Totally Middle School Read online

  “No, I just want to skate.”

  “Go, then. Have fun with Arlene. Don’t think about me lying here too sick to go anywhere.” Ellie coughed and reached for the glass of water on the bedside table.

  Cassie couldn’t stand another second of Ellie’s whining, not with the sun shining, and the wind blowing, and the afternoon slipping away. “You know what I think? There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re a hypochondriac!”

  Ellie threw the covers aside and jumped out of bed, her face flushed with anger. “What did you say?”

  Cassie grabbed her skates and ran down the stairs. A handful of dominoes pelted her back. She silently thanked her English teacher for adding hypochondriac to her vocabulary.

  Mrs. Boyd stuck her head out of the living room. “Are you leaving already?”

  Cassie paused long enough to say “Ellie’s too sick to go skating.” Then she was out the door, in the fresh air, sailing on the wind. Free, free, free.

  Cassie was so tired of the way Ellie acted. Throwing those dominoes was something a five-year-old would do. And that book by Albert Payson Terhune…Cassie was sick to death of dog stories. She didn’t care if she never read Lochinvar Luck. She’d just begun Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff was a lot more interesting than a collie.

  Let Ellie stay in bed. See if Cassie cared. She didn’t want to sit in that hot, stuffy room and drink cocoa and play checkers. Ellie always won, which made Cassie feel stupid.

  At the pond, Cassie laced up her skates and looked around to see who was there. Little kids slid and stumbled and fell their way across the ice; groups of teenagers raced each other or played hockey; girls practiced spins and jumps. She glimpsed Arlene’s red jacket in the crowd.

  “Arlene!” she called.

  Her cheeks pink from the cold, Arlene skated across the ice to meet her. “I went to your house, but your mother said you’d already left. Where’ve you been?”

  “I went to see Ellie. She’s sick.”

  Arlene shrugged. “She’s always sick.”

  Cassie noticed a faint rim of red on Arlene’s lower lip. “Are you wearing lipstick?”

  “Julie let me use hers. We were experimenting with colors. This is Carmen Red—or it was, before it faded.”

  “But just last week, you said only cheap girls wear lipstick.”

  “Julie’s not cheap and neither is Janet.” Arlene looked closely at Cassie. “You should try it. Pink would look so good on you.”

  Cassie shook her head. She’d feel dumb wearing lipstick, like she was trying to be somebody she wasn’t.

  “There’s Janet.” Arlene took Cassie’s arm and pulled her across the ice toward a group of girls. Julie was there too. Cassie hesitated. What if Julie treated her the way she’d treated Ellie?

  Without warning, Arlene stopped so fast Cassie almost fell down. She pointed to a boy speeding across the ice with a group of hockey players. “There’s Billy. Isn’t he cute?”

  Cassie looked at her. “Are you crazy? What’s cute about Billy Travers?”

  Arlene spun around in a circle. Her face had a strange, dreamy look. “Oh, just everything. His hair, his eyes, the way he smiles. He’s so—”

  “Short,” Cassie interrupted.

  “He’s taller than I am.”

  “Well, he’s shorter than I am.”

  Arlene and Cassie started laughing like that was the funniest thing in the world. Before Cassie could catch herself, her skates slipped out from under her and down she went. Arlene fell too. They lay on the ice and giggled.

  Suddenly Billy Travers was there, hockey stick in his hand, staring down at them. “Are you girls okay?”

  Arlene’s face turned red and she struggled to get up. But her skates slid out from under her and she sprawled on the ice like a newborn baby horse.

  Billy held out his hockey stick. “Lean on this,” he told Arlene.

  Still giggling, Arlene let Billy help her. Cassie got to her feet by herself.

  “What’s so funny?” Billy asked. “You guys were laughing like lunatics.”

  “Nothing.” The girls started laughing again. They couldn’t help it. Nothing was funny. Everything was funny.

  Billy looked puzzled. “You’re both crazy.”

  They laughed harder. Cassie felt like the fun-house lady who stood at the entrance and laughed and laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop.

  David Miller skated over. “Come on, Billy. You’re holding up the game.”

  “Take it easy, girls,” Billy said.

  They watched the boys skate away to join their friends. Their voices rang across the ice. Their hockey sticks banged against each other.

  Arlene groaned. “Oh, I feel so stupid. Why did I laugh like that? Now Billy thinks I’m crazy.”

  “Why do you care what Billy Travers thinks? He’s pretty goofy himself.”

  “Billy’s not goofy. He’s the nicest boy in school and I really, really like him.”

  “You like Billy?”

  “Everybody likes him. I want to ask him to the Sweetheart Dance before Julie does, but I’m scared he’ll say no.”

  Arlene babbled on about Billy, but Cassie had stopped listening. Boys, dances—she didn’t know what to say. She skated backward, a foot or so away from Arlene. The sun was low now, and the sky was red behind the bare trees. Soon the streetlights would come on, and they’d have to go home.

