Happy Kid! (8 page)

Not that I could say anything about Chelsea to my mother and sister. You really have to be careful about telling family members anything important. They're always going to be around, and you never know when they'll remind you of stuff you'd really rather not think about—like how back in seventh grade you liked Chelsea Donahue, who was too smart and too good-looking for you.

“Besides,” I added, wanting to make sure they didn't suspect anything, “A-kid English and social studies are the only places I can be rid of Jake. No one is going to mistake
him
for an A-kid.”

Once we finished with my textbook covers, I went back to my room to get a little more homework done before dinner. I'd already done the SSASie review sheets for math and social studies. I didn't have any for science. Mrs. Lynch wasn't giving us any review work because she said she wasn't going to risk having anyone accuse her of helping a student cheat. I'd only known her for less than an hour, but I didn't think she had to worry about anyone accusing her of helping a student do anything.

But that meant the only review work I had left was the most important. Not that I cared that much about getting ready for the yearly SSASies. I'd always done really well on them, and I didn't want to mess with success by going overboard studying. I could end up making things a whole lot worse doing something like that.

No, the review work I had left, the “Are We Alone?” essay for Mr. Borden, was important because Chelsea was in his class. I had spent all of sixth grade sitting in two classes with her. Maybe I could spend all of seventh grade making a good impression on her. Then, when we were together next year in those ninth-grade English and social studies classes, we could talk on the phone a few times. And then when we were together in whatever kind of A-kid courses they had at the high school, we could spend all our time between classes together. Then in eleventh grade . . . I'd have someone to go with me to the Junior Prom!

So I sat down at the crummy old computer I had inherited when my grandmother upgraded hers, which is all I have in my room because my parents insist it's just fine for doing homework. I opened a new file and typed “Are We Alone?” at the top of the screen. Then I typed “No.”

I deleted the “No” and started again.

Well, there's one paragraph, I thought. Then I went on.

Uh-oh, I thought as I closed the dictionary and dropped it on the floor. That means the answer is yes.

I thought that sounded really intelligent and deep, as if I spent a lot of time thinking, which is exactly how A-kid papers sound.

Then I kind of drew a blank.

I sat at my desk and kicked at some stuff on my floor while I tried to think. I hit something that was hidden under my pajama bottoms. I kept kicking and thinking and kicking and thinking. After a while, I was kicking and not thinking and kicking and not thinking. I don't know how long I went on like that before I finally looked down and saw that what I had been kicking was the copy of
Happy Kid!
I'd thrown on the floor that morning after I'd finished with it.

Since work on my essay had come to a halt, I thought I'd put my time to good use by reading another chapter. I didn't have to do anything the book told me to, after all. I could just read a chapter and get a dollar. So I opened up
Happy Kid!
and once again started to read the first thing I found.

I had to laugh when I read that. Just how is a person supposed to be able to tell if his life stinks or he just thinks it does? And couldn't you turn that question around? “Is your life really great or do you just think it is?” I thought I'd like to hear a happy person answer that.

What I should have been feeling was surprise that I just
happened
to stumble upon this passage that just
happened
to be about the exact thing my mother just
happened
to have been nagging me about for days. But she had bought me the book, after all, so I never gave it a thought.

You can never find a bookmark when you want one, at least not in my room, so I left
Happy Kid!
open facedown on the floor for a couple of days to mark my place. I must have broken the rigid binding when I left it on the floor, because the next few times I tried to read a new chapter and make a dollar, it opened up to the same place. “Does Your Life Stink or Is It YOU?” The rest of the book was as stiff as it had ever been, though, because when I tried to intentionally open it to a new page, I couldn't keep it open long enough to finish reading what was there. As soon as I moved my hands from the sides of the book so I could read what was under them, the pages started flipping and the first thing I knew, there I was again at “Does Your Life Stink or Is It YOU?”

I started becoming very self-conscious about using deodorant.

I was finally able to open the book to a new chapter the next Monday morning. Unfortunately, the new chapter was a lot like the one I'd been reading over and over again. I just had time to complain to my mother and collect a dollar from her before I had to leave the house.

I had to go to the orthodontist. With my
grandmother.
She owns a real estate agency and can take time off much more easily than either of my parents. That's why I end up spending way too much time with her.

“This morning I'm missing math so I can go to the orthodontist. Is that a good thing because I hate math, or is it a bad thing because I'm terrible at it, so I really ought to be in class learning all I can?”

“You lost me,” Nana replied.

I pulled
Happy Kid!
out of my backpack and it fell open in my hand.

