My Year of Epic Rock

by Andrea Pyros

  I can’t stand watching someone type. It’s torture. I either have to turn my head away or do it myself because if they make a mistake or go too slow, I get all antsy and annoyed.

  “How was your summer? Anything new?” he asked me.

  “Eh, no, nothing new. Same old, same old,” I said back, clicking on a link.

  I was glad that Tiernan hadn’t asked me anything about Brianna. It was possible he didn’t notice that my best friend wasn’t hanging out with me anymore, or he did notice and didn’t care. Whatever the reason, I appreciated it.

  He sneezed loudly. “Stupid tree pollen.” Tiernan took a tissue out of his pocket and blew his nose. “Sorry.”

  “No problem. Gesundheit,” I added. At least he was trying. When Jackson sneezes, he refuses to cover his mouth, and the only way he’ll use a tissue is if we get one for him. He totally gets us to do it every time too—I’m not going to sit there and watch him drip snot around the house.

  “Here,” I said, pointing at the screen. “This site looks like it has a ton of stuff.”

  We sat there silently for a while, looking at the screen and reading the textbooks Mrs. Delaney had dropped off. Tiernan was taking notes at warp speed.

  “Which side do you want to be?” I asked him.

  “The winning one, obviously,” he said.

  “Hey, me too!” I laughed. “Rock, paper, scissors. Best out of three.”

  I could hear snippets from the other teams working on their projects. I tried to secretly scan around to see where Shelley and Ethan were or Brianna and Chrissy—I hoped all four of them weren’t sitting together, having the world’s most amazing time, making plans to hang out after school—but I couldn’t find them.

  Tiernan, on the other hand, didn’t care who was sitting where, or who was teamed up together. He seemed…relaxed. Or oblivious, but it was relaxing being around him. I suddenly felt bad about the “Ronald McDonald” nickname Brianna had given him because of his curly hair. I’d always laughed whenever she whispered it as he walked by.

  I hoped he’d never overheard us.

  When the period was over, Tiernan and I packed up our research and hustled back to Mrs. Cook’s classroom to finalize our strategy. The other groups trickled back in behind us and started doing the same. I noticed that Shelley was doing the hair flip thing a lot but it wasn’t smacking Ethan in the face like she had me. He did have the height advantage though. Ethan seemed focused on her, listening and nodding as she talked. I wondered if he thought she was pretty. It would be weird if he didn’t. Everyone thought Shelley was pretty.

  “Nina? Over here.” I turned to see Tiernan making a goofy face to get my attention.

  Just then Mrs. Cook came over to us. “Ready?” she asked. “You two were first back, so why don’t you start us off?”

  She clapped to get the class’s attention. “We’ll get to the first few teams today and finish the rest tomorrow. Now give your full attention to Nina and Tiernan, please.”

  Gulp.

  “We’re totally, one hundred percent ready,” Tiernan said. He sounded confident. “Nina’s up first.” He pointed at me. “Take it away, lawyer.”

  I tried to say something but it came out like a whispery croak. I took a deep breath and started again. I had to stare down at my notes the entire time instead of looking up, and I’m not sure I even paused to take a breath, but at least I got through my entire argument. When it was done, my heart was racing and my face was hot, but I’d made all my points and didn’t stumble more than once.

  Okay, maybe twice.

  Tiernan went right after me. No squeaking. He sounded great, other than a mid-argument sneeze/nose blow, which I noticed made Brianna smirk and look over to Shelley to try to catch her eye. It felt weird seeing the things Brianna had always done—we’d always done—but that suddenly felt so much harsher witnessing them from a distance.

  When we were finished, Mrs. Cook wrote something down in her notebook then looked up and actually smiled! “Excellent, excellent. You two have set a very high bar for the rest of the class.”

  Tiernan poked me in the arm and whispered, “Yes!”

  I sat there, beaming.

  After that, class was a lot less stressful. Tiernan and I sat back and looked smug. I didn’t even snicker when Shelley read “Mr. Gideon Clarence” instead of “Mr. Clarence Gideon” and had to be corrected by Mrs. Cook.

