Middle School, the Worst Years of My Life

  That could mean only one thing: I was dragon chow.

  I also started selling Zoom out of my locker again, but it wasn’t the same anymore. The stakes were higher. I couldn’t afford to get caught, so I couldn’t do it all the time. Plus, Bear’s stash was starting to get too low. I ended up spending more than half of what I made just putting new cans back in the garage so he wouldn’t notice.

  Back in detention again, I did my best to keep Donatello from slicing and dicing my brain into little pieces, but it wasn’t easy. She kept trying to get me to talk about myself, and I kept telling her I had homework to do. Sometimes that worked. Sometimes it didn’t.

  Then there was Miller. You’d think he’d give me some credit for the whole break-every-rule-in-the-book thing, but no. He just thought I was trying to prove I was a bigger criminal than he was. Talk about paranoid. I had to tell him ahead of time how many pages I wanted to buy, and then he’d just show up with that many.

  I didn’t get very far either. With the way I had to keep restocking Bear’s stash, I only managed to buy eighteen pages before Thanksgiving.

  On top of everything else, I was still trying to be Normal Rafe and not get into any more trouble. It was working, I guess, but I still wasn’t any good at school and still hated my classes as much as ever. I thought being normal would make me feel like a better person, but so far? Not really.

  But here’s the funny part. Even though I felt like I was still living in the Dark Ages, nobody seemed to notice. As far as Mom, and Jeanne, and even Donatello were concerned, I’d already turned over a whole new leaf.

  And if you’re wondering about Leo, let’s just say he thought I was getting exactly what I deserved.

  JEANNE, JEANNE, JEANNE

  Don’t think I haven’t noticed,” Jeanne said to me on the Monday before Thanksgiving.

  I turned around with water dripping off my face from the fountain. “Noticed what?” I said, wiping it away. On the outside, I was just standing there, but on the inside I was thinking: HOLYCOWIT’S JEANNEYOUCANDOTHISRAFEJUSTSTAY COOLANDDON’TDOANYTHINGSTUPID!

  “You’ve been playing by the rules,” Jeanne said, but she whispered it like we had this secret between us, which we kind of did. She was one of the only people who knew about Operation R.A.F.E.

  “I’m on a break,” I told her. “I’m just being normal for a while.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “That’s what I noticed. So let me ask you something: What are you doing after school on Wednesday?”

  “Nothing,” I said in about a split second.

  “That was quick,” she said. “Are you sure?”

  “Yep.”

  It didn’t seem possible, but I couldn’t help wondering if the impossible was about to happen. Was Jeanne Galletta really about to ask me to go out with her?

  “Well, good,” she said. “Because student council is doing a fund-raiser at the Duper Market. We’re sponsoring a family who can’t afford their own Thanksgiving. There’s going to be a pie-and-cookie sale, and a food drive too. We could really use some extra help.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, um… yeah… okay. Sounds like a good cause.” (What else was I going to say?)

  “Great!” Jeanne said. “Three thirty on Wednesday. And if you could ask your mom or dad to make something for the bake sale, that would be awesome.”

  “Sure,” I told her. “My mom makes these really good apple pies all the time, with lots of cinnamon. I’ll bring one of those.”

  “Thanks, Rafe, I really appreciate it,” Jeanne said. Then before she left, she leaned in again, really close, and whispered, “I like you like this. And don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

  Before I could say anything, or do something to mess it up, she was already walking away. And I thought—

  Hmmmm…

  CHARITY CASE

  This was a real first. Nobody in the history of Rafe Khatchadorian had ever asked me to help out at a charity thing before. When I told Mom about it, she thought it was great and got Swifty to donate a pie from the diner, no problem. I showed up at the Duper Market with it on Wednesday afternoon.

  “Rafe! You’re here!” Jeanne said. She was like the queen bee in the middle of it all. There was a big table set up outside with bake sale stuff, and a huge bin where people coming out of the market could drop food donations. She also had a jar in the middle of the table that said THANK YOU on it.

