Uh, Ms. Silver, I don’t see how carrying a purse full of feelings is gonna help me deal with being a freshman. It might get me killed, though.
Some skinny dude by the window is drumming on his journal with a pencil. It’s kinda annoying and kinda bold cuz it’s a major diss to the teacher. She keeps looking up from her laptop but he’s not stopping. I bet he’s gonna be this year’s Class-ick. Last year it was Benji Stryker. He stole Hud’s DS and offered to sell it back to him for double the price. And Hud actually—
Ms. Silver just busted the drummer. He’s wearing this old Rolling Stones concert shirt and she called him Mick. Mostly everyone laughed. I didn’t. It would have been cooler if she called him Charlie Watts, cuz Charlie’s the drummer in the Stones. The guy does have a Mick thing going on, though, even though the real Mick’s hair is brown and the Class-ick ’s is auburn. (I know that means reddish-brown because my sister Mandy is always stinking up the bathroom with her “auburn” hair color kits.) But their cuts are similar. You know, long and choppy. And he’s got that frog face girls would like if he was famous. Anyway, he stopped pencil drumming, so that’s good.
I want to look behind me and see what Coops is doing so I will. I will look behind me and see what Coops is doing. One, two, three…
I just saw Coops’s scalp. Either he has lice or dandruff because there were these white specks in his hair. His head is down like he’s taking a test. What is he writing about? Our other buddy Hudson is in a different class. Which is fine, I guess. We’ll all be on the basketball team together. I can’t wait for tryouts. Playing Varsity is going to be so cool.
Now what? Now what?
Now what?
Now what?
NOW WHAT?
Those What I Did Over Summer Vacation essays were cool because I got to write the same thing every year.
1. Listen to my older sisters fight.
2. Basketball camp.
3. Shoot hoops with Coops and Hud after camp so I don’t have to listen to my older sisters fight.
4. Go on a boys-only fly-fishing trip with my dad so we don’t have to listen to my older sisters fight.
My essay was in paragraph form, but I decided to write it this way because numbering takes up more space.
Duffy. Duffy has the ball. Duffy is on fire. Duffy is unstoppable. Duffy shoots the winning basket!
Woo-hooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooo
Some girl in a yellow dress saw me making those o’s. Then she smiled. She has red lipstick on her tooth. I turned away really fast like I had some big feeling that needed to be written down. And now I’m just writing and writing to look busy. I hope someone tells her about her tooth. It looks like blood but I know it’s not, because my Bubbie Libby gets that all the time.
Bubbie is what Jewish people call their grandmothers. We’re not Jewish. But Bubbie Libby is. She converted when my grandfather died because she thinks Jewish men are good listeners, and she wants to die knowing what it feels like to have a real conversation. So she lives with us and waits for the Chosen One. Whatever that’s about.
Maybe I’ll email Amelia tonight. She got a scholarship to an all girls college in New York. She’s into poetry and women’s rights and talking about girl things that me and my dad do NOT want to hear about. She’s smart with journals and has tons of them locked in a safe. Like anyone would ever want to read this stuff.
The bell.
—LATER
Jagger
Sept. 4.
Feelings? Get real. I stopped having feelings on February 13, 2012—the day my parents got tossed in jail.
I’ve been emancipated since I was fourteen.
I’m fifteen now.
I live alone.
I take care of myself.
I don’t have time for feelings.
My name is Jagger.
I don’t even have time for a last name.
—J
Lily
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
My name is Lily, I turn fifteen next month, and I am eating for three. Wait, I think it’s four if you kount me, and ready for this: Mom and Dad are klueless kuz I still look way-skinny. Thank you, Karess.
Not only is Karess a personal trainer slash DJ, he is the father of my triplets. He’s into spelling C words with K’s so now I am too.
Back to my skinnyness.
Karess recommended protein bars and energy drinks to keep the baby weight off, and ready for this: Five months pregnant and I’ve already lost 11 pounds. Kan you believe?
Once I “show” we’ll Greyhound it to L.A. and open a gym called Kut. It will kost a million dollars to join so we kan get rich in one day. Karess wants to name the kids Karb, Kalorie, and Kardio. Luv it. Luv him. Luv the kreativity.
