The Encyclopedia of Me

by Karen Rivers

  If only I had the Internet so I could e-mail him or IM him or write on his wall instead, which would be so much less personal and nervous-making than an actual real live CALL.

  I’ll work up to it. Soon.

  I don’t know what I’m so afraid of.

  See also Kai. Kai. Kaiiiiiiiiiii. Oh, stop it.

  Phone

  An instrument that I suppose is electrical that allows you to talk to people by pressing a piece of plastic and metal against your ear after first dialing their number into a keypad. An antiquated invention that few people use, preferring as they do the asynchronous101 conversations they have on the Internet, where they can not bother answering and not be considered rude. The exception to this is that sometimes your BFF calls you on the phone up to ten times a day! To the annoyance of your brothers! Until suddenly, something happens in your friendship, and just like that, she stops.

  See also BFF.

  Prince X

  Prince X is, well, a prince. I can’t tell you which prince! Because it’s a secret. Not really. But it is. The thing is that if you knew which prince, you would laugh at me until your face turned purple and you began gasping for air, much like you would if you were choking to death on a piece of bubble gum that was lodged in your esophagus. So I’m not going to tell you.

  And you can’t make me.

  Sometimes, I write small, non-embarrassing plays featuring myself and Prince X. Who am I kidding? It’s the most humiliating hobby of all time, but each time I promise to stop doing it, I come up with an excellent idea for a new one and do just one more. If anyone ever saw one, I’d die. Or I would will the earth to open up a giant crack that would swallow everyone who saw what I had written and they would be destroyed or spat out in Australia, and I would be able to survive with my head held high, knowing it would be very unlikely that I would run into them at ballet or in the line to buy a large cookie in the cafeteria at lunch.

  If I were going to write a play about me and Prince X, it may or may not be something like this. I wouldn’t read it, if I were you. Although I hear Australia is nice at this time of year.

  Scene One opens with Prince X sitting in the library. Enter stage left, a young, very beautiful girl (that’s me, but with enough makeup on that I look beautiful, not just like my regular frumpy self). Prince X looks up. At that moment, a huge earthquake shakes the building, and Prince X is trapped under a heavy shelf of books, which the beautiful girl heroically lifts to save him.

  Prince X: You saved my life! And you’re cute. We should marry.

  Me: It was nothing! Don’t worry about it! You don’t have to marry me. I’m too young anyway. My mom would kill me.

  Prince X: But I want to! You’re the most glam girl I’ve ever met.

  Me: Swoon.

  Prince X recently became engaged, but I am not going to write that part into any of my plays. I’m sure it’s just a passing thing and won’t last, or at least that is what I am hoping for and sometimes requesting of the Buddha in the back garden, as I do not attend the School of Mo and cannot bring myself to love all princes equally. He really is my one and only.

  Although I’m not entirely sure that I don’t like Kai just a smidgen more than Prince X, after all.

  See also Kai; Mohism.

  Pugapoo, Miniature

  A tiny dog that results from crossing a tiny poodle with a pug. Looks a lot like a dust mop or a reggae singer. A sadly neglected and horribly unkempt pugapoo looks like a tiny pug with a ’Fro.

  Would you keep this dog in your purse? Seriously? WOULD you?

  The miniature pugapoo is the ugly friend of the dog world and probably is BFFs with a pretty dog, such as a Weimaraner, and likely always feels too short and too hairy in comparison. Although the truth is that the pugapoo is a much more fun and lovable dog and the Weimaraner is just pretty much acting like a jerk, if you ask me.

  See also Arms; BFF; O’Malley, Mrs.

