Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Not Reading

by Tommy Greenwald

  It’s who he’s out with, who he’s currently sharing a chocolate shake with … who he’s breaking my heart with.

  (Remember when I said that Timmy wasn’t interested in girls yet? Well, scratch that.)

  Drum roll, please.…

  Say hello to Hannah Spivero.

  You’re probably wondering why I waited this long to introduce you to the love of my life.

  Perfectly valid question.

  To be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring her up at all. I mean come on, what does Hannah Spivero have to do with this book? What does the most perfect creature that God and/or the universe ever created have to do with telling people how to not read?

  As far as I can tell, nothing. So my intention was to leave her out of it—out of sight, out of mind, right?

  Wrong.

  I’ve been head over heels for Hannah Spivero since … what’s today, Saturday? Let’s see … Wednesday … Thursday … Friday …

  About seven years.

  I first laid eyes on Hannah in kindergarten, when she came up to bat in a kickball game. I was pitching. (Well, to be technical, rolling.) I was sporting that classic who-does-this-girl-think-she-is smirk as I gently guided the ball down the path to meet her girlishly uncoordinated foot.

  Well, she pretty much kicked that ball to Arkansas. I think it’s still going.

  As she rounded first base, she stuck her tongue out at me.

  As she rounded second base, she put her thumb on her nose and waggled her fingers at me.

  As she rounded third base, she wrinkled her nose at me and smiled.

  By the time she touched home plate, I was in love.

  * * *

  A BRIEF TRIBUTE TO HANNAH SPIVERO

  Hannah’s really smart, but not scary genius smart. She’s not the most creative person, or the most funny, or the most anything, really. It’s just that, well, for me, she’s the most everything. No one else even comes close, as far as I’m concerned.

  Here’s an example. If you compare Hannah to Eliza (okay, I can hear my mother’s voice saying “that’s not a nice thing to do”), Eliza is definitely prettier piece by piece, if you get what I mean. Great hair, great eyes, great skin, great everything, and flirty in a way that says, “I’m gorgeous” over and over again to every guy she talks to.

  Hannah, on the other hand, has black hair, perfectly pleasant eyes, and a tiny gap between her two front teeth that her braces never fixed. She loves life, she’s always just totally herself, and she doesn’t feel she has to broadcast to the world how pretty she is.

  Plus she loves dogs, chocolate, and The Beatles, my three favorite things in the world.

  The only downside to Hannah was her twin brother, Teddy. If Hannah is flawless, then Teddy is … well, flawful. He’s always known that I’m in love with his sister and he’s made it his mission in life to make me miserable.

  But other than that, it was no contest. Piece by piece, Eliza is absolutely prettier, girlier, flirtier, that kind of thing. But when it comes right down to it, she’s no Hannah.

  Okay, enough obsessing.

  But wait.

  Here she was, sharing a shake with Timmy.

  And it wasn’t just that.

  And it wasn’t just that they were giggling, or that I could have sworn that his left pinkie was suspiciously close to her right index finger.

  It was that they were sitting there, enjoying themselves, with what seemed like half the kids in my grade looking at them with awe and reverence. (Okay, it was probably only about ten kids, but you get what I’m saying.) Hannah wasn’t wearing anything fancy—a “Let It Be” T-shirt and black jeans—but man, she looked good.

  “Isn’t that Hannah Spivero?” Megan asked, master of the obvious.

  “Duh,” I answered.

  “What’s she doing here with Timmy McGibney?” she asked, master of the obviously impossible-to-answer question.

  “How am I supposed to know?” I said.

  Before she could ask yet another irritating question, I headed straight for their table.

  Timmy saw me coming and didn’t seem the slightest bit disturbed. In fact, he had a little gleam in his eye, like he was up to something.

  “Hey, Charlie Joe. What are you doing here? Aren’t you grounded?”

  “Of course I’m grounded. Aren’t you grounded?”

