The 11

by Kim Tomsic

  DEDICATION

  To my daughter Noelle, who kept me laughing

  throughout her middle school years

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER

  1

  If Dad had just dropped me off on the middle school side of Saguaro Prep, I would have had a 96 percent chance of arriving on time and avoiding the zap drama.

  But no such luck. He asked me to walk Piper into the elementary school first, and my little sister can make her brown eyes as pleading as a golden retriever’s. That only left me with T minus eight minutes before the first bell.

  We rushed from the heat into a cool office where music played from overhead speakers. The song was “Better Together,” one of Mom’s favorites. I darted a glance at Piper but couldn’t tell if she noticed the song, too, so I flicked her pinkie with mine. “You good?”

  “Yeah. You?” No signs of worry. Typical Piper.

  “Yep.” Be confident no matter what. That’s what HSMS, the How to Survive Middle School blog, had said in its current post, “Fail-Proof Formula for Winning Friends.” I rubbed my thumb over the guitar pick I kept hidden inside my pocket. “Yep.”

  “Happy Monday, girls.” The elementary principal walked over to us, her heels clicking.

  “Thanks,” Piper said. “I love your shoes.”

  Mrs. Butler said something to Piper while I glanced around for a clock. One hung above the door. T minus five minutes.

  She finished talking, and I gave my sister a side hug. “Okay if I get going?”

  “Oh,” Mrs. Butler said, “wouldn’t you like to meet Piper’s fifth-grade ambassadors?”

  According to the information given to us when we’d registered on Friday, we’d each get an ambassador to meet us at the start of the day and show us around.

  “You don’t have to wait, Megan. I can already tell we’re going to love it here.” Piper’s attitude shone like the stars on her sneakers: sparkly and happy.

  “Okay. Seeya.” I turned to leave.

  “Hold on,” Mrs. Butler said to me. “I have some printouts for you.” She picked up a porcelain cat paperweight and grabbed the printed sheets from underneath it. “Here you go. School holidays and contact phone numbers.”

  I stared at the papers, stuff that should’ve gone to Mom.

  “I hope you and Piper like it here and get involved. Saguaro Prep has many fine clubs and ‘traditions.’” Her eyes twinkled as she put air quotes around “traditions.”

  “You’ll especially enjoy our upcoming Spirit Week.”

  “Thank you.” I glanced at the clock. T minus two.

  “Right,” Mrs. Butler said. “You should run along. The fastest way to the middle school office is to cut across the lawn.”

  I hurried out and rushed back over the dried grass, nearly tripping to avoid a pile of dog poop. Dog poop! As if the first day at a new middle school wasn’t hard enough.

  By the time I got inside the building, sweat was running down my neck. It also didn’t help my look that after staying up past midnight, reading HSMS, I’d overslept and hadn’t had time to dry my hair—now it was in a ponytail of half-wet frizz.

  Add to that, I didn’t have an ambassador waiting for me.

  Then the tardy bell rang. T minus zero.

  Great.

  A student office assistant smacking a wad of pink gum filled out my late pass. She glanced up, holding her pen against the paper. “Name and grade?”

  “Megan Meyers, seventh.”

  “Reason for the tardy?”

  “Uh . . . first day.”

  The girl’s eyebrows popped up.

  I didn’t want to come off completely clueless, even though the odds of me seeming chill were equal to the probability of a meteorite landing on my roof (182,138,880,000,000 to 1). Still, I managed to say, “I already got my schedule and everything on Friday.”

  She cocked her head. “Did you go to any classes then?”

  “Um, no. It was late afternoon when—”

  The girl jumped out of her chair. In a flash, she grabbed my hand and scribbled a single word in blue ink across my knuckles—“ZAP.”

  I pulled back my hand. “What does this mean?”

  She shoved the late pass at me. “Go. You’re late, remember?” And then under her breath she added, “Rhena will finish that later.”

  “Who—”

  “Next.”

  CHAPTER

  2

  I spent all of first and second period obsessing over what “zap” meant and why that girl had written it on me. I was afraid it was some kind of hazing ritual. Or her way to tell me my teeth needed whitening—Hey, girl. Time to zap those chompers. And who was Rhena? Saguaro Prep was starting off weird to the tenth power.

  I really needed to start focusing on the new me. As much as it sucked moving to a new school in a whole other state, at least it gave me a clean slate—nobody here knew me as Miss Science Fair, the girl who snort-laughed when she spoke in public. That was in the past. But between the zap and being late, I was so thrown off that by third period algebra I hadn’t even worked up the nerve to talk to anyone yet.

  And not to be braggy or anything, but I’m good at math, so everything should’ve gone fine when the teacher called on me. If she had just asked me to solve for x or calculate five to the seventh power, I would’ve been golden. Instead she pretty much said, “Everybody look at Megan. Let’s make her feel super-awkward.”

  Okay. She didn’t exactly say those words, but same difference, because what she actually said was, “Welcome to Arizona, Megan. Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?”

  The entire class shifted to face me, which sent my stomach bungee-dropping to my ankles.