  Quayle, Ruth

  Ruth is easily both the funniest and also the most excitable thirteen-year-old girl I know. She has peculiar, sticky-uppy hair and sometimes wears clothes that look like she maybe grabbed them from her dad’s laundry pile and didn’t notice. She has more energy than a whole fleet of kangaroos and hardly ever stops talking or jumping around from foot to foot, except when she is skating. She is an awesome boarder, but she says she is likely to only keep it up for a little while longer, as she is getting bored with it and thinking of starting a new hobby: making horror films using Claymation. It’s hard to know if that’s true, or just a passing thought that she has said out loud. She is very much a think-it/say-it simultaneously kind of person.

  Ruth’s best quality is that she neither cares nor notices what other people think.

  It bugs me a lot that Freddie Blue doesn’t like Ruth.

  It bugs me a lot that Ruth doesn’t like Freddie Blue.

  It bugs me a lot that I’m still grounded.

  I was thirsty, so I went downstairs for some water and sat on the Itchy Couch to drink it in the path of the fan, which was really just blowing hot air around and making it hotter. I picked up the phone and hung upside down from the couch.

  And without thinking about it, I dialed Kai’s number! I did! Just like that! I wasn’t even nervous!

  It rang.

  And rang.

  And rang some more. No answer. No answering machine either.

  “Lame,” I said out loud. I hung up, gulped down some water, and looked at the big pile of encyclopedias. I missed Freddie Blue. I did.

  I dialed her number.

  “Yes?” she said slowly. Like she was mad or bored or both.

  “It’s me,” I said. “Tink.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I thought you were Isadora now.”

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “I’m just getting ready to go out with some friends,” she said. “Why? What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” I sighed. “Writing my book. I’m grounded, remember?”

  “Your mom is so harsh,” she said.

  “Well, we did break into a department store and made a mess,” I said. “It was kind of worse than the trampoline thing.”

  “I guess,” she said. “But you didn’t hurt your knees. Hey, Tink?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I gotta go. Some people are waiting for me. Talk to you . . . later.” She hung up.

  I sat on the Itchy Couch for a while and watched the water bead up on my glass. It was scintillating, in that it wasn’t even slightly interesting. Lex came in and started chomping loudly on an apple.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” I said back.

  “Sucks to be you, I guess,” he said. “It’s like _____ outside.”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s very supportive, thanks.”

  “Just trying to be ______,” he said. He yawned. “Well, see you.”

  “Bye,” I said. I closed my eyes. Was the highlight of my day really going to be talking to Lex while he ate an apple in four huge bites?

  Why, yes. Yes, it was.

  I should have called Ruth, especially as this is her entry in my encyclopedia. But by then, my energy for the phone had run out and I needed to have a nap to store up some more nerve for trying Kai again later. So I didn’t.

  Sorry.

  See also Grounded; Phone.

  Queen

  The head of a country, if the country is a monarchy, which only about five or ten countries in the entire world actually are. If you marry a king, you get to be queen. But if you are already a queen, and you marry someone, he only gets to be a prince. I think that’s how it works. Don’t quote me on that.

  If I marry Prince X, then one day I’ll be queen of a very obscure country in Europe that you would not be able to find on a map, even if you had to find it in order to get an A in geography. As Queen X, everyone will love me, and I’ll have a hairless cat that will popularize the breed so that poor old Hortense isn’t the only one in a thousand-mile radius.
Prince X and I will have adorable children, and if they inherit my freckles or Afro, we’ll be rich enough to just have them all fixed up.102

  See also Afro; Freckles; Hairless Cats; Prince X.

  Quince

  I think that quince might be either a fruit or a sort of jam but am too lazy to look it up, so if you are interested in further exploration of the subject, you’ll have to check elsewhere. Like on the Internet, which I’m sure you have instant access to at all times because your mom doesn’t lock her office door, and/or you have a BFF who you can call without worrying if she’s too busy with her other friends to check facts for your book.

  I apologize to you, my readers, for this lameness of my knowledge about quince and for forcing to do your own fact-checking. (You may want to double-check all the facts you’ve read here, now that I think of it.)

  See also Computer; Lame.