  “Here’s something else,” I said, and dropped ten dollars that I couldn’t afford in the jar, from that week’s Zoom sales.

  “Wow!” Jeanne’s eyes opened wide, like she was really impressed, and my heart went a little faster. (Okay, a lot faster.) “So, we’re trying to let people around the neighborhood know about the sale. We’ve got these big signs, and we’re handing out flyers everywhere. Do you think you could—?”

  “I’m on it,” I told her.

  “Great!” she said. Then she reached under the table and took out what looked like about fifteen pounds of orange fur. “We got this from the high school. It’s kind of big, but I think it’ll fit you,” she said.

  It was the costume for the Hills Village High School mascot—an orange falcon with wings, a big yellow beak, and a blue superhero cape.

  “This will really get people’s attention,” Jeanne said.

  “You’re kidding, right?” One look at her face told me she wasn’t. “I mean, uh… sure,” I said. “Anything for charity.”

  “Thanks, Rafe, you’re the best.”

  I tried to smile.

  It’s a good thing that costume covered my face, because I was about sixteen shades of red once I put the whole thing on. As I walked across the Duper Market parking lot, I’m pretty sure the laughing I heard was a whole lot more at me than with me. Especially considering that I wasn’t laughing—not even a little.

  But I’ll tell you something else. Once I got out there on the sidewalk and realized that nobody knew who the heck I was (just like with the ninja), I started getting kind of into it.

  I flapped my wings, and jumped around with my sign, and gave out flyers, and patted people on the back when they took them. Drivers honked their horns as they went by, and some of them even pulled in when I pointed the way. If I do say so myself, I was just about the world’s most awesome bake-sale mascot ever.

  And don’t think Jeanne didn’t notice, because she did.

  “You were amazing,” she said afterward. “Thanks again, Rafe.”

  I liked that she thought I was amazing. It kind of made me feel amazing. Not only was Jeanne Galletta smiling at me like crazy, but I’d just spent the afternoon doing the kind of stuff that good people (not just normal people, but good people) do.

  Maybe that’s where I got my nerve to say what I said next.

  “Do you want to go get some pizza after this?” I asked her. “My mom could drive you home later, and I’m starving.”

  “Oh,” Jeanne said. In fact, that’s all she said at first. And she wasn’t smiling anymore. “Listen, Rafe—”

  “I think you’re really nice. Some of the time, anyway,” she said. “But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. It just seemed like you were… I don’t know… changing, and I thought it might be good for you to—”

  “To what?” I said. I was really embarrassed, but I was also a little bit mad, and getting madder.

  “You know,” she said. “To join in with school stuff, that kind of thing.”

  “You thought it would be… good for me?” I said. “Like I’m your little project, or something?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said.

  Then Allison Prouty called over from her mom’s minivan. “Hey, Jay-Gee, are you coming?” That’s what the popular kids called her, Jay-Gee for Jeanne Galletta. There were a bunch of them in the backseat.

  “I have to go, Rafe,” she told me. “Please don’t take what I said personally. I really appreciate what you did today.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Did you get extra credit
for it too?”

  “Jeanne!” Allison yelled. “Come on!”

  “I really do have to go,” she said. “Have a good Thanksgiving, Rafe. I’ll see you next week.”

  “Whatever,” I said, but she was already gone.

  I may have been dressed as a falcon, but I’ll tell you what. I felt like the biggest Thanksgiving turkey in the world.

  REPORT CARD TIME—ALL A’S—YAY!

  Not a lot changed between Thanksgiving and Christmas break. In fact, if I tried to tell you too much about it, you’d just think the pages of this book had stuck together and you were reading the same chapters all over again. So here’s the short version:

  Miller was a bottom-feeding, scum-of-the-earth dipwad—always. I had to keep some of my Zoom money to buy Christmas presents, so I only managed to get another twelve pages out of him.

