ME. Pretty good, thanks.
JENNIFER [shyly]. Say, Greg, do you mind if I ask you something?
ME. Not at all.
JENNIFER [adorably]. Well, I’m having a party Saturday night, and I was wondering if you’d like to come—with me, of course.
ME. Mm… okay. Sure, Jen. Sounds good.
JENNIFER [excitedly]. Oh wow! Great!
Not for one second did I stop squeezing the little rubber ball in my hand. I swore no matter where or when I met her, my forearm vein was going to be humping out. Like a python on a sidewalk.
She wasn’t in any of my morning classes, and I didn’t see her in the hallways. When I couldn’t spot her in the lunchroom, I really started to worry. Afternoon: still no Jennifer.
At the bell I rushed outside and hung around bus No. 4, the one she always took. I saw every person who got on, saw the bus take off, without her. Squeezing the rubber ball like mad, I ran back inside, to the office.
The secretary looked up. “Yes?”
“Uh—it’s not important, just wondering about something.”
“What is it?”
“Uh—a student, ninth-grader, I think. A girl.”
“What about her?”
“Well—uh—ah never mind—”
I bolted from the office, my face on fire. I couldn’t do it. But I had to. Couldn’t. Had to. Suddenly, coming toward me in the dusky hallway, one of her friends. We passed. I turned, kept walking backward, called, breezily, “Hey—Karen.”
She turned. “Hi.”
“You—uh—still friends with that girl? What’s her name? Jennifer something?”
“Wade?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“What about her?”
We were still backing away from each other, so we were practically shouting by now. “Didn’t see her today!”
“I know!”
“She sick?”
“She moved!”
“What?”
“Moved! To Conestoga!”
I breezed on out the door, nonchalanted it down the steps, whistled a football fight song, cooled it all the way out to the curb, where the last bus was leaving. I stood right behind it and let its gas-fart smother me; then I wound up, and with all the summer and strength in my arm, I fired the rubber ball. It hit right where a bug-eyed seventh-grader had his stupid nose mashed against the back window.
Megin
I THOUGHT Sue Ann was going to pee herself, she was so excited.
“D’jah hear about the girl from California?”
“From where?”
“California!”
“What about her?”
“She’s here!”
“Who?”
“The girl from California!”
“So?”
“Didn’t you hear about her?”
“Sue Ann, we just started junior high school an hour ago.”
“I know, but everybody’s talking about her already.”
“What about her?”
“I don’t know, all kinds of stuff. They said she’s really something.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Really something.”
The girl from California—that’s all I heard about. Every five minutes Sue Ann came rushing up with a new report: “She wears silver sandals!” “An anklet!” “Two anklets!” “Green toenail polish!” “Green eye shadow!” “Big hoop earrings!” “Her name’s Zoe!”
“Zoe?” I screeched.
“Yeah. Can you believe it?”
“Zoe?”
“Yeah, Zoe.”
“Nobody’s name is Zoe.”
“Megin”—she squeezed my arm—“she’s from Cali-for-nia.”
Well, I never saw her the first day. She wasn’t in any of my classes, and I guess she wasn’t in my lunch shift either. On the second day, coming to school, Sue Ann pointed to a crowd near the door.
“She’s in there.”
“Who?”
“The girl from California.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know. She’s in there. Go ahead, take a look.”
She was pushing me.
“Sue Ann! Knock it off! I gotta lotta things to do around here without having to listen to you jabber all the time about some weirdo from California. Now, are you going out for lacrosse with me or not?”
Suddenly she was yanking me around. “Look, Megin! There she is! Look!”
“Oh cripes.” I smacked her hand away. “You’re disgusting.” I marched into school and absolutely refused to look.
Best friend or no best friend, Sue Ann can be a pain sometimes. She gets so—I don’t know—flighty, hyper. I didn’t have time to be bothered. By the end of the day, I had signed up for stage crew and lacrosse. I picked lacrosse because it’s the closest thing to ice hockey, which is my all-time favorite sport. In lacrosse you get a stick with this fishnet pocket in it to carry and pass around a hard rubber ball. I was only on the field a minute before the coach came blaring her whistle.
