by Booki Vivat
DEDICATION
For anyone still trying to figure out the new,
unexpected, and unknown
CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Acknowledgments
Back Ad
About the Author
Books by Booki Vivat
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
The best feeling in the whole wide world is when things go EXACTLY the way you want them to.
It feels like everyone is rooting for you,
like you can do anything you set your mind to,
like the Universe is on your side and nothing can POSSIBLY go wrong.
Until, of course,
That is usually how things work out for me. Being in middle school doesn’t help.
I can say that now that I’m in it. It’s confusing. It’s chaotic. It’s the center of madness! We’re all just trying to survive, but teachers still expect us to learn stuff while we’re here. Talk about unreasonable expectations! Well, if I’ve learned anything so far from being at Pointdexter Middle School, it’s THIS. . . .
This isn’t just a fact—it’s LAW. (Go ahead. Look it up.)
Some guy named Murphy said it once and everyone knew he was right, so they made it “official.”
It also happens to be TRUE. I know this from years of personal experience.
For example, FIRST GRADE. I think I hit my peak in first grade.
Every week, our teacher, Mrs. Han, would make us run laps around the playground, and I would always finish first. I was the fastest kid in the whole class! Faster than all the boys. Faster than all the girls. Faster than EVERYBODY.
Then Mrs. Han left to go teach English at the high school. Suddenly, everything changed.
Our new teacher made us run around the park next to the school instead. The PARK—with its sketchy fields . . .
and annoying potholes . . .
and terrible steep hills.
I never finished first EVER AGAIN.
It goes to show that just when you think things are going your way . . .
If I had learned this lesson when I was younger, maybe it all could have been different.
Instead, I got too caught up in the fact that, for a little while, life in middle school was starting to
Things at home weren’t so bad.
Peter and I weren’t fighting as much as we used to—except when it came to who got control of the TV remote.
Let’s face it. That was the type of family conflict that could NEVER be resolved.
Clara was being nicer to me lately too. Her birthday was coming up and I was pretty sure she thought good behavior would help her get a better present out of Mom. Maybe it would work. . . .
Mom was always in a better mood whenever the three of us got along.
School was SCHOOL, but at least the cafeteria food started tasting a little bit better.
They said it was some kind of new statewide lunch initiative, but Maxine, Logan, and I liked to think it had something to do with our short-lived lunch revolution.
Maybe it made a difference after all. It definitely changed things with Ms. Skelter.
She became a lot nicer and even let us share snacks in study hall as long as we kept the classroom clean.
Even though this was middle school and things weren’t easy, I was somehow surviving! I was even considering running for class president—ME!
Things were going so well that, for a second there, I forgot about all the stuff that could (and would) go wrong. All I could think was that THIS was my time.
First of all, I found out that Cody Donaldson was planning to run for class president.
Cody was the worst kind of popular kid—mostly mean and very self-involved.
Most of us didn’t like him very much, but he had somehow secured a place for himself at the highest level of middle school society. Needless to say, he was the kind of kid who could do pretty much anything he wanted.
I didn’t stand a chance. Plus, even if I DID—the more I looked into being class president, the less I WANTED to be class president. Apparently it wasn’t just about making posters and getting votes!
Leading the student council meetings every week . . .
cooperating with the adults at school . . .
talking onstage during assemblies?
That didn’t sound like me at all!
To be honest, it didn’t sound much like Cody either. Even though I didn’t want to be president myself, I definitely knew that I didn’t want HIM to be.
He couldn’t even spell “president” right on his campaign posters. Apparently knowing how to spell check was not a qualification for representing the student body.
Then again, nothing made sense in middle school.
On top of all that, we found out that Cody was planning to crash the presidential debate with an
The possibility of being forced to dance in front of the WHOLE SCHOOL was reason enough for me NOT to run.
So that was the end of THAT idea. But anyway, I had bigger problems to deal with.
There had to be some kind of secret power that came with being the youngest child.
Before Clara, I had had a few years of being the youngest, but as soon as I became the middle child, I had NO power at all.
If I asked for something . . .
Mom just said she’d “think about it.” When Clara wanted something, 98.7% of the time SHE GOT IT.
Her birthday this year was no exception.
For Clara, this meant a furry new best friend.
For me, it meant TROUBLE.