  And as for school? The last thing Ms. Donatello said to me before vacation was, “Keep trying, Rafe. I know you can do better. And I know you know it too.” In other words, don’t expect any good news on your report card.

  That’s why I spent the first couple of afternoons of winter break outside in the cold, waiting for the mailman to come. Mom was always at work in the afternoon, and Bear never noticed anything unless it was on TV or had pepperoni on it, so I was all covered there.

  On the third day, we got an envelope with an HVMS return address in the corner and the smell of doom all over it. I stuck it inside my coat, dropped the rest of the mail inside, and went straight to my room to check out the damage.

  There was also a letter for Mom, signed by Mrs. Stricker. It said she was going to “be in touch” after vacation so they could “schedule a conference” to talk about “Rafe’s academic performance.”

  Oh, man. It was worse than I thought.

  Basically, I had two options. I could get this over with fast and leave my report card on the counter where Mom would see it. Or… I could buy some time. That way, at least Mom would have a half-decent Christmas without having to worry about me for a while. She deserved it and, to tell you the truth, I felt like I did too.

  My first idea was to just shove everything way under my mattress, but Leo never likes it when I do anything halfway.

  “Why take chances?” he said. “There are a lot of better ways to make things disappear than that.”

  He was right, of course, so I changed plans. I stuck it all back inside my coat, made a quick stop in the kitchen, and then picked up Ditka’s leash from the hook by the back door.

  “Ditka! Here, boy!”

  There are exactly two ways to make friends with Ditka—food and walks. As soon as he saw that leash in my hand, he came running like a four-legged linebacker and pinned me to the door, slobbering all over the place.

  “Where you going, Squirt?” Bear asked from the couch.

  “Just taking Ditka for a walk,” I said, like it was something I did all the time.

  “Sounds good,” he said. “You could both use the exercise.”

  Look who’s talking, I thought.

  “See you later,” I said, and we took off.

  Walking Ditka isn’t really like walking at all. It’s more like getting dragged behind a tank and trying to steer. Luckily, Ditka works on autopilot and went right over to this field where he likes to do his business. A bunch of condos were supposed to be built there, but the lot was mostly deserted in the meantime.

  At the back of the field, there’s a drainage ditch with a stream running into a big pipe at the bottom. I tied Ditka’s leash to a tree when we got there, and I went down by the water, where nobody could see me.

  Next, I found some rocks and made a circle next to the water, like a little campfire. Then I took out my report card, the letter from Mrs. Stricker, the envelope, and a box of wooden kitchen matches from home. I’m not usually supposed to do anything with fire when Mom’s not around but, then again, I’m not usually supposed to incinerate my report card either. I crumpled it all up in the middle of the circle and lit it.

  Once it was done, just ashes, I kicked everything into the water and watched it wash down the drainpipe. Then I scuffed up the ground so there wouldn’t be any footprints, untied Ditka, and let him drag me home the long way around the block, just in case anyone was watching. It was all kinds of overkill, but like Leo said, why take chances?

  And guess what? It worked. (For a little while, anyway.)

  SHORT AND SWEET, BUT MOSTLY JUST SHORT

  Okay, that’s not exactly what Christmas looked like but, to tell you the truth, it could have been a lot worse. No major disasters, anyway.

  The weirdest part was having Bear around on Christmas morning for the first time. Mom knew Georgia and I wouldn’t want to buy presents for him, so she got some little stuff and put our names on the tags. For her sake, I didn’t say anything about it. I just said “you’re welcome” when he opened the NFL foam can holders I supposedly got for him, and “thank you” when I opened the Chicago Bears sweatshirt he supposedly got for me.

  After that, Mom made a really good Christmas dinner, including two kinds of pie from the diner—apple and chocolate cream. I had firsts, seconds, and thirds of everything, and we all stayed up late watching Raiders of the Lost Ark on TV.

  Then Christmas was over.

