changed. Whatever. Our lives had veered off in different directions, and we simply were no longer friends.

  “I have to go,” I said to Jill.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  And that was that. I walked away. I knew Jill was standing where I’d left her. “I’m sorry,” I called over my shoulder. And I was sorry. Just not sorry enough to work things out with her.

  Sunny: Diary One

  California Diaries

  Ann M. Martin

  The author gratefully acknowledges

  Peter Lerangis

  for his help in

  preparing this manuscript.

  Contents

  Monday 10/20, 12:15 A.M.

  Tuesday 10/21, 1:06 A.M.

  Wednesday Morning 10/22

  Wednesday 10/22, 12:09 P.M.

  Wednesday Afternoon

  Wednesday Night

  Thursday Afternoon 10/23

  Thursday Night

  Later Thursday Night

  Friday 10/24, 10:00 A.M.

  Friday 8:31 A.M.

  Friday 10:17 A.M.

  Friday 1:17 P.M.

  Friday 8:17 P.M.

  Saturday 10/25, 10:34 A.M.

  Saturday 10/25, 9:27 P.M.

  Saturday 10:49 P.M.

  Sunday 10/26, 10:05 A.M.

  Sunday 11:53 A.M.

  Sunday 2:07 P.M.

  Monday 10/27, 3 P.M.

  Monday 9:45 P.M.

  Tuesday 10/28, 9:30 A.M.

  Tuesday 2:35 P.M.

  Wednesday 11/5, 10:04 A.M.

  Wednesday 3:45 P.M.

  Wednesday Night

  Wednesday Night

  Thursday 2:15 A.M.

  Thursday 11/6

  Monday 10/20

  12:15 A.M.

  I hate my life.

  Despise it.

  I would trade it in a minute for anyone else’s.

  That’s all. I have to say.

  Good night.

  Tuesday 10/21

  1:06 A.M.

  Back again, same place, different day.

  Same life, too. Unfortunately.

  Miserable.

  Hateful.

  Pointless.

  Sleepless.

  Night three of insomnia. I cannot believe it. The very last thing I need.

  I’ve listened to all my CDs. I’ve even tried doing homework, but that just made me even more depressed.

  I actually thought about calling Dawn. For about a second. Like, she would really be thrilled to hear me at this hour, complaining about the same old stuff.

  So I’ll just sit here and do something that would make my teachers faint.

  Write. Voluntarily.

  Maybe I’ll bore myself to sleep.

  Dawn used to say my name fit my personality. Sunny. The sunny Sunny Winslow.

  I hate that. It’s so wrong.

  Wel
l, it does feel better to write this out. These journals aren’t such a stupid idea after all. Okay, let’s hit all the problems, from the top.

  Number one. I am very upset about Mom. Three days ago I told her to call Dr. Merwin about her wheezing. I didn’t like the way she sounded. Of course, she waited until today, when she’s really sick. So now she has to go back to the hospital for observation. Plus she has to stop chemotherapy and radiation treatments until she’s better.

  Number two. Dad. When the renovations in his store began, he became the Control Freak of the Century. This is his life now:

  Most of “etc.” is taken up with sleep.

  Which Dad has no trouble with. I can hear him snoring in the next room. He sounds like wood shop. I don’t know how Mom puts up with it. I don’t know how I put up with it.

  I’ll just stay awake, that’s all. At school tomorrow I’ll look like a horror movie. Sunny the undead. Maggie and Dawn will give me more useless insomnia tips.

  Like today. Maggie suggested I should look out the window and pick out constellations. Well, I don’t know how many stars she can see through the Palo City smog. The ones I saw all looked like the Big Dipper.

  Dawn? She had insomnia too, over “the changes we’re facing.” which I guess means the eighth-graders’ switch from the middle school to the high school building. I don’t understand Dawn sometimes. She’s still my best friend but hello? I mean, we’re thirteen. We belong with the older kids. Especially the guys. Okay, we don’t “rule.” Okay, high school kids lured us to that party at Ms. Krueger’s empty house, just to get us in trouble. But only some of them did. Most of the others seem pretty cool. Like Ducky. Anyway, consider the alternative. Who wants to hang with teddy bear huggers and giggle over squeaky-voiced boys?

  Maybe Jill does. Honestly, that girl really makes me sick. I’m glad Maggie and Dawn and I have drifted away from her.

  If any of my friends—any of them, even Dawn—read this, they’d fall over. They think I’m so confident. So together. (Well, maybe not together. They saw me hurl chunks at that party. Not exactly a together thing to do.)