  Turning to Arlene, Cassie yelled, “Race you across the pond!” Her skates bit into the ice and she sped past the boys playing hockey. She reached the other side well ahead of Arlene. Arlene said Cassie won because her legs were longer. They raced again and this time Arlene won. Cassie said it was because Arlene’s legs were shorter.

  They laughed and Cassie relaxed. Things were all right between them again. They practiced skating backward and spinning. Arlene did a series of figure eights, and Cassie followed her tracks in the ice.

  The wind picked up, and the color in the sky faded. Most of the skaters had already left, even the boys.

  With their skates over their shoulders, they ran down Forty-Second Street. In front of Arlene’s house, they stopped under a streetlight.

  “I have this great idea,” Arlene said. “I’ll ask Billy to the Sweetheart Dance if you ask David—he’s definitely taller than you. And we’d go together, all four of us.”

  Cassie stared at Arlene in surprise. “Are you kidding? David wouldn’t go anywhere with me. I don’t know how to dance or anything.”

  “I can teach you. It’s easy. Barbara and Carol and I practice at Barbara’s house. Her big sister showed us how to slow dance and jitterbug. It’s really fun.” Arlene took Cassie’s hand and twirled around as if to prove how easy it was.

  Embarrassed, Cassie snatched her hand away. “I’d better go home. My mother will think I’ve been kidnapped or something.”

  “Wait a second.” Arlene grabbed Cassie’s sleeve. “I have to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  Arlene hesitated. “Don’t get mad, but Julie and some other girls were talking about Ellie after church. Nobody likes her. If you stay friends with her—”

  The good feeling from skating disappeared. “If I stay friends with Ellie, nobody will like me, either? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m just saying you shouldn’t do everything she tells you to do. You dress like her, you walk like her, you wear your hair in braids like her. You’re not in grade school anymore, Cassie.”

  Cassie got mad then. She’d had enough criticism for one day. “Why don’t you just shut up and mind your own business?”

  “Why don’t you?” Arlene ran up her front steps. The door banged behind her.

  Cassie stood under the streetlight and stared at Arlene’s house. What was the matter with her? First she and Ellie quarreled. Now she an
d Arlene had quarreled. Ellie didn’t like Arlene and Arlene didn’t like Ellie. At the moment, Cassie didn’t like either one of them.

  It was colder now, and she huddled inside her jacket. The wind pummeled at her back and pushed her forward. She didn’t feel like flying or jumping. Trees groaned and branches rattled. She slipped on a patch of ice and almost fell.

  Lights shone from the windows of houses. Sometimes the curtains were open and she glimpsed little scenes, like one-act plays. Families gathered around dinner tables; a man watched television; a woman stirred a pot on a stove; a boy opened a door and let a cat inside.

  Cassie felt a loneliness she’d never experienced. She was alone, disconnected, outside in the cold and the dark. It was as if she were skating across the pond, but she didn’t know how thin the ice was. The black water beneath her was deep. At any second she might plunge into it. She imagined swimming beneath the ice, trying to break it with her fists.

  A car passed, its headlights swept her face, and she was frightened. She began to run, helped once more by the wind behind her. There, just ahead, was her house. Her father stood on the porch.

  “Cassie!” He ran down the steps toward her. “Where have you been? I was about to start looking for you.”

  She pressed her face against his wool plaid shirt. It smelled of woodsmoke. She was safe now. She was home.

  Her mother came to the door and hugged her. “You worried us. We thought you’d fallen through the ice.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cassie said. “I didn’t realize how late it was.” She took off her jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. She hung her skates there too. Then, for a moment, she stood still and breathed in the comforting smell of warm food.

  “Cassie,” her mother called, “dinner’s on the table.”

  She took her seat. Her mother sat at one end of the table and her father at the other. He cut the beef, and her mother served mashed potatoes and peas, still steaming from the stove.

  A painting of a lake hung on the wall across from her. It had been there for as long as she could remember, peaceful and still, the sky blue, the water blue. In the corner, the china cabinet’s glass door reflected the room. If she opened the door, she’d smell the pound cake her mother kept there.

  Through the double windows behind her father, she saw the Jenkinses’ house. In the kitchen at her mother’s back, the refrigerator hummed. The television had been left on. Its screen cast a flickering light in the living room.

  Everything was exactly the same as it had been, dinner after dinner after dinner—meat, potatoes, and a vegetable.

  Deaf to her parents’ conversation, Cassie ate silently. She imagined a time when her mother and father would sit at the table alone. Everything in the house would be as it was now.

  Except Cassie. She’d be grown up, away at college maybe, but not here with her parents. Her chair would be empty.

  She felt close to tears. Someday different people would live in this house. They’d fill the rooms with their furniture. They’d repaint the walls. They’d hang their own pictures.

  Her mother and father would be gone. The house would no longer be her home.

  “You’re so quiet, Cassie.” Her mother leaned toward her. “You’re not crying, are you?”

  “No, of course not.” She pushed her chair away from the table. “May I be excused?”

  Her father looked at her. “Your mother baked apple pie, your favorite.”

