Mia the Meek (2 page)

“Will the new you be as ugly as the old you?”

“Sometimes I wonder what you’d be like if you’d had enough oxygen at birth.”

“All right, keep talking about this miraculous makeover. I’ll yawn when I’m interested.”

“That’s it,” I said, holding out my hands, palms up. “That’s my whole plan.”

“That’s it? By reading a dumb book, you think you’ll be able to change yourself into some big party girl? You are so bent. Don’t you know that popular kids have either got it or they don’t? And you definitely don’t have it.”

“I should’ve known better than to try talking to you like a human being rather than a primate.” I pointed to the door. “And if you don’t leave my room this instant, I’ll tell Mom you have a
Victoria’s Secret
catalog under your bed.”

“Then I’ll show Mom your diary with all your fantasies about Jakey-poo.”

I got out of bed and stood an inch from his face. “I’ll give you one last warning: Get out of my room, or else.”

“Only if you promise you’ll miss me,” Chris replied, running out the door and slamming it behind him.

Faced with another monotonous morning stuck with the ignoramus imbecile, I lay back on my bed and stared out the window. The movers were hauling in our new neighbors’ furniture. It all looked boring and beige. So as not to prolong the misery of being forced to hand cookies over to strangers, I wearily hoisted myself out of bed and headed down to the kitchen to whip up my special recipe of chocolate chip cookies. If I timed it right, the neighbors would be so busy with the movers that I could drop the cookies and run.

I
’d just placed the last of the cookies on the counter to cool when I heard the roar of a motor and the grinding of gears. Looking out the window, I saw the moving truck thundering out of sight.

“Oh no, I’m too late.”

“Too late for what?” Chris asked, walking into the kitchen and shoving a cookie into his mouth. I threw a bunch of cookies on a plate and handed it to him.

“Mom wants you to take these over to the new neighbors’.”

“Get real. I heard Mom and you talking this morning. She told you to take them over.”

“I’ll give you five dollars.”

“And miss watching you hyperventilate talking to a
spooky stranger
?”

“Your whole purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.” I grabbed the plate of cookies from Chris and stormed out the back door, with him following doggedly at my heels. While I still had the nerve, I marched up to the neighbors’ front porch and forced myself to ring the doorbell. Instantly, a kid about my brother’s age appeared, bouncing a soccer ball on his knee.

Before I could say anything, Chris asked, “Want to come over to my house and play soccer? I live right next door and I already have a goal set up.”

“Cool.” The kid turned around and yelled into his house: “Hey, Mom, I’m going over to our neighbor’s house. See you later!”

Before it fully registered, Chris and his new best friend disappeared. Panic swept over me at the prospect of being left alone on a stranger’s stoop. I was just about to drop the cookies and run when a gorgeous guy with thick brown hair and the body of a Greek god appeared in the doorway, causing my legs to become utterly useless.

I locked eyes with him and realized they were the same shade of mocha brown as my favorite teddy bear, Mr. Snuggles. I immediately shifted my gaze, and that’s when I saw he was holding the book
Whisper
. A cute guy with Mr. Snuggles’s eyes reading my favorite book? This was too good to be true.

He asked through the screen door, “May I help you?”

I held out the plate. “Would you like some cookies?”
Oh God, I sound like a deranged Girl Scout!

He opened the door a crack.

“Are you part of the welcome wagon or something?”

“Um, yes. I mean no. Uh, I mean. . .” I jabbed the plate of cookies into his gut. “Here.” I turned and sprinted down the porch steps, wondering how hard it would be to convince my parents we had to move immediately.

“Wait a minute. What’s your name?”

Not stopping, I called over my shoulder, “Mia.”

“Mia, can you wait a second? I need your help.”

I was a sucker for a gorgeous guy in need. I bit my lip and turned around.

“I need to find my brother, Kevin. He’s about five and a half feet tall, brown hair, and extremely annoying. He’s supposed to be helping me unpack the boxes for our bedrooms. Have you seen him?”

I nodded my head. The guy looked at me curiously.

“Can you tell me where he is?”

I took a deep breath. “He’s at my house next door playing soccer with my little brother, Chris. Would you like me to get him for you?”

“No, I’ll do it.” From the plate, he grabbed a couple of cookies and shoved one into his mouth. “These are awesome.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, making a beeline for my backyard. He set the cookie plate down on his porch and jogged beside me.

“Don’t you want to know my name?”

I nodded, too petrified to speak.

“It’s Tim. Tim Radford.” I nodded again and he said, “You don’t talk much, do you?”

I shrugged my shoulders.
Oh God, why did my backyard suddenly seem a million miles away?

“Any chance you’ve read the book
Whisper
?”

I nodded.

“Cool! I just finished it and I’m dying to talk to someone about it. Didn’t you think it was totally radical how the government took over people’s lives by implanting brain chips?”