It’s important to note that I have never been a fan of cats. They scratch too much, and they’re always lurking around like they’re about to carry out some evil scheme.
The Spencer family next door has TWO of them. They are fat and they smell. Much like their owners, they have been torturing me for years.
I hate them and they hate me. And now I have to LIVE with one!
For some reason, Clara wanted to name it
I don’t know why he needed such a silly last name or why he would be called “the Third” when he was technically our FIRST cat. It was the most obnoxious pet name I’d ever heard, but he technically belonged to Clara, so she got her way—as usual.
I never even wanted a cat in the first place, but despite all my protests and warnings, we had become a
That changed EVERYTHING.
Mr. Felix McSnuggles the Third, like his name, was a LOT to handle and made life at home MUCH more complicated.
Mom even added extra cat care responsibilities to the . . .
As if creating MORE chores wasn’t bad enough, he used every opportunity to make my life miserable.
Feeding Felix was the worst job on the chore wheel. It wasn’t a particularly hard task on its own, but Felix’s interference made it unexpectedly difficult.
To top it all off, once he finished eating, he always begged for more food and threw a fit when he realized he wasn’t getting any.
For some reason, the rest of the family didn’t seem to have any trouble with it—or with Felix, for that matter!
It was just ME.
In fact, Felix was welcomed into the family almost immediately. Even Peter, who was generally more of a dog person, said he didn’t mind having a cat.
Maybe that was because the cat didn’t seem to mind HIM . . .
whereas Felix made it very c
lear that WE were enemies.
While I was dealing with major cat problems at home, my troubles at school were just beginning.
It all started with
Lockers were a rite of passage—or at least, they should have been. Everyone in middle school was supposed to get a locker (the ONLY perk of now having MORE textbooks), but of course, our school didn’t have enough.
According to Peter, there was a running joke about the long-awaited (and perpetually delayed) completion of Pointdexter Middle School’s sixth-grade locker pavilion.
But then, at our last school assembly, Vice Principal Kline told us that they had FINALLY finished construction and would assign lockers to ALL sixth-grade students within the week!
Our whole section of the auditorium started cheering.
Vice Principal Kline could barely finish her announcements.
She could hardly blame us. This was REVOLUTIONARY.
We were finally getting LOCKERS—
THAT was something worth celebrating!
Little did I know that for me, the celebration would not last long.
They passed out our locker assignments in homeroom. Most people raced to find their lockers at the end of the period, but not me.
I had a PLAN. I had been waiting years for this. To me, it was more than just a place to put my books and lunch box and extra pencils. It was something I could make MY OWN, and I wanted everything to be PERFECT.
I went home and practiced on an old lock I found in the garage until I could open it in my sleep.
Mom dropped me off at school early the next day so I could get settled. When I found my locker, it was in the ideal spot—
just far enough from the boys’ locker room to avoid that sweaty-air smell,
just close enough to the cafeteria to give me a head start on getting in line at lunch.
Everything was going according to plan.
I had the combination memorized, and thanks to all that practice, the locker opened without a hitch!
But, of course, Murphy was right.
When I opened that metal door, it was worse than any of the worst-case scenarios I could’ve imagined.
Worse than fumbling over the lock.
Worse than the door being a little dented.
Worse than having a locker near Ryan Savage—the meanest, rudest, nastiest bully in all of sixth grade.
Not only had my beautiful, perfect, private new locker been hijacked—it had been hijacked by a MONSTER.
There was even this crumpled-up paper bag stuffed in the back that looked sketchy and smelled funky. I had no idea what was inside. It could’ve been anything!
I tried to make Logan investigate, but he refused to touch it, so testing was limited and results were inconclusive. Whatever it was, it definitely didn’t belong there . . . in MY locker!
We needed a . . .
We set up base at a planter near the new lockers.
Maxine brought disguises from the drama club’s prop room, but in the end, we decided they might be a little too suspicious.
So we just played it cool . . .
and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited.
Just when it seemed hopeless, someone appeared!
The locker thief wasn’t at all like I’d imagined.
If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought she was just a regular student. . . .
Except NONE OF US recognized her!
Even Lana Alvarez had no clue who she was—
and Lana was the type of person who knew EVERYONE.
