by Mary Rodgers
“Don’t make her feel worse, Nan! She totally has low blood sugar or something,” Soup protectively semi-barked to Nan.
“My blood sugar’s fine. Sometimes I say that just to make sure I get dessert: say ‘low blood sugar,’ and the cookies and candy appear out of nowhere. Try it sometime.” I paused. “Right now, this is all about me being melodramatic.” I put my hands over my eyes just to prove my point.
“Hadley. You’re brilliant,” Soup said in his best buck-up voice. “You know that. I know that—”
“All I know is I’m the moron who FORGOT TO WRITE DOWN THAT MY ORAL PRESENTATION IS TODAY!! God, I knew something was up this morning when that comet came too close to Earth….”
Soup and Nan synchronized a look of worry. They do that often with me.
“But you’re the smartest of the smart, Hadley. You’ll be fine,” Nan insisted. But I don’t think she gets that to be valedictorian you cannot be fine, you have to be stellar. Perfect. Everything I am NOT today…
“Yeah, can’t you just make something up?” Soup said this as if it was the easiest thing in the world.
“That’s right,” I said, hearing my voice take on a real smarminess. “I should just waltz into Ms. Pitt’s class and start speaking in perfect paragraphs about racial injustice and how it relates to To Kill a Mockingbird.” I knew I sounded panicked but I couldn’t help myself. “Weren’t we just having a really long, detailed conversation about this very topic just the other day, Soup? Oh yeah…I really feel an A-plus coming on!”
“You always get so weird when things don’t go exactly your way,” Soup said with as much anger as I’ve ever heard come out of him. “All I was doing was trying to help!”
Soup and Nan shared a quick look (yet again) and bolted, leaving me sitting there in my panicky, apparently weirdo state. Watching them march off, I instantly felt terrible. “I’m sorry! It’s just who I am!”
Soup turned on his heels and stared me down. “I know! That’s the problem!”
Ouch.
Double ouch.
Why did I have to be me sometimes?
CHAPTER 3
On my way into school, I saw Milly Albright approaching, mostly because it’s impossible to miss those braces glimmering under the fluorescent lighting. Milly’s smile was massive, but it wasn’t entirely convincing. I always sensed a sadness lurking nearby despite her huge grin.
“HEY, HADLEY!” Milly singsonged.
“Hey, Milly,” I said, and wanted to keep in motion.
“You okay?! You seem sorta down!” Milly asked with way too much enthusiasm. Poor thing. She really was sincere (which, truth be told, only made the situation worse).
“I’ll be fine,” I mumbled.
“Maybe you should stop by the You Rock! Self Matters! group after school. Because it really does rock!”
Oh, boy.
A school group on self-esteem was so not in the cards today. (Or ever, for that matter.) Besides, I’d seen the motley collection of students who attended Ms. Pitt’s weird group with tragically low enrollment. That self-esteem group could use some self-esteem.
“I’m sorta tied up today, Milly,” I said, and saw her eyes cloud with rejection. “But thanks for the offer.”
“You betcha then! See ya!” Milly turned and headed off, bobbing like a human pogo stick. Milly gave off the distinct aura that she would always be unable to find the rhythm for the clap-along at the end of any concert.
As I watched Milly awkwardly navigate down the hallway, I realized that thus far, junior high had been a colossal disappointment.
I had always imagined junior high would mean having boyfriends and getting big groups to go to the water park together on hot summer days. But there’s no boyfriend in sight and the closest water park is in San Diego, and since no one drives yet, the water park is out.
So for now, junior high is about groups on self-esteem and the like.
I had hoped things at junior high would be more adult, more civil…. Wrong. It’s just more homework. Sometimes I miss the elementary school slumber parties and pizza parties and getting way too excited about owning a hamster (which for all intents and purposes is a worthless pet). It was also a whole lot easier to get gold stars and TERRIFIC! written across the top of papers.
