Sleep I got. About ten hours’ worth. I came home and crashed early. But the texting story didn’t seem more exciting to me in the morning, and neither did a year of Jessica Kelly. At least I didn’t have to deal with her for the Dear Know-It-All column. That was just between me and Mr. Trigg. I hoped there would already be some letters waiting for me today.
I was much more awake and into my classes, so the day flew by. After school, I rushed over to the Voice office first thing and gave my secret knock. Mr. Trigg didn’t answer. I poked my head in and no one was there. I walked in quietly and opened up my secret mailbox with my special key, hoping no one would come in. I grabbed the letters out and stuffed them in a zippered pocket in my bag. Just as I was closing up my bag, the door opened. Secret Advice Columnist’s Cover Is Blown! I quickly moved away from the mailbox and slung my bag over my shoulder.
“Hi, Sam,” said Jessica. “What are you doing here?”
I wondered if she could see my heart pounding through my shirt.
“Oh, hi!” I said a little too loudly. “Just looking for Mr. Trigg.”
“Back there?” Jessica asked suspiciously, since I was still in the back of the room.
“Well, um, I also needed some . . . printer paper,” I said, because I was standing near a shelf that had some on it.
“We’re not supposed to use the printer paper from here unless it’s for the Voice,” she said, still not cracking a smile.
“Yeah, no, I know. It is for the Voice, for something I needed to print out, but I can do it later,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t realize I was barely making sense.
She just nodded slowly. “Okay . . . well, Mr. Trigg has a faculty meeting. I can help you,” she said, her arms crossed, just seeming, well, tense. Who did she think she was anyway—knowing Mr. Trigg’s schedule and assuming she could help me? Being the editor in chief didn’t mean she was a stand-in for the faculty advisor. And it certainly didn’t mean she could be all bossy like she owned the place.
“Oh, that’s okay. I’ll try to catch him tomorrow.” I walked quickly to the door. “See ya,” I called as I left, hoping I sounded cheerful instead of annoyed. Wow, that was close. What was she doing in the office, anyway? I wondered. Usually, we all worked on our stories at home until they were ready to download in the template online. Then we tweaked everything the last couple of days in the office, and bam, the Voice was ready to publish. The process was even faster since we published it online now. I was going to have to be careful with Jessica hiding out in the office. Maybe I’d have to pick up my letters early in the morning.
I got home, yelled hello to Mom, and immediately locked myself in my room before Allie could even notice I was home. The texting article wasn’t rocking my world and Jessica was really getting on my nerves, but at least the Dear Know-It-All column was something I could savor. Thank goodness Mr. Trigg had asked me to do it again.
I already had three letters and it was only the second day of school. Dear Know-It-All was as popular as ever! I sat on my bed cross-legged and opened the first one. It was written on wrinkled notebook paper and stuffed in a regular white envelope.
Dear Know-It-All, my feet hurt all the time. I think my toes are uneven and no matter what brand of shoes I wear, they still make my feet hurt. What can I do? Um, see a foot doctor? I thought I’d leave the medical advice to the professionals. I opened the next one. It was written on stiff, cream-colored stationery, and it started off interestingly enough: Dear Know-It-All, my friend and I like the same girl but I, and then it must have gotten wet somehow, because the ink ran and for the life of me I couldn’t read the rest. Just as well. I’d taken on a similar issue last year. I crumpled it up and tossed it behind me. The last one was in a white envelope with silver trim. I opened it and admired the delicate light green paper it was written on. I loved when people used pretty stationery. It made me feel like they were trying to impress me.
Dear Know-It-All,
The boy I have a crush on says he likes redheads with short hair. I’m a blondish red and my mom won’t let me dye my hair redder and I really don’t want to cut it short. What do I do?
Sincerely,
Unhappy Blonde
Now, this was something to think about. I lay down on my bed and looked at the ceiling. What if I heard Michael saying something similar, like he was only into girls with short hair. Would I ever cut it to try and get him to like me? Maybe it wasn’t that big an issue. So I cut my hair? It would grow back. But then again, what if I was just cutting it for Michael? That didn’t seem right. Also, this boy who says he only likes redheads with short hair sounds so particular. Looks were important, but they weren’t the only thing that made someone like someone else. What about personality? He sounded a little shallow to me.