  “Maybe I’ll have some later.”

  “I hope you haven’t caught something from Ellie,” her mother said.

  Their worry followed her upstairs. Maybe she had caught something from Ellie. Not a cold or a cough, but something she couldn’t explain.

  Being Ellie’s friend had gotten so hard. Maybe too hard. If she stayed friends with Ellie, she’d have no one else. Just Ellie.

  But if she was Arlene’s friend, maybe she’d have other friends—Janet and Barbara and Carol. But not Julie. Julie would never like her.

  Cassie examined her face in the mirror over her bureau. Freckles, a pimple on her cheek, that bump on her nose she hated so much. Eyes too small. Mouth too big. Definitely not pretty or cute.

  Who was she? What did she want? In elementary school she’d never asked herself questions like that. Then, she had been Cassie Martin, ten years old, bad at sports and math, good at art and reading. A bike rider, a tree climber, a skater, a creek wader, a daydreamer. She ran with a gang: Ellie, Arlene, Janet, Barbara, Carol. They quarreled and made up; they had fun.

  She looked in the mirror for that Cassie, but all she saw was her thirteen-year-old self looking back at her.

  Cassie picked up a pair of scissors lying on her desk. She lifted one braid and considered its weight and thickness. Suppose she cut it off? Suppose she cut them both off? Right now. This very night. Would she look better? Or worse?

  She laid the scissors down. No, not now. Not tonight. Maybe another time.

  She slid under the covers and opened Wuthering Heights. Outside, the wind murmured and howled. A draft of cold air sneaked under the windowpanes.

  Tomorrow she’d call Arlene and apologize for shouting at her. They’d go to the pond and skate. She wouldn’t go to Ellie’s house. Like her mother said, Ellie might have something contagious.

  Mary Downing Hahn is best known as the author of bestselling ghost stories and mysteries for kids, including Wait Till Helen Comes and The Old Willis Place. During her middle school years, she lived in a small house in Maryland with her younger sister and much younger brother. After years of begging, she persuaded her father to let her have a cat and, after even more begging, a dog. She was often in trouble for daydreaming, not paying attention, not following directions, and being sloppy and careless. Reading, writing, and drawing were her top skills, but she often got in trouble for doing those when she was supposed to be doing something else. She did not excel at math or team sports, but she did have a long list of nicknames, including Stretch, Spider, and Shorty. She lives in Maryland, the state where she was born and raised and the setting of many of her books. She has two grown daughters.

  I sort of know how to dance,

  so moves aren’t the challenge

  that scares me.

  It’s that partner thing—

  waiting to be chosen,

  standing alone

  on the sidelines

  with my nervous mind

  and nerdy glasses.

  I’ve seen enough PG-13 movies to know

  that contact lenses, cool clothes, a sassy attitude,

  and clipped-short

  blond hair

  always

  work like magic,

  attracting the perfect

  no-losers-allowed

  hot football player

  who somehow boasts

  both muscles

  and brains.

  Well, guess what—I’m not blond,

  my idea of fútbol is soccer,

  and I can’t actually dance

  even half as well

  as the rest

  of my family.

  My parents and never-nervous

  party-girl primas/cousins

  were all made on the dance-crazy

  island of Cuba,

  while I was born here,

  far from all those legendary drummers

  who pound out exhilarating beats

  on every street corner

  in La Habana.

  Whenever I have to perform my own shy

  sort-of-dancy thing

  at family gatherings—birthdays,

  quinceañeras, and wedding receptions—

  I’m never as relaxed as when I’m alone

  in front of a mirror, with nothing<
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  but music,

  my heartbeat,

  and any one of a thousand imaginary boys

  I know how to invent.

  They’re all experts, smart but cute too,

  and most importantly, easy to follow

  as they lead, spinning me all over

  our imaginary

  dance floor.

  If only

  one of those boys existed!

  I’d take him to next week’s

  dreaded

  dreadful

  deadline-looming

  first-in-my-lifetime

  Middle School

  Mixer.

  Why does the year’s first dance

  have to be called something silly?

  It’s still September—they could have waited

  for Halloween so we’d all be protected from ridicule,

  our embarrassed faces hidden

  behind hideous masks

  or hilarious ones.

  We’d also know each other better by then.

  We’re not the same people we were in sixth grade,

  so it’s like meeting for the first time.

  Everyone has changed in so many ways.

  Hair, clothes, attitudes, and groups—old friends

  tossed aside, new ones shown off

  like prized possessions.

  So what can I do?

  Who will I dance with at a mixer,

  whatever that means?

  One week to go.

  Seven days.

  One hundred sixty-eight hours.

  Ten thousand eighty minutes.

  Six hundred four thousand eight hundred

  endless

  agonizing

  seconds.

  Should I get sick, skip the dance,

  delay this ordeal until

  Winter Formal…

  or practice with my primas, get lessons from Mami and Papi,

  maybe steal a boat and row to the island, where relatives

  I’ve never met

  will probably be eager