  A tall girl with a high ponytail sitting on my right smiled and nodded encouragement. Then her eyes traveled down my arm, and at first I thought she was checking out my T-shirt, my favorite from the Humane Society. It said Woofstock instead of Woodstock, which I thought was hysterical. But in about a half second I realized she was staring at the blue ink on my hand.

  “Megan?” Mrs. Matthews said, her tan sandals clacking as she walked to her desk.

  I met the teacher’s gaze, eyeball to eyeball, and tried to send my best SOS look. Teachers back home knew better than to ask me to speak in front of groups, because I’d either clam up or babble. Like at last year’s sixth-grade welcome assembly when I’d tried to recruit people for Mathletes with the motto “Join us. We have pi.” Because pi and pie.

  Hardly anyone had gotten it, or they acted too cool t
o get it, so I had kept yakking. “You know. Not apple. I mean we could have apple. Pie that is. But I’m talking about 3.14. Get it?” I couldn’t stop the word vomit. And worse, that’s when Brooke Sutherland and Ronald Miller had started calling me a dorkjob.

  But that was last year and Mrs. Matthews couldn’t have known. So I took a breath—I can do this.

  The posts on HSMS had said stuff about being bold and outgoing, as if that would ever happen. But the blog also gave me a formula so I was prepared for this moment with three simple steps: Say my name. Make them laugh. Say something impressive.

  What’s “impressive,” though?

  “Megan?” the teacher said for the second time.

  “Well . . .” My voice wobbled. “I’m Megan, but you know that.” Step one—check. “Um. Do you know there’s an Idiot’s Guide to Twitter, and an Idiot’s Guide to The Walking Dead, but not an Idiot’s Guide to Being the New Kid? I sure could use a book like that.”

  I laughed and everyone laughed with me, so I sat up and steadied my hands.

  “That would come in handy for a lot of kids, I’m sure.” Mrs. Matthews gave me a friendly smile and took a sip from her coffee mug. “Go on. Tell us whatever you’d like.”

  Now I just needed to say something impressive. “Well, I moved here from Colorado, and . . .” I cleared my throat and planned to go with the fact that I ski black diamonds and like to volunteer at the Humane Society, especially with the dogs. I can actually see a mutt and name its breed 9.5 times out of 10.

  A boy near me yawned.

  I looked around. Was anyone else yawning?

  “Megan?”

  “I ski black dogs,” I blurted. “I mean . . . black diamonds.” Then my signature snort-giggle leaked out.

  I froze. So much for a clean slate.

  The teacher nodded, waiting for me to add more to the story, but shutting up seemed like the best action plan. I stared at the sharpened end of my pencil.

  The silence in the room cued Mrs. Matthews to move on. She put her hands into the pockets of her neon-yellow capris, tilted her head, and said, “Okay. Great. Good.” Teacher code for “You are odd.”

  Eventually the bell rang, and I shot out of the classroom.

  A clamor of sweaty students spilled into the hallway, zipping around and chatting about important stuff, like what they did over the weekend and where to meet later. I speed-glanced at faces. Do I look at people and smile, or would that be creeper-ish? I should’ve Googled that, too.

  A crowd of girls blazed by in flowy skirts and cute tops. I smoothed down the pockets of my cargo shorts and hurried to the bank of red metal lockers where paper signs had been plastered everywhere—the fronts of lockers, the sides of the water fountain, and even on the ceiling. The one on my locker had a sketch of a hamburger and read, “Spirit Week! Vote Eric Burger.” Doors clanged open and shut all around me.

  “Hey. Can I see your hand?” someone said from behind me.

  I turned. It was the tall girl from math. “Hi?”

  “It’s Megan, right? I’m Ally Menendez. We just had third period together.”

  “Yeah—”

  “Your hand,” Ally said. “What does it say? Can I see?” She leaned in, her ponytail falling forward.

  I didn’t know why she was asking. She’d already seen it. But I held it out. “Zap.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Um, yeah?”

  Ally’s mouth fell open. “Nothing else?” She grabbed my wrist, flipped it over, and inspected my palm.

  Huh? I tilted my head and looked at it, too.

  “I can’t believe it! An unfinished zap!” She freed my arm and started frenzy-digging inside her backpack. “Who wrote it?”

  I shrugged and acted all chill, telling her about the girl from the office. Really, I just wanted some answers.

  “Was her name Rhena?” Ally asked, yanking a pen from her backpack.

  “No, but she said Rhena would finish it later.”

  “Figures.” Ally’s mouth twisted.

  “Okay, honestly,” I said. Students shuffled through the hallway, streaming in both directions. I moved closer and lowered my voice. “I’ve been dying to ask all morning. What does ‘zap’ mean, anyhow?” I hated letting on that I was a girl who wasn’t in the know, even though clearly I was that girl.

  “Of course you wouldn’t know what it means,” Ally said. “It’s a newbie ritual here. When somebody writes ‘zap’ on your hand, they get to write a dare, too. Then you have to do the dare by the end of the day.”

  “Oooooh . . .” Dread seeped into my pores.

  “It’s been Saguaro Prep’s underground tradition for as long as anyone can remember.” Ally continued on about zaps, and I hung on every word, getting sucked in by her breezy sureness.

