Katie Friedman Gives Up Texting!

by Tommy Greenwald

  “Ah,” said Charlie Joe. “That’s an excellent question. If Jake’s mom couldn’t get in touch with him every ten minutes, I think her head might explode.”

  “That’s hilarious, Charlie Joe,” Jake said.

  “Mommy Katz would not be happy,” Timmy added, as if anyone missed Charlie Joe’s point.

  Jake threw his phone on the table. “Fine. You guys don’t think I can give up my phone for a week? Here, take it.”

  Hannah’s eyes went wide. “Seriously?”

  “Yup.” Jake snickered. “Sounds like a fun game. Let’s play.”

  “Trust me dude, you’re going to love not hearing from your mom for a week,” Charlie Joe said.

  Hannah smiled at Jake, then pulled out her phone, too. “Well, if you’re going to save your brain, I’m going to save mine, too.”

  Phil and Celia stared in shock. “Are you guys serious? You’re giving up your phones? For a whole WEEK?” They looked at each other, shrugged, then Phil let out a deep breath. “Fine.” He put his phone on the table.

  Celia did the same two seconds later. “What am I going to do without Snapchat?” she asked sadly.

  “Not send pictures of yourself every three minutes?” I said.

  “Ha-ha-ha,” she said.

  That left Charlie Joe and Timmy. We all looked at them and waited.

  “What?” Charlie Joe said.

  “Yeah, what?” Timmy echoed.

  “Nothing,” we said.

  Charlie Joe shook his head. “I’m not giving you people my phone, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  Timmy looked relieved. “And neither am I.”

  “Cell phones are for losers,” Jake said.

  Charlie Joe laughed.

  “Well then, I lose,” he said.

  23

  PEGGY CHANGES HER MIND

  By the time lunch was over, ten people had given me their phones:

  Eliza

  Ricky

  Tiffany (an Elizette)

  Amber (an Elizette)

  Hannah

  Jake

  Phil

  Celia

  Becca

  Jackie

  The last two joined in when I was leaving lunch and I saw Becca, Jackie, and Sammie—my bandmates—sitting at a table by the juice machines.

  I happened to walk by them—on purpose, of course.

  “Hey, what’s this about you giving up your phone for a week?” Becca shouted.

  “Oh, that,” I said. “It’s no big deal. Just something I’m doing with Eliza.”

  Sammie snorted. “Eliza?” I kind of knew she would react that way. Sammie had never been a huge fan of Eliza’s. Probably because Eliza had called her “Peggy” all through third grade—short for “Peggy Penguin”—because Sammie happened to walk with her feet pointed out a little bit.

  Girls have long memories when it comes to insults like that.

  “Yup,” I said. “It’s just something we decided during gym, to see if we could do it, you know? And now a bunch of other kids are doing it, too.”

  Becca stopped chewing. “Hold on a second. You told me you were giving up texting. Now all of a sudden you’re giving up your whole phone for a week? And so are a bunch of other kids?” She looked at me like she thought I was up to something. “What’s this about?”

  Eliza came up behind me. “It’s not about anything,” she said. “We just don’t want our brains to die. Is that so wrong?”

  “Absolutely not,” Jackie said, trying not to laugh. “Brains should definitely not die.”

  Becca stood up. “Well, I’m always up for something new and different,” she said, putting her phone on the table. “Take it,” she said to me. I took it and put it in my backpack.

  Jackie and Sammie looked at each other. I could tell neither one wanted to give up their phones, but there’s that moment in every middle school kid’s life where they worry if they don’t go along with what everyone else is doing, they’re going to be left behind forever.

  “What the hey,” Jackie said, handing me her phone, but Sammie hesitated.

  “My mom is supposed to text me what time she’s picking me up after school,” Sammie said.

  “There are a ton of kids who still have their phones,” Eliza said. “Just use one of theirs.”

  “Oh, right,” Sammie said, a little embarrassed that the girl who was worried about her brain dying had an idea that she hadn’t thought of. She handed me her phone.

  “Thanks, Peggy Penguin,” Eliza said.

  Sammie grabbed her phone back. “Forget it, you little blond twerp.”

  Eliza walked away, smiling. Sammie sat there, seething.

  Old habits die hard, I guess.

  24

  MS. KRANSKY

  Ms. Kransky, my language arts teacher, was one of my favorites, because you could tell she wasn’t just counting the years until retirement. Not that I blame teachers who do that by the way—have you ever tried convincing a bunch of middle schoolers that learning is a good thing? It can’t be easy.

  But Ms. Kransky was different. She seemed to really care about making a difference in kids’ lives. She had definitely made a difference in mine, starting with the time she told me that poetry didn’t have to rhyme. That was a major breakthrough. Although song lyrics do have to rhyme. That’s a rule that even my dad’s favorite singer, Bob Dylan, wouldn’t break.

  And there was one other thing about Ms. Kransky: She hated cell phones. She claimed she didn’t even own one. She was always complaining about how cell phones and Twitter and Instagram were ruining the lives of young Americans.

  Which is why I wanted to talk to her.

  I got to class a few minutes early, when she was grading papers.

