Middle School: My Brother Is a Big, Fat Liar

  “Yeah. We really… rock.” I was going to say “stink,” but then I realized that Rhonda would never know the difference.

  “OMIGOSH, I WOULD DIE TO BE IN A BAND!” Rhonda hugged her books so tightly, I thought they might explode against the ceiling. “I LOVE TO SING!”

  I laughed, but then Rhonda looked hurt, and I realized she was serious. “You… sing? You?”

  “WHY? DOES YOUR BAND NEED A SINGER?” She grabbed my arm and squeezed it hopefully. And painfully.

  “No,” I said quickly. “Sorry.”

  “OH.” She looked crestfallen. “BECAUSE I’M REALLY GOOD,” Rhonda added.

  “Okay,” I told her. “Well, here’s my class. Gotta go!” And I finally escaped into social studies.

  I could feel Rhonda watching me from the door as I sat at my desk. But I didn’t look at her. I just stared at the whiteboard until the bell rang and she disappeared.

  I am soooo regretting being nice to her.

  If I’m not careful, she could sink my whole year.

  I’m In!

  What did I do?

  Something. It had to be something.

  Is it because I took their torture without complaining? Because I ditched the pony backpack? Because I’m the sister of a seriously rebellious HVMS legend who now goes to a totally hip art school?

  None of those reasons seemed likely. I only knew one thing: Missy Trillin asked me to have lunch with her and the other Princesses.

  There has to be a logical explanation, I thought, but I couldn’t figure it out. Here’s what happened:

  Actually, it was a little more like this:

  Ha-ha, ha-ha, Rafe! I’m winning already!

  So—okay—maybe they just wanted me to bring them cookies. That was today. Tomorrow, it could be pie. And after a while, I would just be hanging out with them. The fourth Princess, on patrol.

  I picked three enormous cookies flecked with M&M’s for Missy and the B’s. The HVMS cafeteria mostly serves reheated mystery meat, but the desserts are good.

  Out in the courtyard, I sat down on a bench, wondering why more people don’t eat out there. It was a pretty day, with only a few puffy clouds in a bright blue sky.

  “Excuse me?” someone called. It was a cute guy with sandy-blond hair. “Um, hey—” He glanced over his shoulder, then hurried through the cafeteria doors. “You’re not supposed to be out here.”

  “What?” I asked. I turned to look over at the cafeteria windows.

  “Oh,” I said. I felt like I’d just swallowed a boot: sick and lumpy.

  “Are you okay?” the blond kid asked me. “You look like you just swallowed a boot.”

  Suddenly, the cafeteria doors burst open. In a cloud of smoke, Mrs. Stricker—the Hills Village Middle School vice principal—appeared.

  And she was heading straight for us.

  Mrs. Stricker Loves Me

  Mrs. Stricker swooped toward me. For a moment, I was terrified. Then I remembered something: I had cookies.

  “Would you like a cookie, Mrs. Stricker?” I asked in my sweetest voice. “It has M&M’s in it.” I picked the fattest one from the plate and held it out.

  Mrs. Stricker stopped short. She smiled. “You’re Georgia Khatchadorian, aren’t you?” she asked in a surprisingly gentle voice.

  I pointed to him. “This boy has just told me that I’m not supposed to be out in the courtyard. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I apologize for breaking the rule.”

  Mrs. Stricker laughed. “Oh, Georgia, don’t be silly. I just came out here to welcome you to Hills Village Middle School.”

  “Whoa,” the blond guy whispered. He stared at me with huge eyes. “Is this, like, some Jedi mind trick thing?”

  “It’s the cookie,” I whispered back.

  “I’ve seen your permanent record, Georgia,” Mrs. Stricker went on. “And I know you’re a good student. You even won Most Outstanding Effort in third grade. I think you’ve earned the right to eat where you please.”

  I had to admit it—I was shocked. Rafe had always made Mrs. Stricker sound like a witch on wheels.

  “I notice you have two more cookies there.” Mrs. Stricker nodded at the plate on the bench beside me. “Were you expecting someone else to join you, Georgia?”

  “Oh, no,” I lied. “I just… like to give out cookies.” I handed another one to the blond boy.