  Timmy took a deep sip of his shake, which, I had to admit, looked completely delicious.

  “I’m here with Hannah because we’re studying together for the science test.” It was a well-known fact that Hannah, on top of her countless other attributes and state of complete perfection, was extremely good at science.

  I looked longingly at the many flavors of ice cream that waited, tantalizing, just out of reach. “Why do you get to go out for ice cream to study for science? Can’t you do that at your house?”

  It was here that Hannah decided to weigh in.

  “Charlie Joe, did you get my text?”

  This was totally off topic. She sent random texts to me all the time. They were always about annoyingly pointless topics, like what time the band concert was or when the Spanish homework was due. (Basically, any text from Hannah that didn’t profess undying love was pointless.)

  I turned to look at her, which as usual hurt my eyes a little bit. It’s not like Hannah’s beauty is blinding or anything; it’s not. But she’s got this glowing thing, like she swallowed a giant light bulb or something, and when I look at her I have to squint my eyes. Although I try to make sure no one notices.

  “No, I didn’t get your text. My parents took my cell phone away.”

  “Ouch,” she giggled.

  Timmy butted back in before Hannah and I got into anything resembling a conversation.

  “Tryouts were pretty fun today, huh,” he said, gloatingly.

  “Yeah, they were super,” I replied, sarcastically.

  The lacrosse tryouts had been that morning. I didn’t exactly set the place on fire. It was pretty obvious that Timmy was going to make the lacrosse team and I wasn’t.

  And, of course, Eliza had nothing to do with it.

  Meaning, if Timmy hadn’t been so insecure, and I hadn’t been such a loudmouth buttinsky, we’d still be friends, he’d still be reading my books, and I wouldn’t be sitting here watching him go straw to straw with my future wife!

  Timmy took another long, luxurious sip of his shake, then looked at me. “You never answered my question. If you’re grounded, why are you out getting ice cream?”

  “Well, it just so happens Megan and me were at the library reading, thank you very much,” I said.

  “Megan and I,” Hannah interrupted. It was another well-known fact that Hannah, on top of her countless other attributes and state of complete faultlessness, was also extremely good at grammar.

  “Megan and I,” I repeated for her benefit.

  Timmy raised his eyebrows skeptically. “You were reading? Gimme a break.” He dismissed me with a wave of his hand and returned to his shake.

  For some reason I didn’t stop there. “That’s right. Not only was I reading, I finished Billy’s Bargain. And I’ll have you know it rocked.”

  Timmy raised his eyebrows farther than I thought was humanly possible. “You finished it? In one day?”

  I was in too deep now. There was no retreat. “Pretty much.” I started squirming in my mind a little bit.

  “Really? What happens in the end?”

  Before I could make up some sort of answer, Megan plopped down next to Hannah, as if they’d always been best friends. “I really like your shoes,” she said, saving the day yet again.

  Hannah looked at my sister in awe. She may have been a goddess in my eyes, but I guess deep down Hannah was just another middle school kid who got really excited when a high school kid paid attention to her.

  As the two girls started gabbing about footwear, I saw my opening. “Well, I’m gonna go get us a couple of cones.”

  Timmy looked at me for a minute, then
decided to go in for the kill.

  “You know what, though? When I’m not grounded anymore, Hannah and me are going to go to the movies. We’re going out now.”

  I stopped in my tracks. I started sweating. I saw my life flash before my eyes. (Sadly, a lot of it seemed to involve me adoring Hannah, and Hannah not particularly caring.) But mainly I was just completely shocked.

  Hannah looked up from her conversation with Megan, and I could tell she was about to say something.

  Thank God, she was going to put an end to this madness, and tell Timmy that that was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard.

  But all she said was, “Hannah and I.”

  The chapters are getting longer.

  I don’t know what’s happening. I’m trying to stop it, but it feels like it’s out of my control a little bit.

  I don’t blame you if you’re pretty mad at me right about now. I promised you very, very short chapters, and I’m not delivering.