Maybe I thought things would be great at junior high because things looked great for Tatum. She always had this cool posse of friends coming and going when she was in junior high, and they did exciting things together, like going to the beach. Her hair was always in place and she styled it several different ways, all of which were flattering and fabulous. She IM’d at night with her friends, which in my estimation was ridiculously glamorous. What secrets were they sharing? Glossy, gossipy, important ones, I was convinced. Tatum went to dances, wore kitten heels, and wore lotions that smelled like yummy fruit.
Anyway, maybe it wasn’t as great for Tatum as it seemed to me, but I was really bummed to realize, when I finally got to junior high, I didn’t evolve into her. I stayed the same wound-too-tight Hadley. What a letdown.
And Lord, how I wish I could be Tatum Fox when I walked down the hall. Heads would turn and things would happen. I just know with every fiber in my being that Zane Henderson would absolutely, most definitely, positively notice me if that were the case.
Okay. Let me back up. Zane Henderson, second only to Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, is the love of my life. For one, Zane has green eyes. Not brown eyes with flecks of green, but green eyes. Like piercing Hulk green, almost otherworldly. Nan disagrees and says they’re really more hazel but she’s wrong. For another thing, he wore an old Police T-shirt once (not the-long-arm-of-the-law police, but the band the Police) to school. While most stuff from the eighties sounds, well, like cheeseball stuff from the eighties, the Police’s music STILL rocks. I thought that was really cool and I just know we could have long conversations about how awesome their lyrics are…because I’m sure Zane is the sort of guy who actually pays attention to the lyrics themselves. (Take “Everything Little Thing She Does Is Magic” and the genius lyric: “It’s a big enough umbrella, but it’s always me that ends up getting wet.” That pretty much sums up my life so far.)
Bottom line, Zane isn’t a muscle-head moron. At least I sure hope not…I don’t know him particularly well. Let’s just say we haven’t exactly had a lot of conversations. There was a “hey” back in September (which was staggeringly fabulous) and nothing since. But in my fantasy-prone mind, Zane and I just talk and talk and go to the beach and he always remembers my favorite sandwich is egg salad, which is really an underrated sandwich. Zane’s so thoughtful that way.
And since I’m in flat-out fantasy mode here…let me just come right out and say it. Okay. So how cool does Hadley Henderson sound? Doesn’t it have great alliteration and sound wonderful together? I know it’s antifeminist, blah blah blah, but still, it does, right? And hey, my grandparents met when they were eleven. Stranger things have happened….
Soup thinks Zane’s a quasi-dork and pointed out he’s never heard him say much. I contend Zane’s just misunderstood and shy. That can happen to boys, too, I suppose.
Of course it makes perfect sense that Zane Henderson should choose this Monday to actually speak to me. The Monday on which my friends are angry at me and my skin has a sick whitish pallor. The day my eyes are crazed and panicked. If Zane were to speak to me, I would hope it would be a Friday when there was a buzz of anticipation in the air and at least my hair would look semi-decent. But oh no. He had to speak to me today.
I had grabbed my books out of my locker. (And for the record, I do not decorate my locker. I get so tired of everyone trying to show how cool they are by their locker decor. It’s like: Look at all the concerts I’ve been to! See the concert stubs? Don’t I have great taste when it comes to music?! And see these pictures I have up—don’t I just have the most friends ever?! Anyway, in protest, I refuse to hang one darn thing and all you can see in my locker is foul brown paint and books.)
&
nbsp; I was making my way to first-period English, my head ponging with thoughts of panic about my oral presentation and whether my friends would forgive my weirdness. That’s when I saw Zane. He was leaning against his locker and I was positive he sort of lit up when he saw me. At least I think that’s what happened. Maybe there was someone behind me? I turned to see who he was looking at, but apparently he seemed to recognize me. Me being the one with the wild eyes and clammy white skin, remember.
“Uh, hey. Hadley,” Zane offered as I approached in virtual slow-motion.
Was this happening? Was Zane speaking to ME?
“Uh, yeah,” I responded. I mentioned I was witty, right? I was extremely proud of that especially frothy response. Uh, yeah?
“Hey,” he responded back.
Hadn’t he already said “hey”? Who cares, it was something. “Hey,” I volleyed yet again. Keep it going….
“So, uh, I was wondering if I, uh, saw you this weekend.”
