My Year of Epic Rock
Read My Year of Epic Rock Online
Authors: Andrea Pyros
Copyright © 2014 by Andrea Pyros
Cover and internal design © 2014 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Mike Heath
Cover photograph by Mike Heath
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systemsâexcept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviewsâwithout permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.
Source of Production: Versa Press-USA, East Peoria, IL
Date of Production: July 2014
Run Number: 5001982
For Leonard, Amelia, and John
I love you
“Nina, what are you doing?” Jackson said, his voice slightly muffled since it was coming from the tiny crack in the wood of my bedroom door. Startled, I jumped about five feet in the air.
“Stop spying on me!” I yelled back, flinging open the door, only to slam it again in my brother's giggling face.
“You are the weirdest human ever!” Jackson announced through the crack. “Mom says come down for breakfast,” he added. Then I heard him walk off down the hallway.
I resumed my acrobatic twisting in front of my mirrorânot because I'm some awesome gymnast, clearly, since I am
still
struggling on the cartwheel front, but because it was the only way to make sure my outfit looked good from all angles. I was confident the bright blue of my shirtâ
cerulean
, my mom called itâlooked pretty and matched the color of my eyes. And secretly, though I'd never say it to another living human being, I thought it fit well around the chest. Not too tight, but still, you could see that there was
something
underneath. Yeesh, finally!
But the jeans were tricky. Too skinny? Not skinny enough? I spun around one more time to try to see my butt. No luck. I could only catch a glimpse of me at a funny angle.
Normally Brianna would be my fashion expert, confirming that my first day of school outfit was suitably cute without giving off the dreaded “trying too hard” vibe. Usually she'd just come over, look through my closet, and pick out what I should wear, saving me the stress of doing it myself. “Besides, that way you can coordinate with what
I'm
wearing,” she always said. I tried Brianna's cell one more time but it went right to voice mail.
“Ugh!” I groaned. I didn't bother leaving a message. Other than a few quick texts saying she was back,
finally
, from her family's monthlong trip to Italy, Brianna had been totally MIA since her return. I'd spent the summer doing a whole lot of nothing, punctuated by our annual not-at-all-exciting visit to my grandparents in Bethesda, so I'd been dying for her to get back starting about ten seconds after she'd left.
That weird ache in my stomachâthe kind I get before my turn in kickballâreturned. Something was definitely wrong. We talk, like, eighty-seven times in a twenty-four-hour period, even when it's not a super important day, like the start of seventh grade. For an occasion like today, we would probably just put each other on speakerphone for the whole morning.
I slid on my new red Chuck Taylor low-tops, pulled my brown hair up with a ponytail holder, and headed into the kitchen where Jackson was sitting and talking to Mom.
“Mom, what do you think?” I spun around slowly so she could see my outfit from all angles. It's not a good sign when the only people you can ask how you look are your mother and your dolt of a fourth-grader brother, but I wasn't in much of a position to be choosy.
Mom kissed me on the forehead. “Nina, you always look pretty,” she said. The pencil she'd taken out of her mouth a moment before for kissing convenience went back in between her teeth. Which meant she was working on a new recipe for her latest cookbook and was busy taking notes.
“Mom, that does not help.” I sat down at the counter and sighed.
The timer on our oven dinged, and Mom raced around our yellow kitchen, putting syrup and powdered sugar on the table, then sliding on her beloved candy caneâstriped oven mitts, stained from years of spills and splatters. Mom had some flour in her short brown hair. How did that always happen?
“Ta-da!” Mom held up a platter of something and did a fancy-ish wave with her other hand. I rolled my eyes. I wasn't falling for that one. The last time she'd made a new dish and did the
ta-da!
move, the delicious-smelling cakey-looking thing turned out to be baked oatmeal. Want to guess who hates oatmeal? Me! Only my mother would make something that tastes like warm, soggy packing peanuts but smells as sweet as a cinnamon bun to fool her child into trying it.
“What is it?” Jackson asked her, looking interested.
“French toast. With no eggs, no dairy, and no wheat.” She beamed.