  I was surprised when the ball rang. I’d actually been having fun instead of trying not to cry for a change. Thanks, Marbury and Madison!

  Chapter 7

  I waved good-bye to Tiernan and got up, walking out the door just at the same moment as Brianna and Shelley.

  “Good job,” Shelley said to me, like she meant it. I was glad I only took a tiny bit of pleasure in her earlier mistake.

  “Thanks. You guys did well too,” I said, then said to Brianna, “Um, see you at lunch?”

  “Oh, sure,” Brianna replied, and then turned around to give Shelley a huge hug good-bye. No hug for me. It kind of took the thrill out of my big Supreme Court win.

  I took a deep breath and thought about my dad’s favorite joke anytime Jackson or I act like sore losers when we play a game. Dad yells, “There’s no crying in baseball!” It’s from a movie. Sometimes it works and we stop our complaining. One time I threw a Monopoly board at Jackson’s head. There was a lot of crying that night. Thinking about Dad making his dumb joke always stops me from getting more upset. At least I could proceed down the hallway without looking all blotchy and watery-eyed.

  At lunchtime, I decided I’d wait a bit longer to enter the cafeteria so I could be sure Shelley and Brianna were sitting down and I wouldn’t be stuck there all by myself. By the time I strolled in, all casual-like, they were at a table together, of course, and laughing like always.

  “Hi, guys,” I said, putting down my bag and trying my best to sound friendly, not sulky. I didn’t entirely pull it off.

  “Tiernan sure got into the assignment today, didn’t he?” Brianna said, looking at me and then back to Shelley. I wasn’t sure what she meant, but she wasn’t trying to be nice, that was for sure.

  “Yeah, he’s really smart,” I replied. “I wish I was that smart.”

  “It makes up for his fashion sense,” Brianna said.

  “That’s harsh,” said Shelley and giggled. Unbelievable. A joke about his wardrobe. How original.

  “Whatever,” Shelley said. “I’m focused on our party anyway.”

  “Oh, yeah, your party, right. You guys are on it,” I said.

  Our party. Ouch.

  Brianna looked happy—like she’d accomplished something major. Since when was hosting a party a reason to be that proud? Buy chips, soda, and play music. Big freakin’ deal! Try winning a case in front of the Supreme Court and then talk to me.

  “I think we should ask Josh to come over early, to help us set up,” Brianna said. “And maybe Ethan too, right?”

  Josh Ricci is this teeny tiny guy in our grade with almost-white blond hair, and he’s always tagging along after whomever he thinks is popular while making mean comments about everyone else.

  Last year he got into some argument with Destiny Torres, and he pulled on her puffy coat so hard the sleeve ripped. And when we learned about Lake Titicaca in fifth grade, he didn’t stop laughing for, like, the rest of the year.

  Josh has always left me alone, but only because he hasn’t come up with a good way to rhyme my name with a gross body part. Total jerk. I didn’t think Ethan was really tight friends with him—Ethan usually hung out with more normal kids, like the ones on his soccer team, but maybe I was wrong, like I seemed to be about everything else lately.

  “Totally. Let’s have them come over extra early,” Shelley drew out the word “extra” so it sounded like she was saying something she wasn’t supposed to, then laughed like she’d made
a super clever joke.

  Hilarious.

  Shelley opened up a tiny little Velcro sandwich bag with red swirls on the front and took out a dainty, perfectly unsmushed sandwich. How was that even possible? My sandwiches always looked like they’d taken a cross-country ride on the back of a donkey by the time lunch rolled around.

  She gave her food a dirty look. “I hate bringing my lunch to school, but my mom only had big bills and didn’t want me taking a hundred dollars out of her wallet,” she said. Then Shelley noticed my brown bag and added, “Sorry, Nina, I didn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with bringing your own food, if you’re into it.”

  “That’s okay.” I didn’t want her to see that I felt bad, although I couldn’t seem to stop frowning. I felt like my lips were tugging down my entire face, all droopy basset hound style. Maybe that theory about how humans start to resemble their pets was really true.