I thought of what Hailey had said about Frank, that his hair was too dark and his ears were too big. What if Frank ever found out that’s why Hailey didn’t like him? What would he do? What could he do really other than dye his hair! And let’s say by magic he could shrink his ears, would Hailey really like him then? I feel like I’d like Michael even if his ears were too big. But the truth was, they weren’t and he was painfully adorable, so it was hard to say.
Even though I knew I would have to think about this letter for a while, it felt good to be back in my role as Dear Know-It-All. I folded up the letter and put it under my mattress for safekeeping and ripped up the others, wrapped them up in tissues, and threw them out. I really needed a shredder. My IM blinked on my computer.
Hey, are u there??
It was Hailey.
I am, I sent back.
Having a homework crisis. 2 much language arts 2 do. Help!!! she wrote.
Poor Hailey. Language arts was her nemesis. It wasn’t easy to keep up because of her dyslexia.
Your BFF to the rescue! Checking if my mom can drive me . . .
“Mom,” I called. She was in her office, buried in papers as usual. I don’t know how my mom did it. Her whole day was full of numbers, since she was a freelance bookkeeper.
“Yes, my dear.” She lowered her glasses. “How was school? Did you have a snack?” she asked, knowing that was usually the first thing I did when I walked in the door.
“Hailey’s having a homework crisis and needs me to come over ASAP,” I said.
“Oh,” my mom said, and took off her glasses immediately. “That sounds serious.”
“It’s okay if you can’t drive me, though,” I said, looking down. “I can see you’re really, really busy.” I was trying to play the sympathy card in case she wasn’t in the mood to shuttle me around.
“Sammy,” she said, crossing her arms, seeing right through me. “I’m happy to drive you. No need for the drama. You know I just like to plan. But it’s your lucky day, because it’s quitting time for me,” she said, getting up. “Let me just get my keys. I have to run to the store anyway to pick up something for dinner.”
My mom is really disciplined. She works from home with no boss watching over her and she gets her work done every day. It’s like she spends her day doing homework—math homework no less. I don’t know how well I’d do if I were left alone all day every day to do my schoolwork. So I don’t think I’m a candidate for homeschooling, but then again, I’d have Mom watching over me.
Allie was in the kitchen making some kind of gross-looking green shake in the blender. She stuffed a bunch of spinach leaves in and turned it on. On the cutting board were the scraps of what looked like zucchini, tomatoes, and celery. She also had her earphones on and plugged into her phone. Allie’s phone was her life. If anyone could give a good opinion about texting, it was Allie. I made a mental note to ask her about it later. She had gotten her phone taken away a few times at school for texting.
“Allie!” my mom called over the roaring sound of the blender. Allie had her back to us and was rocking out to her music, oblivious that we were even in the room. “Allie!” my mom called again. I ran up and tapped her on the shoulder, hard. She threw her hands up and screamed and then I screamed because I hadn’t expected her to scream.
“What the heck!” Allie said when we stopped screaming. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Well, you couldn’t hear us! What were we supposed to do? And what in the world are you making?” I said, still yelling over the blender.
She pressed the stop button. “It’s a detox green smoothie. Six different kinds of organic veggies are in here,” she said, tapping the top of the blender.
“What are you detoxing from?” my mom asked, a worried edge to her voice.
“Just life. Do you know how many toxins we take in at any given moment?”
“It just so happens that I do not, but in the meantime I’m planning to run Sam over Hailey’s and stop at the store. You can tell me about the toxins when I get back. Do you want anything special?”
“Remember, I’m vegan now. So no dairy, meat, or eggs. It’s great for the earth and great for my skin,” she said, and patted her flawless cheeks.
“That’s a little too special for me, Allie,” Mom said. “I’ll make pasta, and you can eat it or make something for yourself.”
Allie poured herself a glass of her shake and made a face.
“Disgusting, right?” I said. Teenager Rethinks Her Vegetable Addiction.
“No!” she said, still with her I-just-ate-something-disgusting expression on. “It just needs some fruit mixed in.”
