by Ria Voros
For DH, always.
DFTBA
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1: January Sucks
Chapter 2: Oh, God, I’m a Foodie
Chapter 3: Define: Geek
Chapter 4: Drowning
Chapter 5: Deli Meets
Chapter 6: Poetry What?
Chapter 7: Crushing
Chapter 8: It’s a Date
Chapter 9: Bowling Fail
Chapter 10: It’s Not Good
Chapter 11: Gone
Chapter 12: Goodbye
Chapter 13: Stuck
Chapter 14: Who We Lost
Chapter 15: Word Gets Around
Chapter 16: Apart Together
Chapter 17: Baked Goods
Chapter 18: My Way
Ashlyn’s White Chocolate-Cherry Brownies
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
New Year’s Day —
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.
– Issa
In all my sixteen years,
none has been worse than this — even the one
when I had whooping cough.
Because
not only did I get soaked by a school bus with a Lamborghini alter ego on the way to school, then had to make it through social studies in wet underwear, but now I need a chemistry tutor. A chemistry force-feeder. A raise-my-fricking-grade-or-I’m-gonna-fail messiah. Which spells emotional, social and spiritual doom. Why can’t humans hibernate in winter like bears?
Doom
First thing this morning, Mr. Marchand explained what I already knew: I failed the last chemistry test and my grade is teetering on the edge of a precipice. Much improvement needed (understatement, considering the family standard is A average). Next report card will have to be discussed with parents if things don’t change. The word “tutor” is thrown around. Doom doom doom.
But Maybe …
My best friend, Nemiah Hershey, finds me in the hall and is suitably consoling. She gets As in everything, and I’ve stopped secretly holding it against her. It’s not like she’s got a good work ethic or anything. The grades are accidental. She can’t help it.
“Why can’t you tutor me?” I whine.
This is desperation: we both know Nemiah’s allergic to being a teacher. She looks sadly at her beautiful new suede boots. “They would never go for it, you know that.”
She’s right. The Powers That Be are all-knowing. I’m hooped.
The Tooth Fairy
Ninety minutes later, I fumble to open my locker, thinking things couldn’t get any worse. I’m turning the lock when I hear the tinkling voice of someone I ordinarily like.
“Gretchen, do you have a minute?”
The tooth fairy. This is what Nemiah and I call our guidance counsellor, Ms Long, whose teeth are bigger than a horse’s — bigger, in fact, than should be crowded into the face of a person so small. She’s not that old, maybe thirties, and tinier than most of the grade eights. Her wrists are thinner than the rope we have to climb in gym. I worry about her tripping in the hall and breaking a hip. Nemiah tells me not to worry so much about other people, especially teachers. The tooth fairy perches beside me as I get my books and close my locker. (She is able to perch while she’s standing: this is a mystery.) She asks me about my day so far, my best classes, etcetera. She likes that word. She pronounces it ek-SE-tra.
“I don’t have to tell you how well you’re doing in English,” she says. “Writing, reading, eksetra, those were always my strong suit too.” She grins with those huge teeth. I know she understands me — we share a love of poetry. She’s my source of haiku. But right now there’s something else on her clipboard and I’m waiting for it to pounce.
“Speaking of fun, how’s chemistry going?” she asks.
“Love it.” Eye roll. “Kill me now.”
The hall is almost deserted — the bell will go any second. Not soon enough for me.
“I admire your candour,” she says, “but your grade is another thing. Mr. Marchand says he’s warned you that it’s not looking good. We’re going to have to talk with your parents about you getting some help.”
“Ugh. I hate help. Can’t I just struggle along and wait for a miracle?”
She gives me a long look, pardon the pun. “Let’s not let this spiral out of control, Gretchen. Do you have a plan for pulling up your grade?”
My stomach turns over a bit. “I’m on it. I already have a tutor lined up.”
“Really? Whom?” she asks.
My mouth hangs open, waiting for me to fill it with a name.
And finally the blessed bell rings. I bolt for the classroom door, giving the tooth fairy a big, stupid thumbs-up.
So now I have to find myself a tutor.
Our Mission at Carver Green High School
Please don’t feel at home; feel like a paranoid loser.
(And there’s something on the back of your shirt they haven’t told you about but keep pointing at.)
Don’t expect school to be hard work academically unless you are a science major or heading for Harvard or Oxford.
Expect school to be hard work socially, personally, spiritually, symbolically, and any other ‘ly’ there is.
Really.
The Opposite of Chemistry
The written word. Noble, incomparable English: Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Pound, Heaney, Larkin …
I am Gretchen Louisa Meyers and I love writing. It’s my word sugar. When I was little, I used to tell my sister stories to keep her from whining while we went on long, deadly family walks. Then I started writing them down in secret notebooks I hid under my mattress. Now I write poems all over the place — on candy wrappers, grocery store receipts, hidden corners of my room — whenever they come to me. Which is all the time. Hence: this book. I’m going to document my life over the next few months — who knows, maybe longer. I’m going to, as they say, poem it up.