  “Zaps are about fun,” she said, and I nodded.

  “They help new kids get to know everyone.” She smiled and I smiled.

  “Consider it an introduction of sorts.” Her grin grew wider, and of course mine did, too. How could it not? She was like one of those girls in a shampoo or tampon ad, marching down the sidewalk with so much confidence that people start following her just to see where she’s going. “. . . and since Rhena hasn’t finished the job her worker bee started, I will. Do you mind? Here.” She held out her hand.

  I wiped my clammy palm down the side of my shorts. “It’s a little—”

  “Yup. That’s August for you. Monsoon misery. Sticky hands, humidity, thunderstorms. You’ll get used to it.” Right on cue, a rumble of thunder vibrated the hallway windows, followed by a crack. Squeals and giggles busted from a cluster of students. “Monsoon season will move on in a few weeks. Now come on.”

  I surrendered my hand like she was a palm reader. Ally scribbled across it and then squeezed my fist closed. “Remember. You have to do it by the end of the day. Okay?”

  I nodded while the worrier in me cranked to full blast—what if the dare says I have to shave an eyebrow, or eat a cockroach? Or what if I’m given a costume to wear—or worse, what if I have to wear a bikini in the lunchroom? As a seventh grader with less boobage than probably anyone in the entire school, including Piper, I’d rather go for the eyebrow shaving.

  “I’d better run,” Ally said before heading off.

  I hurried and opened my hand. It read, “Do something EXCITING by 3 p.m. today.”

  My optimism lasted a full nanosecond and then, yhish. That might be a problem, since the biggest thing I’d ever made happen at my last school was Math Jeopardy, which had started out fun but ended in public humiliation.

  And now this zap. I kept staring at my hand. “Exciting” had been written in all caps and underlined three times. Outside the hallway windows, another crack of thunder boomed. I looked up as lightning tore a line in the Arizona sky.

  A smile inched across my face.

  This was my fresh start, and Ally believed I was the kind of person who could deliver exciting!

  CHAPTER

  3

  I leaned against my locker. A cluster of nearby students buzzed about the upcoming Spirit Week election. One girl who looked like a teacup poodle compared to the guy next to her ripped a Spirit Week sign from a locker door.

  “You cannot vote for her,” the girl said. “Can. Not. She’ll make our lives worse than reality TV.”

  “Yeah,” the boy said. “But maybe she’ll have her parents throw us a pizza party.”

  “Get your stomach in check, Tank.” The girl gave Tank a playful shove. “Seriously, though. It’s not worth it.”

  Okay?

  I waited at my locker for my ambassador another few seconds before I decided it was pointless—she had no-showed all morning and wasn’t breaking trend anytime soon. I glanced left and right, wondering which way to go this time. The layout felt like Saguaro Prep’s architect had teamed up with a video game designer to plan the hallways as a super-maze. The challenge: find your classroom and stay on your side of the invisible line dividing the lower and
upper divisions.

  I tightened the straps on my backpack and chose a hall draped with red and white streamers and a poster that read, “Spirit Week! Think outside the Bun. Vote Eric Burger 8th Grade Rep.”

  I found my history class and walked into a room that smelled like kettle corn and rain. On the side wall, rays of sunlight slanted through long windows coated with lines of drizzle.

  The only open seats were toward the back. I chose one behind a boy who was using a teeny-tiny screwdriver to tighten the sides of his glasses. On my way down the aisle, a few people smiled, darting glances at my hand.

  I hung my backpack on the chair and took a seat. The Smart Board was angled at the front of the room, and near it on a pearl-green wall was a black-and-white cat clock with moving eyes, timekeeping whiskers, and a ticktocking tail. And the weirdest thing, it looked exactly like a clock my grandma used to own. I squinted. Even the tail curled at the end with that familiar, whimsical star etched into its tip.

  The tardy bell rang, but the teacher, Mr. Kersey, seemed oblivious to the bell and kept messing with controls on the Smart Board. His polka-dot bow tie and hipster glasses sat crooked, and his spiky blond hair looked like it had been styled by static. “Ugh. I’m grabbing new batteries. Quiet discussions, people.” He scooped up his bottle of fizzy lemonade and headed out of the room.

  When the door clicked shut, the boy in front of me dropped the screwdriver into his backpack and turned around.

  “Hey. What’d you do? Switch classes?” He pushed his glasses up his nose.

  “No,” I said quietly.

  “I don’t remember seeing you in here the first two weeks of school. And I’d remember you.”

  Heat splotches crept up my neck. “Um, okay?”

  I dropped my gaze to the buttons on his blue-checkered shirt. He’d missed one. When I made eye contact again, he was waiting like he expected me to say something brilliant.

  “Um, I’m Megan.”

  “Turner. You been zapped yet?”

  “Yeah.” I placed my hands on the desktop and leaned forward, lowering my voice. “I have to make something exciting happen today. Any advice?”

  “Hmm,” Turner said. “Just don’t end up like this kid Eldon from the eighth-grade class. His zap was a major fail, and I mean major. Now he’s homeschooled.”