Читать книгу Glitter, Paint and Homemade Cookies: One Girl's Guide to Surviving Middle School - Heather M.C. Paynter - Страница 6

As I carried my trombone to the bus stop, I was feeling excited for the day ahead. I think what I wear really reflects how I’m feeling during a particular day. I had my blonde hair braided, I was wearing my favorite sweater with my dark blue skinny jeans and black sneakers. I was so ready for the day and the little pink flower I had drawn on my hand was giving me some quiet inspiration.

The usual suspects were at the bus stop. Pretty tame generally unless someone decided to start something. I mean, things could get a little rough should someone be so inclined. One time, a kid fell into another by accident – by accident! – and before you know it, people are on the ground throwing blows. I try to lay low at the bus stop. My mom says places like the bus stop are good life lessons. Nice advice, but she doesn’t have to wait there. Overall, the bus stop sucks but it beats walking.

As the bus pulls up, I see Mr. Knickerbocker has been replaced by Ms. Greely for the day. Jeesh, this should be good. She smells like garlic morning noon and night and is a real witch and also the word that rhymes with that last word I just said. Her idea of patience is telling kids to hurry up and get the hell on the bus and that’s if she’s in a good mood. And there lies the other reason to lie low this morning.

As kids begin climbing the steps into the bus, one kid shoves another jokingly. I cringe as I anticipate the yelling and other things that will soon follow. I am not disappointed and the kids walk sheepishly to their seats in the back.

This is so ridiculous. Every morning that is a trombone-carrying morning is. I mean, fitting the case through the narrow bus door is a lesson in space management, no doubt about it. Already I’m frustrated. Much to everyone’s great pleasure, I pretty much bang every kid in the head or arm on the way to finding a seat. Carrying this thing is a great way to make friends.

I don’t see anyone I feel like sitting next to, so I grab the first open seat I can find. It happens to be next to this kid named Damien. I mean the kid is taking teen angst to heart. Black hair, black nails, black clothes, the depression is coming off of him in waves. He stares at his skull ring throughout the ride and I stare at my knees, just willing the bus to get to school faster. Interestingly enough, I noticed Damien has added his own touch to the ring, a tiny cocktail sword pierced through the eye of the skull...nice.

The bus bumps and rocks its way to school. I want to ask Ms. Greely where she learned to drive, but thought it just best to get off the bus and head into the doors to school.

Wouldn’t you know it, Tasha is waiting for me at my locker. I love this girl. “Maggie, we’re meeting at lunch and after school today, ok?” she said. “I’ll be there girlfriend,” I say as I high-five her bejeweled hand and begin stuffing books and papers into this cavernous locker. Yikes, this thing needs to be cleaned (is this last week’s apple?), but there’s no time for that now as I head to the band room.

Band is getting better. When we first started playing, it was all about scales and warm-ups. We also played really lame songs like “Aunt Fannie Goes to Market” and “The Mulberry Bush Rock.” I mean, I was on the verge of throwing in my mouthpiece, but Mom wouldn’t let me and I’m glad I stuck it out. We are starting to play other things now like movie theme songs and even a few classic rock samplings. Things are definitely looking up.

As I look around the band room, I see a lot of the girls I’ve hung out with the last couple of years. I don’t talk to some of them that much anymore, but others are still my good friends. Why is that? I don’t much like it, but people change mom says. I actually think she was talking about her and my dad when she said that, but I think it applies here too.

Melanie is puffing on her flute over there and I make fun of her inside my head. She said some mean things about me last year. She said I think I’m all that and I think I’m too good for certain people. Where did that come from? Some of the girls started to treat me differently based on what she said and that made me feel really bad. They wouldn’t talk to me anymore and these are the girls who would come to my house after school sometimes to watch movies and play video games with me. Melanie and I don’t talk anymore, but who needs it.

Morgan on her clarinet over there is a great buddy. She looks at me and rolls her eyes. Mr. Meyer, our band teacher, stops the chaos that happens when middle schoolers play instruments, to lecture us on the importance of practice and taking our instruments home. Is he kidding me? I just brought mine back to school today. Then again, did I practice it at home? Ummm, I do sometimes.

