My Year of Epic Rock

by Andrea Pyros

  My mom’s eyebrows were going up and down like she was sending him a secret code. The two of them were ridiculous.

  I made a big show of pointing to my mouth and how I was still chewing my chicken, and then I took a giant sip of water and wiped my mouth on a napkin before finally answering, “Fine.”

  “Were your teachers nice?” Mom asked me.

  I shrugged, “No clue. We were only there for a few minutes.”

  There were a few more totally boring questions: “Do you think that Mr. Dwyer will start with kickball in gym?” “Were your new sneakers comfortable?” “Did Mrs. Cook mention how much homework you’ll be getting?” “What day do you have art class?” But I sat and ate and didn’t talk so much as grunt and mumble, and after a while everyone stopped trying to get me to chat it up with them.

  Jackson was happy enough to tell our parents about his day and the cool gadget that Will had with him that the teacher took away because it was too loud. For my brother, that’s really big news. Admittedly, his day sounded a hundred times better than mine. At least it didn’t end in tears or a state of friendlessness.

  After dinner, I went back to my room and, standing on tiptoes on my desk chair, dug out Gingey, my old stuffed gingerbread man that I keep hidden in a box up high in my closet. He was missing his eyes and nose and was so matted he wasn’t even soft anymore, and his fur was more of a dirty brown than chocolate brown.

  I lay in bed holding him as tight as I could and cried until I finally fell asleep.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning when I woke up, I felt happy for about fifteen seconds, until bam, I remembered the day before—Brianna and her arm warmers, Shelley and the Nutty Buddies, the gray circle next to Brianna’s name when she logged off. Worst day ever. I’d hit bottom. My only hope was that there was no other way to go but up.

  But when I got to Mrs. Cook’s room, I realized that it was possible I’d be stuck flailing around at the bottom for a while. It wasn’t like anything had changed. Brianna wasn’t waiting outside the classroom door for me the way she always used to. Instead, she was already inside, actually kneeling on the floor next to Shelley’s chair so as to better look up to her, laughing and waving her hands around like she was telling an exciting story. I caught a few words like “cross-eyed,” “loser,” and “worst outfit ever!”

  But I sat down next to them again and tried for a big smile. “Hi!” I said. I waved a giant, “I’m on a Thanksgiving Day Parade Float” kind of wave.

  “Hi, Nina,” Shelley said to me, flashing a huge, hard-to-believe-it-was-real grin. Maybe she was part robot.

  “Yeah, hi, Nina,” repeated Brianna. No smile there, not even a fake one. Or much in the way of eye contact.

  Then Brianna resumed her conversation, quieter this time. She was either deliberately trying to keep me from hearing or just didn’t realize I was shut out. I unzipped my backpack and peered in as if there were a very important item at the bottom. If I’d been able to dive in headfirst and zip it back up around me to avoid having to witness Brianna suck up to Shelley, I would have.

  The whole spectacle was the grossest.

  Mrs. Cook came in and took attendance, then started in on her lecture about the three branches of government. When the bell rang, she sent us on our way to second period.

  “Bye,” I called to Shelley and Brianna, hoping my tone was just casual enough.

  They looked at me blankly.

  “See you at lunch,” Brianna said back absentmindedly over her shoulder.

  Wait! Did she want me to sit with them?

  “Totally!” I said way too happily, like I’d won a million dollars. I almost skipped to math class. I replayed the moment in my mind all the way down the hall.

  Maybe I had done something to make Brianna mad and now she wasn’t upset anymore. I bet she’d say something to me—it’s not like Brianna ever kept her opinions to herself. Once in fifth grade I told Alexis that Brianna thought Thomas Aronstein was a good athlete—which he is, everyone knows that!—and Brianna was so mad she screamed at me and then didn’t talk to me for, like, almost a week, because she said it made it seem like she had a crush on Thomas. Which she did. In order to get her to talk to me again, I had to apologize about twenty times and buy her a “Forgive Me” card from the drugstore.

  I still don’t think I did anything wrong.

