Totally Middle School Read online

  Will there be whitefish and dumplings and Polish sausage,

  Dressel’s German Bakery,

  and Marshall Fields Department Store, with the

  fifty-foot Christmas tree?

  Did they have lightning bugs

  and summer rainstorms

  and snow?

  Was it real? Were we actually going to live

  somewhere else?

  Somewhere called California,

  where everything was perfect

  and dreams came true,

  just like in the movies?

  TO CALIFORNIA

  Someone was found to take Sparkle.

  I hugged her, weeping

  until her long cocker ears were wet.

  Furniture was packed into a moving van.

  Goodbyes were said.

  I saw Grandma crying and I hugged her, too.

  I was excited and scared and lonesome

  already.

  We started for California

  on a snowy January morning.

  Cocooned in the backseat of the car,

  I vomited across the country

  from Chicago to Los Angeles.

  In Dallas, Texas, we stopped at a J. C. Penney

  to replace the blankets, pillows, and towels I had ruined.

  The J. C. Penney had a magic machine.

  A clerk put our bill and our money

  in what looked like a brass soup can,

  which she dropped into a tube.

  With a press of a button, the can shot up the tube

  and across the ceiling to somewhere

  in the depths of the store.

  Soon with a whoosh it returned to us,

  now containing our change.

  If Texas was this modern, I thought,

  what would California be like?

  We climbed back into the car

  where I was immediately sick

  on the new towels.

  LOS ANGELES

  With my frizzy perm and

  little puff-sleeved cotton dresses

  tied in the back with floppy bows,

  and brown oxfords, sturdy and roomy enough

  to last all year,

  I arrived to find California girls

  mature even in their

  Catholic school uniforms.

  California girls rolled skirts up shorter and

  tucked matching blouses into tiny waists,

  and tossed their hair in the boys’ direction.

  The nuns at my new school didn’t like the way I

  looked

  or talked

  or that the smartest girl in the class

  had a whiff of

  Polish and

  Chicago about her.

  You might have crossed your Ts like that

  in Chicago,

  the nun in my class told me with a sniff,

  but it is not proper here.

  And

  Those shoes might be worn

  in Chicago

  but they are not acceptable

  uniform shoes

  here.

  I went home each day

  alone

  to lie on my bed and

  read.

  In a book I could go wherever I wanted—

  home to Chicago, to Grandma and Grandpa, or

  over the ocean or

  back in time and

  imagine myself there.

  I wrote letters to my grandma,

  who couldn’t read or write.

  My grandpa wrote back,

  enclosing a two-dollar bill each time,

  so I knew he still bet on the horses,

  for where else did one get

  two-dollar bills?

  Did he still drink Green Rivers at the drugstore?

  Who was helping Grandma make kolachke,

  sticking little fingers into the dough to make

  dents for jelly?

  Was Sparkle happy in her new home,

  or was she sad and bedraggled,

  her cocker ears hanging to the floor?

  Did the neighborhood kids play

  Red Light, Green Light without me?

  Did they play hide-and-seek,

  looking for

  but never finding

  me?

  GIRL SCOUTS

  In Chicago I was a Brownie.

  We wove potholders and made cookies,

  sang and played games,

  and told stories.

  In Los Angeles I thought I’d join the Girl Scouts.

  The California Girl Scouts

  didn’t dress in Girl Scout uniforms but wore

  poodle skirts and

  starched white blouses

  and sleek black flats on their feet.

  They didn’t want to sing or play games.

  They wanted to have parties

  with boys

  and dancing.

  I sat alone,

  my big brown oxfords tucked beneath my chair

  so no one could see them,

  until the meeting was over

  and then my big brown oxfords

  took me home.

  I was not a California sort of Girl Scout.

  BECOMING CALIFORNIANS

  My father loved California and the

  heat.

  He’d do cannonballs

  into the neighbor’s swimming pool

  and float with only his nose,

  his belly, and his toes

  above the water.

  My mother drank martinis

  and served Thanksgiving and

  Christmas dinner

  on a picnic table in the backyard.

  Isn’t this great? she’d say,

  over and over.

  It’s warm enough to eat

  Christmas dinner outside.

  I didn’t think it was great.

  Where was the snow?

  And people with red cheeks

  bundled up in scarves and mittens?

  Where were

  red cabbage with apples,

  roast squab, and

  lime Jell-O with whipped cream,

  like at Grandma’s?

  My brother was as pale and thin

  as a wisp of smoke

  but he could run like the wind.

