Ten (12 page)

At any rate, Westminster started on the same day as Trinity, which made for another exciting thing: As of Tuesday morning, Sandra would be a
freshman in high school
.

Whoa, that sounded old. Or, no. It didn't just sound old. Being in high school
was
old. I liked her being older than me, though, because of all the advice she gave me. Just last week she taught me a very helpful tip, which was that using a sweet
Mommy-oh-Mommy-please
voice really did work better than barking, “Hey! Lady! What's it take to get a Coke in this place?!”

Being a truck driver was fine, Sandra told me, and it was an excellent possible career choice. But for now I should be careful when it came to asking Mom to do things, because if Mom would launch into her I'm-not-your-servant,you-know, speech, I'd either have to get my own Coke, or—more likely—be forbidden from having a Coke that day, period.

She also gave me the inside scoop about fifth grade. Lots of the things she told me were good, like how I was going to love science, because we'd get to dissect a real live earthworm. Only it would be dead. It would be a real live
dead
earthworm.

Some of the things she told me weren't as good, I admit it. Such as how it suddenly mattered what kind of notebooks you had, and how you weren't supposed to bring birthday cupcakes any more. But unlike the weird and vague warnings Mrs. Wilson had given Amanda, I trusted Sandra's advice, even the parts I didn't like.

Anyway, notebooks and cupcakes?
Pfff
, that's what I told myself about that.
No biggie
. I practiced what I preached, too, because on Sunday, Mom said, “Winnie, I'm going to the drugstore. Do you need new school notebooks?”

“Oh!” I said. “I totally do. Thanks.”

“Cute ones, like the ones with the big-eyed monkeys you pointed out?”

For a teeny-tiny moment, I panicked. What if big-eyed monkey notebooks were
the wrong kind
of notebooks? I imagined me at the front of the class, clutching my wrong big-eyed notebook while the other kids laughed their heads off.

“Um . . . just boring ones,” I said. I winced as I heard the words come out of my mouth.

“Boring ones? Are you sure? That doesn't sound like the Winnie I know.”

It didn't sound like the Winnie I knew, either. “You're right, Mom. You are
so right
.”

“So . . . big-eyed monkeys?” she said, amused.

“Yup, and the bigger-eyed the better.” And it felt good. I wasn't going to worry about Sandra, I wasn't going to worry about Mrs. Wilson, and I certainly wasn't going to worry about something as goofy as notebooks. Goodness gravy.

Monday night, Ty asked if he could sleep in my room. I said sure, and Mom said sure, too.

“As long as you both go straight to sleep and don't stay up chatting,” she couldn't help but add on. “You both have school tomorrow, you know.”

“Omigosh, really?” I said. I clutched Ty. “Ty! We have school tomorrow! Did you have any idea, or did it totally creep up on you just like it creeped up on me?” I put my hand over my heart. “School! Tomorrow!
Aaaaaaaaagh!!!!!
” And I fell over dead on my bed, my arms and legs splayed wide.

“Okeydoke, Ty, I'm thinking tonight's not the best night to sleep in Winnie's room after all,” Mom said. “I'm thinking someone's a little too wound up to have company tonight.”

I bolted up. In a tender and concerned nurse voice, I said, “Ty? Are you too wound up to have company, Sweet Pea?”

“I was talking about you,” Mom said, arching her eyebrows at me.

“I'm not wound up,” I said.

“We'll be good. We pwomise,” Ty said earnestly, and who could turn down a cutie-pie face like his?

Not Mom. She listened as we said our prayers, kissed us good night, told us she loved us, and turned off my bedroom light.

Once she was gone, Ty said, “Winnie?”

I rolled over onto my side. Even in the dark, I could make out his brown eyes gazing at me from behind his shock of hair. “Yeah?”

“Are there bullies at Twinity?”

“What?” I said. I was shocked. Really and truly shocked. “How do you even know what a bully is?”

“I don't know. Are there?”

I thought of television bullies, kids who stuffed other kids into lockers and made them eat yucky cheese. “Not at Trinity.”

He let out a puff of relief.

