Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Planet Girl (11 page)

“ARRGHH!” I screamed.

I bent down to pick everything up, when something caught my eye. A book cover. It looked strange, but familiar. I picked it up.

Elizabethan Love Sonnets
. I couldn't believe it! How did that get in there? I thought for a second and realized that when I was in the library basement and we heard voices, I must have panicked and shoved the book in my backpack. Then I forgot all about it.

Oh, man! I was sunk. I was history. I was done for. I was—

Wait a second.

I was saved.

I grabbed the book and opened it. Then I took out my notebook and started writing as fast as I could.

 

23

Approximately seven minutes later,
I ran back into the restaurant, where Katie was back sitting with the gang.

“Katie!” I said, apparently at a volume loud enough for many more people other than Katie to hear.

She looked at me. She was clearly getting fed up, but she was too nice a person to come out and say it. So instead she just said, “Yes?”

“I wrote you a poem,” I announced. “Sometimes it's hard for me to say what I mean, so I wrote it down.”

This actually got her to smile at me, for the first time in what seemed like a year. “You wrote me a poem?”

“Yup! I've been reading a lot of poetry lately and I thought I'd give it a try. Can I read it to you?”

A quick look of distrust crossed her face—probably because of the reading comment—but she decided to give me the benefit of the doubt. “Sure, I'd like that.”

I took a deep breath, got out my notebook, and started reading.

“I would compare you to a summer's day

Although, now that I think about it, you're even more temperate, I'd say!

And May, darling, is when the rough winds blew

And summer is almost as hot as you—”

“Wait, Charlie Joe,” said Lauren Rubin, interrupting. “You're kidding, right?”

I looked up. “What do you mean, kidding?” I glanced at Katie, who had her head down, and I felt a drop of sweat on my forehead as I heard the other kids giggle. Uh-oh. This wasn't going to end well.

“Well, um, I hate to tell you,” Lauren said, “but you didn't exactly write that.”

“I didn't?”

“Nope. Shakespeare did.”

My eyes bugged out of my head a little bit. “Shakespeare? No way.”

Katie looked up, with pity in her eyes. “Way,” she said.

“How would you guys know that?” I said, panic starting to rise in my throat. “That's crazy!”

“That's like one of the most famous poems ever written,” Katie said, almost apologetically. “You just changed it a little.”

“Yeah, like, made it horrible,” snorted some girl I didn't know. I made a mental note to keep not knowing her my whole life.

Another girl held up her phone. “I found the real poem,” she announced. Then she started reading.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day

Thou art more lovely and more temperate

Rough winds to shake the darling buds of May—”

“Okay, okay!” I shouted. “Stop! I get it!” I hung my head. “I found it in a book called
Elizabethan Love Sonnets
. So, uh, I thought it was, you know, written by someone named Elizabeth.”

A few kids giggled at that one. Eric Cunkler raised his hand like he was in class. “‘Elizabethan' means the period when Elizabeth the First was queen,” he said.

I felt a little nauseous. Why did everyone at Camp Rituhbukkee have to be so freakin'
smart
?

“Charlie Joe, I don't get it,” Katie said, getting up. “Don't you remember at camp, when Jared wanted to cheat off of Lauren, and you helped put a stop to it? This is kind of the same thing.”

I don't know what kind of face I was making right then, but it must have been a pretty pathetic one, because she actually put her hand on my shoulder in a comforting way. “You're such a smart person, Charlie Joe, but you do the craziest things sometimes. As if I would ever believe that you would write a poem like that. Jeez Louise.”

She had a good point. I had no idea what
temperate
even meant.

As Katie sat back down, she looked up at me one last time.

“See you at home,” she said. And then she added, so softly that only I could hear it, “Thanks for trying.”

I stood there for about another minute, watching all the kids whispering and giggling. The only person who didn't seem to think it was hilarious was Nareem. He just kind of smiled at me, with a sad look in his eyes.

Finally I ran out of there, with one thought running through my mind.

Love can make you really, really dumb.

 

24

“You left without
saying goodbye to anyone,” George said.

“Yeah, what was that about?” Jack said.

It was fifteen minutes later, and we were all in the hotel lobby, waiting for our parents to check out.

“Nothing,” I said, avoiding eye contact.

“Well, see you next summer,” Jack said.

“Have a great rest of the year,” George added.

“You guys, too.” And that was about it. There wasn't much more to add. “I should go.”

I turned to go find my mom.

George held out his hand to stop me. “Charlie Joe, wait.”