  And then Mom found out about my grades, and the hard stuff started all over again.

  (Notice how fast this chapter went by? That’s exactly how it felt to me. Mom calls that “art imitating life,” but I just call it my own rotten luck.)

  LOST AND FOUND

  Mom was sitting at the computer when I came out to the kitchen that morning. As soon as I saw what she was doing, I knew I was toast. She was looking at the Hills Village Middle School website.

  And there were my grades, right on the screen.

  “Weren’t we supposed to get these in the mail?” Mom said.

  “Uh… I think so,” I said, trying not to panic, or sound like someone who had burned his own report card in a ditch somewhere.

  Bear was leaning against the counter with half a piece of leftover pie in one hand, a gallon of milk in the other, and Ditka licking crumbs off the floor around his feet. “Nice grades, Squirt,” he said.

  “These aren’t too good, honey,” Mom said. “What happened?”

  It was another one of those questions without any good answers. I said the first thing I thought of.

  “Maybe they’re teaching the wrong subjects?”

  It was probably true, but it wasn’t going to get me out of this. Mom just looked at the screen again and sighed, like she was watching a sad movie.

  “Well, in any case,” she said, “we can’t let these slide.”

  “In other words,” Bear butted in, “your mother’s been way too easy on you for too long. Those days are over.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Mom said, but Bear kept yapping.

  “So here’s what’s going to happen. Once you’re back in school, you’re going to come straight home every day. Then you’re going to do your homework before anything else, and I’m going to check it to make sure that you do.”

  “What?” I said.

  “’Fraid so, little man.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “You’re not my teacher, and you’re not my father, okay?”

  This was way over the line, even for Bear. I looked at Mom to back me up, but I could tell right away she wasn’t going to.

  “I have to work in the afternoons, Rafe. I can’t be here to do everything.”

  “You could if he had a job,” I said.

  “Yo, I’m standing right here,” Bear said. “And believe it or not, I was in middle school once too.”

  “Yeah, in the zoo.”

  “Watch your mouth, Squirt.”

  “That’s another thing,” I said. “Don’t call me Squirt.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Bear growled. “Squirt.”

  I felt like I wanted to explode, but Mom got there first. She threw her hands up in the air a
nd yelled something that sounded like “AUUGH!” Then she said, “Can’t you two ever have a normal conversation, just once?”

  “Talk to him,” Bear said. “The kid’s impossible.” He took the last piece of pie out of the tray and shoved the whole thing into his mouth.

  Mom got up and threw open the fridge. “You know what? You two are just going to have to work this out,” she said. “Actually, scratch that. I don’t care if you work it out or not. Rafe, this is the new arrangement. Carl will be checking your homework, and that’s that.”

  I expected her to say something else, like “And as for you, Carl…,” but she didn’t. She just got out some eggs and started making breakfast, like nothing had happened.

  Like she hadn’t just turned me into bear food.

  And I thought, I gave up my mission for you.

  Mom had always been the one real person I felt like I could trust. Even after Bear moved in with us, I figured she’d still be on my side when it really counted. Now I didn’t know what to think anymore, except—GET ME OUT OF HERE!

  FIRST-DAY-BACK BLUES

  The first day back at school started with a bang. Or, I guess, with a shove. Miller literally nabbed me two seconds after I walked in the door. There were tons of people around, and I didn’t even know he was there until I felt that familiar hand clamping onto the back of my neck.

  “Guess what, Khatchadorian? I actually read some of your stupid little notebook on vacation,” he said, right in my ear. “All I can say is—wow. You’re even more pathetic than I thought.”

  “Get off of me!” I tried to pull away, but he just held on tighter. I could practically feel his greasy thumb poking into my brain stem.

  “So here’s the deal,” Miller said. “New year, new price. It’s a dollar fifty a page from now on. And if you’re lucky, I won’t show your girlfriend Jeanne Galletta how you like to draw little pictures of her all the time. Got it?”