  Would Brianna, Shelley, and I have sleepovers now, all three of us? Maybe Shelley was a lot nicer than I thought. Shelley was probably just cautious with new people because everyone judged her for being so pretty and because everyone made such a big deal out of her when she moved here.

  I wondered what her house was like. Would she want to come over after school with Brianna some time? Would it be weird to have snacks after school? What if snacks were so not seventh grade? All that thinking about food made me wish I had a slice of blueberry buckle cake.

  After math was over, it was time for language arts with the ancient Miss Teitlebaum. She was so old that I know parents of kids in my grade who had her as a teacher. Miss Teitlebaum had what looked like one long strand of hair wrapped around her head in a big circle. Also she smelled like corn on the cob. One time I heard she fell asleep during class and no one woke her so she was still snoring when the bell rang.

  After my morning classes finally wrapped up, I went to my locker to get my lunch bag and headed into the cafeteria as quickly as I could. The sixth graders were only halfway through their allotted eating time, and they were yelling and acting totally immature. I saw one boy sneak up and wipe his hand on the back of a girl’s shirt and then race back to a group of other boys, laughing and pointing.

  The seventh graders were just filing in. I looked around and caught sight of Brianna, who was searching the room for someone. Was it me? We hadn’t staked a claim to our table yet.

  I walked over to her, smiling.

  “Oh, hi, Nina,” Brianna said, but she didn’t really even look at me.

  No. It wasn’t me she’d been looking for.

  “Hey, Brianna,” I said hesitantly. “Is everything okay? You know? Like, in general? Are you mad at me?”

  She looked uncomfortable and almost annoyed.

  “Of course everything is totally fine. It’s all good. Have you seen Shelley? Oh, wait! There she is! Shelley!” Brianna raced over to Shelley and gave her a huge hug and pointed to the table near where she’d been standing. She pulled Shelley over by the hand.

  “I saved us seats,” Brianna said to her. I sat down at the table and put my brown paper bag in front of me too.

  “Oh, awesome,” I said, even though she hadn’t said a word about saving me a seat. I hoped it was because she just assumed I’d sit with them, but deep down, I realized I was being pathetic. Brianna was crystal clear about telling people what she wanted. It’s not like she’d transformed into a new, less bossy or opinionated person after a month in Italy. If she’d wanted me to sit with her, she would have invited—no, insisted—that I join them. She wasn’t insisting because she didn’t care.

  Great.

  “Let’s go buy lunch,” Shelley said, dropping the striped hoodie she’d tied around her waist down on the bench. “Are you coming?” Shelley asked me.

  I pointed to my lunch. “No, I’m all set.”

  The two of them walked off to wait in the cafeteria line together, not even looking back at me once.

  “Yeah, see you guys,” I mumbled, taking out my pretzels and hummus and crumpling my stupid babyish paper bag into a ball. My lunch looked seriously unappetizing.

  I watched all my classmates inching forward in line, waiting for their lunches. It seemed like forever before Brianna and Shelley finally came back with their trays, laughing and giggling as they sat down, Shelley next to me, Brianna directly across from her.

  “It would be awesome, right?” Shelley said. “Right?” she turned to m
e.

  “What would?” I looked back and forth at both of them, confused.

  “Tell Brianna she has to help me throw a big party for Halloween. There’s nothing else to do around here except for that joke of a talent show,” Shelley said. “And hardly anyone goes to that.”

  Brianna didn’t look at me—she was too busy staring at Shelley.

  “Oh, yeah, a party sounds awesome,” I mumbled, jamming a pretzel into my mouth.

  “We could come up with a funny nickname for us. Sheliana’s Massive Party? Brelley’s Big Bash?” Shelley said. “You’d come, right, Nina?”

  She turned back to Brianna, shrieking excitedly. “We have got to get that mint chip gelato like we had in Italy! I’m so sure my mother can find it for us in the city.” She put her hand under her long hair and flipped it back over her shoulder. A strand got stuck on my lower lip. Ick.

  She turned to face me again, and I tried to lean away from her in a non-obvious way—I didn’t want another mouthful of hair.

