Now that we’ve arrived at school, here are three things about my class that are good to know for a newbie like you:
- Avoid Nadine Burnbaum at all costs. Nadine is known to her many cowering enemies as Naddy Burns. She has a reputation for being mean, nosy, gossipy, and smug, but her real claim to fame is the infamous Naddy Burn. She will insult you right to your face, then joyfully say, You’ve been burned! It’s incredibly annoying.
- Ms. Yang, my teacher, is in her first year of teaching. She’s enthusiastic, fun, and smart. She also has nearly no idea what she’s doing. Her I like.
- Due to incredibly bad luck, my seat is right next to Naddy Burns. I have been burned thousands of times this year. Thankfully, I’ll be at the middle school next year.
I settled into my seat and dropped my backpack on the floor beside me. It was at this point that I couldn’t stand the itch in my armpit for even one more second without scratching it.
Big mistake.
“I love what you’ve done with your hair,” Naddy Burns leaned over and said. “How do you get it to flow out of your armpits like that?”
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, hoping she’d bother someone else.
A couple of other kids laughed, and then Naddy said, “You’ve been burned!”
I knew if I ignored Naddy Burns life would be much simpler and easier, but I’d been burned one too many times and this was not the day to burn Jenny!
“Hold still,” I said to Naddy. “I’m trying to imagine you with a personality.”
Oooooh’s erupted all over class because it was rare for anyone to insult Naddy Burns.
“If your brain was dynamite,” Naddy said, “there wouldn’t be enough to blow your hat off.”
Not bad, but I’d been storing up my own insults all school year and I was in no mood.
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “Worry about your eyebrows.”
The whole class was paying attention now as Ms. Yang struggled with the projector connected to a computer. Technology was not her strong suit.
“If I had a face like yours,” Naddy said. “I’d sue my parents.”
Okay, that one stung.
I got the feeling Naddy Burns was just getting warmed up, and I was already running out of things to say. I only had one insult left! What had I been thinking?!
“Brush your teeth,” I said.
Technically Brush your teeth isn’t an insult, but I liked how short it was.
Naddy Burns crinkled up her face and seemed to actually think about brushing her teeth. Did I miraculously have her on the ropes?
“You have miles to go before you reach average,” Naddy Burns said. “And this conversation is over.”
Wait, what just happened? Did Naddy Burns back down?! I’d won! Or at least I’d taken her to a draw, which was practically impossible. Without even thinking, I started scratching my armpit again and that’s when I realized whatever was in there wasn’t a blotch anymore.
It was a bump.
“You gotta be kidding me,” I mumbled.
Ms. Yang finally got the projector working and started a documentary about the Dust Bowl. The lights were turned off and people started whispering and passing notes as the sound of a blistering wind filled the room.
The terror in my armpit grew at an alarming rate while the documentary played. When the show was over and the lights came back up, it was the size of a baseball and it started making weird gurgling sounds. It was squishy, so I could hold it next to my side like a water balloon, squeezing it into something flat enough that no one could see it.
“Do they not feed you at your house?” Naddy Burns said, because of all the gurgling noises coming from my armpit. “Maybe they’re hoping you’ll run away and join the circus.”
Some random kid said, “You’ve been burned!” But then Naddy Burns gave him an icy stare because he’d stolen her line. At least for the moment, the attention was off me.
I somehow made it through the rest of the morning before the recess bell rang and I ran for the door with my backpack slung over one shoulder. Naddy Burns said something about how I ran like a duck, but I didn’t care. I had to get to the tree on the playground, and fast, because the terror in my armpit was getting bigger.
“Fen! Over here!” I yelled when I saw him heading for the tree at a leisurely pace. “Hurry up!”
Fen broke into a run and skidded to a stop on the grassy playground right in front of me.
“How we doin’?” he asked.
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s going great,” I said.
Fen eyeballed my armpit. “It looks about the same. Does it still itch?”
“Nope,” I said. “But there’s a new problem now.”
“A new problem?” Fen asked.
I bent down and set my backpack on the ground and unzipped it. Something was hidden in the backpack, and when I stood up it was hanging from my armpit.
It was about the size of a toaster.
But it looked nothing like a toaster. Describing it is, in fact, terrifying, so I’m putting a pin in that for now.