I sighed. “Mom, isn't the whole point of French toast that it has eggs? What makes it French? Are you going to put a beret on top of it?”
Jackson laughed at my joke. Like, cracked up, holding his sides laughing. Though he laughs at
everything,
so I couldn't take it as a compliment on my comedy skills. If I'd somehow managed to rhyme
toast
with
fart
he'd fall off his chair.
“Try it before you make any comments,” Mom said, ignoring me like always. Probably because I'm the choosiest member of our household, which I say means I'm the most sophisticated, so I'm usually skeptical. But since I'm also the only one with actual food allergies, Mom likes me to be her official tester for her cookbook series. If I hate it, it doesn't go in.
Oh, no, wait, I'm not the only one; Pepper, our basset hound, has food allergies too. She has to stay on a strict hypoallergenic diet or else she gets really gassy and her skin smells even worse than usual. Jackson thinks my special bond with Pepper is comedy gold, of course. He keeps saying maybe I was adopted from a pound. Ha ha ha. Jerk.
Mom served us each up a slice of the French toast, then sprinkled a bit of powdered sugar on top. She didn't even bother to offer me maple syrup, since I'd refuse to eat it today. Too messy!
Jackson, as usual, poured a giant glug out of it onto his plate and then dove into his breakfast. I took a tiny nibble. Actually, it wasn't bad, I had to admit. I ate another bite. Jackson was already halfway through his second piece. Then he paused and looked at his hand.
“Hmm,” he said. Mom and I ignored him.
“Hmm,” he said again, louder. Then he made a big show of flipping his hand over a few times, peering at it, and saying “hmmmm” a final time.
“Hmm, what,
Doctor
?” I shot him a look. Jackson thinks fart jokes are funny. He'll happily eat anything offered to him, even those gummy booger candiesâflavored to taste like snotâour cousin Oliver made him eat once on a dare. But his number-one favorite pastime? Diagnosing himself with weird diseases. Mom and I like to pretend we don't notice, but this summer for his birthday, Dad picked up a bunch of used textbooks on anatomy, infectious diseases, and other medical stuff from the college campus where he works and wrapped them up for Jackson, who claimed it was “his best present ever.” Mom was super mad about that. No muffins for Dad for a week.
“Does my skin look kind of weird here?” Jackson held his hand out for me to see and pointed at a spot that looked exactly like the rest of his skin.
“Everything about you looks weird,” I replied. “I don't need to stare at your hand to know that.”
Jackson grabbed his copy of
Current
Diagnosis
and
Treatment
in
Infectious
Diseases
and started flipping through it, nodding his head and rubbing his chin like Dad does when he's grading papers. Mom gave me a look and shook her head to remind me not to say anything else.
Please.
Like I was dying to discuss E. coli or hantavirusâa disease Jackson has been obsessed with ever since we caught a mouse in our basementâor whatever else my brother had on his pea brain.
“So, when will Brianna be here?” Mom asked me. Every year, from third grade on, Brianna's parents dropped her off at our house so she and I could walk to school together, since we lived less than a half mile away. Totally walkable on nice days.
Suddenly my French toast was dry and rubbery in my mouth. I put down my fork.
“Oh, I think I'll just see her there,” I replied, looking away. Mom didn't get the hint.
“But, aren't you going toâ”
“I don't want to talk about it!” I jumped off the kitchen stool and went back to my room. I took my phone out of my pocket to make sure I hadn't missed any calls by accident. Nothing.
“Nina, are you ready?” Mom spoke quietly through my door. “Do you want to walk to school with Jackson?” I didn't, really, but I didn't have much of a choice. I put on my backpack, adjusting the puffy straps. My first day as a seventh grader and instead of arriving with my best friend, I was showing up with my little brother. How could this be anything but a very bad sign?
The walk to school isn't very far, but it was long enough for me to realize I was totally worried about my first day. Mom says I have a nervous stomach and to ignore it, but this was more like how my stomach felt after I got off the Alien Abduction ride at the county fair. Jump. Thud. Lurch. I couldn't even get annoyed with Jackson for bumping into meâon purposeâevery three feet because I was too busy chewing my fingernails and trying not to throw up.