What? You were wondering if you saw ME this weekend? “Oh yeah?” I said in a very squeaky dork voice. My body was leaving me, floating above the halls of Burroughs Junior High, observing me being a monosyllabic moron.
“Yeah.” He grinned and I grinned back. God, this was surreal! We were grinning at each other—I’m absolutely certain of it! And of course my hand reached for my hair and I did one of those lame-o hand-comb moves I had seen all the cheerleaders do before—you know, where they flick their hair ever-so-shampoo-commercially. I always thought it looked so fakey-flirty—the hand through the hair, that is—but I didn’t realize until that very moment that the gesture truly is grounded in instinct. You like a boy, he’s talking to you, and whammo! You just have to use your fingers to do a comb-through of the hair! I had no idea! It was like I was an ACTUAL TEENAGER!
“Because, uh, I was at a tennis match,” Zane said, continuing with his fantastic conversation that absolutely had me floating.
“Oh yeah?”
“And I was wondering…isn’t your sister on the tennis team?”
WHAT?
Zane must have seen my total teenager smile melt off my face. Actually, it felt like I was losing more than just a smile, it also felt like there was actual flesh dripping off. You know, like at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
“Tatum? Isn’t she your sister?”
Of course. He loves Tatum. Everyone loves Tatum. God, for a nanosecond I actually entertained the idea that it was possible for someone—preferably a boy and more preferably, Zane Henderson—to actually find me attractive. How stupid could I be? “Uh, yeah. She is.”
“She’s good.” He smiled to himself, probably lost in the thought of Tatum’s teen-dream face.
Oh, did I mention to you that Tatum’s on the high school tennis team and undefeated this year as the number one singles player? I know. It gets worse, right?
“At tennis, I mean, she’s good. Because I saw her play. You know, at the high school. Against Thompson Valley, I think.” Was his face getting red?
“She’s undefeated.” I tried to smile but it felt like my face was betraying me. I might pass out….
“Cool. Anyway…thought maybe you were there, so…”
“Nope, I didn’t see her match. I had a lot of homework this weekend. I had to make a model of an atom for science. I almost chose a walnut shell.” And the walnut shell nugget helped me look that much more cool! I should spare him this torture and end this exchange now. He didn’t want to speak to me, anyway. He just wanted the Tatum 4-1-1. “So I’ll see ya,” I managed to squeak out.
“Yeah. I’ve got my oral presentation….” And with that, Zane strolled into Ms. Pitt’s English class and panic reflooded my body. Great. Not only was the love of my life salivating over my sister, but I was about to have my first and most thunderous academic failure.
CHAPTER 4
I walked into class with what must have been a pretty stunned expression on my face. Nan swooped up and whispered, “I forgive you for being a freak, if and only if you tell me that Zane Henderson just asked you out.”
“Nan. This is me you’re dealing with, remember? Of course he didn’t ask me out.” Again, I couldn’t feel my fingers, I swear.
“Why not? Boys—and this does not apply to our Soup—don’t talk to girls otherwise. I mean, what would we ever talk about with them about? Football?”
“No. Tennis, apparently.”
“He likes you. I could tell—”
Before Nan could say another word, I cut her off and whispered, “Zane likes Tatum. That’s all he wanted to talk about.”
“Oh.”
I concurred. “I know. Of course, right?”
Nan tried to make me feel better, I’ll give her that. “Maybe he just—”
“He went to see Tatum play at the tennis match this weekend. He said she’s so talented or something.”
“Oh.” This “oh” sounded more defeated. Nan gave me a “buck up” half grin. “Man, your day REALLY isn’t going well, is it.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” I responded.
Just then, there was a—
GONG!
Ms. Pitt’s gong started class. She always struck that annoying gong and did a little Chinese bow to the class. It was just so organic-fruit of her and wannabe-hippie obvious—you know, like slapping a LOVE ANIMALS, DON’T EAT THEM! bumper sticker on your Prius or something. Come to think of it, I think Ms. Pitt may have that exact bumper sticker on that exact car….