  I guess all I can say is that your customer complaints are duly noted, I’m aware of the problem, and I hope to have the system running normally again as soon as possible.

  Thank you for your patience.

  There, that’s better.

  Charlie Joe’s Tip #14

  IF YOU’RE FORCED TO READ A BOOK, MAKE SURE YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS.

  To make sure you don’t get too invested in the characters or story of whatever book you’re reading, please remember these simple facts:

  1. The characters aren’t real. (fiction)

  2. You don’t know these people personally. (nonfiction)

  3. They may well be dead. (historical biography)

  4. They would ignore you in a restaurant. (sports biography)

  5. What they’re doing could never happen. (science fiction)

  6. There’s no way that awesome girl would fall in love with that dorky guy. (teen fiction)

  7. There’s no way that skinny kid could strike out that huge kid. (sports fiction)

  8. None of this will matter later in life. (math textbook)

  9. None of this will matter ever. (science textbook)

  10. Who cares? (pretty much any book ever)

  The town I live in, Eastport, is one of those towns that’s often called “a great place to raise kids.”

  I think the translation of that is “You kids have been given good schools, good teachers, good parents, good extracurricular activities, good sports teams, good arts programs, good tutors, and good guidance counselors. You kids have been given many things, and so the least you can do is take advantage of your good fortune and become extremely successful.”

  Not to put any pressure on us or anything.

  But, hey, I’m not complaining. We have an awesome beach, a pretty cool downtown, a couple of movie theaters, and an amazing place called Jookie’s (no one seems to know who or what Jookie is or was). Jookie’s is an adult-free, stress-free zone where you can play Ping-Pong, shoot hoops, listen to music, and generally not have to think about parents or grades or anything important.

  After the whole craziness at the ice-cream place, my sister and I went to Jookie’s to recover.

  I decided we should play air hockey, which is a great activity if you don’t feel like talking, since it’s too loud to have a conversation.

  Megan tried anyway.

  “THAT WAS WEIRD, HUH!” she shouted at me as she smacked the little red puck.

  “YEAH!” I shouted, as I smacked back.

  “YOU MUST BE REALLY ANNOYED RIGHT ABOUT NOW!” Megan concluded as she scored the winning goal, and both the game and the conversation were over.

  Charlie Joe’s Tip #15

  MAKE SURE YOU’VE READ AT LEAST ONE BOOK TO COMPLETION, SO THAT IF SOMEONE ASKS YOU WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK, YOU CAN ANSWER THE QUESTION.

  I think the only book I ever read all the way through was The Giving Tree.

  Have you ever read that? Man, that Shel Silverstein—one scary looking dude by the way, check out the picture on the back of the book— knew exactly how to write for non-readers like myself.

  I think the whole thing had like sixty-two words at the most.

  And yet it told the coolest story, about this little boy and his special friendship with this tree, and how the kid takes and takes and takes from the tree until the tree has nothing left to give. Eventually it’s just a stump, and when the little boy comes back as an old man, a stump is all he needs, because he just needs a place to sit. Actually, as I describe it, it sounds kind of sad, but it’s great. It’s—well, I believe the word is touching.

  Just between you and me? I have to admit I did cry a little bit there at the end.

  It’s almost enough to make someone want to read another book.

  But not quite.

  That night, as I was sitting in my room trying not to think about Timmy and Hannah, Megan knocked on my door. She came in before I could answer.

  “How about that Timmy and Hannah,” she said, plopping down on my bed.

  I pretended not to care. “Yeah, whatever.”

  “So I started Billy’s Bargain—it’s actually really good,” Megan went on, mercifully changing the subject. “The kid, Billy, goes through these ups and downs with the whole baseball thing, and by the end, when he’s pitching in the big game, I was so nervous it was like I was actually there!” She looked me in the eye. “I would think a kid like you who enjoys sports would really go for a book like this.”