  He found three boys his age

  in our new neighborhood

  and played basketball and baseball,

  or just ran, fast as he could,

  animated by youth and happiness

  and friends.

  I was by far the oldest girl

  in our neighborhood,

  blocks and blocks full of babies and

  boys.

  The girls at school talked about

  bras and

  boyfriends.

  I had neither.

  I was out of place, not good enough,

  strange and foreign,

  marked like the laundry my Irish mother

  didn’t get clean enough,

  according to my grandma,

  who hung it in the attic

  so the neighbors couldn’t see.

  I wanted to go home.

  My uncle Stooge raised homing pigeons,

  which, taken far away,

  still found their way back,

  but not
me.

  Like a lightning bug in a jar,

  flapping against the sides,

  I was unable to fly free.

  My mother said,

  You always have your nose in

  a book.

  I did.

  I found friends in books.

  And hope.

  So I read.

  I was more lonely than anyone knew.

  The loneliness came in flashes

  but I swallowed it inside

  and read.

  Reading saved my life.

  GOING BACK

  Three years later,

  just before I started high school,

  my brother and I took the train

  from Los Angeles to

  Chicago.

  The Chicago air was heavy and steamy.

  It made my hair limp

  and my clothes sweaty.

  People dressed funny

  and talked funny.

  We stayed at Grandma’s house

  but Grandma did not sleep

  at the foot of my bed

  to keep me safe,

  as she used to,

  but in her own bed

  with Grandpa.

  She did not say,

  I am so happy to see you again.

  Looking at my long legs and

  wide shoulders,

  she said,

  You are too big for a girl.

  She said,

  The fingernails you bite

  collect in a sac in your stomach

  and one day they will explode

  and kill you.

  Grandpa did not play the spoons

  anymore

  or lead school children

  safely across the street

  anymore

  or drink Green Rivers

  anymore.

  No one drank Green Rivers

  anymore.

  Uncle Stooge and Uncle Chester

  stayed elsewhere so we could have their beds.

  The house still smelled like pipe tobacco

  but the uncles were not there.

  Only the pigeons were the same.

  Everything else was changed,

  especially my brother

  and me.

  We were growing up

  and away.

  On the way back to Los Angeles,

  the train broke down

  and sat on the tracks for two days

  in the middle of nowhere,

  a place not Chicago

  and not California.

  Just like me—

  not Chicago and

  not California,

  a too-big foot in each place

  but at home in neither.

  And I am not certain

  if that is a bad thing or

  a good thing.

  Karen Cushman is best known for writing historical fiction with gutsy girl protagonists, like The Midwife’s Apprentice, which won a Newbery Medal, and Catherine, Called Birdy, which won a Newbery Honor Award. She was born in Chicago and moved to California when she was in middle school, with her younger brother. She read, wrote, and put on plays in her garage enthusiastically from a very young age, though she did not publish her first novel until she was nearly fifty. She lives on a soft green island near Seattle with her husband. She has one grown daughter.

  “It’s almost time for our big adventure!” Ms. Wehrle drops a yellow paper on my desk.

  I must be hearing wrong when she says our sixth-grade class is taking a three-day trip to “study science and nature, and things you can’t learn in a classroom.”

  Three whole days? I took school trips at the Lahore Grammar School in Pakistan—my school until we moved to America this summer. But we visited places like Shalimar Gardens for a couple of hours. We didn’t sleep there.

  When I show my parents the yellow paper, they don’t like the idea either.

  “No, no, no.” Abbu shakes his head. “I won’t send my daughter into the jungle with strangers!”

  Ammi agrees with Abbu, and I sigh with relief. It’s bad enough being stuck in middle school every day. It’s taken me a month to stop getting lost in the giant building and find my locker. I’m finally beginning to understand how things work in America (HERE), compared to Pakistan (THERE).

  THERE we stayed in one classroom all day and teachers came to us. HERE we rush to different rooms in crowded hallways before a bell rings.

  THERE everyone wore neat uniforms. HERE kids wear whatever they want—even pants with holes in them and numbered shirts.

  THERE my school was all girls. HERE half the students are boys—even tall and hairy ones.

  THERE I had one English class, and the rest in Urdu. HERE I think, write, and speak in English all day long and go to a special English learning class called ESL.

  THERE I had my best friend, Deena. HERE I have nobody to talk to, share secrets with, or trade lunches with.

  But just because I’m figuring it out doesn’t mean I want to be alone anywhere without my family for three days. So I crumple up the yellow paper and throw it away.

  A week later Ms. Wehrle calls me to her desk while everyone works on an assignment.

