Her “Okay At” list was the longest: drawing, singing, running, swimming, telling jokes, dancing, soccer, basketball, lawn mowing, bubble gum bubbles, baking cookies, football, bicycling, spelling, making pizza, reading maps, knowing bird names, folding clothes—the list went on and on, naming more than thirty different activities.
Her “Stink At” list was also fairly long: math, playing violin, Frisbee, softball, ice skating, bowling, Ping Pong, memorizing, saving money, knitting, potholder weaving, sewing, chess, jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, computer games, computers, science projects, tennis, piano, opening jars, washing dishes—and more.
But her “Things I’m Great At” list was the worst—only two things: babysitting and gardening.
Jordan frowned at herself that morning, thinking hard. There had to be other things she was really good at. . . .
At that moment Mrs. Sharn had stood up and walked to the rear of the room, glancing around to be sure everyone was taking notes. Jordan hid the paper under her notebook and lifted her eyes to the screen. She put an expression on her face that showed how much she loved studying the Peloponnesian War, then bent over and acted like she was writing.
When the teacher sat back down, Jordan quickly added an item to the “Great At” list: pretending I like ancient history. Then she made a face and added another thing: making lists. And then she added actually learning history to her “Stink” list.
Feeling guilty, she hid the paper again and gave the TV program her full attention. All around her, kids were scribbling away, writing down details that would probably be on tomorrow’s quiz. After fifteen seconds Jordan began losing interest in the Greeks, and a minute later she was looking at her three lists again.
She sighed. Her “Great At” list was just terrible. . . .
Well, she thought, but to have so many different things I’m okay at? That’s pretty good. . . .
She sighed again. She knew she was kidding herself.
The people who were okay at dancing? Those were the ones who got voted off the big TV show, the ones who never made it to Las Vegas, the ones who got sent back home . . . to Illinois.
And the “okay” singers? Same deal—no trip to Los Angeles, no million-dollar prize, no recording contract. Only a one-way ticket back home to Loserville. In Illinois.
Just being okay at things did not feel okay. Not at all.
And as Jordan sat there thinking how awful and miserable her life was, Mrs. Sharn made it worse.
She paused the DVD. “We’re going to have a quiz on the part of the program you just watched—you may use your notes.”
Jordan quickly stuffed that paper with the lists on it into her notebook. She tried to recall some of the things the narrator of the program had been saying . . . but memorizing facts was on her “Stink” list.
The quiz was a disaster. There were ten questions, and she knew the correct answer to only one.
After that class Jordan hadn’t really wanted to look at those lists anymore. In a week or so she’d moved on to other worries, and she didn’t notice that single piece of paper among the old stuff she had dumped into recycling on Tuesday.
And all that led Jordan back to Thursday morning in the girls’ bathroom just before homeroom. She stood in front of a sink, paralyzed with embarrassment, as all three of her private lists were read out loud, very dramatically.
The entire performance took Marlea Harkins less than three minutes.
CHAPTER FIVE
TWO GOOD THINGS
Jordan was still fuming when she sat down in her first-period class, but there were two good things about intermediate math. First of all, Marlea wasn’t there; and second, Jonathan Cardley was.
But even seeing Jonathan sitting just one row over and one seat ahead didn’t make her happy this morning.
Marlea Harkins.
Jordan clenched her jaw tighter. She tried to aim her thinking somewhere else, anywhere else, but she couldn’t.
What she hated most? Feeling like she really hated someone. Jordan kept fighting that feeling—just as she had all year long. But Marlea didn’t make it easy. The girl was just so mean.
“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”
That was her mom’s voice inside Jordan’s head.
Her mom said that a lot, especially when Jordan and her sister started arguing.
Well . . . all through homeroom today, and really, all year long, she hadn’t said a single “not nice” word to Marlea—at least, not out loud. . . .
“If you can’t think something nice . . . ”— Ha! Think something nice about that . . . that creature? No way!