  “Hmm.” Mrs. Stricker squinted at the cafeteria window, where Missy and the B’s were cowering under a table. “I understand what you’re going through, dear,” she said. “If there’s anything I can do, Georgia—anything—please just come and see me in my office.” She leaned in close and whispered, “I like to give out cookies too.” And then she winked.

  Mrs. Stricker Loves Me Not…

  Did you buy all that? Yeah, probably not. As soon as I came out of that little daydream, I discovered once again—to my horror—that Rafe was right.

  Let me just clear up one thing: Mrs. Stricker is not as sweet as an M&M cookie. She’s about as sweet as a flaming turd.

  Here’s the gist of what really happened:

  I was still recovering from my humiliation when Mrs. Stricker blazed out to the courtyard. “You aren’t supposed to be outside!” she screeched.

  “Would you like a cookie?” I asked.

  “How dare you try to bribe a school official!” I was hoping she would hop on her broomstick and fly away, but instead she snarled, “I know who you are, Rafe Khatchadorian’s SISTER! You’re breaking a rule—AUTOMATIC DETENTION!”

  “Excuse me,” the blond boy piped up, “but she didn’t know—”

  Mrs. Stricker wheeled on him. “Automatic detention for you too, Blond Kid! Nobody covers for a Khatchadorian on my watch!”

  “The First Detention Is Always the Hardest”—RAFE K.

  I have detention. I, Georgia Khatchadorian, straight-A student and Most Outstanding Effort winner, have detention.

  This did not compute, not even when I was sitting in Ms. Donatello’s classroom wondering what fresh torture awaited me. What was Rafe going to say?

  Come to think of it, he’d probably be proud. Ugh!

  Ms. Donatello sat behind her desk, looking at me and Sam Marks (Sam is Blond Kid, the random guy who tried to help). Rafe used to call her the Dragon Lady, and I guess she does have a sort of dragonish quality. She seems smart and kind of intimidating. But, also according to Rafe, she’s nice.

  I guess she falls somewhere between Eragon and… well, Puff the Magic Dragon.

  Ms. Donatello interlaced her fingers and looked at me steadily. “Georgia Khatchadorian,” she said, leaning forward slightly. “You’re Rafe Khatchadorian’s sister.”

  Wow. She didn’t even use all caps.

  “Yes, I am,” I told her. And then, for some unknown reason, I spouted, “Rafe says hi.”

  Ms. Donatello smiled. “Hello to him. I understand that you’re so smart you skipped a grade.”

  I felt myself blush, and sneaked a look over at Sam, who didn’t seem impressed. “Yeah,” I said. Then I let out a little snort of embarrassment, which made me feel like an even bigger dork.

  “Are you an artist?” Ms. Donatello asked.

  “Uh, I like to draw,” I said. I flipped open my notebook and showed her one of my drawings. It happened to be a portrait of Rafe and me—Rafe as a giant blob who’s trying to eat me while I fend him off with a sword and a shield.

  Ms. Donatello made a little noise as if she were trying to hold back a sneeze. “I see you have a vivid imagination, Georgia,” she said. She was struggling with her mouth, but I could tell she wanted to smile. “Sam has a vivid imagination too.”

  “I’m more of a writer,” Sam admitted. “I can’t draw at all.” His ears turned red.

  I wanted to ask him what he liked to write about, but the door flew open. Flames spewed into the classroom. A hideous creature slithered up to Ms. Donatello’s desk. “I see you have the perpetrators,” Mrs. Stricker said.

  “The students arrived r
ight on time,” Ms. Donatello said. I was starting to see more of her dragon side—the vice principal didn’t intimidate her at all.

  “Good,” Mrs. Stricker snapped. “I’ll take over from here.”

  “I’m usually in charge of detention, Mrs. Stricker.”

  “Not when there’s a Khatchadorian present,” Mrs. Stricker snarled. “I have plans for these two.” She held up something that looked like a cross between a butter knife and a chisel.

  “They can scrape the gum off these desks.” Mrs. Stricker smiled. It made her look even scarier than before.

  The Dragon Lady huffed out a puff of smoke. I could tell she wanted to say no—but couldn’t. She’d lost this round.