  I forced myself to smile. A big, fake one.

  “Besides, who cares about lunch? It’s the stupidest meal of the day anyway,” I added.

  No one said anything back.

  Shelley took a bite from her sandwich. I noticed that it was peanut butter and jelly right away just from the smell.

  My stomach clenched a little.

  I realize that sitting near peanut butter is not a big deal. My mom and dad have told me that a billion times, although they follow that up with “So long as you don’t eat it. Or touch it. Or look it directly in its eye.” Ha ha. But it’s weird when the person next to you is eating your own personal poison.

  My cool uncle Mike who’s a yoga teacher insists that I’m lucky that I have food allergies, because “at least you know what your Kryptonite is.” I didn’t feel very lucky at that moment.

  I looked around the lunchroom. There was plenty of yelling and laughing and chewing and talking. Everyone seemed to be sitting where they were meant to be. Except me. I felt out of place.

  I was out of place.

  Shelley took another nibble from her sandwich. A dot of peanut butter covered the navy polish on one of her fingertips.

  Was I getting a hive? I felt itchy all of a sudden. Was I having an allergic reaction?

  I took a breath. I tried to remind myself that there wasn’t any possible way I could have eaten anything I was allergic to, since I hadn’t even put a finger near my lips, let alone taken a bite of food, but my body didn’t believe me.

  “I forgot to get my pen back from Tiernan from earlier. I’ll see you later,” I said, standing up. Brianna turned back to Shelley without a word, but that was okay, because I was freaking out and hoping my face wasn’t puffing up and if it was, that neither of them noticed.

  Brianna and I used to play the “Which is worse?” game a lot, like, “Which is worse: peeing your pants at school or being bitten by a hundred fire ants?” I couldn’t decide which was worse—having an allergic reaction, or having a total panic freak out and looking crazy in front of the two people you most wanted to look cool around.

  I could see Tiernan sitting over at the peanut-free table with some other kids. I wasn’t even sure why I’d come up with him as my excuse. It was just his name was the first one that popped in to my mind. Maybe because I’d been with him all morning. Or maybe because I’d never seen him be anything but nice—ever—and I desperately yearned to be near a friendly face.

  I hustled over, sitting down quietly at the very end of the bench, right next to Tiernan, without saying anything. I heard insanely loud laughter from Brianna and Shelley.

  “Uh, yeah, I can pretty much guarantee that whatever they’re talking about is not that funny,” Tiernan said, looking at me and shaking his head.

  I was so grateful I had to stop myself from hugging him. My breathing felt fine again. Go figure.

  Tiernan was sitting next to Madison Sullivan, who honestly used to cry every time someone even ate a peanut within twenty feet of her until, like, last year. And Pouty Heidi was there with them too, even though I didn’t think she had allergies—she’s just friends with Madison. Pouty Heidi isn’t her real name—it’s Heidi Burnett—but she never seemed to smile, so Bri and I called her Pouty Heidi behind her back all the time. The crazy thing was she looked like a young, just as pretty version of some famous Hollywood actress like Zoe Saldana. Heidi has big eyes and delicate features and a so-cute pixie haircut that would make me look like a boy.

  If I had been her, I seriously would never stop smiling.

  Shane was there too, the new kid.

  “Nina, this is Shane,” Tiernan said.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “Hi, Shane.”

  “Yo,” he said back. He was wearing a faded orange T-shirt with the name of a band my dad listens to. It made his orange hair look even brighter.

  He didn’t have any food in front of him, just a red drink box. It had plain letters and no pictures of happy fruit tumbling around, the way normal juice boxes do.

  “What’s that?” I asked him, pointing to it.

  “Oh, this is Tropical Punch Disgustingness. The other flavors I sometimes drink are Lemon-Lime Vomit, and Cherry Dog Turd.”

  I gave him a look.

  “I’m allergic to, like, everything,” he explained. “But luckily for my taste buds, I can still enjoy these wonderful allergy-free, completely man-made, not found in nature nutrition supplements!”

  He held it up before taking a big gulp and then making a fake gagging noise.