  Remorse

  “Remorse” is the feeling you get after you do something regrettable, such as trying to spend the night in a shopping mall or allowing yourself to be dressed in a jaunty yellow pirate shirt and posing in a national magazine.

  My life is positively dripping with remorse. If remorse was melted cheese and my life was really soft white bread, nicely toasted, then together it would make a really delicious sandwich. If you like melty cheese. Which I do.

  UNLESS “melty cheese” means “remorse,” in which case, I do not.

  What?

  See also Everybody Magazine; Grounded; Kai; Lame.

  Respite Care

  Respite care is kind of like a hotel for people with autism and with other things too, where they go stay in a house with other people who are enjoying a nice weekend away from their family.

  Respite care for Seb is one of Charlotte Ellery’s “pet projects.” She thinks we should be shipping Seb off every other weekend so we can focus on “other things” or “each other.” But she doesn’t know. She doesn’t get it. She thinks you can just put your family away somewhere when they bug you or get on your nerves. And that’s not how family works.

  At least, that’s what Mom and Dad say. And I guess I agree.

  I mean, think about it. It wouldn’t be fair.

  Would it?

  Without Seb, what would we do? What would HE do, without us? Would it really be different? For us or for him? Would he like it? Would we? Would he feel like we were trying to get rid of him? Would we be?103

  I guess Mom and Dad would have to fight about something other than “You Are Handling Seb’s Autism Wrong!” Like maybe the Care and Feeding of Tink Aaron-Martin, for a change.

  Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, after all.

  See also Aaron-Martin, Sebastian (Seb); Autism; Ellery, Charlotte.

  Room

  A place with four walls and at least one door. Sometimes a window, if you are lucky.

  Number fifteen on my list of life goals is to one day have a room in Paris, where I can look out the window at the Eiffel Tower. I have never been to Paris, and Mom says that I would hate it and never really want to live there, but I do not think she knows me as well as she thinks she does. I may very well be deeply Parisian on the inside.

  I like my room because it has a view of the Tree of Unknown Species and . . . other things. Which makes it acceptable.

  For now.

  Forever, at the rate I’m going.104

  I was about to stare thoughtfully out the window and describe in detail what I could see from here, which is mostly just the branches of the Tree of Unknown Species.

  And then I noticed Kai was on the lawn! Waving his arms around! Like someone who wanted to get my attention!

  I opened the window and yelled, “HI!”

  “HI!” he yelled back. He was just about to say something else when my mom’s car turned into the driveway. Kai ran away, his blue hair bobbling sweetly in the breeze. He was running toward the tree. Was he climbing it? My tree?

  I heard my mom clip-clopping across the porch. (Mom loves shoes and wears fancy high heels on days she can “get away with it,” i.e., days when she is not actively delivering a stuck baby.) The door closed and then the clip-clop was in the kitchen and then the stairs and then, bam. There she was.

  “What are you doing, Tink?” she said. “It’s not appropriate for you to be shouting to your friends out the window. This is supposed to be punishment, remember?”

  “How can I forget?” I said. “I’ve been wrongly accused!”

  “No,” she said. “You haven’t. You confessed AND you were caught red-handed. So now you are paying the price for doing the crime.”

  “But Kai did the crime too,” I pointed out. “And he’s outside.” I snuck a look out the window. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could see him, partially hidden by the leaves of the tree. My heart skipped six consecutive beats.

  “I’m not everyone’s mother,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears. She looked really tired.

  Before I could stop myself, I went, “Yeah, well, I wish you weren’t mine.”

  She snapped her head up and looked at me. I could tell I’d hurt her feelings. A lot. But I also didn’t care. I didn’t. Well, I guess I did. I felt bad about it, especially when she stomped out and said in a cracking voice, “You can come down for dinner in an hour.”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  “Tink,” she sighed, from the doorway.

  “And my name is Isadora!” I shouted. “Why doesn’t anyone ever call me Isadora?”

  “Because you told us not to, remember?” said Mom. “Because you said you didn’t choose it.”