  “Ms. Kransky? Can I talk to you for a second?”

  She looked up at me and took off her glasses. “Time’s up.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was kidding, but I laughed, just to be safe. Then I pointed at my backpack. “You’ll never guess what I have in here.”

  She smiled tiredly. “I don’t really have time to guess, Katie.”

  “Oh, right.” I reached into the backpack and took out as many phones as I could hold, which was about five. “Ten kids’ cell phones.”

  Ms. Kransky squinted her eyes. “And why do you have these phones?”

  “A bunch of us thought that we were becoming dangerously addicted to our phones, so we decided to give them up for a week, just to see if we could do it.”

  Ms. Kransky’s eyes went wide, then she did something I’ve never seen her do to any student before.

  She gave me a hug.

  “Katie, you are something else! A true leader!”

  I felt proud, but also a little phony, since the real reason I was doing it was because I insulted Nareem by accident, and Jane promised to sing my song. And the only reason other kids joined in was because Eliza is so pretty.

  But there didn’t seem to be any point in dwelling on that stuff right then.

  “Thanks,” I said, hugging her back. Then I pointed at my backpack. “And also … I thought maybe it’d be a good idea if you held on to the phones for us.”

  “Well, wait just a second,” Ms. Kransky said. “I need a little information here. When did this whole thing happen? What if other kids want to join in? I don’t want this to become one of those exclusive clubs that people feel bad about if they’re not part of it.”

  Huh. I hadn’t thought about that.

  “I have an idea!” Ms. Kransky said, before I’d said anything. “What if we make an announcement to the whole class today, that it’s a class experiment? All kids are welcome to participate, but those who don’t want to can make their own decision.”

  I was thrilled. “That’s a great idea!”

  “Great,” Ms. Kransky said. “I just need to call everyone’s parents first.”

  Wait a second. “Call everyone’s parents?”

  Ms. Kransky laughed. “Of course! The school can’t authorize ta
king away a student’s personal property without notifying their parents. And some of these kids need their phones for important reasons.”

  “I thought you hated cell phones!”

  “I do,” Ms. Kransky said. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not necessary sometimes. They can come in wonderfully handy. That’s the thing with wonderful things. People love them so much that they become addicted to them, and then they go from wonderful to horrible.” The class started filing in. “So what do you say? Shall we go for it?”

  “Go for what?” butted in Charlie Joe, who had just walked into the room. “Does this have anything to do with this crazy no-phone thing?”

  I had a decision to make, and I had to make it fast. I decided to keep the phones myself and forget full-class participation. I didn’t want to have to deal with Charlie Joe, who was sure to be annoying about the whole thing. And no offense to parents, but I couldn’t see how involving them in this experiment could end well.

  I stuffed the phones back in my backpack. “Thanks anyway, Ms. Kransky. I’ll just hold on to them.”

  “I still recommend you all tell your parents. Now go—I gave you way more than a second—even way more than a minute. When am I going to get these papers graded now?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, this should be interesting,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “Keep me posted. And good luck.”

  Part 3

  THE PHONIES VERSUS THE CAVEMEN

  25

  NOW WHAT?

  So it turns out it’s really hard to get eleven people together for a meeting, when you don’t have phones.

  I spent the entire recess running around to everyone who’d given me their phones, arranging a quick meeting after school. There were only about ten minutes between the end of school and bus pickup, so we were going to have to make it quick.

  We met at the edge of the blacktop in front of the playground. I saw Charlie Joe, Timmy, and Pete looking at us and pointing.

  “Welcome to the beginning of our big experiment,” I announced.

  “Yes, welcome to all,” Eliza repeated. She had decided to be my copilot on this whole thing, and considering she was the one who basically got everyone to give up their phones, I couldn’t exactly object.

  “The first thing we need to do is figure out where to keep all the phones,” I went on. “I asked Ms. Kransky but she said if she took them she would have to tell our parents about this whole thing.”

  All the kids looked at each another like they hadn’t thought about that at all. Which they probably hadn’t.

  “Why don’t you just put them in your locker?” suggested Amber, who was one of Eliza’s devoted followers (otherwise known as the Elizettes).

  Everyone else nodded.

  I frowned. “You guys trust me with your phones?”

  Everyone nodded again.

  “Okay, I’ll store them in my locker and, just to be safe, I won’t even use my locker at all for the whole week.” This wasn’t a big deal, as most kids, including myself, barely ever used their lockers.

  “The other thing we wanted to discuss with you guys,” Eliza said, “was what we plan on doing for fun, since we don’t have our phones. We’re going to need some activities and stuff.”

  Eliza hadn’t said a word to me about wanting to discuss this topic, but now that she brought it up, I realized she was absolutely right. What were we going to do?

  Ricky, Eliza’s semi-boyfriend whom I barely knew, raised his hand.

  “We should totally party,” he said.

  “You’re too young to use party as a verb,” Hannah told him. Ricky smirked, but his face turned red.

  “You’re right, though, we definitely need to have fun things to look forward to so we can make it through the week,” Jake said. “We need to do something really fun halfway through, and then something even more fun at the end.”

  It was hard to argue with someone who had just used the word fun three times in two sentences, so we all nodded again.