Before my brain could stop my mouth, I exclaimed, “And wasn’t it cool how they figured out in the end how they should build relationships with people, not machines?”

He stopped walking.

“
Relationships
? You make it sound like a romance novel.”

“I didn’t mean relationships like that.” Why did I open my mouth? I should have stuck to nodding. I wet my lips and continued, “I meant how all the people in the book have to talk to each other through machines and how that affects their feelings for each other.”

“
Feelings
? It’s about government control.”

“I know there’s government control in the book, but I think the most important idea is about human interaction.”

“
Human interaction
? What are you, a thesaurus? I think you missed the big picture. You should read the book again.”

“But I’ve already read it three times!”

“You had to read
Whisper
three times? I only need to read a book once to understand it.”

We arrived in my backyard and I headed directly for my door. If talking to strangers was going to be this hard, staying shy wasn’t all that bad an option.

Tim called to my retreating back, “If you need to read
Whisper
a fourth time, you can borrow my copy. I can even highlight all the important points, so you won’t miss them this time.”

I slammed the door behind me, remembering I never really liked Mr. Snuggles all that much anyway. I picked up the phone to call my best friend, Lisa, so I could give her the 4-1-1 on my new neighbor. After several rings, Lisa’s mom, Mrs. Davis, answered. Mrs. Davis has a doctorate in psychology and I think she was secretly conducting a case study on me. Not wanting to give her any more research material, I quickly asked for Lisa.

“I’m sorry, Mia. Lisa is at her grandparents until school starts. They surprised us with a visit last night and took Lisa home with them. I have a theory they’re using Lisa as an attachment figure to compensate for some sociological need they’re missing in their lives. By the way, how are you feeling about starting high school next week?”

Not knowing if she meant physically or mentally, I replied, “I feel great, Mrs. Davis, but I have to go. I hear my brother calling for me,” and hung up the phone.

I plopped down on a stool at the kitchen counter, thinking,
Next week, I’m going to conquer ninth grade, and then it’s the world.
Figuring I would need a lot of energy to do all this conquering, I finished off the rest of the cookies on the counter.

M
y dad popped his head in my bedroom doorway. “How about a little one-on-one?” he asked. I sucked up the last dust bunny from under my bed and switched off the vacuum cleaner.

“I’d do anything to get out of Mrs. Clean’s evil empire. Look at the bruises I have on my knees from scrubbing baseboards all week.”

“A little elbow grease never hurt anyone.” My dad looked at me closely. “Aren’t you supposed to be wearing your retainer?”

I sighed. “I’ll get it and meet you outside.” Positioning my retainer in my mouth, I combed my hair into a ponytail and joined him.

Once outside, my dad tossed me the ball.

“Ladies first.”

I checked the ball to him to start the game and then immediately scored.

“Bet you’re sorry you’re such a gentleman.”

Coming back with a long shot from the corner of the court, he said, “I’m not that much of a gentleman.”

Within minutes, we were battling back and forth, point for point. With my dad breathing hard, I looked to take advantage by driving the lane for a lay-up over his head. The shot scored, but as I came down, I tripped and landed flat on my face, my chin bouncing off the pavement. My dad ran over to me.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I said, rubbing my chin. “But my retainer flew out of my mouth. Do you see it?”

“It’s over here.”

We turned in unison to see Tim pointing at his shoe, my retainer perched on top of it. My dad whistled.

“Wow, what are the odds of that?”

Not in the mood for statistics, I grabbed my retainer off Tim’s shoe and popped it back in my mouth. When it occurred to me where it had been, I gagged, spitting it back into my hand.

“Sorry about interrupting your game,” Tim said, “but I came over to ask if you know of a good pizza place around here. My mom’s tired of unpacking and wants to go out to eat tonight.”

I stood mute, mesmerized by the remnants of my saliva dripping down his shoe.

“For the best pizza, you should try Nick’s on the corner of Vine and Birch Street,” my dad replied. “And thanks for cushioning the blow of Mia’s retainer. She’s got to wear that every day for the next year.”

“No problem.” Tim glanced at me. “You know, if you’d used your left foot to push off of for your lay-up, you would’ve had more control on your landing and might not have fallen on your face. I guess your basketball skills are about equal to your reading ability.”

My jaw dropped at the insult and I tried to figure out a quick and clever comeback. Because nothing came to me, retreat seemed like the best defense. I stomped off to my house and slammed the back door as hard as I could. Walking past the hallway mirror, I caught a brief glimpse of myself: sweaty, greasy hair; dirt streaked down my face, an oozing scrape on my chin; and a filthy retainer in my hand. I was a vision of loveliness. Things couldn’t get any worse.

Then I remembered: school started the next morning.

My roller coaster car was inches from slamming into the ground when I awoke, panting profusely. Switching off my alarm clock, I flopped back down on my stomach and closed my eyes.

“Mia, it’s time to get up! Are you going to sleep your entire life away?”