And now that Marlea had those stupid lists? It was like an enemy general suddenly had a perfect map of all the weakest places along her borders, all the easiest spots to attack. And she would. She would come at her again and again—just as she had all year long.
But Marlea was careful. The anti-bullying program was a big deal in Salton, Illinois.
Even though Jordan was pretty sure she had enough evidence to file a complaint with the guidance counselor, what could Mr. Lifton do? Yes, he would call in Marlea and her parents, and he would call in Jordan and her parents, and then Jordan would have to try to prove how Marlea had been taunting and teasing, and how she made other kids laugh at her, and how Marlea went out of her way to bother her.
And if she did all that, what would it accomplish? Would Marlea be punished? Probably. Would Marlea become any nicer? Probably not—just sneakier and meaner. It would make Marlea hate her even more. Because it wasn’t like Marlea was going to get sent away to some bully reform school or move out of town or something. She’d still be around.
And would that long anti-bullying process make her stop feeling like she hated Marlea, make all of her Not Nice thoughts stop? That was the question that bothered Jordan most.
Because this situation with Marlea? It wasn’t like in fourth grade when those two guys kept punching her friend Henry on the bus. Henry turned them in, and the bullying stopped, and the whole anti-bullying process worked just like it was supposed to. This felt different. She didn’t feel threatened or like she was in danger . . . mostly she felt stuck. And trapped. And puzzled.
Also, Jordan felt that if she turned Marlea in to the school authorities, that would make her feel even worse. It would be one more thing to add to her “Stink At” list—dealing with a mean kid.
No, somehow she had to get past it . . . or over it, around it, above it, through it, beyond it, between it . . . Jordan ran out of prepositions.
One thing was for sure. The first job she had to do today, right now, was stop feeling so angry. So just as the bell rang, Jordan made herself take a deep breath, and then another.
And as she pulled in that second deep breath, she was pretty sure she caught a whiff of the deodorant Jonathan Cardley was wearing. Or maybe it was cologne . . . or shampoo. Whatever it was, it smelled good, and Marlea Harkins vanished from her thoughts.
Jonathan Cardley was as average at math skills as Jordan was, so the two of them met up in room 117 every morning at 8:58. Jordan liked to think of it as sort of a first-period date—“Hey, I’ll see you at Mr. Stratton’s Intermediate Math Café!”
It was never much of a date. But Jordan always enjoyed herself anyway. Jonathan sat so close. And today as the class began checking the homework, Jordan sneaked about twenty looks at him.
He was chewing the end of his pencil, which he did a lot. He also had this special way of scrunching up his face whenever he worked on a word problem. And he liked to draw cars and trucks on the edges of his papers, and he bounced his right leg up and down a lot, and sometimes he chewed his thumbnails. Jordan could have written a detailed article for a nature magazine: “The Habits, Plumage, and Migration Patterns of Jonathan Cardley.”
As she glanced at him again, she thought, Another good thing about intermediate math? Nikki’s not here.
Nikki was in the advanced math group, and she didn’t
like Jordan’s fascination with Jonathan.
“I don’t see why you think he’s so wonderful.”
That’s what she always said. But Jordan knew it wasn’t true—no sixth-grade girl could ignore Jonathan. Nikki just didn’t want her to get her feelings hurt. She was just being a good friend.
Back in fourth grade, a couple kids in their classroom had teased Nikki about being adopted, and Jordan had helped put a stop to it. Jordan also invited her over for a sleepover—the first one Nikki had ever had. Ever since then Nikki had been her best friend, and also her self-appointed protector.
But math class was a Nikki-free zone, so she could enjoy the full Jonathan experience without getting teased about it later.
Sometimes she agreed with Nikki, though . . . because, really, what did she like most about Jonathan? She hated to admit it: his looks. She liked his looks. Which meant that she was just as impressed by prettiness as Jonathan seemed to be—maybe more. Handsome face, nice hair, beautiful eyes, great smile. He wasn’t plain, and he was tall.