  “Do you eat gelato, Nina?” She stared at me. “It’s kind of like ice cream. Only way better.”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never had it.” I felt my face get hot and red. “It sounds great though.”

  “Oh my god, gelato is soooo good. But it probably has eggs, so she couldn’t eat it,” Brianna said, flicking her wrist in my direction.

  I wanted to feel like I was part of the conversation, instead of sitting there dopily, so I said, “Actually, I love smoothies. Brianna and I both do, right?”

  Shelley looked at me kind of confused—she lifted up both her brows super high, like maybe she didn’t understand what I was saying and was waiting for me to clear things up. I felt like the biggest dolt.

  Why had I just said that?

  Yes, Bri and I sometimes get smoothies at Kickin’ Koffee, but it wasn’t, like, our official drink or anything.

  Brianna seemed embarrassed. She made a frustrated “gaaaa” sound with her breath, pushing the air out of her mouth.

  “Yeah. I mean, they’re fine,” she rushed in, shrugging. “But I’m into macchiatos now. They’re a million times better.”

  There was another awkward pause.

  “Remember that hot guy working at the gelato place?” Shelley started laughing and Brianna did too. They tried to tell me their “hilarious” story about the gorgeous Italian guy who was so much older who flirted with them, but they were laughing so hard they could barely get the words out and wound up talking to each other instead of me.

  I mean, I like hot guys too, but how was this so funny to them? They were acting the way Jackson does when he watches that commercial where a baby in diapers throws a baseball and hits his dad in the crotch. Cracks Jackson up every time.

  “Sorry, you must think we’re so crazy!” Shelley wiped her eyes because she’d cried from laughing so hard. Then she looked down at her tray, which she hadn’t even touched.

  “This food is gross. I have so lost my appetite,” and she shoved the tray to the other side of the table.

  “Me too!” Brianna pushed her tray away right in mid-chew. I rolled my eyes. Brianna never loses her appetite. Served her right if she were starving.

  I looked at the wall clock. Maybe the gods of time would smile down on me and the minute hand would hurry up and move so I could be done with sitting there. But no, of course not. Finally I stopped listening to them. I imagined that my face was flushed and blotchy, so I pressed my water bottle against it to cool myself off. It felt nice. The bell rang, and Shelley stood up fast, with Brianna popping up right after her.

  Ethan walked by with some kids from his soccer team. He was barely out of earshot when Shelley whispered to Brianna, “Ethan got totally cute, right?” in the loudest voice a whisper can make, like she didn’t mind at all if someone heard her. They both giggled again and were already walking off before they heard me call out, “Good-bye.”

  Chapter 6

  “Hold this, Orlando,” Mrs. Cook strode into our classroom the following morning with two jumbo-sized white plastic jars labeled “1” and “2”—they looked like they used to hold about fifty gallons of mayonnaise—and handed them to Orlando Rodriguez, who got so startled his glasses slid off his nose.

  “Pick one piece of paper from each,” she instructed him. “Tell us what each ones says.”

  Orlando reached in to the “1” jar. “Shane McCormick.” Orlando looked over to where the new kid in school was sitting. Shane lifted up his hand and gave the class a “Yo.”

  Then Orlando pulled a scrap from the second jar. “Tinker v. Des Moines.”

  Mrs. Cook handed the buckets to Shelley, who was sitting next to Orlando. Shelley unfolded her paper. “Ethan Chan,” she read out loud and smiled at Ethan—all her teeth showing.

  “Present,” said Ethan. Shelley giggled and actually blinked her eyelashes a bunch of times. She read the second scrap: “Gideon v. Wainwright.”

  Mrs. Cook went around the room, letting the first half of the class pick names. As I waited for the bucket to get to me, I crossed my fingers that I’d get Brianna, but when I unfolded the little piece of paper, I saw that I’d picked Tiernan Albert instead.

  “Tiernan.” My voice sounded squeaky when I said his name out loud. “Marbury v. Madison.” I slunk lower into my seat as Mrs. Cook finished going around the seats, pairing up the whole class.