I stopped.

“Katie likes you,” Jack said. “I can tell. She really likes you.”

“Or, she
would
like you,” George added, “if you didn't keep trying so hard to mess it up.”

I shook my head. “Thanks you guys, but you're wrong. She used to, maybe, but not anymore.”

“
You're
the one who's wrong, Charlie Joe,” Jack said. “You just need to be yourself.”

George laughed a little. “You know, your usual obnoxious, annoying self.”

“Just be myself,” I said. “That's funny. I read that in a book once.”

Jack and George stared at me.

“No, seriously,” I said. “I did. And I tried it. But it turned out, myself told me to say that liking her would be gross, like liking my sister. And myself told me to copy a poem out of a book that I thought no one would have heard of, but which turned out to be the most famous poem ever written.”

“Well technically, that's not being yourself,” George said. “That's being someone else.”

“D'uh,” Jack added, for emphasis.

George sat down on a bench, and we sat down next to him. “What you need is to do something really special and romantic and stuff, but that's from your heart—not from some book.”

“Hey wait a second,” I said. “Wasn't I giving you girl advice last summer?”

“Times change,” George answered.

I thought for a minute. What could I possibly do that was special and romantic? I was in middle school, for crying out loud. I was just trying to get my homework done with a minimum of effort.

Which gave me an idea.

“Hey, I have to do a class project on someone I consider a personal hero,” I told the guys. “It's due in like a week. I was going to do it on my dad, but maybe I'll do it on Katie instead! What do you guys think?”

George and Jack looked at each other, then back at me.

“You're kidding, right?” Jack said.

“That's the exact opposite of what I'm talking about,” George said. “That's just like sucking up to her.”

Jack put his hand on my shoulder as if I were five years old. “It's better if you do something that won't embarrass her to the point where she never speaks to you again.”

Okay, so scratch that.

George scrunched up his eyes, which meant he was about to say something very intelligent. My friend Jake Katz does the same thing. I think it's in the Genius Handbook. “Maybe you can do some research and find a hero that you actually think would be an awesome choice, but who's interesting and different enough that Katie would think it was cool, too,” he said. “Or someone Katie already thinks is awesome. At least that would give you guys something to talk about, and who knows what would happen after that.”

“That sounds impossible,” I said. “Plus, it sounds like it would involve a lot of research. I like my projects to have as little research as possible.”

They sighed and shook their heads. Then George got out his phone and started recording me. “Can you say that again? The part about doing as little research as possible? I told the guys back home about my camp friend whose goal in life was to make it through middle school without ever reading a book, but they didn't believe me. I need some actual evidence.”

I made a face into the camera. “Yo yo yo, this is Charlie Joe Jackson, big fan of not reading. The only book I like is my grandma's checkbook, you know what I'm sayin'?”

The guys laughed. “See?” Jack said. “You're actually kind of funny when you're just being normal.”

“Good luck with your assignment without doing any reading,” George said, still recording me.

“Yeah, whatever,” I said. George was right, though. As if there were some way that I could do a report about someone Katie really cares about, without reading. That sounded ridiculous. That sounded completely impossible. That sounded—

Wait a second
.

I smacked George on the back. “You're a genius.”

“I've heard,” he said. Then he added, “Ow.”

“I have an idea,” I said.

“Is it a crazy idea?” Jack asked.

“I think so.”

George whistled. “Remember what happened the last time you had a crazy idea?”

“It was about fifteen minutes ago,” Jack chimed in.

“You two are quite the comedy team,” I said.

I picked up my backpack, ready to get back to the real world. So what if my last crazy idea hadn't worked out? I couldn't worry about that. I had to look ahead. I had to have faith.

I had to give it one last shot.

I hugged Jack and George goodbye. Then I left the hotel, the city, the crowded streets, the building filled with books, the scary basements, and the most embarrassing moment of my life behind.

 

Claire Jackson's Guide to Romance

PATIENCE. PATIENCE. PATIENCE.

My husband drives me crazy. He never puts his clothes away, he lets the dogs on every bed and couch in the house, and I'm not sure if he even knows how to use the washer and dryer. But guess what? I drive him crazy, too. I never answer my cell phone, I'm always late, and I've been known to lock myself out of the car.

Despite all that, though, we love each other. A lot. And even though we make each other nuts sometimes, that's part of the deal.

So here's my advice: Don't get scared off by someone you like, just because they might have some habits that annoy you a little. Learn to be patient. It's part of learning how to love.