My Guys
Haiku is an obsession of mine. Those three little lines of poetry, like the perfect snack. Easy to overlook but once you jump in, addicting.
I happened upon a book of haiku on the tooth fairy’s shelf and since then I’ve been getting my daily dose. My haiku gurus are the best: Bashō, Buson and Issa, masters, long dead and weird as hell. They rock. Consider this:
That snail —
one long horn, one short,
what’s on his mind?
– Buson
The Cliques
Why do they tell you high school is about making friends and finding out who you are, when all you really do is try to not be uncool, and fit into one of the acceptable cliques?
The Top Four:
The Legwarmers
The Drama Queens
Sport-and-Entourage
The Crunchy Granolas
None of these cliques are acceptable to us (i.e., none of them accept us), so Nemiah and I chose to be our own clique: the LOLs.
Low-Down on the Top Four
The Legwarmers are dancers, singers and dancer/singer types with lithe bodies and a large gay contingent on the male side — and this only makes them cooler, like boys dating boys = ticket to Broadway. We like them because they tend to be team players — as long as you sign up to do wardrobe or tech support in the school musical.
The Drama Queens might sound like a sect of the above, but don’t be fooled — there is very little acting skill among them. They specialize in blond hair from a bottle, flashing bare shoulders or cleavage, and outrageously expensive skin-tight skinny jeans. Favourite pastimes: bitching about how long they stood in line for their latest commercial audition and a
nnouncing which celeb they almost made eye contact with at some fancy grocery store.
Sport-and-Entourage (S&E) is pretty simple: S = big guys with small brains and small guys with big egos, and E = all the sporty or slutty girls who hang off them and wear their t-shirts like they’re Prada. Cheerleaders are a sub-sect. There are seldom great things to say about this clique, except when they make Provincials or there’s a juicy scandal involving nudity and sports equipment.
The Crunchy Granolas are harmless, meatless and often clueless, but because they are always putting up fairly aggressive posters about animal rights and deforestation, they rub some people the wrong way. And the ones with dreads scare the heck out of the Drama Queens.
The LOLs
Nemiah and I have a pact: we must maintain the integrity of our clique, above all else.
Population: 2
Status: alive, but not on the radar
Cool factor: negligible
Overview: we are not really artsy and hardly sporty and a little bit funny, but mostly we are unknown. Those of the above cliques might notice us in the hall and think, Where did that person come from? Exchange student perhaps? But beyond that, we are invisible. This has enabled us to develop our weird sense of humour. We laugh all the time.
About things that are not funny
to anyone
else.
The Poetry of Texting
Nemiah is not a writer — not even a fan of English class (even though, of course, she always gets an A) — but I have sneakily got her writing some creative things when we text. Which is a lot. The best moment of math class (aside from the bell that sets us free) is when she sends me a cryptic description of the teacher’s sad wardrobe choices.
Nem: brown suit from 1967? closet full of mothballs? WTF?!
Gretchen: 1975 for sure. notice lapels. WTF = Way Too Fashionable?
Nem: Whatcha Thinking, Freak?
Gretchen: Why The Faux-pas?
Nem: YES!
It’s not just her way of keeping in touch. It’s friend-love.
Nem: Mr. Stubbin: missed alarm b/c dreaming of Ms Walker in math again. No shower, hence greasy look
Nem: thoughts, Ms Walker?
Gretchen: Ms W: oh god, here comes the unclean freakshow with another date offer. Someone save me!
Nem: poor Ms W. we should save her.
Does That Mean We Are Exclusive?
I guess so. We don’t really hang out with other people.
Sometimes we’ll have lunch with Nina Chambers and Leanne Soper, or sit by someone’s locker while waiting for class. But Nemiah’s the only one I really talk to on the phone. She’s the one I count as my BFF. We have a bond, a silent knowledge.
When her mom went on antidepressants last year, I made a batch of cookies for her every week. Which made her cry. Nemiah, I mean. She said no one had ever done anything as nice as that for her.
I didn’t believe her — she was always getting presents in the mail from her rich, travelling aunt and uncle. But she never forgot the cookies. She got me a huge cookie recipe book for my birthday, the kind that’s filled with photos so delicious you want to lick the page.
Portrait of HIM
He is
blond hair, green eyes — not fake green, but moss — and dimples on cheeks that beg to be poked with my finger.
He is
soccer team standout, good at physics, which I am not — our kids will get that from him.
He is
Luke Bremmerman, shy in elementary but not shy now.
How would his sexy arms feel around my waist?
Desperate Times
I still haven’t found someone to be my chemistry tutor. Not like I’m holding auditions, but I’ve been going through a mental list of everyone I’ve ever talked to in this school and none of them seems like a good choice.