  “Raniya, I don’t have a permission slip for you for Outdoor Ed,” she says, pointing to a pile of the yellow papers.

  “Yes, ma…I’m not going.” I stop in time before saying “madam,” like I call my teachers THERE. It slipped out of my mouth during the first week of class and everyone giggled, including Ms. Wehrle.

  “Why not? You’re the only student not going.” Ms. Wehrle frowns. “It’s not just fun. There’s so much hands-on learning about science and the environment, team building and more.”

  “My parents said I can’t go,” I say.

  “Oh dear. Is it a matter of…finances?” Ms. Wehrle half whispers the last word.

  “Pardon me?” I whisper back.

  “If it’s a matter of the cost…ahem…we can talk to the PTA and I’m sure—”

  “No, thank you,” I interrupt. My face grows warm and I look up to see if anyone is listening. THERE, Abbu used to have a job at an office where he wore fancy suits and shiny shoes. HERE, he goes to work in jeans and sneakers at a shop. But Abbu says we still have plenty of money.

  “Well then, may I ask why? This is the only time in my twelve years here that any student hasn’t gone.”

  “Oh…um…I don’t know,” I mumble. A boy named Tony with dark brown hair is definitely listening from his desk.

  “Would it be okay if I called your parents to discuss it?” Ms. Wehrle asks.

  “Yes. May I go back to my seat now?”

  “Of course.” Ms. Wehrle frowns again. As I walk past, Tony shrugs at me.

  By the time I get off the bus and walk home, everything has changed.

  “Your teacher called.” My father is home. By “home” I mean the basement we are staying in for now that belongs to a nice old lady.

  “Did you tell her I won’t go?” I’m sure Abbu was as firm with Ms. Wehrle as he is with my sister, Soniya, and me.

  “She told me about the learning that happens there that can’t happen in a classroom. She said it’s safe, and she will sleep in the same cabin as you—all girls. I told her thank you very much and gave you permission.”

  HERE I watch TV shows where kids roll their eyes at their parents and say things like “But, Dad,” stretching out their words so it sounds like “Daaa-ad.” I could never say that, even if I want to.

  “Yes, Abbu” is all I say, although my heart is racing. Why didn’t I tell Ms. Wehrle m
y parents don’t speak English? At bedtime, I confess to my mother that I’m scared.

  “You will be fine, meri jaan.” Ammi always calls me her “heart.” “Your teacher said it is most kids’ favorite part of the year.”

  “It won’t be for me.”

  “You always enjoy school outings.” Ammi brushes my hair out of my face.

  “That was THERE. Please don’t make me go.”

  “Abbu told your teacher yes. We can’t say no now. You will be fine.” Ammi smiles. But I see the worry in her eyes.

  There’s a list of things we have to bring to Outdoor Ed. Abbu buys me a bright green sleeping sack from the home store. I pick out a hat and gloves. The list says “no electronics.”

  And now I’m sitting on the bus with my Outdoor Ed group, called the Frogs. I’m gripping my lunch as I sit on a hard green bench by the window, alone. It’s louder than the school hallways as everyone talks in excited voices about what we’re going to do at this place called Skycroft.

  The bus pulls away from school, and Ammi shrinks into the distance. Just before she disappears from view, she wipes her eyes. She was quiet when she hugged me goodbye for an extra-long time.

  As my chest tightens, I’m grateful she didn’t cry in front of me. I would have crumbled into pieces, and Ms. Wehrle would have had to sweep me off the sidewalk. Ammi never cries. Even when we waved goodbye to our cousins and left our happy life THERE in Pakistan and everything I’ve known to board a plane HERE to Maryland three months ago, she forced a smile at me.

  I take a deep breath and wipe my eyes. Three girls in sparkly T-shirts and fluffy boots are whispering in the seat across the aisle from me. Behind them, a couple of boys are yelling to others in the back of the bus. Another kid taps the edge of the window, like he’s playing drums. I sink into my seat and wait for the hour-long ride to end.

  * * *

  —

  Screech. I wake up when the bus stops. I look down at my lap and something is missing. My lunch bag! It’s nowhere on the floor. Then I turn around and see Tony, in the bench behind me, holding my lunch and grinning.

  My heart sinks into my stomach. I’ve seen bullies on TV, stealing lunches and shoving kids into lockers. I don’t know what to do, so I turn back around and say nothing.

  “Don’t you want this?” Tony asks, touching my arm. I tense but don’t move. “I mean, what’s left?” he adds. “I tried half your sandwich. Was that Sriracha mayo?”