The Note I Gave Gabby on Monday
Gabby,
You can probably tell how demanding it is being a pom-pom girl. I really have to focus on this opportunity. After all, I’m representing our school. Anyway, I’m not going to be able to do the story thing with you anymore. I’m sure you understand.
Abigail
The Letter I Gave Old Hawk
Dear Miss Hendrick,
I know you are going to be disappointed in me, but I am quitting the kindergarten storytelling. You probably know I am a pom-pom girl now. This takes a lot of my time, and I feel I cannot devote the appropriate effort to reading to the younger children.
Sincerely,
Abigail Walters
Gabby’s Reply
Okay.
Good luck,
Gabby
Old Hawk’s Reply
Dear Abigail,
You more than disappoint me, you surprise and shock me. To commit to something and then decide not to fulfill that commitment is simply unacceptable. I was counting on you. Mrs. Carwell was counting on you. And those darling little kindergartners were counting on you too. That’s not to mention your dear, new friend Gabby Marco.
I can only hope that you do not make this a pattern in your life. If you do, my friend, you will find yourself going down a very dangerous and treacherous path.
Sincerely, your very disappointed teacher,
Miss Hendrick
P.S. And I have not forgotten that temper of yours. I’m keeping my eye on you.
Three Wonderful Things That Happened in the Next Week
1.With Gabby and Old Hawk off my back, I felt great. (Old Hawk’s lecture had been hard to take, but I found that when I crumpled up her letter and threw it in the cafeteria Dumpster, I felt A LOT better about it. I mean, I wasn’t trying for the teacher’s pet award, so why should I care if Old Hawk liked me or not? In fact, her whole sinister warning about my life going down a “dangerous and treacherous” path was actually sort of funny.)
2.I got an invitation to McKenzie’s birthday party. The party was in two weeks. It was at the bowling alley, and her parents were letting her invite boys. The only kids invited were pom-pom girls and basketball players. It would be the perfect crowd! More importantly, it would be the perfect place for my first kiss.
3.After practice, Kip always sat with me on the late bus. Having his sweaty leg touching mine was the best, most wonderful, terrifically awesome thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life.
One Thing That Made Me Realize I Wasn’t Really Off the Roller Coaster
Complete and utter exhaustion. Every night in that magic moment just before I drifted off to sleep, something in my brain made me think of Gabby.
I thought about how much fun it had been reading to the kindergartners. I thought about all the notes and pictures the kids gave us. I thought about how much fun Gabby and I had practicing after school, and all the fun we’d had that day at my house. And then I thought about what it must be like to be Gabby—having a mom who was dead and a dad who was in jail.
The problem was that Gabby wasn’t the only one who knew how much of a jerk I was. I knew too. I knew every minute, of every day, and it was making it impossible to enjoy anything.
Every night, no matter how tired I was, or how close I was to falling asleep, I’d always think about Gabby, and I would instantly be wide awake. It was like that moment when you put a quarter in the lights at the park tennis courts. One minute pitch black. The next minute bright as daylight. And the night would drag on and on. Most nights I don’t think I even slept at all.
The Other Thing That Made Me Realize I Wasn’t Really off the Roller Coaster
I found one of Gabby’s paperback books on the floor in the hallway outside our homeroom. It was a copy of Julie of the Wolves. On the inside cover in Gabby’s handwriting, it said,
Dear Dad,
Can’t wait to hear what you think. I loved this book! It reminds me of Hatchet.
The jokes and drawings you sent me in Shiloh were hysterical. I don’t know how you think up such funny stuff.
Love you,
Gabby
P.S. Pete says hi.
I flipped to the back cover and there was a message from her dad.
My Gabriella,
Loved it! You know how to pick ’em. You’re so strong! I’m so proud of you!
So happy you like my cartoons!
Love,
Dad
P.S. Your mom has to be smiling all the time when she sees what you’ve become.
Gabby and her dad wrote to each other in the margins of old paperback books? This was Gabby’s paperback collection?
I flipped through the book and noticed the margins were full of little cartoon drawings with captions underneath them. Some were related to the story and some were random, but almost all of them were really good and superfunny.
The Poster AlliCam and I Saw in the Hallway Before Homeroom
FROG & TOAD PRODUCTIONS
PRESENTS
THE THREE BILLY GOATS GRUFF
DIRECTED BY
STORYTELLING TEAM
Gabby Marco & Jackson Dawber
CHARACTERS PLAYED BY:
BILLY GOATS: Volunteers from the Audience
TROLL: Jackson Dawber
NARRATOR: Gabby Marco
One Thing I Thought About When I Saw the Poster
Gabby and I had talked about making posters for our stories, but we had never gotten around to it. I had sort of been looking forward to writing the titles of the stories in fun, fancy letters with big, fat colored markers. I could’ve made the poster look so cool, but this one didn’t look that great because neither Gabby or Jackson had very nice handwriting. But the way the poster looked wasn’t really the problem. It was the way the poster made me feel that I was having a hard time with.