Her anonymity only made her more suspicious. Whoever she was, I had to figure out how to get her out of my locker.
The gang and I spent most of the lunch period trying to think of a proper plan of action to take back my locker. Most of our ideas were a little too complicated. . . .
But eventually, we came up with
I still had my practice lock from home in my backpack. All we had to do was wait until the coast was clear, take out all her stuff, and replace the lock.
Okay, so it sounded harsh—
But it’s not like we were planning on throwing her stuff away! I just wanted my locker to be MY LOCKER, and that meant finding somewhere else for HER stuff.
Maybe a bag with a polite notice of relocation or something like that. . . .
The end-of-lunch bell rang. All the yard duties were on high alert, wrangling students who were moving too slowly and screeching at everyone to get to class!
Our plan would have to wait.
With this locker problem totally unresolved and fresh in my mind, the last thing I wanted to do was think about
It wasn’t so much that I hated science—I just didn’t GET IT. The only thing that made it semi-interesting was . . .
He wore thick glasses that made his eyes look buggy and his hair was always sticking up like he had just put his finger in an electrical socket. The look was very “mad scientist.” Some people thought it was too cliché, but it kind of worked for him.
He started the class with his usual pep.
The whole class groaned. We all knew the deal.
Teachers never let you choose your partner, and unless you were very very lucky, you usually got someone you never really wanted to get at all.
I did NOT have a particularly good track record when it came to partners.
When Mr. Walters started reading off the list of pairs, I realized that he was putting us together
Alphabetical order was the WORST.
In elementary school, I used to have to line up behind Trevor Whipple.
He liked to fart on people FOR FUN.
Then, for a while, there was a girl in my class named Alice Wong.
Teachers ALWAYS mixed us up, even though we were NOTHING alike.
I didn’t know who I would be stuck with this time, but as Mr. Walters got closer and closer to the end of the alphabet, I began to brace myself.
Who was that?
The name didn’t sound familiar at all. As if he was reading my mind, Mr. Walters motioned to the back of the room and said,
While the rest of the class laughed (or at least pretended to laugh) at his corny joke, I turned to look at my new partner—and my whole stomach
I couldn’t pay attention to anything Mr. Walters said after that. How could I be expected to learn SCIENCE under these circumstances? This was NOT just another coincidence. This was the Universe playing a mean joke on me. This was Murphy’s Law at its very worst. This was a catastrophe. This was inevitable. This was . . .
I had to do SOMETHING, so I waited until class was over to talk to Mr. Walters and beg him for a new partner.
I thought I did an okay job pleading my case.
It didn’t do much good, though. He just wouldn’t budge!
Mr. Walters was all about trying new things, but I didn’t like them AT ALL. New things were messy and confusing and unpredictable. I was NOT a fan of new things.
Plus, this threw a huge wrench into
If I was really stuck with this new girl as my science partner, I couldn’t exactly go through with our scheme without causing MAJOR problems.
I wanted her out of my locker, but I also wanted a good grade in Mr. Walters’s class, and now Jessica Wyatt was a part of that too. I hadn’t even met her yet, and she was already affecting the course of my life!
If I didn’t work with her as my partner, I could fail science and get stuck in middle school for another year.
That was my doomsday scenario. I could NOT let that happen. So I was STUCK.
I zoned out for a minute in front of the locker . . .
HER locker.
MY locker.
OUR LOCKER?
As I contemplated my unfortunate fate and racked my brain for any sort of loophole I may have overlooked,
There was a long, empty silence.
I had no clue. Then, she did the STRANGEST thing—she laughed a little, shook her head, and said,
. . . like it was NO BIG DEAL!
&nb
sp; She suggested we go to the office to sort things out—
of all places!
I don’t know what school she went to before, but this confirmed it: she was definitely new to Pointdexter. Every kid here knew that the office was never as helpful as you wanted (or needed) it to be.
They mostly just made copies of things and told you to be quiet while you waited.
Plus, the chairs in the office were really uncomfortable. They made them that way on purpose.
Still, she seemed sure that it would solve our problem, so I thought we’d give it a shot. After school, we met at the locker and walked to the office together.
I couldn’t think of what to say and she seemed okay with neither of us saying anything.
It was AWKWARD.
When we told the lady at the front desk that we had a locker problem, she didn’t take us seriously at all.