School is for unpregnant losers. Like what’s the point of this journal assignment if I’m going to open a gym? Also my hand is shaking kuz I’ve had seven energy drinks on an empty stomach. Well, empty of food, not triplets. Point is it’s hard to write.
Klass is over! Next stop, kemistree.
Lily
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
(Midnight)
I left my journal on the kitchen table for six whole hours. Mom made two attempts to bust the lock, first at 4:27 PM and again at 7:19 PM, but she couldn’t guess my combo (A.D.’s b-day). Even if she did, and then managed to hide the clues, I’d know. That fake entry about Karess would shock her blind. She’d circle the living room like a mad cow, slamming into bookcases, knocking over newspaper stacks, tripping on lamp cords. Believe me, I’d know.
Thanks to this sturdy locking mechanism, I can be free. Free to discover the real Lily Bader-Huffman. Not the A+ student, with the male best friend, who has been homeschooled for eight years. The one who is forming beneath her. Growing like a shadow. Faceless and distorted; elongating and reaching; determined to make her secret dream come true. Determined to be normal and popular and kissed by—
Uh-oh… footsteps.
Vanessa
September 4th
The English assignment given by Ms. Silver on September 4, 2012, @ 1:47 PM is as follows: Each student must record his or her innermost thoughts and feelings during freshman year at Noble High. The goal is to have a safe place to connect with ourselves. The challenge will be finding our voices and the courage to embrace them. These journals will not be graded or read. Ms. Silver will inspect them at the end of the year to make sure we filled all 250 pages. That is it. We will also have to write an essay about self-discovery and what we learned. But we are not supposed to focus on that now.
At 1:49 PM I inquired as to whether we would benefit by filling additional journals. To which she responded, “Not in the form of grades.” To which I asked, “Will our GPAs benefit?” To which she replied, “No. Your soul will.” To which I thought, Forget it, then.
Thusly, my strategy moving forward is to pen one journal’s worth of “innermost thoughts and feelings” while focusing primarily on reward-based endeavors. I will, however, transcribe all feelings and thoughts associated with said endeavors here. Since that’s the whole point of this exercise.1
I will commence with a brief character profile.
My name is Vanessa Charlot2 Riley. I am fourteen. My hair is light brown and as curly as an old-fashioned telephone cord.3 I have green eyes and caramel-colored skin. My mother hails from Haiti, my father Queens. I’m told I look like a much, much, much younger Vanessa Williams.4 Better than Venus Williams. Ha.
As columnist Gina Simmons from the Noble High Times put it, “Exotic and striking, even Vanessa’s features overachieve.” My middle school principal signed my yearbook with, “Beauty and Brains, you are proof that girls can have both.”
I prefer using quotes to characterize myself for three reasons:
1) Quotes prove opinions.
2) No one likes a gloater.
3) I must be liked.
My favorite hobby is winning.5 The endorp
hins feed my heart and carbonate my blood. It’s a euphoric rush, but it ends as soon as I get my prize. The only way to get it back is to win again. I compare it to the ever-stale Bazooka bubble gum—tough work for a moment of sweetness. But, oh, how sweet that moment is. Hence, the reason I’m always chasing that next piece.
Well, it’s half the reason.
Veritas6 ? It goes deeper than endorphins and carbonated blood. I’m just not sure how to explain it, since “it” is more of a feeling than an actual thing.
Actually, it’s fragments of a feeling. Fleeting fragments like scattered dandelion fluff. Fuzzy bits drift by but I’ve never tried to grab them or piece them into thoughts. Maybe because thinking them in full would make them real. And I don’t want them to be real because they have to do with my parents.7
But Ms. Silver asked for innermost so I’m going to connect the fuzzy bits and tell you what I try not to think about. Ready?
It’s my parents. How much they fight. And why that affects my grades and wardrobe.
This morning began with a screaming match about my older brother, A.J.8 Then it became about Dad and how he’d rather dissect computers than listen to stories about Mom’s evil boss at the hotel. Which transitioned into the things Mom flushes down the toilet. Nothing says “Good luck on your first day of high school” like an argument about clogged pipes.