  “I didn’t choose ‘Tink’ either,” I said frostily.

  “Actually,” she said. “You did.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t let a four-year-old pick her own name!” I shouted. “And I said Tinker Bell, not TINK. And it was nine years ago! I’m allowed to change my mind!”

  “TINK,” she said. “I’ve had enough of this.” She clip-clopped down the hall.

  “It’s ISADORA!” I yelled. “Now,” I added. “I mean it!”

  “Isadora,” said Seb, sticking his head out into the hall. “Isadora is a bore-a.” He started laughing really hard and stupidly, clutching at his sides. “Isadora Isabora,” he chanted.

  “SHUT UP!” I screamed, and I slammed my door. I went over the window and looked into the tree. There was no one there. The tree was as empty and alone as my heart.

  Do you want to know what the view from my room is? Really? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s bleak. Bleak, bleak, bleak. With an extra helping of BLEAK thrown on the top for good measure.

  See also Grounded; Kai; Name.

  Sarcasm

  Sarcasm is irony with a twist and a shove. Dad says that, like licorice, sarcasm is an acquired taste. He also says that only smart people appreciate irony and sarcasm.

  I love sarcasm. And I enjoy licorice. Draw your own conclusions.

  School, First Day of

  Today was the first day of school.

  I wore my new dark jeans (capri length!) and a sleeveless T-shirt that had a fake wrap front. The shirt was gray. I thought it looked skater-cool in the store, but I realized, too late, that it looked like a washrag that had cleaned a hundred cars and had subsequently been thrown into the trash. Which was good, in a way. It said, “I am not trying to please you, fellow students at Cortez Junior. I am too cool to obsess about what I’m wearing.” Which was ironic because I was obsessed with what I was wearing.

  As I got ready, my brain was all abuzz with thoughts, which felt like flies swarming my gray matter. They were mostly things like: Why am I so scared? What is wrong with me? Do I look OK? Should I wear makeup? Maybe I should cover my freckles, and then I won’t be called Freckle Peckle? Does anyone even really read Everybody magazine? Yes? Should I run away to Slovenia and change my name to Natalka Novotny? Or to Quebec to join the cast of the Cirque du Soleil? Or to China to make plastic toys in a large factory? All of which sound better than going to F.E.C.E.S. for what will probably
be the worst day of my life.

  In addition to things like: Will Kai talk to me? Why didn’t I just call him again? What is wrong with me? Will Freddie Blue talk to me? Do I want her to? Will Ruth be my friend? Will I have any friends? Will I have to eat my lunch alone, leaning on my locker, pretending to be super engrossed in a book?

  I concentrated on breathing. In and out. Out and in.

  I tried to reassure myself: Nothing would happen.

  Or.

  No one would talk to me.

  Worse, teachers would talk to me and would want me to speak to everyone about autism. I’d become the autism mascot and would be trotted out at basketball games like the Aardie of the autism world.

  I yelled good-bye to my family, which was mostly ignored. I don’t want to talk about it, but Seb was super stressed. The morning was full of the sound of slammed doors and broken eggs. The house stunk of sanitizer, which wasn’t a bad smell and made my sinuses feel clean, but still indicated that Seb was teetering on the edge of haywire-dom.

  I stepped outside. It was a windy day and even the air smelled like fog and back-to-school. The leaves on the Tree of Unknown Species looked like they changed color from green to yellow overnight. I went and stood under it for a minute and looked up through the leaves at the sky. I didn’t have time for climbing. And maybe climbing was for little kids, anyway.

  I was growing up.

  I was in the eighth grade now! This was serious business! I reached out and touched the smooth roughness of the bark. “See you, tree,” I said.

  Then I ate four Oreos for strength.105

  Seb and Lex burst through the door. “Calm DOWN, man,” Lex was saying. “It’s the same school, the same kids. Just relax. Dude, you just . . .”