Dragging my feet to the water fountain, hoping the day will just end so I can crash in bed and forget everything, I notice a guy coming toward me with a bright blue t-shirt on. I’m not making this up: it says, I Heart Chemistry, in white letters. Things start moving in slow motion and a ray of sunlight hits the words on the shirt (or so it would go in the movie about my life). I wave my hand like I’m at the airport meeting a relative. The guy stops and pushes his thick-rimmed glasses up his nose. Really.
“So are you good at chemistry as well as being a fan of it?” I ask with as much enthusiasm as I can.
“Those two things happen to go together, yes,” he says. “Are you?”
“God, no. I hate it.” He raises his eyebrows so I rush on. “But I really need a tutor for Chem 11 and your shirt is very convincing. Would you tutor me? I can pay you. It’s not a problem.”
He glances down at his t-shirt. “I never thought this would be an advertisement. Surreal.”
“I know we don’t know each other, but it would really, really help me out. Just for a little while. I just need to get my grade up. Please?” I actually clench my hands together under my chin. All-time low.
He adjusts his glasses again.
“Gretchen — is this … your tutor?” Of course the tooth fairy is suddenly standing beside me. Of course she’s smiling up at both of us.
“Uh, yes?” I say, looking meaningfully at the guy, praying he’s astute at seeing desperation in people’s eyes. “He’s —”
“Going to enjoy reliving Chem 11,” he says. “I loved that class.”
“Great! James will be a fantastic tutor,” the tooth fairy says. “He just won a chemistry competition last month. I’m looking forward to hearing about a better grade, Gretchen.”
After she’s gone, I turn back to the guy — James. “Thank you for saving me, but what made you say yes?”
He shrugs. “I guess I want to spread the love. Like a chemistry ambassador. A chembassador, if you will.”
I smile and nod, thinking I’m not sure I will at all.
Recap of Xmas
Memories of the past holiday season have unfortunately not been blacked out in my brain as I would have liked, and after school today I’ll be walking into certain hell: Holiday Photo Album Night.
Mum likes to relive each festive moment by making us fix photos into a new album. We have a bookshelf dedicated to them. Our lives archived forever. Other families use their computers to keep unwanted snapshots hidden. Not us. We print them all out.
Synopsis: my father choked on a walnut at the family Xmas Eve dinner, as we made painful small talk with boring distant relatives. He required Heimliching, and this scared my sister so much she required an early night, so we got to drive home from Port Coquitlam in the pouring rain and got stuck behind a snowplough accident (why was there a snowplough on the road when there was no snow??) and got home grumpy and tired at midnight — technically Christmas day — and fell into bed without brushing teeth. Let’s just say, this bad mood and luck with traffic did not improve from then to New Year’s. Next year, all I want for Christmas is to move out on my own, get an apartment and a job, a boyfriend, and not have to spend another torturous holiday season with them.
Why I Was Adopted
Of course I wasn’t.
I only wish that would explain the weirdness and painful otherness of my family. My father is German, which means: displays of uncalled-for nudity in the house at any time and frequent humming of Bach cantatas when my friends are over.
And lest we forget: the farting.
My mother is Scottish, which means: politeness classes from birth for me and my sister (more on her below), and a formidable collection of wool sweaters.
My chatty, sporty sister, Layla, twelve-going-on-annoying, got cute ringlety pigtails as a child, while I had a bordering-on-boy-bowl-cut. Easy to do the math about that relationship.
Despite the nudity and farting, things are pretty cut and dried:
We must be good, kind little girls,
even if it kills us.
And get As, please.
(Both As and please non-negotiable.)
What I Will (not) Be
if my family has anything to say about it, is a doctor. This is because, since I was four years old and obsessed with playing doctor, I have told them that’s what I want to be.
I realized a while ago that a doctor is, in fact, not what I had thought when I was chasing everyone around with my plastic stethoscope. Doctors help people and get to be bossy (the two most alluring things to the four-year-old me), but they also have to deal with people’s body fluids and internal organs and work crazy-long hours and be around sick people all day/night.
But by the time I realized that a doctor’s life was not for me, my parents had embraced my future career with the enthusiasm of evangelists. I would make the family proud, I would make a ton of money and therefore not need to be worried about. I would meet a nice doctor-man who they would beam with pride about when describing him to their friends. And because this is their dream, I haven’t had the courage to tell them it’s a lie. They are so happy with the fantasy, and whenever I show them my English grade or a piece of writing, their enthusiasm loses steam. Translation: That’s cute, dear, but writing won’t pay your bills or give you a career or make us proud. How’s biology going?
One Thing We Can Agree On
is eating. I am obsessive about many types of food — mostly due to my family’s infatuation with mealtime in general. Take the amazing crepes we had for breakfast the other day. Thin and light, stuffed with jam and berries, oh my god. Wait, isn’t that a gospel song?
Amazing crepes! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me …
I rest my case.
We think about what to have for dinner as soon as we’re finished breakfast. My friends wonder why I’m not five hundred pounds and I can only say: good metabolism? But if they knew what my mum’s sister looked like — what my genetic future could be — they wouldn’t be jealous.