Even though it was still warm outside, there were a few trees with leaves turning red and gold, and none of our neighbors were outside mowing their lawns the way they were, like, every morning during the summer. It was definitely fall and back-to-school season, normally my favorite time of year.
We reached the front of the elementary school just as the buses were opening their doors and all the kids rushed out. Jackson saw his friend Will and headed off in his direction while I veered left toward the entrance to our town's middle school right next door.
The people who built the Woodgrove Middle School designed big common areas in the lobby where students are allowed to hang out before the first bell. It's crazy loud sometimesâespecially on the first day back or when everyone is about to leave for winter break or summer vacation.
When I got inside, I scanned the large room. The seventh graders tend to hang out up against the side wall where there are big looping, circular benches to sit on. It's a much better spot than the front of the room right by the doors where we were stuck last year as lowly sixth graders, but not as good real estate as the awesome area in the back behind a bunch of big plants that is exclusively for the lucky eighth graders.
Then I heard a totally recognizable laugh.
Brianna!
I walked over to her, intent on finding out what was going on, but as I got closer, the neon green wrapper in her hand caught my eye.
It was a package of Nutty Buddies.
Wait, what? Nutty Buddies!?! Brianna shook a few of the candies into the palm of her hand, then passed the bag over to Shelley Abrams. Maybe Brianna heard my giant gulp or the sound of my stomach dropping to the floor, because she turned around and looked right at me.
“Oh, hi, Nina,” Brianna said, in a super-casual, “We're kind of friends, right? I forget” tone, barely looking away from Shelley. There was an awkward pause before she jumped up to give me a quick hug with just the tips of her fingers. It felt more like she was trying to bump her shoulders to mine and avoid touching any other part of me.
She sat down again just as fast. Brianna was wearing jean shorts and a white tank top with a lace decoration on front, and arm warmersâone was striped, the other a sweatshirt-y gray. Everything about the outfit was new. Or at least
I'd
never seen any of it before.
I stood very still, a smile pasted to my face. “Um, when did you get back? How was Europe?” I asked, as casually as I could, even though I could feel my cheeks get all warm. That was my best friend, the one who'd sworn she'd rather die than eat a peanut if I couldn't, sitting and munching on Nutty Buddies.
“Oh, a few days ago!” Brianna answered and flipped her dark red hair which had gotten noticeably longer since I'd seen her last, or maybe it was just long because she'd straightened it so it lay totally flat, instead of styling it the way she usually did, which was to let it dry naturally, leaving it wavy and normal-looking. Not shampoo-commercial-straight at 8:00 a.m.
“It's been so busy, I'm sorry I didn't call you. Did you get my postcard? It was great! It was so crazy because in Venice we were having dinner and Shelley was sitting there at the next table over with her mom. Insane, right?” Brianna was giggling, and she and Shelley were passing the candy bag back and forth. Then Shelley put it on the seat between them.
The seat I could see was not being saved for me.
“Yeah, insane,” I replied quietly. I reminded myself to swallow and tried to keep my smile up. I could barely manage it.
Brianna noticed me eyeing the Nutty Buddies. “Do you mind, Nina?” she waved her hand at the bag like she was shooing it away. “They're soooo yummy, but if you mind, I can put it away.”
She turned to Shelley. “Nina's got a
massive
peanut allergy and kind of freaks out when they're around.”
“I do not,” I said. Had she
really
just said that? “Anyway, it's fine. Whatever. Glad Italy was funâ¦that sounds so coolâ¦I can't believe you guys saw each other thereâ¦at the next tableâ¦wow.”
But of course I minded. It's not like Brianna could possibly have forgotten all the times she was there when my mom lectured me about being safe around food and how I had to always read ingredient labels to make sure there were no eggs or peanuts in anything. And how I have to pack my own boring cupcakes when I go people's birthday parties, instead of being able to have dessert with everyone, because just about everything delicious seems to be made with eggs or nuts or both. How I'm always kind of wondering if I'm taking my life in my fork if I eat anywhere but home.