“Yeah, maybe some fruit and some ice cream. Come on, Mom. Let’s go. Hailey’s freaking out,” I said. Allie was always following some strange trend. One moment she basically lives on pizza, ice cream, and cereal, and the next she’s a vegan making spinach shakes. Last month, she went on a gluten-free diet; then it was back to pizza.
She took another swig out of spite but looked like someone had slapped her in the face afterward. Mom and I finally escaped Allie, the detox monster. When I got to Hailey’s house, she was in her sweats, pacing back and forth in her kitchen, talking a mile a minute.
“And then I have this essay for a book that I read, but I’m not sure if I really understand it, and then there are those stupid vocab puzzles that make my eyes hurt.”
“Really, I think they’re fun. Kind of like crosswords,” I said.
“Exactly! I hate crossword puzzles,” Hailey said, throwing her hands up in the air.
“Calm down. It’ll be fine,” I said.
“Yeah, easy for you to say, Writer Queen of the World.”
“Oh, please. Look, you know I can’t do half the stuff you’re really good at. So at least I have something I’m good at,” I said.
After we made a peanut butter and banana sandwich for me and a piece of toast and raspberry jam for her, we got down to business. I helped her organize her essay and we made up funny ways to remember her vocab words.
“Okay, alliteration: the repetition of initial sounds,” I said. “Think Hailey Hates Horseradish.” I wasn’t sure if she did, but if I had to put money on it, I’d say hate.
“OMG.” She slapped the counter. “How did you know I hated horseradish?”
“Lucky guess. Does anyone really like horseradish?” I asked.
“My dad,” Hailey said, crinkling up her face. “He puts it on his sandwiches.”
“You should have seen what Allie was cooking up in the kitchen today. She’s decided she’s vegan now and made a smoothie thing out of spinach. You would have loved it,” I said, taking a big bite of my sandwich.
“Sounds like I might have if she had just added horseradish,” Hailey said, and I cracked up.
“Okay, okay. Next. Hyperbole: an extreme exaggeration. Frank’s ears are as big as flying saucers.”
“Hey, that’s mean,” she said, and actually looked hurt. Hmmm, I wondered if a crush was developing.
“Well, it’s a hyperbole, an extreme exaggeration, not the truth! And that’s what you think, not me.”
“Well, I never said they were that big,” Hailey responded, still sounding a little irked.
I decided to leave it alone and just nod. I didn’t want to make her upset, and it would be totally cool if she liked Frank. We did some more vocab words, and I helped her do an outline for her essay. She was in much better shape.
“Thanks, O Homework Genie,” she said, throwing her arms around me.
“That’s what friends are for,” I said, and returned the hug. “Now you can help me do a handstand!”
“Really?” she said, jumping off her seat with excitement.
“No, not really. Unless you want to see my peanut butter and banana sandwich again.”
“Ewww,” she said. Her phone made a ding. She looked at it.
“Who is it?” I said.
“My dad,” Hailey said. “Ever since he’s gotten the hang of texting, he texts the entire family every day—what the weather’s like out, since he’s first to leave the house, what he’s having for lunch, and what train he’s going to be on so we know what time he’s getting home. It’s kind of cute and kind of annoying.”
“That sounds kind of cute and kind of annoying,” I said. “My mom never texts us. Do you ever text during class?” I asked, thinking about my article.
“Moi?” Hailey said, batting her eyes, pretending to be innocent. “Never!”
“No, really,” I said in a low, serious tone.
She nibbled at her toast. “Maybe once, but honestly, I don’t really text that much. I IM lots when I’m home, and as you know, I’m always on Buddybook, but usually when I’m at school I actually like to talk to people in person. What a concept! Now, my dad is different story.”
I laughed. “Well, Mr. Trigg wants me and Michael to do an article on texting.”
“Like in what way? That people text. Doesn’t sound like breaking news.”
“Well, I guess we can write about how rampant it is and how people feel about the new detention rule. But you’re right, it’s not that exciting to me either.”
“I’m sure you guys will find something interesting about it that will get everyone talking. You always do.”
“Thanks, Hails, but that remains to be seen.” I slumped down in my seat, holding up my head with my hands. I hoped Michael would come up with a more interesting spin, because I was stumped.