“Hey! You!”
“Huh?”
“What’s your name?”
“Megin.”
“Megin who?”
“Tofer.”
“What do you think you’re doing, Tofer?”
“Playing lacrosse.”
“What exactly did I tell you to do, Tofer?”
“Uh, practice carrying the ball?”
“On the stick? By yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“Did I say anything about charging into somebody else and stealing her ball?”
I glanced at Sue Ann, who was wearing a big pout on her face. “No.”
“Take a lap,” the coach snapped and walked off. “With your ball and stick.”
Sue Ann started to snicker. “Baby,” I hissed at her.
The coach whirled. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Two laps.”
Ten minutes into my first lacrosse practice and I was ready to quit. Bad enough that I had to take the laps, but every couple steps the ball would bounce out of the stick pocket. The first two or three times I just picked up the ball and put it back in the pocket. Then I heard the coach’s voice booming across the field: “Scoop it with the stick, Tofer! Scoooop it!”
“Scoop you,” I whispered.
Next time the ball bounced out I tried to scoop it; instead I only knocked it farther away. When I finally caught up with it, I started beating it with the stick.
“Three laps, Tofer!”
Halfway through the third lap I was practically a cripple. Ice hockey was never like this. For the millionth time the ball bounced out; this time it hit my foot and went shooting off toward the sidewalk. I staggered after it, and next thing I knew I was tripping and falling flat on my face. I just lay there for a while, taking a rest and spitting out grass and waiting for boomer-voice to go, “Four laps, Tofer!” When I bothered to look for the ball, I saw it just a few feet away. There was a foot on it—a foot with a silver sandal, an anklet, green toenails. It was a long time before I looked up and finally, finally saw the girl from California.
Greg
Set of weights. Almost new (used 2½ months). 10-lb. dumbbells. Can of Pro/Gain (unopened). Back issues of “Muscles” and “Body Beautiful.” CHEAP.
I PUT the ad away and went downstairs to wait for my mom to come out of it. She looked dead on the sofa, her hands folded over her chest. I swear, every time I see her come out of it I think of a vampire rising out of a coffin.
I never believed in self-hypnosis until my mother actually learned it a couple of years ago. “If I don’t, I’ll never make it. I’m surviving” was what she said—whatever that means.
At first she said she was going to do it just for the summer, to “survive” having all us kids around all day. But when school started, she kept on doing it, every afternoon from 3:00 to 3:15. Now she “survives” till 3:30.
She came out of it at 3:30 on the dot. She didn’t seem in any bi
g hurry to get up. She just stared at the ceiling for a while, not even blinking. I felt like an intruder in a tomb. I cleared my throat to let her know I was there. Her head turned, her eyes were staring straight at me, but somehow I still wasn’t sure she saw me.
“How do you get an ad in the Tradin’ Times?” I asked her.
She blinked. “Phone it in, I guess.”
I hung around. I wasn’t ready to leave.
She noticed. “Greg?”
“Huh?”
“Something the matter?”
“No, why?”
“Okay, never mind.”
Sometimes my mother infuriates me. Like, she never asks what’s the matter twice. I figured I’d give her another chance. “Guess you noticed the Sassoon shampoo’s gone.”
“I’ll get you more next time we shop.”
“I don’t mean that. I threw it out.”
“Oh.”
“Won’t need it anymore.”
“Okay.”
“No-Frills’ll be good enough.”
“Okay.”
Infuriating. Crazy mother. How many ninth-grade guys talk to their mothers about girl stuff? But this mother makes you want to. How? By not listening. And the more she doesn’t listen, the more you want to tell her.
She got up and headed for the kitchen. Okay, one last chance. “What’s for dinner?”
“Fish cakes.”
“Guess I won’t eat.”