  I had no clue what our teacher was planning, but already I didn’t like it. Chrissy picked Brianna. Shelley was clearly psyched when she said Ethan’s name—I would have been too. But I was stuck with Tiernan Albert! I had to admit, Tiernan was perfectly…fine. And super smart. He was just a bit different. He wore crazy hats and carried a rolled up comic book in his back pocket every day, and he and his friends all hung out after school and played some insane game that took about six years to finish. Years. Not hours.

  Tiernan’s mom and my mom were friends. When we were babies, they met at the park while Tiernan and I were on the swings. His mom has white hair even though she’s not that old, and she leaves it long and loose and curly. It’s really pretty. Mrs. Albert cracks my mom up. I can always tell when they’re on the phone together, since my mom is usually not cracking up otherwise.

  Still, I’d been hoping to get paired up with Brianna. But at least she wasn’t with Shelley, so I could take comfort in knowing they weren’t going to be plotting their social takeover of the school in the immediate future.

  “Okay, move your seats around. Sit with your partner,” Mrs. Cook instructed us, pulling out the chair from underneath Orlando so he almost fell backward. She didn’t seem to notice. “Up! Up!” The room was filled with laughing and noise for a few minutes as we all got up to find a spot next to the right person.

  “Hi, Nina,” Tiernan said cheerfully. His reddish-brown hair was curly and wild and bushy, and he had on a black T-shirt that read, Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think. I didn’t even understand what that meant.

  “Hey,” I replied. I felt like being rude because that was the kind of mood I was in. I had to force myself to smile—even though I could only manage a grimace.

  Mrs. Cook cleared her throat—actually, she pretty much just said “Ahem,” but with some extra throaty noise for added emphasis. Everyone stopped talking right away.

  “What are these names you read out?” she asked. She looked around.

  “Famous court cases?” Jody said.

  “Yes, good, Jody. I paired you up for today’s assignment. You’re going to go together to the library to research the Supreme Court case you’ve been given, working together for the half hour to find out what you can about the case: what happened, who was the petitioner and who was the respondent, how the court ruled. I’ll also want you each to pick a side—toss a coin to decide if you need to—and argue it for the class based on the arguments the attorneys made originally. If you don’t agree with your s
ide, that’s fine. I just want to hear the key points made to the court. Got it?” A few people raised their hands, but she ignored them and sent us off to the library, reminding us to return when it had been thirty minutes.

  “Don’t make me come find you,” she added ominously.

  “Cool project,” Tiernan said as he was gathering up his backpack. Maybe for him. But the idea of making an oral presentation to the whole class hardly seemed appealing to me.

  “Come on,” he said, motioning for me to follow him. “Let’s grab a computer before anyone else does.” We race-walked together to our school library, Tiernan laughing a fake evil laugh when we heard “Wait!” and “Hey!” calls from behind us.

  “Suckers!” he yelled back as he swung open the glass library door, not at all sheepish when Mrs. Delaney, the librarian, looked up at him from behind her tall wooden desk.

  “Hello, Tiernan,” she said.

  “Hey, Mrs. Delaney,” he waved. “Sorry for yelling. We’re here for Supreme Court research.”

  “Go find two chairs. I’ll bring over my best books.” She pushed her rolling chair back and stood up.

  I gave Tiernan a glance. Mrs. Delaney wasn’t normally that helpful with the rest of us. She thought we’d mess up her pristine space by actually using it.

  “I’m here a lot after school,” he said, shrugging, as we found a computer and sat down. “When my parents divorced last year, I started coming here to do my homework and wait for my mom to get me after work.” Then he shrugged again, in a whatever kind of way.

  “That’s…that must have been…I didn’t know…” I trailed off, unsure about what to say. I know a ton of people get divorced, but it’s still a bummer when it happens. Plus it makes me all paranoid about my own parents.

  “Yeah, it was lame at first. Now I’m used to it. It’s not so bad. Everyone told me about the double presents I’d score for my birthday, and they were right.”

  Tiernan started typing, but I nudged him aside. “Here, I’ve got it,” I said.