Do you want to go with me?
My dad said he’d drive us and pick us up.
See ya around,
Kip
The Only Two Things I Could Think About during My Afternoon Classes
1.My first middle school party, and Kip wanted to take me.
2.I should’ve been the happiest girl in middle school.
The One Question I Asked Myself
(Even Though Deep Down I Knew the Answer)
Why wasn’t I?
The Bigger Question I Asked Myself
Was I brave enough to do something about what I knew deep down?
The Most Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Thing That Happened in the Hallway Later That Day after School
When I came down the hall on my way to pom practice, I was thinking about telling Ms. Jensen I didn’t feel well. The last place I wanted to be was at pom practice, and saying I was sick wouldn’t really even be a lie. I was sick. Sick of everything and everyone—poms, the Fab Five, Kip, and most of all myself. I just wanted to go home, or better yet crawl under a big rock and not come out for a very, very long time. Maybe never.
I saw a crowd of people outside the gym. When I got closer, I saw Kip.
I realized right away what was going on when I heard someone say, “Troll Prince Jackson probably kissed her, and that’s how she got so ugly.”
Gabby was kneeling on the floor on the other side of the hallway painting something on a piece of poster board. She acted like she didn’t hear what everyone was saying about her, but she slid herself, the poster, and all her paints farther down the hallway away from the crowd and kept working on her sign. She had that weird bizarro-laugh look on her face.
Then I recognized Kip’s voice saying, “Yeah, first she was an ugly toad. Then he kissed her, and she got even uglier.”
Kip’s cute, dimpled smile didn’t look so cute anymore. I thought about his note in my pocket.
Jackie shook her pom-poms. “Give me a U!”
“U!” everyone shouted.
“Give me a G!”
“G!”
“Give me an L!”
“L!”
“Give me a Y!”
“Y!”
With each letter the crowd yelled, I felt the hot lava of anger and shame bubble closer and closer to the surface.
And when Jackie shook her pom-poms and yelled, “What does it spell?!”
I exploded like a volcano that had been brewing and boiling and bubbling for centuries.
“SHUT UP!!!” I screamed, running toward the group.
I threw my backpack and gym bag down. I rushed toward everyone, kicking and pushing backpacks and books that were in my path.
“SHUT!!! UP!!! JUST SHUT UP!!!”
My words were like hot, molten lava spewing everywhere.
“ALL OF YOU JUST! SHUT! UP!!!”
Everyone stood, frozen, staring at me.
I stopped screaming.
Breathing hard, I looked around at all of them.
No one knew what to do.
Notebook paper, folders, pens, and pencils that had spilled out of the open backpacks were scattered everywhere like the aftermath of a hurricane. It was like the calm after the storm.
Kids started giving each other weird looks.
I heard someone say, “That was random.”
“Totally,” someone else agreed.
A bunch of the seventh- and eighth-grade poms said, “Whatever,” as they gathered up their bags.
Finally Mr. Harmon, the basketball coach, stuck his head out the gym door and blew his whistle. The basketball players grabbed their stuff and hustled into the gym, probably faster than they ever had before.
I turned around and picked up my stuff. I still didn’t look at Gabby. I couldn’t, but I could feel her looking at me from down the hall as I followed AlliCam and J&M into the sixth-grade practice room.
Four Things That Happened before Ms. Jenson Got to Pom Practice
1.Jackie said, “We better be careful what we say around here or Abigail might freak out.” The four of them laughed.
2.“Maybe she should stick to reading picture books with her little frog and toad friends,” Jackie said to McKenzie.
“Just shut up,” I said.
3.“You know,” Jackie continued in her smarmy, sarcastic voice, “since you and Gabby get along so well, maybe your family could adopt her. Then you’d be sisters. Maybe she wouldn’t be such a freak if her crazy brother wasn’t raising her.”
“Jackie, you better shut your mouth!” My voice got louder.
“Oooooh,” Jackie said, pretending to be afraid. “What are you going to do? Tackle me or something?”
4.Jackie turned and whispered to McKenzie, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Can you believe she really thought that the star by her name on the pom roster meant she was going to be captain?”
“The only thing she could be captain of is the kindergartners,” McKenzie added.
“Or the freaks,” Jackie said. “We should’ve hidden Ms. Jenson’s note even longer.”
I couldn’t believe it! They’d hidden Ms. Jenson’s note and let me think I’d been made captain of the squad? I wondered if AlliCam had known about that. How could I have even wanted to be part of this group?