“Thought you like fish cakes.”
“Lost my appetite.”
“Okay.”
“Just… lost it.”
“Fine.”
I gave up and went upstairs. I had to talk to somebody. Had to. But who? My mother was useless. Valducci? Forget Valducci. He could never shut up or stay still long enough to listen. How do you talk to a jackhammer? Poff? I could talk to him about some things—sports, bodyweight (hard stuff)—but not something like girls (soft stuff). Poff is the maturest guy I know. He’s a man, really. Sometimes it startles me to see him heading into junior high school. Oh, Poff would listen, all right, and he might even say more than “Big rip,” but behind his eyes he would be losing respect for me. Girls, love—Poff is above those things.
I even thought of Leo Borlock. A lot of kids—mostly girls, actually—go to him for advice. But just the thought of Poff catching me coming out of Leo’s was enough to make me scratch that idea.
So what did I do? I took a shower, and as I looked up at the shower nozzle it seemed to say to me: Let it all out, kid. I’m listening to ya. “Y’know,” I said, “it doesn’t make things any better knowing she only moved over to Conestoga. Ten miles away might as well be Alaska, for all I can get there… And the crime of it is, I look a whole lot better than I did three months ago, when she saw me last.” I posed for the nozzle. “Right? I mean, if she didn’t like me before, she just might like me now, right? Because this is as good as I get…
“Okay, okay… so, say she saw me and she still didn’t like me. Okay, fine, at least I would’ve had my shot, right? That’s all I ever asked for. My shot. And the tragedy of it—want to hear the rock-bottom, cold-blooded, murderest tragedy of it? I’ll tellya: she was starting to like me.”
I decided to have dinner after all. Megamouth didn’t shut up the whole time: “What happened to Jennifer Wade?… Heard she moved.… Where’s the Sassoon?…”
“Megin, enough,” my mother snapped.
“May-gin,” my father sang across the table, “one of these days you’re gonna have yourself a boyfriend, and what are you going to say if Greg teases you like this?”
“I don’t care,” Megamouth said, and went on: “Who are those skinny muscles gonna impress now?… Bet she’s having a good time in Conestoga.… Lotsa cute boys over there in Conestoga.”
Finally my mother had had enough. “Go, Megin. Upstairs. Leave the table.”
Toddie cheered, but I was the one who stood up. “That’s okay,” I said. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. So happens I’m going out with Jennifer Wade”—I tapped my fork twice on the table—“Saturday night”—and I walked out.
Keep reading for a sneak peek of JASON AND MARCELINE
Laughs
As the bus went roaring past, three middle fingers popped up in front of three faces grinning out of the back window.
“See?” I said.
“See what?” said Marceline.
“They’re laughing at us.”
“Not to mention giving us the finger.”
“That’s right. Great way to start off ninth grade. Laughed at and fingered in the first five minutes.”
She pulled out her sunglasses, shook open the arms. “You could be on that bus. Laughing at me.” She slid the shades on.
“No,” I said, “I wouldn’t. And you know why?” She stared straight ahead. “You wanna know why?” Her head swiveled slow and looked down on me—down more than usual, because the sidewalk sloped toward the street, and she was on the high side. The shades owled at me. She didn’t speak. “Because,” I said, “it wouldn’t bother you.”
Her head swiveled away. “Should it?”
“Yeah, it should, yeah. When people laugh at you, it’s supposed to bother you. If I was on that bus, I’d laugh at me too. Who walks to school when they live far enough away to take the bus? It’s crazy. I deserve to be laughed at, and it bothers me, yeah. I’m not the one that’s unusual. You are.”
“Guess I’m just a freak of nature.”
Another bus went by. More laughing faces. I wished she would take the shades off.
“Marceline—” I held my arm out, stopping her—“tell the truth. If a whole busload of kids came along, and the bus stopped, right here—right here—and everybody on the bus—everybody—crowded at the windows and started laughing their asses off and pointing and all—at you—you mean to tell me that wouldn’t bother you?”
