Totally Middle School Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Compilation and introduction copyright © 2018 by Betsy Groban

  “Letters” copyright © 2018 by Lois Lowry

  “What Planet Are You From?” copyright © 2018 by Gregory Maguire

  “When She Whined in Her Sleep” copyright © 2018 by Gary D. Schmidt

  “Looking for Home” copyright © 2018 by Karen Cushman

  “How to Make S’mores” copyright © 2018 by Hena Khan

  “The Skater” copyright © 2018 by Mary Downing Hahn

  “Imaginary Mambo” copyright © 2018 by Margarita Engle

  “Ode to the Band Room” copyright © 2018 by Joyce Sidman

  “TBH I Need HELP!! ” copyright © 2018 by Katherine Paterson and Jordan Paterson

  “Dog People” copyright © 2018 by Linda Sue Park and Anna Dobbin

  “Middle School” copyright © 2018 by David Wiesner

  Cover art copyright © 2018 by Neil Swaab

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9781524772208 (trade)

  ISBN 9781524772215 (lib. bdg.)

  Ebook ISBN 9781524772222

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  This book is dedicated to middle schoolers everywhere.

  This, too, shall pass.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  A Letter from the Editor

  Family

  Letters by Lois Lowry

  What Planet Are You From? by Gregory Maguire

  When She Whined in Her Sleep by Gary D. Schmidt

  Looking for Home by Karen Cushman

  Friends and Fitting In

  How to Make S’mores by Hena Khan

  The Skater by Mary Downing Hahn

  Imaginary Mambo by Margarita Engle

  Finding Yourself

  Ode to the Band Room by Joyce Sidman

  TBH I Need HELP!! by Katherine Paterson and Jordan Paterson

  Dog People by Linda Sue Park and Anna Dobbin

  Middle School by David Wiesner

  Acknowledgments

  About the Editor

  Top 10 Things to Do Before Middle School

  A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

  Dear Reader,

  Middle school can be challenging, no doubt about it. It involves much more than moving to a bigger school with lots of new kids and a changing class schedule. It’s about being literally in the middle—no longer a little kid and not yet a teenager. It’s about finding your way through a whole lot of new experiences, and figuring out what you like to do, who your friends are, what you like to study, and, most important of all, who you are.

  Writers can be awesome at helping us navigate our world, especially when things get difficult or confusing. At least, that’s how it’s always been for me. In this collection, thirteen of the best take on the challenges of the middle school years in all their complexity. With subjects ranging from loneliness, homework, changing classrooms, getting lost, changing for gym, school dances, cultural dislocation, class trips, and family issues to the unexpected saving grace of music, art, friendship, and literature, this collection is intended to help you find your place in the middle of the middle school years.

  In stories, texts, emails, formal letters, memoirs, poems, and even a short graphic novel, Totally Middle School brings new perspective and reassurance, no matter your background, interests, or circumstances.

  I don’t envy you, making your way through middle school with your own set of challenges. But there are also some awesome opportunities in store for you. Though a lot of middle school was hard, I also recall it as the time when I began to come alive intellectually (reading! reading! more reading!) and emotionally (friends! friends! more friends!)—both of which are centrally important to my life now.

  But whatever happens, it happens…and then it passes. Everything passes. Hopefully with some good times along the way…and some lessons learned. Perhaps this book will open up some doors for you. I really hope so.

  Betsy Groban

  Cambridge, Massachusetts

  9 Cedar Circle

  Cedar Harbor, Maine 04993

  May 19, 2017

  Ms. Margaret Metcalf

  John Glenn Middle School

  Cedar Harbor, Maine 04993

  Dear Ms. Metcalf:

  I have just been informed that you are to be my English teacher when I enter Middle School next year.

  As you can see, we learned in English this past year how to write a Business Letter. This is a Business Letter.

  I understand that our class will be reading To Kill a Mockingbird in the fall semester. I don’t mind reading the book but I thought I would let you know that I have seen the movie two times. Boo Radley is my favorite character because he is badly misunderstood. I myself am often misunderstood so I know what that is like. I was badly misunderstood last December at a family gathering and I feel it may have affected my entire personality although I doubt I will become a recluse like Boo. For one thing, no one is going to leave me a house where I can live in seclusion, except possibly a rich uncle, but it is unlikely.

  I am looking forward to Middle School and I hope that we will establish a satisfactory relationship next year. This is my Closing Paragraph and in it I am supposed to request some kind of action. I would like to request that you pay careful attention to the other letter I am going to write to you. It will be a Friendly Letter.

