Trauma Queen
Authors: Barbara Dee
A whole new definition of mortified
. . .
“Yo, Marigold, your mom's a performance artist?” Brody is asking.
“Yeah,” I say. “What about it?”
“Nothing. I'm just curious. Does she do that thing where she's buried underwater? Or, wait, what was that thing I saw on TV? Oh yeah: This guy hung upside down in a park for, like, three days. Does she do stuff like that?”
Jada is looking at me. So are Megan and Ashley. So are Layla and Quinn, and a couple of girls from my gym class. Also Ethan; he's blushing slightly, or maybe it's just the weird fluorescent light in this room.
“No,” I say firmly. “She doesn't.”
Now Jada is doing her hyper-sympathetic smile. “Your mom does other things, though, right?”
“Like what?” Brody demands.
“Look her up on Wikipedia,” Jada says helpfully. “There's a whole article.”
Other books by Barbara Dee
Just Another Day in My Insanely Real Life
Solving Zoe
This Is Me From Now On
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people,
or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents
are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual
events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALADDIN M!X
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
First Aladdin M!X edition April 2011
Copyright © 2011 by Barbara Dee
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form.
ALADDIN is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and related logo
is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
ALADDIN M!X and related logo are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc
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Designed by Mike Rosamilia
The text of this book was set in Hoefler Text.
Manufactured in the United States of America 0311 OFF
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Library of Congress Control Number 2010932960
ISBN 978-1-4424-0923-1
ISBN 978-1-4424-0930-9 (eBook)
For Dad,
with lots of love
Contents
Chapter 9: Soon This Will All Seem Normal
Chapter 18: Rotating Gyroscope
Chapter 24: Changing the Scenes
Chapter 27: This is Me From Now On
Deepest thanks, once again, to my brilliant editor, Liesa Abrams, and my spectacular agent, Jill Grinberg. You two are the best!
Thanks to all the fab folks at Aladdin, including Fiona Simpson, Bess Braswell, Venessa Williams, Bernadette Cruz, Stasia Kehoe, and Jessica Handelman.
Zahra Mirjehan Baird, you're the coolest librarian on the planet, and we're so lucky to have you. Bell Middle School super English teacher Dylan Gilbert, thanks for sharing those fascinating theater improv books!
A big xoxo to all my reader pals. I cherish every single e-mail and letter you send me, and I promise to always write you back!
Mom and Dad, thanks for rearranging the shelves at Barnes & Noble. And rah-rah for the home team: Alex, Josh, Lizzyâand always, Chris, my first reader and number one everything. I love you all!
I am standing outside homeroom in yellow flannel monkey pajamas.
Everyone else is dressed normally: jeans, track pants, sweaters, whatever.
Apparently because today, Monday, February 23, is not Pajama Day at Crampton Middle School. Also apparently I am the only one who is celebrating Pajama Day, because I am the only one whose mother
told
her it was Pajama Day. After using the New Student Information Packet to line a dog crate for this one-eared beagle she's babysitting.
“Hey, Marigold,” some girl across the hall is calling.
“That's your name, right? Um, no offense, but why are you in your pj's?”
I don't answer. That's because my ears are burning and my eyebrows are sweating. It's hard to say something casual and jokey like
whoops, silly me
with sweaty eyebrows. I dig my thumbnails into my palms, but I'm not waking up.
Now this buzz-cutâheaded eighth-grade boy is starting to laugh. And point. “Yo, New Girl. Yeah, you. Did you forget something?
Like getting dressed?
”
That's it; I'm done. I escape from homeroom. My poofy blue bedroom slippers skid on the waxy floor. “Excuse me, no running,” some office lady calls out from down the hallway. Which is when I start to run, seeing a mob of giggling girls turning the corner and coming toward me.
I bang open the door to the girls' room and hide myself in a stall. Then I yank my cell phone out of my backpack and speed-dial Mom.
It rings five times. Six times means I'll get her voice mail, which means she'll never get my message, because she doesn't ever check her voice mail.
Pick up
, I pray.
Pick up, pickuppickuppickup
.
“Hello?” she finally shouts. “Marigold?”
Then a truck honks. Right in my ear.
“Mom?” I say.
“Oh, sweetheart, what's wrong? Are you okay?”
“No.” I wipe my sweaty face on my flannel arm. “I'm wearing pajamas.”
“I know. Those cute monkey ones.”
“Because you said it was Pajama Day.”
“Right, it is. I read it in the packet.”
“Except it isn't.”
“It's not Pajama Day? Are you sure? The first day ofâwhat do they call it? Spirit Week?” I can hear dogs barking now. She must be downtown with her Morning Walkers.
“No, it's not,” I say loudly. “I'm the only one in the entire school wearing pj's. I look like a total dork.”
“I'm sure you don't, baby.”
“I'm sure I do. I'm coming home.”
“Oh, Mari. You can't.”
“Why not?”
“Because you just got there five minutes ago.”
That's so illogical I can't even argue. “Okay, then can you please bring me some other clothes?”
“Yes, of course.” She shouts this over yapping and arfing dogs. “But you're going to have to wait a few minutes.”
“How come?”
“Because I'm not home. I'm at least a mile away, with three of my Walkers. And I'm supposed to pick up two new greyhounds by eight o'clock.”
“But this is a major emergency.” I check my watch: three minutes until homeroom. “Can't the greyhounds wait?”
“Oh, come on now, Mari,” she says in a voice meant to be soothing. Except you can't soothe when you're shouting; it kind of spoils the effect. “So you're wearing pajamas. Have fun with it; improvise. Pretend you're sleepwalking.”
“What?”
“See where it takes you. Think of it as a costume.”
“I don't wear
costumes.”
“Oh, sure you do, baby. We all do. Every single day.”
“Mom,” I say. “Can we
please
not have a big philosophical discussion about this?”
“Sorry.” A truck honks. “Well, look at it this way. At least you'll be comfortable.”
That's when the door to the girls' room creaks open. I can hear the sound of heels on the floor tiles, and then the sharp click of someone locking another stall door. “Just listen to me, okay?” I whisper desperately
into my cell. “I
won't
be comfortable. I'll be the
opposite
of comfortable. I'll be traumatized for the
entire rest of my
life.
Just please, please bring me different clothes.
Please.
I'm begging you.”
She processes. A dog arfs. Finally she says, “All right, I'll be there in a few minutes. BEEZER, SIT. I'm not fooling, buddy. SIT. Good dog.”
“Mom? MOM?”
“Just try to hang in there, Mari, okay? First I need to get the greyhounds.”
The line goes dead, as if everything's settled. Whatever; at least I got through to her. Mom usually does better in person, but even then, normal back-and-forth conversations are definitely not her strong point.
I leave my stall and check myself out in the mirror. Great. My cheeks are flushed, my eyes look huge and freaked-out, and my wavy brown hair is damp and limp.
Plus, of course, there's the jammie issue. Can't forget that.
I drown my face in freezing water, then crank out some paper towel. The other bathroom user shuffles her feet. Which, I suddenly notice, are in pointy-toe black leather boots. Scary boots. Get-out-of-my-face boots.
I cram the paper towel into the trash can. “Well, bye,” I call out, so that at least Pointy Boots knows that I realize she's an earwitness.
“See you, Marigold,” Pointy Boots answers in a quiet, amused sort of voice.
Samuel J. Crampton Middle is my third school in four years. And if there's one thing I've learned about middle school by now, it's this: Attention is bad. Any attention. And now here I am in seventh-grade homeroom with, like, thirteen girls crowding around my desk, all paying attention to my dorky monkey pajamas.