Katie Friedman Gives Up Texting! (9 page)

Hmm. That was a tough one. I decided to keep my answer simple.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I do.”

Eliza paused for a second, then said, “Exactly how stupid do you think I am?”

Oops. So forget all the stereotypes I just talked about.

Then she laughed, took out her cell phone, and handed it to me. “This could be fun anyway,” she said. “I'm kind of into the idea of being suddenly and completely unreachable. People are going to totally freak out.”

“They totally are!” I agreed, feeling really dumb for just assuming Eliza was really dumb.

She flipped her hair and pointed at her phone, which was now in my hand. “If Brian texts, tell him I'm eating lunch with Ricky,” she said, getting into the spirit right away.

 

22

SAVE OUR BRAINS WEEK!

Pretty soon—as in,
approximately two and a half minutes—word got around school that Eliza Collins and her new best friend Katie Friedman had decided to give up their cell phones for a week.

Then something amazing happened during lunch: I realized I wouldn't have to ask anyone else to give up their phones.

What happened was this: Eliza was eating lunch with Ricky, one table over from me. I overheard Eliza say to him, “And I don't want to kill my brain cells, which is why I decided to give up my phone.” Then I heard Ricky say back to her, “Well, I don't want to kill my brain cells either, so I'm going to give up my phone, too!”

“Whatever,” Eliza said.

Immediately Ricky got up and came over to me and handed me his phone. “I hear you're the one collecting phones for Save Our Brains Week. I'm in.”

Suddenly I understood—that was it! If you beg kids to give up their phones, they won't do it. But if they think it's just this weird, cool thing you're doing with a friend or two, they'll want in.

Charlie Joe, Timmy, Jake, Hannah, Phil, and Celia were all sitting at my table, eavesdropping on Eliza's conversation, too. Charlie Joe smirked. “Save Our Brains Week?”

“It's a known fact that overuse of cell phones can hurt your brain,” I said.

“I'm not so sure about that,” Jake said. Considering he used his phone all the time and was a complete genius, he made a pretty convincing point.

“Listen, you guys can believe me or not,” I said. “This is just something I've decided to do. To tell you the truth, it's less about my brain and more just wanting to know if I can live without something I've depended on for so long.”

Hannah looked at Jake, who happened to be her boyfriend. “Hmm. That sounds like an interesting experiment.”

“Interesting how?” Jake asked. “Yeah, people overuse their phones sometimes; I'm as guilty as anyone else. But the idea of giving them up is ridiculous. How would we look up our homework assignments from the car? How would we get in touch with our parents? How would they get in touch with us?”

“Ah,” said Charlie Joe. “That's an excellent question. If Jake's mom couldn't get in touch with him every ten minutes, I think her head might explode.”

“That's hilarious, Charlie Joe,” Jake said.

“Mommy Katz would not be happy,” Timmy added, as if anyone missed Charlie Joe's point.

Jake threw his phone on the table. “Fine. You guys don't think I can give up my phone for a week? Here, take it.”

Hannah's eyes went wide. “Seriously?”

“Yup.” Jake snickered. “Sounds like a fun game. Let's play.”

“Trust me dude, you're going to love not hearing from your mom for a week,” Charlie Joe said.

Hannah smiled at Jake, then pulled out her phone, too. “Well, if you're going to save your brain, I'm going to save mine, too.”

Phil and Celia stared in shock. “Are you guys serious? You're giving up your phones? For a whole WEEK?” They looked at each other, shrugged, then Phil let out a deep breath. “Fine.” He put his phone on the table.

Celia did the same two seconds later. “What am I going to do without Snapchat?” she asked sadly.

“Not send pictures of yourself every three minutes?” I said.

“Ha-ha-ha,” she said.

That left Charlie Joe and Timmy. We all looked at them and waited.

“What?” Charlie Joe said.

“Yeah, what?” Timmy echoed.

“Nothing,” we said.

Charlie Joe shook his head. “I'm not giving you people my phone, if that's what you're wondering.”

Timmy looked relieved. “And neither am I.”

“Cell phones are for losers,” Jake said.

Charlie Joe laughed.

“Well then, I lose,” he said.

 

23

PEGGY CHANGES HER MIND

By the time lunch was over,
ten people had given me their phones:

Eliza

Ricky

Tiffany (an Elizette)

Amber (an Elizette)

Hannah

Jake

Phil

Celia

Becca

Jackie

The last two joined in when I was leaving lunch and I saw Becca, Jackie, and Sammie—my bandmates—sitting at a table by the juice machines.

I happened to walk by them—on purpose, of course.

“Hey, what's this about you giving up your phone for a week?” Becca shouted.

“Oh, that,” I said. “It's no big deal. Just something I'm doing with Eliza.”

Sammie snorted. “Eliza?” I kind of knew she would react that way. Sammie had never been a huge fan of Eliza's. Probably because Eliza had called her “Peggy” all through third grade—short for “Peggy Penguin”—because Sammie happened to walk with her feet pointed out a little bit.

Girls have long memories when it comes to insults like that.

