How to Survive Middle School (4 page)

As I fall, I windmill my arms as though it will do anything other than make me look like an idiot. Every panicked thought flies from my mind except one:
Please, God. Not again
.

I smack the pool’s surface and sink in the lukewarm water. For a terrifying moment, I think I’m drowning in a giant toilet bowl.

But I can’t be drowning, because my head’s already out of the water and I’m holding on to the edge and looking at my cousin Rachel, who’s clutching her dinosaur float and spluttering.

I can tell by her squinty eyes she’s pissed.

I bumped into something when I fell into the pool. Must’ve been her.

“David!” Rachel says, squeezing the dinosaur’s inflatable neck with one hand and pinching my arm hard with the other. “Stop. Falling. Into. Our. Pool!”

“It’s not like I … At least I wasn’t holding potato … oh …” My arms tremble as I hoist myself out. I’m coughing and dripping and surprised Dad isn’t standing beside the pool to make sure I’m okay. I squint toward the back of the house. Of course Dad’s not
standing beside the pool. He’s lying on his lounge chair, beer in hand.

Amy and Lindsay laugh as though the sight of me, nearly drowned, is hilarious. Even Rachel laughs and makes faces.

Well, at least I’m not thirsty anymore. I swallowed tons of chlorinated pool water.

“It’s like an annual tradition,” Amy says.

Shielding her eyes from the sun, Lindsay asks, “You all right, David?”

I don’t answer. I walk away from them, toward the house.

Dad gives me a strange look as I pass.

“Oh, Davey,” Bubbe says, pressing her palms to her cheeks.

Aunt Sherry laughs and shakes her head. “Not again, sweetie.” She points toward the house. “Towels in the guest bathroom.”

I ignore everyone and walk to the guest bathroom, not even caring that I’m dripping water all over Aunt Sherry’s carpets and floors. Does she think I have the IQ of a Twinkie? I know there are towels in the guest bathroom. It’s a bathroom.

While I’m drying off, I glance at the toilet and feel my chest tighten.

If I, David Todd Greenberg, can’t survive my aunt’s stupid pool party without nearly drowning, how am I going to survive middle school?

Late Sunday morning, Dad walks into my room, carrying a huge plastic bag. “Mind if I come in?”

I shove the letter I’m reading for the sixth time under my pillow. “You already
are
in.”

“Well, look at that,” Dad says, sitting on my bed. “Guess I am.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

It’s quiet for several seconds, then Dad lets out a big breath. “So, how you doing?”

Scared to death about starting school
. “’Kay. You?”

“’Kay.” He hoists the bag onto the bed. “School clothes.”

Mom used to take me shopping for school clothes at Target, then to Nature’s Way Café for lunch. She always ordered the sprouts and avocado sandwich on pita, and I always ordered a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich with a fruit smoothie. It was a big deal, because Mom didn’t go out of the house too often.

“David?”

I shake my head. “Yeah?”

Dad pulls out three pairs of jeans—two blue, one black—that don’t look too bad, two short-sleeved collared shirts and three long-sleeved collared shirts. “Remember?” Dad asks. “Dress code.”

“Yup. Collared shirts. I remember.” The principal’s letter explaining the dress code is stuck to our fridge with the guitar magnet Mom gave Dad the day he found out that his advice column—“Alan’s Answers”—was going to be nationally syndicated. “Don’t forget about this part of you,” Mom said, and pressed a button on the magnet, causing a guitar riff to play for about five seconds.

Dad kissed Mom on the forehead. “How could I forget, Anita?”

He forgot. His übercool Fender Strat lies in a dusty guitar case under his bed. And no one’s pushed the button on that magnet since.

“And now,” Dad says, ruffling my hair, “the pièce de résistance.” He pulls out a gray T-shirt. “Ta-dah! Just don’t wear it to school, okay?”

“No worries.” On the front of the T-shirt is a TV set with these words inside the screen: “Be nice to me. I might be famous someday.”

“So true,” I say, puffing out my scrawny chest, which reminds me I haven’t even tried to bulk up, like Jack suggested. And school starts in two days!

“Try it on,” Dad says.