Yes, I did mind.
A lot.
How could Brianna not know that?
“What happens if you eat a peanut anyway?” Shelley asked.
I turned to herâI'd been so transfixed by Bri I hadn't really focused on her before. Same Shelley as everâhair totally shiny and halfway down her back without any of the annoying frizzies I seem to get from the warm, late summer air. Stylish clothing too. She was wearing short brown boots with a heel and what looked like a new pair of jeans. Shelley is the only seventh grader I know who actually looks like the girls do in shows about adorable boys who turn into werewolves or vampires and the girls who love them.
Brianna and I had spent so much time last year wondering about Shelley, who was a transfer student. Because she was new, and we live in a dinky small town in upstate New York, Shelley's freshness made her someone everyone wanted to be seen with.
Shelley spent most of her sixth grade hanging out with all the kids a grade older. She even supposedly
dated
one of them, a totally cute boy named Sebastian, who we speculated about endlessly. Neither Bri nor I had ever been on an actual date, let alone multiple dates, or even kissed anyone. Sebastian gave Shelley a gold braceletâa real oneâfor her birthday, or at least that was what we'd heard.
We'd also heard Shelley dumped him at the end of the school year and stopped hanging out with Sebastian's twin sister, Maxie, her former best friend, at the same time, like she was over both of them. And that Sebastian was so upset he cried for, like, a week and refused to go to tennis camp.
I have no clue what was really true, but it all sounded exciting, and not like my life at all.
Shelley and Brianna were both looking at me, waiting for me to answer about what would happen if I ate peanuts. I looked down at the floor, uncomfortable with their stares.
“I'm not sure. I could get sick, I guess,” I said, after a long pause. I didn't really want to talk about it.
“Oh, that must be such a hassle!” Shelley said. “I would
die
if I couldn't eat what I want, when I want it.”
Cringe.
Pity is the worst.
“Yeah, well, it's not a huge deal,” I replied. Actually, it was, because I was the one who could actually die from anaphylactic shock, not die by exaggeration.
“Yeah,” Brianna said, getting back to her original story. “We saw Shelley and her mom right next to us; it was so crazy!”
Again
with
the
crazy.
I
got
it.
She looked at Shelley, not at me, when she was talkingâlike she was waiting for Shelley's approval.
Shelley giggled and jumped in, “So we hung out the next few days. Our parents even let us go off alone one afternoon for lunch. You wouldn't believe how cute Italian guys are. They are
such
flirts.”
“We were, like, followed, by this one gorgeous guy over a canal bridge.” Brianna added, almost shrieking with laughter.
I wasn't sure why being followed was so wonderful. After all the years of lectures about safety and stranger danger, I thought anytime someone was following me it was time to head into a store or find a police officer. But I guess in Venice the rules were different and being chased around by a person you don't know is a good thing.
I was surprised that I was being so calm, standing there listening to Brianna talk. Brianna, the one I spent every weekend with, talked on the phone with every night, the one who'd spent nights at my house, and vice versa for the past four years, was acting like I was some random person who just came up to talk to her, instead of her closest friend in the world.
I looked down again at the telltale bright boogery green candy wrapper she was still holding, wondering whether the toxic peanut dust was heading toward me. I know my mom exaggerates the dangers of all things nuts, since I'm walking around on the planet every day surrounded by nut-eating citizens and I am fine, but on the other hand, it's not like I want to roll around in crumbs of the stuff, either.
I looked up at the big clock on the wall to check the time. There were only a few minutes until class started, but I couldn't stand there faking that everything was okay for even ten more seconds without bursting into tears.
“I'm going to run to the bathroom. I'll see you upstairs,” I said, turning and racing off, not even waiting for them to reply. I heard Shelley call “
Ciao!
” after me, and then Shelley and Brianna resumed talking and giggling about something. I couldn't hear well enough to know what. I'd bet it was about Italy, where I've never been and will probably never get to go, or something else I wasn't a part of.
I just hoped I'd make it to the stalls before anyone saw that I'd started crying.