Nobody said anything while the “malicious” (to use one of Old Hawk’s vocab words) truth hung in the air.
Jackie and McKenzie threw their heads back and ran their fingers through their long, shiny, shampoo-commercial hair, as if they were waiting to be crowned Queen of Mean or something. AlliCam just stood there.
The silence felt full. Full of questions.
Would my best friends and so-called sisters stand up for me? Would I ever really be part of the Fab Five? Would I become the next Flabby Gabby of Crestdale Heights?
No one had the chance to answer any of those questions.
The Really Surprising Thing I Did
I laughed. I laughed like I’d never laughed before. In the most bizarro way I knew how.
The Really Surprising Thing That Happened after That
AlliCam and J&M didn’t know what to do. And none of them had anything to say.
The Really Surprising Thing I Realized While I Was Laughing
Bizarro laughter was the ultimate secret weapon. It was the best way to turn lemons into lemonade.
It was not only how Gabby survived being the outcast, it was how she survived everything that happened to her. Her laughter took the power away from everyone and everything.
Gabby wasn’t an outcast. She really was a genius.
Two Things I Did after I Stopped Laughing
1.Felt Kip’s note about McKenzie’s party that was in my front jeans pocket.
2.Looked over at the bulletin board in the corner and saw the reminder Ms. Jenson had posted about the pom squad photos coming up in just two days. My to do list was posted right underneath it.
The New To Do List I Thought of in My Head While Everyone Continued to Stare at Me
1.Stand up for Gabby.
2.Stand up for myself.
The Thing I Said to Ms. Jenson When She Got to Practice
“I quit.”
And AlliCam and J&M gasped like someone in the circus had just fallen from the high wire. And I put a check mark behind “Stand up for myself” on that to do list in my head.
The Thing I Did after That
I went and sat on the late bus and waited for practice to be over.
The Thing That Happened When AlliCam Got on the Bus
They walked past my seat and sat in the back of the bus.
The Thing That Happened When Kip Got on the Bus
He walked past my seat and sat across from AlliCam.
The Thing That Happened When Gabby Got on the Bus
; She saved a seat for Jackson.
The Thing My Mom Asked Me When I Got Home
“Need me to wash your pom uniform for Saturday’s pictures?”
The One Answer I Gave
“Yes, I need it washed, but not for pictures. I’m giving it back to Ms. Jenson tomorrow.”
The One Thing That Surprised Me
My mom wasn’t all that surprised when I told her what happened.
The Place I Asked My Mom to Drive Me to That Night after Supper
The bookstore.
The Thing I Put in Gabby’s Friendly Letter Mailbox the Next Day
A copy of The Little Engine That Could.
The Thing I Wrote on the Inside Cover of the Book
Dear Gabby,
You’re like the little blue engine—always willing to rescue someone who needs help. You make people do things they never thought they could do. Anyone who has you as a friend is lucky.
Even though there’s no way to tell you I’m sorry, I want you to know that I am. And even though there’s no reason for you to forgive me, I hope that maybe someday, maybe somehow, you will.
Your friend (I hope),
Always,
Abigail
The Book I Took from Old Hawk’s Classroom Library That Afternoon during Silent Reading Time
Hatchet.
I decided since Gabby liked it so much I should give it another try. Besides, it would be another book Gabby and I could talk about if she ever decided to forgive me.
The Next Day I Found the Best Thing Ever in My Friendly Letter Mailbox
A copy of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.
Why The Three Billy Goats Gruff Was the Best Thing I’d Ever Found in My Friendly Letter Mailbox
It was from Gabby.
The Thing Gabby Wrote on the Inside Cover of the Book
Dear Abigail,
I forgive you.
Hope you’ll trip trap back to kindergarten and tell some stories with Jackson and me. (He’s not as much of a troll as we thought.)
Your friend,
Gabby
(Next to her writing, Gabby had labeled the three billy goats on the title page—Jackson, Abigail, and Gabby. Underneath that she’d written, “We’re a trio, so trolls don’t scare us!”)
Ten Things I Learned in Sixth Grade
1.Pom-poms wasn’t the best thing about sixth grade.
(It ended up being the WORST thing.)
2.Being Gabby’s friendly letter partner wasn’t the worst thing about sixth grade.
(It ended up being the BEST thing.)
3.Gabby and I love to talk even more than AlliCam and me. We’ve already had four sleepovers, and we haven’t gotten one bit of sleep at any of them because we always stay up all night talking.