  Tiernan was cracking up. “I used to drink those stupid things before I outgrew my dairy allergy. They do, in fact, all taste exactly like a small, rabid animal died and they marinated it in a rancid Creamsicle for a year and then strained it and served it to you with a straw.”

  Tiernan grabbed Shane’s drink and waved it in Madison’s face. “Want some?”

  “Gross!” she yelled, leaning so far backward she was almost horizontal. “No, thank you.”

  It was impressive how Shane was so laid-back. If I couldn’t have anything at lunch but a weird drink, I’d be bummed. He seemed not to care at all. I could take a few stress-busting pointers from him.

  The lunch aides were clapping their blue-gloved hands, signaling it was time to start packing up our stuff to make room for the next grade. I walked out with Tiernan, making the hugest effort not to turn my head around to look for Brianna. Not looking, though, never works out for me, so of course in my quest to stare straight ahead I didn’t even notice Ethan was standing next to me until I heard him say something to Tiernan.

  “Ack!” I shrieked.

  Very smooth, Nina.

  Shelley and Brianna were right. Ethan did get cute. He got adorable. I’d caught myself staring at him a few times during class when I was totally, one hundred percent sure he wasn’t looking my way, in between bouts of moping about Brianna ignoring me. My entire range of emotions lately had been mope, sulk, stare, stare, mope, mope some more, and pity myself.

  Even Ethan’s gray T-shirt with the slightly ripped collar looked cute on him. He had a dark blue baseball cap stuck into the back pocket of his jeans. That was adorable too.

  He and Tiernan started talking about hanging out after school, and their wizards and spellcasters and a bunch of other stuff that made no sense.

  I knew that Ethan hung out with Tiernan because they were neighbors. I didn’t realize Ethan was into Tiernan’s fantasy game madness though.

  “How’s your wizard, Nina?” Ethan said, cracking up.

  “Very funny. I don’t know what you guys are talking about.”

  “You could come hang out sometime and find out,” Ethan said. “We’ll teach you. It’s not that complicated, and I bet you’d pick it up fast.” He looked right at me. And smiled, in his totally friendly, always nice to everyone, Ethan way.

  How come I never noticed how Ethan’s dark hair curled behind his ears so it was the perfect kind of messy, or
how gorgeous his skin looked? Not a bump or anything.

  I was smitten.

  Or was it smitted? Smited? Or was that when you get burned in a fire?

  I couldn’t believe we used to have sleepovers! I blushed and then got so flustered I didn’t even know what to say about hanging out or anything. So I said nothing, of course. That seemed to be my theme of the week: Nina, the great wit.

  But Tiernan dug into his bag and pulled out a video game, changing the subject and therefore saving me without even realizing it.

  “Check this out,” he said, handing it to Ethan.

  “Oh, yeah, we’re on,” Ethan said back, giving Tiernan a very gentle punch on the shoulder.

  Tiernan sneezed in response.

  Tiernan had saved me from death by shame twice in the last thirty minutes. I owed him, big time.

  “Seriously, you should hang out with us later,” Ethan said.

  Did he mean later as in Come hang out with us later today? Or like, Let’s hang in the very distant future when you stop acting so weird? Before I could figure it out, Ethan slung his backpack over one shoulder and bounced off down the halls, leaving me feeling silly and tongue-tied and happier than I’d been in days.

  Chapter 8

  I thought about asking Tiernan what the deal was with his plans with Ethan but decided against it.

  Too scary.

  Scary if Ethan didn’t want me to hang out, and doubly terrifying if he did. What would we talk about? Would I blow it?

  Instead, I did what any mature young woman would do in my shoes: I avoided the entire issue and went straight home instead as soon as school let out.

  It was a huge relief to walk inside. I was so exhausted from all the highs and lows of the day. I felt like I’d just been a contestant on a crazy reality show—like where you’re given a ball of string and three sticks of gum and have to make it out of the jungle alive. Except my jungle was Woodgrove Middle School.

  I couldn’t wait to finally crash on my bed and listen to music for the rest of the afternoon and be by myself.