Totally Middle School Read online

  to teach me?

  But what if they just make fun of me, Cuban-style,

  by giving me a nickname that sticks forever,

  something clever that means “dorky,” “clumsy,”

  “awkward,” “klutzy,” or worst of all: “wannabe.”

  Cubans and Cuban Americans don’t live on the same planet.

  Islanders are born dancing, while here we grow up watching TV,

  playing video games, staring at screens, instead of talking

  to living,

  breathing

  people.

  With one week to go before YOUR first mixer

  what would YOU do?

  Run away from home?

  It’s a possibility, but the truth is I’m chicken.

  Out there on the streets of Los Angeles, every stranger

  is scary.

  SEVEN DAYS TO GO!

  One week of waiting to be humiliated

  and I still don’t have a plan

  for this space-age countdown

  to liftoff

  or

  for

  an

  explosion.

  SIX MORE DAYS NOW.

  The morning is warm and smoggy.

  All the overwhelming hours at school

  seem impossible, but somehow, I get through

  the shame of sitting alone at lunch,

  and by the time I go to my aunt’s house

  in the evening, dancing with my cousins

  seems so intimidating that I secretly grow

  anxious

  dizzy

  delirious

  with fear.

  So I SIT DOWN and pretend to be lazy,

  hoping I won’t faint and end up with broken bones

  a concussion

  or crushed

  wishes.

  FIVE DAYS.

  I don’t even try.

  FOUR DAYS.

  Is there any way to slow

  a spaceship’s countdown,

  maybe use half days or tenths of days,

  or substitute some other culture’s unfamiliar

  calendar?

  THREE DAYS.

  Is it possible to dance with my eyes closed?

  No.

  What about pretending the dog is my partner

  and trying to follow four-footed steps instead of two?

  Pretty funny, but not really useful

  unless I want to dance

  in a circus

  or a zoo.

  ONLY TWO MORE DAYS!

  The connection to my arms and legs

  shuts down, as if someone has switched off

  all the lights in the entire world.

  So I give up, and go to the nursing home

  to visit Abuela, because she suffered a stroke

  not very long ago, and she still needs lots of company

  to keep her connected to her own arms and legs.

  It’s in the brain, she explains as we stand side by side

  in front of a physical therapy clinic mirror

  while she practices

  her balancing

  exercises,

  perched on one foot

  like a flamingo.

  It’s not easy!

  I almost fall.

  Try it.

  You’ll see.

  Standing on one leg

  for more than a few seconds

  is tricky.

  Abuela needs to learn how to walk again,

  because the stroke made her brain forget

  where her feet are located in space,

  so she gazes downward as she recites

  heel, toe, heel, toe, reminding herself

  to do first things first, placing one heel

  on the floor, then slowly, carefully

  lowering those toes.

  Afterward, we talk.

  The blood clot in her brain took away English,

  so we’re limited to her first language, but I manage

  to tell her with español and gestures just how worried I am

  about the mixer—a word I translate as mezcladora,

  one of those big trucks that stir up wet stuff and gravel

  to make hard, gray concrete, like a roadway

  leading into the unknown.

  ¡Ay, cómo me encantaba bailar! my grandma says

  with a sigh—Oh, how dancing enchanted me!

  I smile for the first time in days.

  It’s so easy to be poetic in Spanish.

  Her memories seem to float in the air like feathers.

  If only I could feel that weightless

  and graceful.

  No es fácil, she says—It’s not easy.

  That’s the only phrase any Cuban ever uses

  when faced with a problem, and even though

  the words might sound pessimistic, it’s really

  so much more hopeful than claiming that a goal

  is impossible.

  She leans on her walker as we stroll down a hallway,

  gazing out windows at a garden with a fountain.

  All in the brain.

  Not easy, but possible.

  I need practical advice.

  All I have so far is fragments.

  You have to practice, Abuela tells me,

  adding, so that you can teach me, because I’m sure

  I’ve forgotten.

  How could my grandma forget her dance moves?

  She’s always been able to do the best rumba, conga,

  or mambo at any party.

  That night, when I go home,

  I stand in front of my mirror,

  wondering how I’ll get through

  tomorrow.

  DANCE DAY!

  The mixer is after school,

  so first I have to endure

  one class after another,

  feeling glad that I argued

  with Mami and wore

  jeans and a T-shirt

  instead of a dress,

  because guess what—

  everyone else is wearing

  regular clothes too.

  The gym looks huge, even though

  it’s the same size

  as always.

  A table with punch and cookies.