  “Yeah, well I like playing sports, not reading about them,” I said.

  She got up to go. “I know, I know,” she said, giving me a sisterly smack on the shoulder—the kind that doesn’t hurt at all. “All I’m saying is, one day you might find yourself on the pitcher’s mound yourself, in a similar situation, and remembering how Billy dealt with it could actually help you deal with it.”

  That’s adorable.

  I waved what I hoped was a good-bye wave, but she just stood there in the doorway.

  “You have to start reading sometime, you know,” she said, lingeringly. “What are you going to do when the Position Paper comes up?”

  I froze. The Position Paper was the huge assignment we had to do at the end of the year, and it involved a ton of books. Even though it was still a couple of months away, the thought of it already made me break out in a cold sweat.

  I tried to shrug it off. “Why would you want to bring that up right in the middle of this wonderful brother-sister bonding moment?”

  “I’m just saying,” she said, but she decided not to push it.

  “Thanks for reading the book, Megan,” I said, meaning it.

  “No sweat,” she answered, also meaning it. “I’ll write up a detailed synopsis tomorrow after I finish the book, if you need it.”

  “Oh, I need it,” I said. She flicked my earlobe and walked out the door.

  The next week went by like a blur—if blurs take about a thousand years and move at the speed of a glacier, that is. Here’s a quick run-through.

  Sunday: Megan totally comes through for me. Turns out she finishes Billy’s Bargain in about two hours—how does she do it?—and she gives me an awesome synopsis of the book. I start to write my paper, which is due Friday, because I want to get it over with. But it’s impossible to concentrate because I don’t have my cell phone to text my friends and my dad had also disconnected the wireless on my laptop, so IM-ing wasn’t an option either.

  Adults don’t get it, but us kids NEED to be doing seven other things while we’re doing our homework. Otherwise we’re so focused on the work that we can’t focus on the work.

  So it took me about five hours to write a paper that normally would’ve taken me two hours. But I finished the stupid thing and now I wouldn’t have to think about it for a whole week.

  NOTE TO PARENTS: Our academic, social, and future economic success depends on us being able to text, IM, check Facebook, and call our friends every fifteen seconds while writing a school paper. Preferably while also playing “Ca
ll of Duty” at the same time.

  If you want us to be able to concentrate, don’t take away our distractions.

  Monday morning: I get to school and I’m greeted by the sight of Eliza Collins running up to me like she just won the lottery.

  “Did you hear Hannah Spivero and Timmy McGibney are going out?!”

  I nod and walk maybe two more feet before Jake Katz runs up to me like he owns half of Eliza’s winning lottery ticket.

  “Did you hear Hannah Spivero and Timmy McGibney are going out?!?!”

  Another nod, another two feet, and Pete Milano walks up to me and jabs me painfully in the ribs.

  “Holy moly. Hannah Spivero and Timmy McGibney!”

  Wait, is it too late to call in sick?

  Monday afternoon: The whole school is getting a huge kick out of watching me watch Timmy and Hannah sit together at lunch.

  The only one who shows any sympathy at all is Katie Friedman.

  “Men,” she said with a sigh, as we were putting our lunch trays away. It’s a well-known fact that Katie is suspicious and quick to judge when it comes to the male sex.

  “Women,” I answered.

  She laughed. “Are you okay?”

  To anybody else, I would have lied.

  To Katie, I said, “Not really.”

  She took my hand for just a second, then dropped it. Then she said, “Did you know that the average life span of a middle-school romance is nine days?”

  Katie Friedman is a good person. She deserved a smile, so I tried to give her one.

  “Only seven more days to go,” I said.

  Tuesday afternoon: In English class, things are looking up. It appears that Ms. Ferrell hasn’t found out about the little arrangement that Timmy and I had. Then, at the end of class, she asks to see my paper, even though it’s not due for another three days.

  A bead of sweat pops out on my forehead. “But it’s not due for another three days.”