I can tell that my liking the T-shirt means a lot to him, so
I slip it over my head, look down at myself and say, “My new favorite shirt.”

Instead of acting happy, though, Dad gets this far-off look in his eyes, like he does when someone mentions Mom.

I can’t stand seeing that look, so I nudge his shoulder. “Thanks for all the great stuff.”

He blinks a few times and pretend-punches me in the shoulder. “I’m sure your mom would’ve gotten better stuff, but …”

But she, um, moved to Maine to live with an organic-beet farmer two years ago
. “It’s perfect, Dad. Really.”

“Well, I’m just going to …” Dad crumples the empty plastic bag and moves toward the door.

I nod.

“Okay, then.”

“Yup.”

He slips out of my room, and I grab the letter I was reading before he came in.

Even though I’m reading this letter for the seventh time, my stomach still seizes.

I blink a few times. “Maybe if you got a phone …,” I say to the letter and swipe at my eyes.

“Peace and pancakes,” I mumble. “Whatever that means.” I wonder why Mom had to move to a farm in Maine to “find herself.” Couldn’t she have found herself right here in Bensalem with us, instead of running off with the Farmer? His real name’s Marcus, and he’s too cheap to have a computer or a phone or even electricity in their house. Mom would have to go into town to call us, which she never does.

Lindsay says Mom’s not finding herself; she says Mom’s just selfish and has some sort of disorder.

I breathe hard, slip the letter back into its envelope and shove
it into a shoe box in my closet, along with the other dozens of letters from Mom telling me about their organic beet crop and freezing weather and crazy quilts she makes. Mom says she sews our names into every quilt.

I’d trade the whole box of letters for one lousy visit.

Monday morning, Elliott’s late as usual, so I tape fake New York on my wall and start making
TalkTime
without him.

After shooting the introduction, I find Lindsay and get footage of her face, which looks less zit-infested today.

“David, get out!” she screams, then throws her shoe at me.

Fortunately, I have good reflexes, and the shoe hits me, not my camera.

Back in my room, I decide that these words will go with Lindsay’s face:
Today’s acne forecast: sunny, with a light scattering of zits later in the day
.

Elliott’s still not here, so I put the camera on the tripod and create the list segment of the show: “Top Six and a Half Ways to Survive a Summer Pool Party. One: Don’t go! The other five and a half ways don’t matter.”

Forty-seven minutes late, Elliott finally walks through the
front door with a book in his hand. “Look,” he says, and offers me his yearbook.

“You’re late,” I say, not taking the stupid yearbook from his stupid hand.

“Big deal,” Elliott says. “I’m always late.”

My nostrils flare. “It
is
a big deal. I started shooting without you.”

“So what? Don’t be such a jerk, David.”

“Jerk?
I’m
not being a jerk.”

Elliott pokes me in the chest. “Yes,
you
are being a jerk. And you were a jerk and a half at the mall on Friday.”

“Me?” I say, touching the spot on my chest where he poked me. “You were a jerk and three-quarters. Maybe I didn’t want to spend my entire summer at the mall looking for Cara Epstein.”

“Yeah, that was dumb.”

I reel back. “It was?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Kind of a waste of a summer, huh?”

“Definitely.” I’m glad to see a glimmer of the old Elliott. “But we’ve still got today. Right?”

“Right,” Elliott says, and we bump fists. “Now, look.” He hands me his yearbook again.

Sadly, I know right where to turn. I go to the page where Cara Epstein drew those lousy purple hearts. The entry is completely blacked out and smells of permanent marker. I close the yearbook and hand it back. “Wow.”

“Cool, huh?” Elliott takes a deep breath. “You were right.”

“What?”

“I said you were right.”

“I know. Just wanted to hear you say it again.”

Elliott punches me in the shoulder. “I need to stop thinking about Cara. I mean, we’re going to middle school tomorrow, right?”

“Yup,” I say, wishing I’d spent the weekend lifting weights and doing push-ups.

“And Harman will be loaded with girls, right?”

I know where he’s heading
. “Yeah.”

“Sixth-grade girls. Seventh-grade. Eighth. Am I right?” Elliott gets a dreamy look in his eyes that totally creeps me out.