“Hold on, though,” I said. I loved Ty, and so I needed to be honest, just like Sandra was honest—usually—with me. “There aren't bullies. But there
might
be kids who . . . aren't exactly the most wonderful kids on the planet.”

Under the covers, Ty pulled his knees toward his chest. “So what do I do? What do I do if I see one of those kids?”

“Well, I'll tell you.”

He waited.

He waited some more.

“
When
will you tell me?” he asked.

“Right now,” I said. It had taken me a minute to figure out my response, because I'd never had to deal with a bully myself. But then the answer came to me, and I knew it was right because I
felt
it to be right. “Remember that girl Erica, from the pool?”

“Is
she
going to be at my pweschool?”

“No. I'm just bringing her up as an example.”

“How do you know she won't be at Twinity? Did you call her?”

“Erica is not going to show up randomly in your preschool class,” I said firmly. “But even if she does—
which she won't
—maybe she's changed.”

Ty furrowed his brow. I could tell he had little faith in a new and improved Erica.

“You're right. Erica probably
hasn't
changed, because kids like her take a long time to ripen.”

“Like bananas?” Ty asked.

“Yes, and to tell the truth, she might not ever fully ripen, because that's the kind of person she is. But that's not the kind of person
you
are.”

“Because I'm a
nice
banana.”

“Exactly,” I said. “And there won't be any mean kids at Trinity, but if there are, just walk away. If they say something mean, just walk away again, because guess what?”

“What?”

“Nobody gets to choose how to make you feel except you.” I tapped Ty's nose. “Got it?”

“Okay.”

“You're going to love school,” I said. “School rocks.”

“Okay.” He squiggled up close, and the wrinkles in his forehead went away. “Love you, Winnie,” he said, and just like that, he fell asleep.

 

The next morning, I walked into Ms. Meyers's class with butterflies in my stomach. The smell of whiteboard markers and new erasers filled the air, as well as the smell of fresh, clean hair. Everyone looked older. Karen's hair was short now, and Louise had pierced ears. I was jealous, and I told her so. Mom wouldn't let me get mine pierced until I was eleven!

I greeted person after person, swirling through squeals and fist-bumps and loud rowdy chatter. Energy bounced from one person to another, and it was so cool, because I could
feel
it. I felt that fifth grade energy, and I grabbed hold of it—or maybe it grabbed hold of me!—and I twirled out of pure joy.

When I came to a stop, I spotted Amanda. My face split into a grin, and I bellowed, “Amanda! Get over here, ya big lug!” I flung my arms wide. “Mama needs some lovin'!”

“Omigosh,” Amanda said, pretending to be mortified. She came over, but she was too self-conscious to give me some lovin', so I picked her up around the waist.

“I've missed ya!” I said, still using my loud voice. It was fun to use my loud voice. “What'cha been up to, you old scoundrel?”

“Since last night when we talked on the phone, you mean?” She gave me a
you-are-weird
look, but she smiled despite herself.

Chantelle found us, and I dropped Amanda and hugged her.

“Chantelle! My favorite Chantelle in the world! How
are
you?”

“Squished,” she said, wiggling away from me. She turned to Amanda. “Have you told her?”

“Told me what?” I said.

“I was waiting for you,” Amanda said. “But you're here, so now I will!”

I looked at her suspiciously, unable to get a vibe on where this was going. Amanda seemed awfully perky, even perkier than normal. Possibly even
fake
perky, as if she was using all that perkiness to cover up something else.

“Here's the thing,” she said, perching on my desk. She was in her back-to-school outfit, which was a pink denim skirt and a white blouse with capped sleeves, and she looked adorable, of course. How could she not? She was Amanda. She was Amadorable! Amandable?

A mandible! Ha! We'd learned about mandibles last year in science. They were like jaws, like cricket jaws. I snapped my cricket jaws—
snap, snap, snap
.

“So what do you think?” Amanda said. She searched my face eagerly. “Do you?”

I stopped snapping. Had Amanda been talking the whole time I was mandible-ing?
Huh
. I did vaguely recall some background noise going on, but I'd accidentally tuned it out.