Jordan felt sure that Jonathan was also a good person, but truthfully? She probably would have still liked him even if she had proof that he enjoyed ripping the arms off of teddy bears.
Which she was sure he would never do.
That was more like something she might do.
That was something she actually did do, but she only did it once. And it was only because her big sister had pulled the head off her Barbie doll—after Jordan teased Allie about kissing Rob Velman on the front porch. On the lips.
Sitting there in math class, Jordan decided that all of her relationships were complicated.
But she hadn’t meant to start thinking about herself. She wanted to keep thinking about her and Jonathan.
Except she knew there really was no “her and Jonathan.” There was just her, wishing that there were.
CHAPTER SIX
HEAT AND NUMBERS
I am so hot!
Jordan fanned her face with one hand. She remembered hearing that in places like Texas and Florida and Southern California, all the schools had air conditioning. Not in Salton, Illinois. It was only a little after nine in the morning, and it was already more than eighty degrees in Mr. Stratton’s classroom.
She didn’t do so well when it got hot and humid. And today, the combination of actual heat, plus sitting near Jonathan, plus struggling with math problems, it all made her . . . well, there’s no dainty way to say it. It made her sweat.
Her shirt was sticking to the back of her chair, her hair was sticking to the back of her neck, and her hand was sticking to the worksheet on her desk, wrinkling the cheap paper.
Sweatier and sweatier.
Then a memory swept into her mind—something that had happened right there in the same room, but after school. At chess club.
She’d been sitting over by the windows that day, and it was February, and Will Fennig faced her across the chessboard. After only three moves Jordan knew she was in trouble.
It had been cold that afternoon. A weather system had rushed down from Canada. It had licked across Lake Michigan, dropped a foot of snow on Chicago, and then kept charging south. By the time the air mass arrived in McLean County, it was nothing but pure, crackling cold.
The aluminum window frames inside the math room had been covered with frost, and Jordan hadn’t worn a sweater. It was her move, and as she reached for her bishop, she shivered—and her hand knocked over Will’s knight.
Quick as a weasel, Will jumped up out of his chair and shouted, “Hey! That’s cheating!”
If Will had used his sharp analytical skills for half a second, he would have realized that Jordan certainly did not know enough about chess to cheat, even if she had wanted to—which she didn’t.
Jordan had never cheated at anything. And if she had ever wanted to, she sure wouldn’t have wasted any criminal talent on something as pointless as winning a game of chess. She would have cheated for something real, like getting a free ticket to the Rotary Club’s All-You-Can-Eat Spaghetti Supper.
She had joined the chess club to become a grand master. All the chess kids were super smart, and that’s what she wanted to be. She desperately wanted to be respected for her brains—like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.
After just two meetings of the chess club, Jordan felt certain that the game had been invented for the precise purpose of making her feel lost and stupid. It required a kind of thinking she just wasn’t good at. She was able to see two or three moves ahead, but looking ahead seven or eight moves, like some of these kids could? Not her thing.
She wasn’t sure if it was the cold, or how bad she felt about chess, or the squinty look on Will’s face, or all three, but she completely lost it. She put both hands under the chessboard and flipped it upward so hard it that hit the light fixture. Plastic chessmen clattered to the floor as Jordan screamed, “You win! Happy?”
All eyes jumped to her, and she felt her face glowing, first pink and then crimson. And the thought that came to her as she stomped out of that room?
At least I don’t feel cold anymore!
• • •
The sweltering heat of that June morning pulled Jordan back to first-period math class. A bead of sweat ran down her forehead, along her nose, and dripped right onto her worksheet.
She quickly glanced over at Jonathan. He hadn’t noticed, of course. Why would he?
She saw he was wearing his word-problem face. It occurred to her that with his average math-reasoning skills, he was probably as bad at chess as she was. And she had to admit, that thought made her very happy.