Morgan has been my friend since we moved here a couple of years ago. Her and I share pretty much the same style; long, blonde hair in ponytails or braids, jeans, tennis shoes or boots, a love for cable sweaters and soft t-shirts and we are both good in school. Though I am young, I want to go to a good college before going to a famous design school. I’m thinking USC or Big 10, but I’m keeping my options open. My mom said we’ll just have to do our research when the time comes but I’m already excited.

Morgan and I are not in the super cool cliques but we’re not outcasts either. We just do our own thing and are happy doing it. The drama from last year is over for now and I think Morgan is awesome.

Mr. Meyer snaps me back to reality by announcing we’re going to bring out that jazzy little number called “The Apple Pie Roundup.” What a stupid name for a stupid song. So lame, a lot of these kids really suck at this band thing too. Sometimes we sound like we’re playing warm-ups and scales no matter what we’re playing. I like to think I do a pretty good job for my age, but as I’m reminded at home, I could definitely be practicing more.

I get through the hour before heading to math and social studies/history. As the bell signals the end of learning about the thrills of life and survival on the prairie of the 1800s, I head to the lunchroom to meet Tasha. We’re going to plan such a cool party.

I swing into party planning mode. I have a notebook, colored pencils in my case organized from light to dark colors, tubes of glitter for especially noteworthy notes, a picture of my favorite pop stars for inspiration, fashion magazines for cutting out the pictures, construction paper and two glue sticks for the serious work of pasting and putting it all together. I find Tasha and we get right to work.

“Hey girlie,” she says. I like Tasha’s style. “Hey back,” I say. “Let’s make some party magic.”

Looking around, I felt lucky that T and I had brought our lunch today. The smell of soggy burritos and rice was not making my stomach feel so good, but we had other more important things to think about.

I laid out the construction paper and we begin to write events that would take place at the party. We thought of everything. We even included time for each girl to get her seasonal colors done, all by us of course. We’ve been reading articles about how different shades look best on different skin tones and stuff like that. I am partial to purples and darker shades myself.

“Do you think we’ve included enough in here?” Tasha asked. “I don’t want anyone to be bored.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “This party planning is a lot harder than it looks.” I put my glitter tubes to the side and stepped back to evaluate: colors done, check; fashion show, check; but wait, no snacks factored in. “Tasha, snacks, what are the snacks going to be?”

“Girly, it’s covered, cupcakes and pizza of course.” Tasha rolled her eyes at me, which I didn’t appreciate, but she is a good friend and honestly, I think we were both just a bit on edge from frantic party planning. I nibbled on the edge of my braid, something I always do when I’m concentrating really hard. I couldn’t help but wonder why I have this habit, it’s not like hair tastes good, but enough of that. The lunch hour was only so long and we only had three more lunch hours to work before party day.

We had spent the last 15 minutes working hard on our schedule and poster, but there was still a lot to do. As I nibbled on my peanut butter and raspberry jelly sandwich, I looked at Tasha. She looked really tired today and a little stressed out.

I knew she was having some problems at home. She told me her parents were having lots of late-night discussions about money and bills and stuff. I knew my mom was stressed about that stuff too and I also knew from watching the news with her sometimes (only by force) that lots of families were in trouble. The funny thing about this year’s party is that for the last couple of years, Tasha’s mom and dad always threw her a big blowout party. The party favors were extravagant, the party was always held in a fancy restaurant and T’s presents were amazing. One year she got an authentic couture satchel purse and not one of the baby ones. The year before that, she had a couture themed party and all the girls got charms to take home.

I felt sorry for Tasha. I knew she felt the pressure to live up to those past parties. “Are you ok?” I asked her. She had become really quiet for a few minutes. “I’m fine Maggie,” she said. “Just thinking about what we have to do. And I’m really thankful to have you helping,” she said as she flashed me a smile.

That was nice, I knew she meant it too. I self-consciously twirled my braid around my finger and thought about next steps before sweeping everything into a careful pile. Glitter was everywhere, but I thought we had done a good cleanup job until one of the lunchroom monitors came over and told us we weren’t going anywhere until the mess was cleaned up. Jeez lady, “What a hag,” said T. “I know, right?” I giggled. We both cleaned up as best we could and raced out of the lunchroom before anyone could call us back.