She pushed my arm out of the way with her trombone case and moved on. I took this chance to slip around to the high side of her; now my eyes were almost even with hers. I nudged her. “Huh? Tell me it wouldn’t.”
She sighed. “Jason, why do you keep trying to make me into something I’m not? So Richie Bell will approve of me?”
“Stop changing the subject.”
“That is the subject. You trying to change me. You wish I were shorter. You wish I didn’t play the trombone. You wish I wouldn’t wear sunglasses, especially on the way to school. You wish I would ride the bus. If I have so many faults, what are you doing here with me?”
Good question. Since the end of the summer be fore eighth grade—thirteen months ago—Marceline McAllister and I have been… I don’t know… something. I mean, we’re more than just friends. I think. I’m sure. On my side, anyway. Like, we talk a lot and ride bikes and do stuff together. She was inside my house (once). I was inside hers (about ten times, mostly in the kitchen; that’s where we play Scrabble). I hold doors open for her sometimes—just because I feel like it—and sometimes she holds doors open for me. No Christmas presents. But birthday cards. We never kissed. Yet. But I like her better than the two girls I have kissed. So what do you call us? What are we?
“You’re crazy,” I told her. “I never said anything about sunglasses.”
She just smirked, the way she does to let me know she knows I’m lying. She’s better than my mother at reading my mind.
“Why don’t you give me some credit,” I said. “I am here.”
“You wish you weren’t.”
“That’s a lie. How can you say I don’t like being with you?”
“You’d rather be alone with me. It makes you nervous to know other people are watching. You’re terrified I might do something to embarrass you.”
I laughed. “Terrified?”
Then: radio music, horn blaring, shouting.
“Yo, Herkimer!”
“Hey, Herk the Jerk!”
Tires squealing, crunching the curb. It was Vesto and his car. Vesto turned sixteen over the summer—
by far the oldest kid at Avon Oaks J.H.S., maybe at any junior high. His car was a big old Buick, with one door all putty and Rust-Oleum, no hubcaps, and the trunk tied shut with a rope. It was beautiful. And jammed with guys—bodies coming out the tailpipe.
A door twanged open. Little Looie Lopezia fell out, like something from an overstuffed locker. He picked himself up and tunneled his way back in. Among the legs and arms and earphones, Richie’s face came into view, practically upside down. “C’mon, Herk. Jump in.”
Marceline was half a block up the street and moving.
“Nah, ts’okay, no room.”
“Yeah there is—look—” Bodies shifting. Grunts. Curses. Squawks. “There—c’mon.”
If any space was there, I sure couldn’t see it. “Forget it, man. What do I look like, a maggot?”
“Hell with ’im,” came Vesto’s voice. The car shot off, leaving me with a faceful of gas and howls.
Marceline was now not only up the street, she was on the other side. Just as I caught up with her, she recrossed.
“Hey,” I called over, “waddaya doing?”
“Freeing you.”
“From what?”
“Me.”
I stepped down from the curb. She wheeled. “Don’t you dare!”
I froze. “Huh?”
“Stay there.”
I kind of laughed, stepped back onto the curb. I looked around. I prayed no bus would come along. “What’re you talking about?”
She didn’t answer. She went on walking.
“Marceline, I’m supposed to be walking you to school.”
“I’m not a dog. You don’t walk me anywhere.”
“With you. I’m supposed to be walking with you.”
“You are.”
This was insane. Wacko. I had to get back over to her, had to—
She wheeled again: “No!”
I backed up onto the curb. Was this happening? Was I dreaming? Was I really walking a girl to school on opposite sides of the street?
Suddenly she yelped. “I’ve got it!” She put her trombone case down, opened it, took out the trombone parts, jammed them together, and started to toot. After a few notes she called: “Jason, remember how this goes, so I can write it down when we get to school.” Then she went on tooting. Right there. Shades and all. On the sidewalk. The morning sun flashing on the slide.