  “I have a question,” Phil said. “Does five days count as a week, you know, like a school week? Or does it have to be seven days?

  “Good question,” said Phil’s girlfriend, Celia. “Since today is Monday, can we just say we give up our phones till Friday?”

  I thought about that for a second. Jane hadn’t been very specific. Technically, of course, a week did mean seven days, but whenever any kid talks about “the week,” they’re really talking about Monday through Friday.

  “Why don’t we compromise,” I said finally. “Since the talent show is on Saturday night, we’ll say that’s the end of the week.”

  More nodding. This was an agreeable bunch. People were so nice to one another face-to-face!

  “I can host a barbecue at my house on Wednesday night,” said Tiffany, another Elizette. “That’s kind of the halfway point.”

  “Great!” I said. “And I bet my parents will let me have a little party after the talent show, to celebrate.”

  “We can do it!” shouted Becca.

  “Yay us!” cheered Celia.

  Everyone laughed and cheered and hugged and high-fived. It was like we knew each other so well, like we’d been hanging out forever. It was really kind of cool. It was—

  “Weird.”

  Leave it to Charlie Joe Jackson, who’d wandered over from the jungle gym with Timmy and Pete, to get right to the heart of the matter.

  I stared at him. “What’s weird?”

  Charlie Joe laughed. “What’s weird? You want to know what’s weird? How about the fact that you and Eliza and the Elizettes are acting like you’re besties? And that you guys have to have a meeting to figure out what you’re going to do with yourselves since you’ll be so bored without your phones. How’s that for weird?”

  “That’s totally beyond weird,” Pete chimed in.

  “We better go,” I said to the group, not even acknowledging Charlie Joe’s comment. “See you guys tomorrow.”

  As we walked to the buses, Charlie Joe slid up next to me.

  “What are you doing? What is this all about?”

  “I told you already. I was sick of being addicted to my phone. I want to see if I can live without it.”

  Charlie Joe didn’t say anything for a minute. “I don’t believe you,” he said, finally.

  “What do you mean you don’t believe me?”

  “I mean, I don’t believe you.”

  Charlie Joe stopped walking, and for some reason, I did, too.

  “I know you hurt Nareem. I get it,” he went on. “But doing this whole phone thing with all these kids? You don’t even know half of them. You think the Elizettes are ridiculous, but now you’re all pals.” He leaned in and whispered, “You’re up to something. I know it.”

  I felt my face go hot. Was there any way he could know about my deal with Jane? I quickly realized it was impossible. “You’re being ridiculous. You’re the schemer around here, not me.”

  Charlie Joe laughed that Charlie Joe laugh. “It takes one to know one.”

  26

  TV NIGHT

  “Whatcha watching?”

  My parents looked up at me in shock after I asked the question. For good reason. It’s probably safe to say that in the past few years, the amount of times I’d wandered into the TV room after dinner to ask them what they were watching was about … let’s see … zero.

  It’s not that I don’t love TV. I do love TV. I just don’t love watching it with my parents, when I could be in my room watching it on my computer while texting my friends and sending Snapchat pictures of my dog crossing his legs like a person while lying down. (He’s so cute when he does that.)

  But that night, I wasn’t doing any of those things. Oh sure, I could have been on my computer, since technically, it wasn’t off-limits. But I had decided I was going to go all the way. When the week was over, and Jane asked me if I’d been on my computer the whole time, I wanted to be able to say “Absolutely not,” and not be lying.


  Which brings me to the part where I asked my parents what they were watching.

  “Well, honey, we’re just kind of flipping around,” my dad said.

  My mom stretched and groaned. “There’s never anything on. I don’t know why we bother.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “There’s tons of great TV on all the time.” I grabbed the remote from my dad and changed the channel to one of my favorite shows, Daughter of the Devil, about a high school girl whose dad is actually Satan. Unfortunately, right when I turned it on, the dad was in the middle of turning red and growing two horns.

  “What is this?” my dad said, and not in a good way.

  “It’s not always this weird,” I said quickly.

  My mom put the television on mute. “Can I ask why you’re hanging out with us, instead of in your usual spot at the opposite end of the house?”

  I sighed. I wasn’t really crazy about the idea of telling my parents what I was up to, because I knew they’d ask me a million questions. But I decided what the heck. It was easier just to come out with it.

  “Ten friends and I decided to give up our phones for a week. And me personally, I’m giving up my computer, too.”

  My parents stared at me as if I’d just told them I was the Devil.

  “Give up your phone, as in completely and totally not use it at all?” asked my mom.

  I nodded.

  My dad rubbed his eyes, as if he couldn’t believe it was his daughter sitting in front of him. “I don’t get it. How will you live? Isn’t your phone kind of like oxygen? Isn’t it possible you will actually suffocate without it?”

  “Ha-ha,” I answered.

  “Well, I think it’s wonderful,” said my mom. “Good for you. Is this all because of your meeting with that singer?”

  I stared at her. “That singer? That singer?!”

  “Sorry,” said my mom. “I forget her name right now.”

  “Jane,” I said shortly. “Jane Plantero. She’s a genius, so you should probably know her name.”