  Yours truly,

  Katherine Metcalf Anderson

  Student

  • • •

  May 19

  Dear Aunt Maggie,

  Okay, I confess, I freaked when I found out that you’re going to be my English teacher next year. I am trying to figure out how to deal with it and I’m hoping you and I can agree on some things. Ground rules, I guess we could call them.

  One, I am going to call you Ms. Metcalf in the classroom, NOT Aunt Maggie—no one will have a clue that you are my relative—and you should call me Katie the way all my other teachers do, not Cutie the way you call me at home, not ever. And also: Is there ever a time in school that you have to say kids’ middle names? I don’t think so. But just in case: it’s okay if you have to use my initial, M, but pretend it stands for Mary or something. Madison would be okay, or Mackenzie. I like those. I just don’t want anyone to know my middle name is Metcalf. I use it on Business Letters because it makes me look like a lawyer or something. But in real life, like in school, if people fou
nd out that information, they would figure out we are related and that you are my mom’s older sister. If that happens, I am going to reveal how you bullied her throughout her early years. I mean it.

  One time, in English class last year, for Creative Writing, we had to bring in old photographs from our past and write stories about them. It actually was a pretty fun assignment. I brought in a picture of Jake (Remember Jake? Our golden retriever?) and wrote about when he ran off and we didn’t find him for three days, and it turned out he was over on the other side of town in someone’s yard, and they hadn’t even tried to find his owners even though he had a microchip. I think they were planning to keep him but we got him back and didn’t call the police or anything. We found him because we put up posters with his picture and someone called us. Turned out they had seen him in the criminals’ yard, it made a very good story because it had a lot of Rising Action and a Climax, but my teacher only gave me a B-minus because it lacked punctuation and had run-on sentences.

  Anyway, the reason I mention it is in case you are planning an assignment where students bring in old photographs. Last year the teacher brought in some of her own, and in case you are thinking of doing the same, I want to be clear right now that the one you took of me that time when my diaper fell down and I was crying and had ice cream on my face? That one is off limits. You brought it out when we were at Grandma’s house for the Fourth of July picnic, and everybody, INCLUDING BEN PRYOR, the next-door neighbor who is in tenth grade, looked at it and laughed—it was absolutely humiliating and is the reason I pretended to be sick when you had that get-together on Labor Day.

  There are probably a lot of other photos that should be destroyed. Second-grade school photo, missing front teeth, horrible haircut, Tinker Bell T-shirt? Did my mom give you that one? Burn it immediately.

  I have some questions about Middle School and maybe I should have put them in my Business Letter but too late, I’ve already printed that. My questions mostly have to do with changing classes. Is there a map or something? Do people ever get lost? I have a pretty crummy sense of direction as you well know from that time I told you in July that a left turn would take us to a place where we could buy fireworks, and then we went for many miles before I realized it should have been a right turn, and I know, I know, it was a problem that we had stopped for water at that little general store and then we had been drinking the water, and then we started telling jokes about Uncle Stanley, and well, you know what happened. The thing is, if you have to pee, you should not start laughing hard, it just doesn’t work out well, and okay, it was because I said to turn left instead of right.

  (And about Uncle Stanley. Actually, he is my one chance at someone leaving me a house where I can live in seclusion like Boo Radley, because Uncle Stanley is single and has no children and is pretty rich. But please do not ever mention him in school. You and I know what he does for a living but no one else needs to know that ever. Even if you just say the word quickly and go on to other things, well, someone might google proctologist and we do not want that to happen. Even if you and I know that he started from the bottom up, ha ha, now I am laughing again but luckily I am not drinking water.)

  My main question is about getting lost in such a big school. Are the classrooms marked with numbers, and is there much time between classes, and are there restrooms, and oh please, tell me there is not a big discussion about gender because I don’t understand any of that at all.

  BUT DON’T DISCUSS IT IN CLASS. And especially don’t say that I asked about it. You could maybe say “a student wondered….” But then look around the room and do not focus your eyes on me.

  Okay, about December, and Christmas. Yes, I admit that I behaved badly, my mother says I sulked—a word I hate: sulked. And I was rude to you, I know that. The thing is: You are not supposed to give people underwear for Christmas. Not even expensive underwear, all wrapped in beautiful paper with satin ribbon…That actually makes it worse, because then everyone notices the present and watches while you unwrap it. Okay, I apologize. I should have smiled and said thank you instead of slamming the box closed and pretending it was meant for someone else, and I should have come out of my room eventually instead of staying there all afternoon.