  Balloons on strings, drifting toward the ceiling.

  Boys stand around in clusters, while girls

  jump up and down, wave their arms, and giggle,

  until finally, someone I recognize

  from math class

  pulls me into the girl crowd, where I hop

  like a three-year-old, suddenly feeling exhilarated,

  relieved to discover that no one else knows

  paired-up-partner steps,

  so there’s no pressure

  to follow

  a sweaty

  boy.

  Later, when boys start to join in,

  my apprehension returns, but at least

  it’s not real horror anymore,

  just his right hand on my waist,

  my left hand on his shoulder,

  and our other fingers

  clasped

  in air.

  He’s nothing like the thousand boys

  I’ve imagined.

  Just a shy kid who looks worried

  as he watches his feet.

  We do a little shuffling thing,

  pretending we know
where we’re going

  until the slow music ends and everyone

  goes back to jumping around in time to a fast song,

  having fun, laughing, maybe even secretly imagining

  that we’re good at this, experts like Abuela

  in her memory,

  floating

  and feathery,

  our minds filled

  with no es fácil—it’s not easy

  possibilities.

  ONE WEEK AFTER DANCE DAY.

  Okay, so I didn’t end up with a boyfriend

  or dance skills,

  but now I hang out with the girl

  from math class, and at lunchtime

  we eat in a crowd of proud nerds,

  and starting tomorrow, I plan to practice

  walking, talking Spanglish, and dancing

  to old Cuban music

  with my lonely grandma.

  The thing about new possibilities is:

  it feels so good to share them.

  Margarita Engle, recently named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation, is a Cuban American poet, novelist, and journalist. She won the first Newbery Honor Award ever awarded to a Latina writer, for The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom. When in elementary school, she lived in Los Angeles and frequently visited extended family in Cuba. She and her sister surrounded themselves with dogs, cats, rabbits, and wildlife, including lizards, frogs, fish, turtles, and an injured mud hen. Her sister had a seven-foot boa constrictor that she wore around her neck like a scarf. Her favorite foods were dulce de leche candy and coffee ice cream, and her favorite activities were reading adventure stories and writing poetry. By the time Margarita was a teenager, the United States no longer allowed travel to Cuba, and she felt a terrible sense of loss. Now, most of her writing is in verse and reflects both her Cuban heritage and her love of nature. She lives in central California with her husband, and when she’s not writing, she volunteers at a wilderness search-and-rescue dog-training program. She has two grown children and four grandchildren.

  Before class, it sits quietly

  waiting.

  Just some scattered chairs,

  smudged song sheets,

  and the tilted skeletons

  of music stands.

  A faint odor of metal and spit.

  Soon, though,

  it fills with our jokes and jostling.

  Instruments burst from their pebbled black cases

  in a chatter of snaps.

  We find our chairs:

  the willowy clarinets, wistful oboes,

  blaring trumpets, and slick trombones;

  the growly saxophones

  and the distant, formal French horns.

  We riff through scales and tricky phrases

  and shuffle our scores.

  Then

  the baton lifts,

  and like a giant organism with many moving parts,

  glinting and wobbling,

  we gather our collective breath

  and b l o w.

  Letting loose with abandon,

  knowing these walls

  were built

  for NOISE.

  Award-winning poet Joyce Sidman was inspired to write this poem by her son’s happy experience with his middle school band. She is the author of many books of poetry for kids, including the Newbery Honor winner Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, and is a recipient of the prestigious NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. She grew up in Connecticut in the hippie era as the middle sister of three girls (all girls all the time!). Her family had a dog—a German shepherd—and various other pets that her sister adopted over the years: a crow, a tortoise, an iguana. She was a voracious reader and always kept a journal, which helped her decode the worlds of school and relationships. She discovered poetry in high school, encouraged by a sympathetic teacher. A firm believer in “pondering time,” especially for kids, she lives with her husband and their dog, Watson, near a large woodland in Wayzata, Minnesota. She has two grown sons.

  [TEXT]

  Amanda (to older cousin Katie): Hey Katie. How are you?

  Katie: Hey Amanda! I miss you, whatup??

  Amanda: I need advice. A LOT OF ADVICE

  Katie: Let’s FaceTime.

  Amanda: Yes!

  [FACETIME]

  Katie: So what’s happening? I miss you since your family moved away.

  Amanda: Oh, Katie, I miss you too. I’m starting middle school next week and everything is freaking me out. I just saw Middle School: The Worst Year of My Life and I’m worried that my middle school will be like the school in the movie, with an evil principal and endless rules that make no sense. I know that the movie was made-up and exaggerated, but even if it’s a little tiny bit true, eeeeek!