“Um . . . would you repeat the question?” I said.

Amanda and Chantelle shared a look, which I didn't like one bit. I only liked shared looks when they were shared with me.

“She was
saying
that we're in fifth grade now,” Chantelle said.

“Yes!” I said, because I knew that. I
totally
knew that. I thrust my fist into the air. “Fifth grade! Yay, us!”

Chantelle grabbed my fist and quickly pulled it back down.
“Winnie,”
she said, almost if she were embarrassed.

“I was reminding you about how fifth grade is different from fourth grade,” Amanda said. “You know. Like my mom said.”

I narrowed my eyes. I thought Amanda had dropped all that dumb stuff her mom said. Since I myself had no desire to revisit the subject, I made spooky fingers to distract them. “
Oooooo
! Fifth grade! We might have to do”—I gulped audibly—“
decimals
!”

“We're being serious,” Amanda said. “Could you be serious, too? Please?”

That made me feel weird. “Uh, o-kaaay.”

“Chantelle and I talked it out, and . . . well . . . change doesn't have to be a
bad
thing, right? Being older means so many things, and some of them could be super-fun. And at first I was all worried, but Chantelle helped me not be.”

I lifted my eyebrows incredulously. “
Chantelle
helped you not be worried?”

“And you did, too,” Amanda hastened to add. “The point is . . . I mean, I guess we were maybe thinking . . .”

“Just say it,” I said. I no longer even wanted to do spooky fingers, because when, exactly, did Amanda and Chantelle
do
all this thinking? And where was I? Why wasn't I doing all that thinking with them?

Again, Chantelle and Amanda looked at each other. It made something snap inside of me, and I clapped my hands in front of their faces. “Stop looking at each other! You've been doing a lot of thinking, and
what
?! What is this BIG THING you have to tell me?”

“Shhh!” Chantelle said.

“Thatit'stimewehadcrushesonboys,” Amanda said in a rush.

I waited for the words to separate and make sense. They didn't. “Huh?”

“Boys,”
Chantelle said, boring her eyes into mine in what was supposed to be a meaningful way, I think.

It didn't seem meaningful to me. It seemed dumb, and also annoying, because it seemed obvious that Amanda had been talking to her mom again, and getting bizarre ideas planted into her brain.

“What about them?” I said in a steely tone.

Amanda and Chantelle
giggled
. They giggled, and Chantelle swept her arm to indicate the kids in our class.

“They're everywhere,” she said, making Amanda giggle even harder.

“So?” I said. Yes, there were boys in our class. There were also desks. There was also a fish named Larry who lived in a bowl on Ms. Meyers's desk. Mr. Hutchinson, who taught sixth grade, even had a snake in his room. So what was the big fluffy deal about
boys
?

And yet that's all Amanda and Chantelle wanted to talk about, and not just Amanda and Chantelle, but Louise and Karen and Maxine, too.

Boys, boys, boys. Blah, blah, blah.
And the worst part? The most ridiculous part in the history of the United States? Amanda and Chantelle thought we should each claim a boy to have a crush on. That was their top secret, stupid idea.

“I am not in that stage,” I informed Amanda and Chantelle during lunch. Since it was warm out, we were eating on the playground.

They didn't believe me, so I informed them again. “I. Am. Not. In. That. Stage. Boys are fine. Sometimes. But does that mean we have to go boy crazy?”

“That's what girls do in fifth grade,” Amanda said. She said it like it was a law, and not only that, but a law she approved of and found intoxicating. She
wanted
to be boy crazy, and so did the others. Everyone but me.

“We'll help you,” Chantelle said.

“We will,” Amanda said fervently. “We'll find the perfect crush for you.”

I glanced at Amanda, and then at Chantelle. Notebooks I could handle. Cupcakes I could handle. But boys and boy craziness and crushes?

I was angry at Amanda's mom, a definite first. Because when Mrs. Wilson told Amanda all that malarkey about how she should expect a lot of changes this year, and how one of the changes would be the whole issue of
boys
. . . well, what was she thinking? Did she mean to send her darling daughter down this boy-crazy path? Was that her goal?