CHAPTER 1¾

THE STORM STOPS GATHERING AND STARTS STORMING

CLAUDIA

Sorry again.

I have decided not to even try to interview Reese about anything else until I can at least get to Chapter 2, because so far he is totally ruining my oral history.

Back to the cafeteria.

I was sitting with Sophie Koh, who is awesome and has been my one and only best friend since my original best friend, Meredith Timms, turned into a total Fembot and I had to take a vacation from not only being her best friend, but from even being her friend at all. Which is very sad and tragic, but is a whole other story.

Sophie and I were at the middle table by the window. I was telling her what happened in the latest episode of Thrones of Death, because Sophie’s parents think she’s too young to watch it. And they actually still have parental controls on their DVR.

Which is insane. But whatever.

The Fembots were in their usual spot at the next table over, talking about shoes, or stabbing each other in the back, or whatever it is they do. Sophie and I call them “Fembots” because they all dress and act exactly the same way and have no idea how to think for themselves. And once when we were telling Sophie’s mom about them, her dad overheard and said they sounded like Fembots, which are supposedly these girl robots from some movie I can never remember the name of.

Anyway, “Fembots” is kind of perfect for them. Athena Cohen is their leader, and she is a total nightmare.

So the Fembots were on one side of us, and on the other side were Reese and his stupid soccer friends. Including Jens Kuypers, ^{Ed. Note: (actually pronounced “Yens”)} who is from the Netherlands and had just started going to Culvert the week before.

It’s a little sad that Jens immediately started hanging out with Reese and the other soccer idiots. Because Jens does not seem like a soccer idiot at all. For one thing, he doesn’t just wear FC Barcelona jerseys and warm-up pants all the time—he actually wears normal clothes, too.

For example, on the first day of school, he wore these really cool dark green pants with a button-down shirt and a brown vest that looked like it might be suede or something, and brown leather shoes that kind of matched the vest, but not quite. (Which was even better, because if they’d matched perfectly, it would have looked dorky.)

Also, Jens has high cheekbones and a very nice smile, which I know because he smiled at me on the first day when we were in line for trays at lunch and he let me go ahead of him. (This also shows that he has excellent manners, which is totally not true of any of the other soccer idiots.)

And because Jens is from the Netherlands—which means he is officially Dutch—he has this REALLY cool accent.

But even though Jens is not like the soccer idiots at all, I guess he started hanging out with them anyway because he is awesome at soccer. I wouldn’t know, but that’s what Reese says. And it makes sense, because Jens looks like he is very athletic.

So, Sophie and I were at the middle table in between the Fembots and the soccer idiots. There were also some other kids at the far end of our table, like Kalisha and Charlotte and Max, but they are not important to The War.

Except that one of them may have been the person who actually farted.

Sophie and I smelled the fart at almost exactly the same time. Her face scrunched up, and she put her hand to her nose, and I did the same thing, and we both went “Eeeew!” But not too loudly, because Sophie and I are mature enough to know that when somebody beefs, the polite thing is to not mention it and just try to avoid breathing for a while until it goes away.

Unfortunately, nobody else in the sixth grade is mature enough to know this.

And it was a very bad fart, so everybody smelled it.

Right away, Athena Cohen jumped up from her seat like a total drama queen and yelled, “Oh, that is DISGUSTING! Who DID that?”

The soccer idiots all started jumping up and making faces, and then Reese pointed at me and yelled, “IT WAS YOU!”

This was not only immature, but also totally unfair. Because, again, it was definitely NOT me.

So I said—in a very calm and mature voice considering the situation—“No, it wasn’t.”

But Reese wouldn’t stop. He had one hand over his nose, and he was pointing at me with the other hand, and then he yelled, in a really loud and obnoxious voice, “JUST ADMIT IT, PRINCESS FARTS-A-LOT!”

And this is how totally immature the rest of the sixth grade is: everybody laughed.

The soccer idiots, the Fembots, even Charlotte and Max at the far end of the table.

It didn’t matter at all that I was totally innocent, or that “Princess Farts-A-Lot” is not even funny. The whole world, or at least the whole sixth grade, was laughing at me for something I DIDN’T EVEN DO.

All because of Reese.

This, in case you couldn’t tell, was the beginning of The War.

It was exactly like the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that got America into World War II.

Well, not EXACTLY exactly, because there were no bombs, or ships, or planes, or actual death involved. But even so, it was horrible, and cruel, and totally unfair. And because I was so shocked and hurt, all I could do was say, “As if! Grow up, Reese!”

Or something like that. I can’t remember exactly, because it was so stressful that my memory is kind of fuzzy. (I think this is what historians mean when they talk about “the fog of war.”)

What I DO remember is that I had to grab my backpack and pretend to just casually walk away when really I was trying to get to the girls’ bathroom ASAP so I wouldn’t cry in front of everybody.

That is how cruel and horrible it was. It actually made me cry.

And because she is a true friend, Sophie went to the bathroom with me.

SOPHIE KOH, best friend of innocent victim

You were really upset. Because Jens was right there when Reese said it, and—

CLAUDIA

Not because of Jens. Because of everybody. EVERYBODY laughed at me.

SOPHIE

Well, eventually you were worried about everybody. But at first, you were all, “What if Jens thinks I—” Why are you making that hand gesture? What does that mean?

Yeah. I said, “Don’t worry. We are going to take SERIOUS revenge on your stupid brother.”

That really helped. Like, the second you started thinking about getting revenge on Reese, you stopped crying.

And then you started to get kind of psyched about it.