4.Gabby’s dad will be getting out of jail in less than two months. He’s finished a whole book of cartoons, and Gabby and I are going to turn some of them into stories to tell the kindergartners. Imagine how surprised he’ll be.
5.Having Old Hawk for homeroom and language arts wasn’t the worst part of sixth grade either.
(It ended up being the other best part.)
6.Sister rituals don’t really work. (Thank goodness.) AlliCam and I don’t really talk much anymore, which is fine by me. Sometimes you just have to move on.
7.Kip Thompson might be one of the cutest guys in school, but he isn’t the coolest. (He only thinks he is.)
8.When Jackson Dawber doesn’t carry around his highlighter-microphone, he’s not that bad of a guy.
(The kindergartners actually love him.)
9.Laughter isn’t just the best medicine; it’s the best way to turn lemons into lemonade.
(Which happens to be the cure for pretty much everything.)
10.A lot of things in sixth grade didn’t turn out the way I planned. They turned out even better.
The Friendly Letter I Wrote to Old Hawk at the End of the School Year
Dear Miss Hendrick,
I have to admit, when I got to sixth grade, I wasn’t too happy to be in your homeroom—for lots of reasons. But now, it’s the end of the year, and I can honestly say, you’re one of my favorite teachers—for lots of reasons.
Your friendly letter assignment, which I HATED in the beginning of the year, “literally” (aren’t you proud I’m using one of your vocab words?) changed my DESTINY, so thank you!
Always,
Abigail
Always, Abigail Discussion Questions
1.Do the characters in Always, Abigail remind you of people you know? If yes, who and why?
2.In what ways does Abigail change from the beginning of the book to the end?
3.Why is Gabby Marco so unaffected by the teasing and bullying?
4.Why does Jackson Dawber bully people? Why does he stop? Why do the pom girls tease and bully? Do you think they’ll stop?
5.In what ways are Abigail and AlliCam alike? In what ways are they different?
6.Which character in the book would you like to be friends with?
7.How does Abigail feel about Old Hawk at the beginning of the book? How does she feel at the end? Why do her feelings change?
8.Do you think Abigail and Gabby would have become friends without the friendly letter assignment? At what point in the story do you think they really become friends?
9.Why does it take Abigail such a long time to do the right thing? Do you think that happens in real life?
10.Do the events in Always, Abigail remind you of things that have happened in your own life or at your own school?
For more discussion questions, classroom activities, and a Common Core-aligned educator guide, visit www.sourcebooks.com/resources/educators-guide.html.
Acknowledgments
In true Abigail fashion, eight important thank-yous:
1.To Dominique Raccah for building a company like Sourcebooks where an author like me gets to watch her stories become beautiful books.
2.To all my wonderful friends at Sourcebooks for all you do to make my books become more than I ever thought they could be. I’m so happy to be doing books with all of you!
3.To Aubrey Poole, my editor, for loving Abigail the same way she loved Ratchet and for knowing exactly how to help me make my characters and their stories the best that they can be. I absolutely LOVE working with you!
4.To Holly Root, my agent, for giving Abigail and me a chance. If it weren’t for your belief in me and your persistence with my work, Abigail would still be a bunch of lists and letters tucked away in the bottom of a drawer. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being in my corner with me!
5.To my writing friends who make me a better writer and a better friend.
6.To my family who always supports me and now tells everyone who will listen that I am a published author.
7.To Ron and Chaylee for all the pom-poms of love and support you always wave for me. I couldn’t do any of this without you, and I wouldn’t even want to.
8.To God for blessings beyond what I could ask or imagine! My heart overflows with gratefulness.
About the Author
Nancy J. Cavanaugh lives in Florida with her husband and daughter. She spends summers eating pizza in her former hometown of Chicago. Always, Abigail is her second middle grade novel. Her debut, This Journal Belongs to Ratchet, received the Gold Medal in the Florida State Book Awards and earned a Kirkus starred review.
Like Abigail, Nancy enjoys writing lists. Her secret to turning an unproductive day into a productive one is writing a few things on her to do list that she has already accomplished just so that she can cross them out.
In the past, Nancy’s lists helped her stay organized as an elementary and middle school teacher and also a library media specialist. Presently, her lists help her organize her life as a writer. Nancy enjoys doing school visits
and writing workshops as well as sharing teaching ideas with librarians and teachers at conferences. Visit her at www.nancyjcavanaugh.com for more information.
Also by Nancy J. Cavanaugh
THIS JOURNAL BELONGS TO RATCHET
Always, Abigail Page 11