  That has nothing to do with school, of course, and I am really writing you a Friendly Letter about school stuff. But it does make me think of a question, which is: In Elementary School we just went outside and played kickball and stuff, we didn’t really have anything called “Gym” but I know they have “Gym” at Middle School, and I am wondering if we are required to take off our clothes and take showers. Probably teachers don’t have to. But students? Is that required? If it is, I think it might be against the law. Or would there be a way to get out of it? When I went to summer camp, my mom was willing to tell the camp nurse that I was allergic to several things. Liver, and cooked carrots. She lied on my behalf because I told her I wouldn’t go if they made me eat those things. Maybe it would only qualify as a fib. But my mom was willing to do it, and she might be willing again, so I’m wondering if she could tell the school nurse that I have some disease that means I can’t take showers, would that work, do you think?

  And don’t make any comments about my mom telling a lie. She and I both know that you smoked all through high school. And she never told on you but I could still rat you out to Grandma.

  Just as a side question, and maybe you don’t know the answer to this, but do all female Middle School students wear bras?

  And while I am asking questions, does To Kill a Mockingbird have similes and metaphors? Just asking, no reason.

  Love,

  Your niece (but under no circumstances should anyone know that!)

  Katie

  • • •

  John Glenn Middle School

  Cedar Harbor, Maine 04993

  May 22, 2017

  Katherine Metcalf Anderson

  9 Cedar Circle

  Cedar Harbor, Maine 04993

  Dear Ms. Anderson:

  Thank you for your very interesting Business Letter, and the additional Friendly Letter that accompanied it.

  Let me inform you that, just for the record, I smoked only during my last year of high school, and not the years preceding it, which you accused me of.* And I have not smoked since February 7, 2004. My sister, whom I believe you know well, continued smoking until 2005, thereby breaking an agreement we had made to stop together. (She thought I didn’t know, but I borrowed a jacket from her that September, and it reeked of Marlboros.)

  You will probably not have any problem navigating the corridors of the middle school, unless, of course, you are still having trouble distinguishing left from right, which clearly gave you some difficulty that day last summer when we went to buy fireworks. The science lab (smells scientific, like alcohol) is on the right-hand side of the hall and the art studio (smells artsy, like turpentine) is on the left. At the other end of the hall, the music room (sounds squawky, like clarinets) is on the right, and the library (sounds hushed, like pages turning) on the left.

  And you need not be concerned about restrooms. There are many, several on each floor, some marked GIRLS and some marked BOYS. They do not actually say that but use silhouettes, one with a skirt, one with trousers.

  (I should mention, perhaps, that in my fifteen years of teaching at this school, I don’t recall ever seeing a female student wearing a skirt. Still, everyone seems to accept that a picture of a skirt indicates a female person. Last year a seventh-grade boy found it amusing to wear a kilt. But it only lasted a day and he gave it up as a bad idea. I think the other boys gave him a hard time.)

  And speaking of water: yes, there are showers at the middle school. It is not a big deal.

  Sincerely,

  Ms. Margaret Metcalf

  Teacher

  * This should say “
of which you accused me.” But sometimes one makes exceptions.

  Lois Lowry is the beloved author of many books for kids, including The Giver and Number the Stars, both of which won the Newbery Medal. Her books have won countless awards, and several have been made into movies and plays. Ms. Lowry was born in Hawaii and has lived all over the world. She spent her middle school years in a small town in Pennsylvania with her grandparents and many other relatives nearby. Her sister (who was clearly her mother’s favorite) was three years older, and her brother (whom her dad liked best, no question) was six years younger. As a child her favorite activities were reading, writing, and drawing, and her mom always urged her to go outside and get some exercise! Her favorite food by far was cherry pie, which she was given every year, with candles, instead of a birthday cake.

  She has three grown children and four grandchildren. None of them is her favorite. She currently lives with her Tibetan terrier Alfie in a farmhouse in Maine, surrounded by meadows and flower gardens.

  The girl seated on the front-porch swing looked up at the sound of a slamming screen door. She winced at the approach of the second girl, who was exactly the same age. The girl on the porch swing said, “I do declare, Beulah Mae, that the sunset on this Alabama bayou is a sight to see, or my name isn’t Hannabelle Lee. It’s sweeter than sweet pecan pie made with—”

  “Extra sweetener?”

  “Hush your mouth, darlin’. Never let evil mockery escape your lips. T’ain’t ladylike.”

  “You shut up,” replied her sister in a nice-enough tone of voice. “Margaret Mary Flynn, quit your stupid Hannabelle Lee routine. I have some breaking news, and it isn’t good.”

  “I reckon I don’t know what you might be talking about, dear sister. This April sunset on the dear old Alabama bayou—”