Three Things That Happened Next
1.Alli said, “Jackson Dawber?! She teamed up with him?! She really is a loser!”
2.When Gabby came around the corner, Alli joked, saying, “Frog and Toad Productions? Who’s the frog and who’s the toad?”
“Does it really matter?” Cami continued. “If the wart fits, wear it!”
AlliCam laughed, and I laughed right along with them, but my heart pounded so hard and my ears rang louder than the laughter. I tried not to look at Gabby, but even so, I saw her press her lips together and take a deep breath, and I wondered if she was thinking about her mom’s saying about making lemonade.
3.Then J&M walked up, and Jackie looked at the poster and then at Gabby and said, “Gabby, really, you should just let Jackson crawl back into his hole. And you should do the same.”
And the Fab Five high-fived each other. Then AlliCam and J&M did the secret pom wave to me and rushed off to homeroom.
The One Thing I Did Next
Nothing.
Gabby and I stared at each other.
I stood as still as a statue, wishing I could turn into stone so I would not be able to feel anything.
The One Question Gabby Asked Me
“Do you have anything to say?”
My Answer to Gabby
I shrugged my shoulders and looked at the floor.
Even if I could’ve found my voice, what could I say?
Ten Things I Thought as Gabby Stood Staring at Me
1.NO ONE was a bigger jerk than I was.
2.Ditto
3.Ditto
4.Ditto
5.Ditto
6.Ditto
7.Ditto
8.Ditto
9.Ditto
10.Ditto
Even Though I Couldn’t Talk, Gabby Had Plenty to Say
“I have something to say.
“You want to know why I’m working with Jackson Dawber? Bec
ause I had a so-called friend who dropped me like a hot potato. Yeah, the minute she had something better to do, she ignored me and avoided me all day, every day. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, when she decided to notice me again, she laughed right along with her friends when they made fun of me. You’re such a follower, Abigail! And do you know what? You’re the real loser! Jackson Dawber might’ve made fun of me and teased me, but I can take that. At least he never pretended to be my friend.”
One Thing That Happened Right After That
I turned around to go into homeroom and ran right into Old Hawk. I could tell by the look on her face that she had heard everything.
Since Old Hawk Heard Everything, I Knew She Was Going to Pull Me Aside and Talk to Me, but She Did Something Much, Much Worse
Nothing.
I waited all day for her to talk to me, but all she ever did was look at me with that Old Hawk look. The one that said I had done something so terrible, so horrible, so no good, so very bad that even she, who always had something to say, didn’t have anything to say at all.
What I Did at Lunchtime
Instead of going to the cafeteria, I went into the bathroom, made sure no one was in there, and bawled my eyes out. I was the most terrible, horrible, no good, very bad person in the entire world.
I wished I could be someone else.
What I Knew For Sure
Everything Gabby said about me was true. She was right. I was the real loser. I was the one who should crawl into a hole.
Even Though I Didn’t Think It Was Possible, Something Happened after Lunch that Made Me Feel Even Worse
When I got back to class, Gabby came in late. I could tell she’d been crying. Gabby Marco, the girl who got teased and humiliated all the time and never cried, had been crying, and it was because of me.
I REALLY was the most terrible, most horrible, most no good, most very bad person in the entire universe.
One Person I Ran into When Old Hawk Sent Me to the Office to Get More Paper Clips and Staples
As I came down the hall, I saw Gabby’s brother, Paul Bunyan, standing outside the office. Oh my gosh! Had he come to yell at me about how mean I was being to Gabby? Maybe he was going to wait outside in the parking lot until I came out after school. But just before I started to hyperventilate, I realized one of his arms was in a sling. And when he turned around to face me, I saw a huge bandage on his forehead, along with a lot of scratches and scrapes on his arms and face.
When he saw me, he said, “Hey, Abigail!”
“Hi,” I said, not knowing whether to call him Pete or Paul.
“Man, on a day like today,” he said, “I’m glad Gabby’s got a friend like you.”
Obviously he didn’t know what had been going on between Gabby and me lately.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“Fell out of a tree this morning,” he answered.
“What?!”
“Yeah, I was up about ten feet at least. Still don’t know what went wrong. Really don’t know how that tree branch didn’t land right on top of me, but the important thing is I’m all right.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Came by to see Gabby. My boss called the school to let her know what happened. She’s such a worrier. I knew she’d need to see me with her own eyes to believe I was okay. Can’t really blame her for that. I’m all she’s got. Has she stopped crying yet?”