I’m never involved in these squabbles but I am allergic to conflict, so I suffer. Veritas? Fighting sounds make me itchy. I have red marks all over my arms and legs to prove it. Like I was jumped by the Real Housewives of New Jersey on Acrylic Day.
Peers assume I’m modest because I wear long sleeves to keep from scratching. Modesty on a girl with features that “overachieve” does make her more likable, so it’s not all bad. But it’s not all good, either. Obvious frump factor aside, running track in sweats leads to heatstroke. In 98 percent humidity, hallucinations. But it’s worth it. First place means my parents will stay together another day. So I cover up and run like a nose in flu season.
You see, every time I get an A, or win something, or am elected, crowned, honored, published, or profiled, we celebrate at Benihana.9 A.J. and I can order anything we want. Wear whatever we want. We’re even allowed to get double desserts. The only thing we can’t do at Beni’s is fight. It’s our family rule. And it sticks like chewed Bazooka.
In summation: Overachieving = Benihana = Peace = No divorce.
Simple.
If you focus on success, you’ll have stress. But if you pursue excellence, success will be guaranteed.
—Deepak Chopra10
Jagger
Sept. 4.
One more thing.
A FemFresh case with a lock is not gonna happen.
I’d rather hide my journal in dirty boxer shorts.
Safer that way.
Less embarrassing too.
—J
1 That was a sentence fragment. I will leave it because Ms. Silver told us to ignore grammar. Please don’t penalize me.
2 Pronounced Shar-low. It’s my mother’s maiden name. It’s Creole, based largely on 18th-to-21st-century French.
3 Simile.
4 Circa 1983, when she won Miss America (except my hair is shoulder-length, clavicle-length when wet or flat-ironed).
5 I currently have 159 awards. (Complete list available upon request.) I have served as student council president for three consecutive years. I was captain of the eighth-grade track-and-field team. I have been a Girl Scout for seven years. I have never received a grade lower than A.
6 Latin for “truth.”
7 I just took a pause. I’m starting to fatigue from the surge of heavy emotions gathering in my hands.
8 A.J. failed eleventh grade and has to repeat it this year. He’s always getting suspended and he’s really disrespectful to Mom and Dad. The only things he cares about are cars. So they never let him drive one.
9 Best tempura! The same rule applies to A.J., only he’s never won anything. So it’s all on me.
10 Inspirational quotes are my caffeine. Same with caramel lattes from Starbucks.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Octavian Country Day School: “The Room”
Westchester, NY: Slice of Heaven Pizza Shop
Westchester, NY: Slice of Heaven Pizza Shop
The Block Estate: Front Foyer
Octavian Country Day School: The Bomb Shelter
Octavian Country Day School: The Café
The Block Estate: Driveway
The Block Estate: Spa
The Abeley House: Layne’s Bedroom
Octavian Country Day School: The Bomb Shelter
The Block Estate: Guesthouse
Octavian Country Day School: The Halls
Briarwood Academy: Wave Pool Dedication Ceremony
Octavian Country Day School: Massie’s Oak
Octavian Country Day School: The Bomb Shelter
Briarwood Academy: Parking Lot
Westchester, NY: The Hamilton Home
Westchester, NY: The Hamilton Home
The Block Estate: The Guesthouse
Octavian Country Day School: The Auditorium
Quiz
About the Author
A Sneak Peek of Bratfest at Tiffany’s
A Sneak Peek of Pretenders
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Alloy Entertainment
Excerpt from Bratfest at Tiffany’s copyright © 2008 by Alloy Entertainment
Excerpt from Pretenders copyright © 2013 by Lisi Harrison
Cover design by Andrea C. Uva and Sarah Kearney
Cover photo by Roger Moenks
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Poppy
Hachette Book Group
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Poppy is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company.
The Poppy name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
“Too Little Too Late” by Joshua Alexander Berman, Ruth-Anne Cunningham, William E. Steinberg (Jerk Awake, Jetanon Music, Shapiro Bernstein & Co., Inc.). All rights reserved.
“Strut” by James Houston Scoggin (Walt Disney Music Company). All rights reserved.
Produced by Alloy Entertainment
151 West 26th Street, New York, NY 100011
First ebook edition: August 2008
ISBN 978-0-316-04171-3
Sealed with a Diss Page 22