  So that’s how I ended up spending detention with Mrs. Stricker standing over me, watching me remove fossilized gum from the bottoms of booger-encrusted desks.

  I ask you: Is life fair?

  I answer you: Nope.

  I’m a good student. I work hard. I try not to break rules.

  Rafe is a bad student. He tried to break every rule in the book. And yet when Rafe got detentions, he would draw and chat with Ms. Donatello. She probably brought doughnuts.

  If I ever wanted to get out of here, I was going to have to show Mrs. Stricker that I wasn’t a bad kid, like Rafe. I was going to have to get ALL the gum off these desks in record time….

  It actually wasn’t that hard to hack them off once I pretended each piece was Rafe’s head.

  A Day at the School Factory

  We were halfway through scraping the desks when the school secretary came for Mrs. Stricker. Her husband was on the phone. Surprisingly, Mrs. Stricker dropped everything to go talk to him. Even more surprisingly, someone had married Mrs. Stricker in the first place.

  “You two just keep scraping,” Mrs. Stricker said. “I’ll be back to check on you.” She looked right at me when she said that. Then she slithered out the door.

  “What did you do to make Stricker love you so much?” Sam whispered once she was gone.

  “It’s a case of mistaken identity,” I told him.

  “Right.” Sam grinned, like he thought I was joking.

  “No, seriously. My brother, Rafe, got detention a lot. So Stricker thinks I must be the same way.”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “That’s pathetic.” He chiseled at a chunk of fossilized gum. “But that’s how this place works. They treat everyone the same way—like you’re a juvenile delinquent waiting to happen.”

  “Everyone except the Princess Patrol,” I corrected.

  “Who?”

  “Oh—that’s what I call Missy Trillin and her friends.”

  Sam laughed. “I call them the Cheeses.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because they’re cheesy. And because they think they’re, like, the Big Cheese. And also because they’re so… fake. Like that bright orange spray cheese.”

  “And yet they rule the school.”

  “Yeah, Stricker probably wishes we were all like them.”

  “She’d turn us into them if she could,” I agreed. I scraped at yet another chunk of gum, but it wouldn’t budge. “Life would be so much easier if I could just fit in,” I admitted.

  Sam shrugged. “Easier in some ways,” he agreed. “Harder in others.”

  “Harder how?” I asked.

  “Fitting in takes a lot of time. Effort. You have to keep trying and trying, and even then it probably isn’t going to stick.” He shrugged. “Why bother?”

  I looked at him with a kind of amazement. How did he understand so much? Sam wore jeans and a rugby shirt. His hair was longish and tousled, and he had two deep dimples that showed when he smiled. He looked like the kind of guy who could fit in anywhere.

  He smiled at me, and I smiled back.

  And that was when it hit me: Detention with Sam Marks was the best thing that had happened to me since I started middle school.

  Every Band Needs a Groupie

  We were jamming! Detention was over, and the Awesomes were grooving in the garage. We must have been making some amazing noise, because the neighborhood pets were coming to investigate and then howling along. I bet we would have been a hit if we ever got booked to play at the zoo. They say music tames the savage beast, right?

  “THAT WAS INCREDIBLE!” Rhonda screeched when the song finished. “CAN I SING WITH YOU GUYS?”

  Yes, Rhonda was there. She was standing in front of my garage, waiting, when I got home from detention. True, this afternoon, while we were playing our now-familiar game of Twenty Questions: Rhonda Edition, I might have mentioned that I had rehearsal today. The funny thing is, I don’t remember inviting her to watch. Did you invite her?

  No? Why am I not surprised?

  Anyway, there she was. And she wanted to sing.

  Mari was looking at me with lifted eyebrows, as if to say She’s your friend. What do you think?

  Rhonda was doing her very best impression of a puppy begging for a treat. I swear there were tears in her eyes.

  “Um, Rhonda, we really need to practice,” I explained.

  Rhonda nodded. “OKAY, MAYBE LATER.”

  “Let’s do that last song again,” Patti suggested. “I think it’s getting there.”