  Katie: First off, relax! That movie was totally fiction. I wish we lived closer and I wasn’t mucho busy so I could visit Elm Street Middle and assure you that it will be nothing like your nightmare scenario. Would it bum you out to know that I loved middle school? Okay, I won’t say it, but I really did.

  Amanda: Did you honestly love middle school? From the first day?

  Katie: It’s really not as scary as you think!

  Amanda: But last year we went to a concert there and I got lost trying to find the girls’ room. I thought I’d never see my parents again.

  Katie: Oh, my poor cuz, didn’t they give you a map of the building at orientation?

  Amanda: Yes, they did pass out maps. But I’ve never been good at reading maps. And it’s not just the building, it’s all the kids. ESMS has over three hundred students in each grade. I’m not good at math, but even I know that three hundred in each year adds up to nearly one thousand kids.

  Katie: It’s too early to be overwhelmed. Take a deep breath. Enjoy your weekend. Just figure that on Tuesday those other two hundred ninety-nine kids will be new too. A lot of them will be getting lost right along with you.

  Amanda: Thanks. Okay. Okay. I’m taking a deep breath. Tomorrow is the day. Wish me luck.

  Katie: Of course! Good luck!

  Amanda: Wait! I nearly forgot! One more thing. Lockers! Do you remember Sean? My nerd neighbor who had a crush on you when you visited last summer? He said that lockers will do me in. I’ll forget my combination, forget where it is, forget which book or notebook I need…well, basically everything.

  Katie: When you get your lock, practice the combo until you can open it underwater and blindfolded. Also, enter your number and combo into your phone so you’ll always have it. While you’re at it, put a red X on your map where your locker is. I promise to think of you tomorrow. Now get some sleep!

  Amanda: Thanks so much. Love you!

  [TEXT]

  Amanda: Good news! I survived day one. I got lost a zillion times but just kept bumping into other lost bodies. It was almost funny.

  [FACETIME]

  Katie: I told you! Congrats for surviving day one! Only about two hundred ninety left to go, right? And then you’ll be laughing at the new kids.

  Amanda: I didn’t think I could change classes without a tour guide today, but it helped to realize that all of us are new.

  Katie: Of course it does. And think of the freedom. You’re not a preschooler holding on to a rope, or an elementary kid silently walking two by two behind a teacher, which always made me think of Noah’s Ark! You can walk to class with a friend and visit along the way. Free at last! That’s how I met Maria. Remember her?

  Amanda: Yeah, you brought her to that family trip like last year, right?

  Katie: Yep! The first day in homeroom we realized we had the same first-period class. We got lost, but
at least we got lost together. Now five years later we’re best friends. My Spanish teacher can’t believe how good my accent is. I don’t tell her my secret weapon—a BF who was born in Puerto Rico. So. Big advantage of a huge school. You get to meet lots of new people who don’t live in your old neighborhood. Which doesn’t mean you lose your old friends.

  Amanda: You make it all sound so great. Love you!

  [TEXT]

  Amanda: Hey Katie. This morning in math I got slammed! The problems didn’t resemble anything I’ve ever seen before. I think that woman is using some foreign language to explain stuff. I know I’m going to fail. Can we FaceTime later?

  [FACETIME]

  Katie: Oh, Amanda, please calm down. You can do this! How about raising your hand and telling your math teacher that you didn’t understand what she was saying?

  Amanda: No! I don’t want her to think I’m stupid.

  Katie: You aren’t stupid, but you’ve got to ask for help. It’s her job to make you understand what’s going on.

  Amanda: You don’t understand how it is, Katie. You’re so smart. I didn’t get those genes. I take after my mother’s side of the family. Long line of English majors. No math genes.

  Katie: Yes, I’m smart. Smart enough to ask for help when I need it. And I know you are too. Besides, just think how many kids in the class will appreciate your asking a question. They’re sitting there too afraid to ask because they don’t want people to think they’re dumb. You ask the question for them and they’ll love you for it, even if they don’t say so. Think of it as another way to make friends.

  Amanda: I wish you’d warned me about how much more work they give you in middle school than elementary. I’m literally drowning in homework.

  Katie: Three words of advice: organize, organize, organize.

  Amanda: Ouch. Now you’re sounding like Mom. I hate to organize.

  Katie: Believe me. Once you make yourself do it, you’ll be forever grateful. Write down assignments and put on your calendar when they’re due. And remember to look at your calendar.