Then she also noticed how much Jonathan was sweating, and that made her even happier. They had so much in common—both of them were average at math, lousy at chess, and sweaty!
Maybe not the building blocks of a perfect relationship, but it was a start.
Sort of.
In her dreams.
Marlea Harkins . . . arrgh! That girl!
There she was, filling Jordan’s mind again. She could hear Marlea’s voice, dripping with sarcasm, reading those lists out loud in the echoey girls’ room.
Jordan had been tempted in there. She could have rushed over and tackled Marlea. She could have pushed her perfect little face down onto the grubby tile floor and grabbed that paper right out of her hand. That would have been sweet!
But she hadn’t done it. Not because she didn’t feel like it and not because she couldn’t—she totally could have, she was sure about that. She probably outweighed Marlea by fifteen pounds.
Fifteen times two is thirty. Fifteen times three is forty-five. Fifteen times four is sixty. Sixty seconds in a minute. Sixty minutes in an hour.
Hours. Sometimes at night she lay awake for hours, a million thoughts running around in her head. And numbers rescued her. She would start counting backward, beginning at ninety-nine, thinking only about the numbers. And all the words and the thoughts were pushed out. . . .
Pushing Marlea to the floor? It just wasn’t like her. She didn’t do stuff like that. That was what a tough girl in some movie would do, or a kid on a TV show where something exciting has to happen before the next commercial or right at the end of the episode to make a bigger problem for next week’s show. She had seen so many shows like that. She didn’t want to be that way. It all seemed so fake, especially the mean stuff.
Because basically, I’m just a nice person . . . I am.
That thought almost embarrassed Jordan, but she knew it was true.
So . . . did that mean Marlea was basically a nasty person? Could that be true? It had certainly seemed that way this morning. . . .
Now, if Nikki had been there in the washroom? Things might have gotten rough. Nikki wasn’t much of a forgiver-and-forgetter. She was more of a get-evener—fiercely loyal and deadly funny. She had the gift of sarcasm—or was it a curse? Jordan couldn’t decide. Because Nikki could almost draw blood with her words. Even Marlea and her pals were a little scared of her—Nikki called them the
Cuteness Club.
It was just as well Nikki hadn’t been there. Jordan knew that this was her battle.
Deep down, some part of her also understood that not lashing out was her biggest protection—especially if she ever decided she needed to talk to Mr. Lifton. Because if she hauled off and whacked Marlea only once, or even just shoved her, that would ruin any possible anti-bullying case. Then she would look like the attacker—even if it was truly self-defense.
But more important than how it would look, there was her—just her. She wanted to stay who she was and not let Marlea or anybody else make her do or say anything outside that. She needed to keep herself herself.
Too many thoughts . . . a fight? She hadn’t had a fight with anybody since kindergarten, and she certainly hoped she had gotten a little smarter since she was six!
Six times six is thirty-six, six times seven is forty-two, six times eight is forty-eight, six times nine is fifty-four . . .
Math was good sometimes—difficult, but good. Numbers were so clean and simple. No words, no feelings, no mind tricks. Numbers were like a hiding place, a quiet corner out of the wind.
Jordan was still hot, but only on the outside now. Today, math was the perfect thing.
And Jonathan? She sort of hated to admit it, but he was perfect too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE WEATHER BUSINESS
About fifteen miles away from where Jordan sat sweating in her math class, Joe Streeter was sitting in a cool, soundproof studio, talking into a microphone.
“Hey there, this is Joe the Weather Guy here at WCZF Radio 870—and I’ve got some good news, and I’ve got some bad news.”
Joe said that same phrase every time he went on the air. It was always true, because if the weather was awful, it wouldn’t last forever. And if a was a beautiful day, a worse one would be along soon. Good news, bad news.
Weather in central Illinois was serious business. Would the corn and soybeans take root, or would heavy spring rains rot the seed? Would the crop survive the summer, or would it get scorched or crushed by hail? When could the harvest begin? Would the family still have a roof over its head next year?