  We launched into the music. I really gave it all I had, and I think that at least half of the notes were right this time. I’ve managed to teach myself three chords on the guitar: G, C, and D. It turns out you can use them for almost anything.

  We must have been sounding better, because Rhonda started to dance. Well, I think she was dancing.

  “CAN I SING WITH YOU GUYS NOW?” Rhonda asked once the song was over.

  “Well, sure, Rhonda—” Nanci started, but I glared at her and shook my head. She clammed up.

  “Rhonda, we’re not a karaoke machine,” I was explaining just as the breezeway door slammed open. My brother stood there, his fingers plugging his ears.

  “Yeah, because a karaoke machine actually sounds like music,” Rafe said.

  I was about to tell him to get out, when Rhonda laughed. I couldn’t decide which one of them I wanted to throttle first.

  “Get out of here, Rafe!” I shouted.

  Nanci sighed as he waved and grinned and scooted back through the door. “We kind of do stink,” she admitted.

  “I don’t think we should sign up for the Battle of the Bands,” Mari said.

  “Yeah, we’ll only embarrass ourselves if we play at your school dance, Georgia,” Patti put in.

  “ARE YOU KIDDING? YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING!” Rhonda cried. “YOU HAVE TO PLAY THE DANCE!”

  Our only groupie, I thought as I watched Rhonda lace her fingers together and beg. I almost wanted to forgive her for laughing at Rafe’s joke. (It was a joke, right?)

  “Next year,” I suggested. “We’re not ready yet. But next year we will be.”

  Mari, Nanci, and Patti looked at one another and nodded. “Yeah,” Mari said at last. “Next year we’ll really be ready to rock.”

  I hope, I added, but not out loud.

  Squealing on Rafe Is Fun

  Mom was home for dinner that night, which meant that dinner would be (a) edible and (b) not my problem, so I had a little time to relax.

  I started looking for my copy of The Book Thief, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I retraced my steps to the living room, where Rafe was stretched out on the couch. “Rafe, have you seen The Book Thief?”

  “Nope.”

  “What’s that in your hand?”

  “This?” Rafe flipped closed the book he was holding and frowned at the cover. “The Book Thief.” He went back to reading.

  Reading! What the heck? Rafe doesn’t read!

  I planted one hand on my hip and held out the other. “Give it.”

  “You know what I like about this book?” Rafe asked casually.

  “No…”

  “Give me that!” I said, grabbing the book out of his hands. “Mom!” I could hear Rafe laughing as I stomped into the kitchen, fuming.


  “What is it, honey?” Mom looked up from the carrots she was chopping, and I noticed that she seemed tired.

  “Rafe stole my book,” I reported.

  “Rafe?” Mom’s face brightened with a smile. “He wanted to read your book?”

  Ugh—this isn’t going well, I thought. I decided to change tactics. “Rafe has about six months’ worth of old, used chewing gum stuck all over his room.”

  “What?” Mom put down the knife.

  “Rafe is hoarding old gum,” I told her. “He even keeps some in the toilet!”

  That did it.

  “Rafe!” Mom shouted, and stomped out of the kitchen. I could practically see the steam coming from her ears.

  Ha! Revenge is sweet. Or in Rafe’s case, old and sticky.

  My Mom Is My Worst Nightmare

  The bad news: Jules doesn’t like it when I squeal on Rafe, but sometimes I just can’t help myself. So after she collared Rafe, she sent me to my room. That wasn’t a big surprise.

  The good news: Sound travels really well from Rafe’s room to mine, so I could hear every word of Mom’s shriek-fest at Rafe. Also—I had popcorn!

  Wow—Mom’s investigation into Rafe’s chewing gum “collection” was really thorough. She even found the gum I’d hidden in his sock drawer!

  Rafe was furious, of course. He denied that the gum was his, which only made Mom angrier.

  It was fun while it lasted. Unfortunately, it lasted only seven minutes. Then Mom came to my room.

  I stashed the popcorn under my bed as she opened my door and then closed it softly behind her. Next, she took a deep breath, almost a sigh, and looked at me. “The school called earlier,” she said.

  “Oh.” It was as if frost had settled on my clothes—the chill ran down to my bones. “Um—what about?”