And now it was too late to approach her and plead my case…. I needed an extension, a get-out-of-jail-free card, something. I had to try. “Ms. Pitt, could I speak to you?” I asked. “It’s really—”
“After class, Hadley. Okay? We have a big day—I think you’re making your oral presentation today, aren’t you?” Ms. Pitt surveyed the room, barely scanning my obviously desperate face. Nothing was registering with Ms. Pitt.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about—”
“You’re not sick?”
“Well, no—”
“No family tragedy or anything?”
“No.” She was so impossible!
“Then it can wait until after class when I am more than available.” She smiled at me and gestured for me to take my seat.
How could anyone be more clueless??
I walked back to my seat like I was being led to my lethal injection. Soup, who sits in front of me, saw my state and said, “Dead man walking!” Soup thought this was hilarious.
“Not funny.” I put my head down on my desk.
“I shouldn’t be talking to you, anyway. You have GOT to learn how to chill—”
Ms. Pitt gestured “shhh” to Soup, and the school announcements began over the PA. She pointed to the speaker on the wall, indicating its grave importance. I failed to see why information about book drives and cafeteria lunch specials were that essential.
“Good morning, fellow Mustangs, this is your Student Council President, Kaya Tisch, with some biiiiig news!” Kaya Tisch was so over the top, she even made sunny Milly Albright seem like Buzzkill Betty.
Let me tell ya, Kaya Tisch was not even vaguely disappointed with the junior high experience. Not in the slightest. She was vibrating with glee and joy and profound enthusiasm. She was a walking rainbow.
“Tonight is a Burroughs Junior High first, and I am SO psyched to tell you about it now! And believe me, there was some SERIOUS arm-twisting behind the scenes to get this to happen, but when I ran for Student Council President I promised I would deliver FUN, NEW activities for the school, and Kaya Tisch is DELIVERING on her campaign promise!”
I couldn’t take it. Maybe I was already dead and this was officially hell.
“So! Let me get RIGHT to it!”
“We’re waiting….” Soup said, and I had to nearly smile. Nearly.
“Surprise! Tonight is the inaugural I-Hate-Mondays DANCE! It’s the first dance EVER in the history of the school on a MONDAY!” Kaya might explode from glee. “Because if you hate M
ondays like I hate Mondays, then we ALL deserve a big change of pace! It is going to be SO cool!”
Maybe Zane can ask Tatum to chaperone, I thought bitterly to myself as I stared over at his sublime profile. God, the way he was studying a pencil was beautiful.
“Oh, joy. I’ve always wanted to celebrate Monday,” Nan noted darkly. Despite Nan’s snarky comment, the class seemed to buzz with a low-grade excitement. I had to hand it to Kaya—an impromptu Monday-night dance was different. And…what if Zane wanted to talk about Tatum more at the dance? At least we’d be talking, right?
“So we’ll see you all there in the school cafeteria, eight P.M. TONIGHT!” You’d think Kaya had single-handedly coordinated Middle East peace.
Ms. Pitt stepped forward to quell the hubbub. “All right, class, all right. Let’s all settle down, we’ve got a lot to tackle this morning.”
Right, like my total downfall.
“We’ve got to get right to our To Kill a Mockingbird oral presentations if we’re to get through them all. I so look forward to your thoughts and what you have to share with the class,” said Ms. Pitt. “To start the day, I’d also like to share a review I found this weekend from The Washington Post, which originally ran about this transcendent book.” Ms. Pitt paused for dramatic effect. “‘A hundred pounds of sermons of tolerance will weigh far less in the scale of enlightenment than a mere 18 ounces of new fiction bearing the title To Kill a Mockingbird.’” Ms. Pitt paused and placed a hand on her heart, suggesting to what degree she was moved. (Which was big-time, apparently.)
Her emotional moment was interrupted by a knock at the door. She went to answer it and the A/V librarian technician with astoundingly poor posture rolled in a TV and DVD. “Delivery for Henderson?”
Zane raised his hand, and Ms. Pitt was clearly thrown. Zane said, “That’s for me. It’s for my oral presentation.” Ms. Pitt’s face registered concern.