My head was spinning so fast I felt like I was falling out of a tree. A very tall tree.
“She’s doing a little better,” I lied.
I figured a little white lie making someone who’d almost just died feel better was a good thing compared to the horrible, despicable things I’d said and done to Gabby.
One More Thing That Made Me Feel Even Worse
On my way to pom practice, I saw Jackson talking to Gabby in the hallway, and it looked like Jackson was actually being nice. I couldn’t believe it! On a day when so many bad things had happened, Jackson had found a way to make Gabby smile. I was a big fat jerk, and Jackson was being nice?
What was going on here? My life wasn’t a roller-coaster ride that was out of control; it was one of those crazy fun house mirrors. You know, the ones that make you look too short and too fat or too tall and too skinny, and you’re supposed to laugh at yourself. The only problem was that there was nothing fun about the crazy mirror I was looking into right now. When I saw what I really looked like, there was nothing to laugh about.
Three Things I Began to Notice about Jackson
1.He didn’t carry around his highlighter-microphone anymore.
2.He high-fived the kindergartners when he got on the bus, and they high-fived him back.
3.He and Gabby practiced together EVERY DAY after school.
Three Things I Began to Notice about Myself
1.I was finally part of the pom-pom politics, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be.
2.Kip really liked me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted him to.
3.I was part of the Fab Five, but I wasn’t sure that was so fabulous.
The Friendly Letter I Found in the Recycle Bin When I Went to Get a Piece of Scratch Paper
Dear Brent,
Well, it’s military school for my brother, man. He was caught shoplifting last week and my dad went gonzo. He and Max got into this huge fight. I thought they were gonna kill each other. I went with my dad over the weekend to drop him off at the place. You should have seen it! It looks worse than a prison. It makes that bad boy boot camp he went to last summer look like a country club. Max was pleading with my dad not to leave him there, but we drove away anyway. It was harsh, man.
My dad didn’t talk the whole way home until we got to our driveway. Then he turned to me and said, “You better not even THINK about getting into any more trouble because you’ll be sharing a room with your brother so fast your head will spin.”
Talk to you,
Jackson
Two Things I Thought About after Reading the Letter
1.Maybe Jackson really was going to change for the better.
2.Maybe I had already changed for the worse—on top of what I’d already done to Gabby, I had just committed a federal offense by reading Jackson’s letter.
One Thing I Did
Crumpled up the letter and shoved the evidence into my backpack.
One Thing That Happened the Next Day That Made Me Realize For Sure That the Fab Five Was Not So Fabulous
When AlliCam and J&M were talking by my open locker, Gabby’s paperback book, the one I had found in the hallway, fell from the top shelf. It landed on the floor. I had wanted to give it back to Gabby, but the two of us weren’t really speaking to each other, so I had just kept it in my locker.
Before I could pick it up, Alli grabbed it and asked, “What’s this?”
Of course Jackie snatched it away from her before I could even answer. She opened it up and started reading.
“‘Dear Dad, Can’t wait to hear what you think…’ What is this?”
“Just give it to me,” I said.
Jackie turned to the back. “‘My Gabriella…’ Gabriella? Is this Flabby’s? She writes love notes to her dad in books? She’s even weirder than we all thought.”
The four of them laughed and then, thankfully, the warning bell rang. Jackie tossed the paperback up in the air, and it fell to the floor. The cover bent back, and I hoped it didn’t rip. Just then Gabby walked by. I reached down and tossed the book into my locker before she noticed it. Jackie had to be a jerk and say, “Hi, Gabriella!” in a real snotty way before she and McKenzie and AlliCam rushed off to class. I stood there feeling my face get hot as Gabby walked by me, gave me a sorry look, and went into homeroom.
One Thing I Knew For Sure about Myself
I hated who I was turning out to be.
Another Thing I Knew For Sure
I was miserable, every minute, of every day.
And the Last Thing I Knew For Sure
I didn’t know what to do about it.
The Real Truth
Actually I did know what to do about it.
I had to stand up for Gabby. And I had to stand up for myself.
The Even More Real Truth
I knew I could NEVER do that.
The Tragic Part of the Truth
If I ever did stand up for myself, poms, popularity, Kip, and probably AlliCam would all be history.
One Thing That Happened on the Way to Lunch That Made Me Feel Like Crying
I saw Jackson talking to Gabby at her locker, and he was making her laugh.
One Thing That Happened after Lunch That Should Have Made Me Want to Explode with Happiness
Kip left me a note in my locker:
Hey Abigail,
Are you going to McKenzie’s party?
Always, Abigail Page 10