“Yup,” I said. “It's just something we decided during gym, to see if we could do it, you know? And now a bunch of other kids are doing it, too.”

Becca stopped chewing. “Hold on a second. You told me you were giving up texting. Now all of a sudden you're giving up your whole phone for a week? And so are a bunch of other kids?” She looked at me like she thought I was up to something. “What's this about?”

Eliza came up behind me. “It's not about anything,” she said. “We just don't want our brains to die. Is that so wrong?”

“Absolutely not,” Jackie said, trying not to laugh. “Brains should definitely not die.”

Becca stood up. “Well, I'm always up for something new and different,” she said, putting her phone on the table. “Take it,” she said to me. I took it and put it in my backpack.

Jackie and Sammie looked at each other. I could tell neither one wanted to give up their phones, but there's that moment in every middle school kid's life where they worry if they don't go along with what everyone else is doing, they're going to be left behind forever.

“What the hey,” Jackie said, handing me her phone, but Sammie hesitated.

“My mom is supposed to text me what time she's picking me up after school,” Sammie said.

“There are a ton of kids who still have their phones,” Eliza said. “Just use one of theirs.”

“Oh, right,” Sammie said, a little embarrassed that the girl who was worried about her brain dying had an idea that she hadn't thought of. She handed me her phone.

“Thanks, Peggy Penguin,” Eliza said.

Sammie grabbed her phone back. “Forget it, you little blond twerp.”

Eliza walked away, smiling. Sammie sat there, seething.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

 

24

MS. KRANSKY

Ms. Kransky, my language arts teacher,
was one of my favorites, because you could tell she wasn't just counting the years until retirement. Not that I blame teachers who do that by the way—have
you
ever tried convincing a bunch of middle schoolers that learning is a good thing? It can't be easy.

But Ms. Kransky was different. She seemed to really care about making a difference in kids' lives. She had definitely made a difference in mine, starting with the time she told me that poetry didn't have to rhyme. That was a major breakthrough. Although song lyrics do have to rhyme. That's a rule that even my dad's favorite singer, Bob Dylan, wouldn't break.

And there was one other thing about Ms. Kransky: She
hated
cell phones. She claimed she didn't even own one. She was always complaining about how cell phones and Twitter and Instagram were ruining the lives of young Americans.

Which is why I wanted to talk to her.

I got to class a few minutes early, when she was grading papers.

“Ms. Kransky? Can I talk to you for a second?”

She looked up at me and took off her glasses. “Time's up.”

I wasn't sure if she was kidding, but I laughed, just to be safe. Then I pointed at my backpack. “You'll never guess what I have in here.”

She smiled tiredly. “I don't really have time to guess, Katie.”

“Oh, right.” I reached into the backpack and took out as many phones as I could hold, which was about five. “Ten kids' cell phones.”

Ms. Kransky squinted her eyes. “And why do you have these phones?”

“A bunch of us thought that we were becoming dangerously addicted to our phones, so we decided to give them up for a week, just to see if we could do it.”

Ms. Kransky's eyes went wide, then she did something I've never seen her do to any student before.

She gave me a hug.

“Katie, you are something else! A true leader!”

I felt proud, but also a little phony, since the real reason I was doing it was because I insulted Nareem by accident, and Jane promised to sing my song. And the only reason other kids joined in was because Eliza is so pretty.

But there didn't seem to be any point in dwelling on that stuff right then.

“Thanks,” I said, hugging her back. Then I pointed at my backpack. “And also … I thought maybe it'd be a good idea if you held on to the phones for us.”

“Well, wait just a second,” Ms. Kransky said. “I need a little information here. When did this whole thing happen? What if other kids want to join in? I don't want this to become one of those exclusive clubs that people feel bad about if they're not part of it.”

Huh. I hadn't thought about that.

“I have an idea!” Ms. Kransky said, before I'd said anything. “What if we make an announcement to the whole class today, that it's a class experiment? All kids are welcome to participate, but those who don't want to can make their own decision.”

I was thrilled. “That's a great idea!”

“Great,” Ms. Kransky said. “I just need to call everyone's parents first.”

Wait a second. “Call everyone's parents?”

Ms. Kransky laughed. “Of course! The school can't authorize taking away a student's personal property without notifying their parents. And some of these kids need their phones for important reasons.”

“I thought you hated cell phones!”

“I do,” Ms. Kransky said. “But that doesn't mean they're not necessary sometimes. They can come in wonderfully handy. That's the thing with wonderful things. People love them so much that they become addicted to them, and then they go from wonderful to horrible.” The class started filing in. “So what do you say? Shall we go for it?”

“Go for
what
?” butted in Charlie Joe, who had just walked into the room. “Does this have anything to do with this crazy no-phone thing?”

I had a decision to make, and I had to make it fast. I decided to keep the phones myself and forget full-class participation. I didn't want to have to deal with Charlie Joe, who was sure to be annoying about the whole thing. And no offense to parents, but I couldn't see how involving them in this experiment could end well.

I stuffed the phones back in my backpack. “Thanks anyway, Ms. Kransky. I'll just hold on to them.”