“Would you look at this?” I said. “Last week this book kept opening up to the same spot because I wrecked its binding. This morning I finally got it to open to something new, and now it just opened up to that same place again. There must be something wrong with this thing.”

“I'm still lost,” Nana said.

“I can explain everything. I brought this book with me to read in the doctor's office because Mom said she'd give me a dollar for every chapter I finish. The chapters are really short, by the way, so it's not a big deal. Here's the chapter I read this morning while I was waiting for you to pick me up.”

“You're not trying to suggest that I have a negativity problem, are you?” Nana asked. “I get enough of that kind of thing from your mother, thank you very much.”

“I get that from her, too! She says I look for the worst in every situation. That's why she got me this book. She thinks it will make me happy.”

Nana and I both laughed.

“The last chapter I read says that if you're one of those people who
does
see the worst in every situation, then your life really isn't all that bad, you just think it is. So it would actually be a
good
thing if we're negative. Can you believe it? That would mean that our lives are good, we just don't know it.”

“Really?” Nana said. “Be sure to explain that to your mom.”

“The thing is, I couldn't figure out how to tell if something's actually bad or if I just think it is. Then this morning I opened this book up and found this chapter I just read you that explains how to do it. Make a list.”

“So this is what you've been spending your time thinking about, huh?” Nana asked as she turned into Dr. Allegretti's parking lot.

“This and how I can get my homework done faster so I can take taekwondo,” I said.

“Taekwondo?” she repeated as she parked the car. “Good for you, Kyle! In this day and age, we all have to be prepared to defend our way of life.”

Defend our way of life? I thought. Wasn't she talking about fighting terrorists? I just wanted to get to know a girl.

Once we were in Dr. Allegretti's office, I let my grandmother have the only seat left. It was on the couch between the bald man with the purple splotch on his head and the woman who kept apologizing because the baby she was holding smelled. I sat on the floor, pulled a piece of paper out of my backpack, and wrote “Things I
Think
Are Bad That Are
Really
Good.”

When I left the office forty minutes later, the wire that went through the brackets on my lower teeth had been pulled so tight that tears had come to my eyes. And there was nothing on my list.

I didn't realize I'd left my backpack in Nana's car until I got to the school office so I could get my late pass. The thing weighs nearly thirty pounds. How could I not have noticed I wasn't carrying it? Of course, my mother's note explaining why I was late was in the backpack.

I was trying to tell the secretary what had happened when someone behind her shouted, “Yo! Kyle!”

I looked over the secretary's shoulder and there was Jake standing next to the principal, Mr. Alldredge.

“Gus, can't we do something to help out my man Kyle?” Jake said to Mr. Alldredge.

Gus? I thought as Mr. Alldredge snapped “In there” at Jake and pointed toward the door to his office.

“Hey, I tried,” Jake called to me as he went in.

Mr. Alldredge stepped over to the attendance window. “You're Jake Rogers's man now, are you?” he asked.Though it wasn't really a question. It was more of an accusation.

“He—not—I—no,” I stammered.

Mr. Alldredge shook his head in disgust, and the secretary handed me an unexcused late pass, meaning that if I didn't bring a note the next day, my first two period teachers didn't have to let me make up whatever work I'd missed.

That didn't make the list.

I got into social studies halfway through the class, which meant that everybody looked at me as I walked through the door. I waved my bright red unexcused late pass in Ms. Cannon's direction.

“My homework is in my backpack and my backpack is in my grandmother's car, and my mouth hurts because I went to the orthodontist,” I said as I slowly slid into my seat.

I hoped Chelsea noticed how much I was suffering.

“Do you know what would happen if I used that excuse at the university where I'm working on my Ph.D.?” Ms. Cannon asked me.

During the first week of school Ms. Cannon had managed to mention her Ph.D. nearly every day.

“You don't have braces, Ms. Cannon. No one would believe you had been to the orthodontist,” I pointed out.

“You missed my point, Kyle. You have to pay attention to what you're doing. Tomorrow we'll have been in school just one week, and already you're leaving your things all over the place. For that matter, did you really have to schedule a doctor's appointment during school hours?”

By the time I got out of social studies class, I still had nothing on my list. Everything I thought was bad really was. If I'd been keeping a list called “Proof That Life Sucks,” it would have been filling right up.

I was late getting out of class, so I was stuck walking to English by myself.

Anytime you're with someone at school, particularly someone you actually like or can at least get along with, it's an accident. Even in the hallways you might not see your friends if their schedules are a lot different than yours. So the halls at school are filled with people by themselves or pretending they're not by themselves, or, if they really are with other people, being loud about it like Jamie and Beth so that everyone will know they're not alone.