Stars So Sweet (7 page)

A SWIRL OF RAGE

G
LADYS'S HEART THUDDED SO LOUDLY,
she was sure her fellow seventh-graders could hear it all the way at the back of the auditorium—or would have been able to, if they hadn't been so noisy themselves. There were a lot of cheers from fans of Hamilton's best-selling novel,
Zombietown, U.S.A.,
but also a few boos, probably from fellow Camp Bentley attendees. Hamilton's snooty opinions about the childishness of summer camp had not won him many fans there.

Gladys wasn't sure if she wanted to cheer or boo herself. She and Hamilton had exchanged phone numbers at the end of camp, but he had never called her. She'd told herself that he must be busy finishing up the sequel to his novel, and
she knew how demanding deadlines could be. Several times, she had thought about calling, but in the end she'd always decided not to disturb him. Surely he would get in touch when he had time.

What if she had been wrong, though? If Hamilton had time to make a presentation at her school, he couldn't be
that
busy. Maybe he had decided that his friendship with Gladys wasn't worth continuing after all. In fact, he'd probably already forgotten about her.

Now Gladys felt an overwhelming urge to disappear. She slumped down in her seat and shook her hair forward into her face, though it would be hard to hide since she was sitting in the very first row.

Thanks a lot, Charissa.

Hamilton pulled a set of index cards from his black jeans pocket and cleared his throat in anticipation of his favorite activity: giving speeches.

“Thank you, Principal Sloane,” his voice boomed into the microphone, “and thank you, students, for that enthusiastic welcome. I'm honored to be here in my adopted hometown of East Dumpsford, speaking to you all today.”

He looked up from his cards, and Gladys cringed. Any moment now, he would spot her—and even though
he
had been the one to fall off the face of the earth, she still felt embarrassed. After all, she had thought their friendship meant more to him than it really did.

Hamilton glanced back at his notes before his eyes reached her side of the auditorium, and Gladys let out a small sigh of relief.

“I am here,” he continued, “on this first day of school, to speak to you about the value of perseverance. Without it, I would not be one of the youngest number one
New York Standard
best-selling authors of all time. Now, in case you don't already know,
perseverance
is defined as . . .”

“Ugh!” Parm whispered as Hamilton pompously launched into a definition of the word. “He's so arrogant!”

“I know, right?” Charissa whispered back.

And there it was: mixed in with Gladys's annoyance and embarrassment, a pang of sympathy. Hamilton didn't
mean
to be so condescending; he had just never spent any time around other kids his age, so he had no idea how to act. She understood why Parm and Charissa would be offended by the way he talked down to them, since she'd felt that way once, too. But they just didn't know him the way she did—or the way she thought she had.

Opposing feelings were twisting together in Gladys's gut like a frozen-yogurt swirl. Relief to see Hamilton alive and well. Anger that he had not bothered to get in touch with her. Pity over his awful stage demeanor. Humiliation at thinking he'd forgotten her completely.

She had stopped listening to what he was actually saying, so she was surprised when the lights dimmed even further and the large screen behind him burst to life with the first slide of a multimedia presentation. Hamilton, a clicker in one hand and a microphone in the other, moved off to his right so as not to block the screen, bringing him to stand literally right in front of Gladys. Grateful now for the cover of darkness, she was able to observe her former friend as he clicked through pictures of himself signing books and droned on about following your dreams.

There was a picture of him at the Tipsy Typist restaurant, showing off the “Ham Herb” signature sandwich they had named after him. Gladys thought back to the ham-and-herbs sandwiches he had demanded from the Camp Bentley kitchen, and how she had gone out of her way to make some especially for him. Had he just used her to gain access to the camp's arugula supply?

Suddenly, her melty swirl of feelings crystallized into one single emotion: rage.

By the end of the summer, Gladys really had thought Hamilton had become a less selfish, more thoughtful person. But as she watched him now onstage, cocking his head to show off his stupid fedora and basking in the attention of his audience, she saw that she'd been wrong.

Hamilton Herbertson was still number one in his own book.

The lights came up after he clicked through his last slide—a shot of him alongside several foreign editions of his book—and the boy strode back to the center of the stage. “In conclusion,” he said, returning his microphone to its stand, “you should strive hard toward achieving your goals and not let your young age stand in your way. After all, if I could do it . . . well, then at least one or two of you probably can, too.”

Hamilton bowed, but before anyone could decide whether to applaud this final, backhanded nugget of wisdom, the bell rang out. Kids grabbed their bags, leapt to their feet, and turned away from their “inspirational speaker” to stream down the aisles.

Gladys followed, eager to be gone—but the exits were in the back of the room, and the aisles were jammed up in seconds.
Fudge.
She glanced back just in time to see Hamilton rise out of his bow, which reminded her of all the times he had swept off his fedora and bowed awkwardly to her at Camp Bentley. She let her gaze linger for a second too long, and Hamilton's eye caught hers.

“Gladys??”

At first, Gladys thought her name only sounded loud and echoey in her head, but then she realized
Hamilton was still standing in front of the microphone. Her feet froze in place.

“Gladys!” he cried again. “It's really you!”

So he remembered her name, at least. And not only that, but it sounded like he was on the brink of sucking her in to his second-favorite activity: making an embarrassing scene. In fact, some of the kids who hadn't made it out of the auditorium yet were turning around now, and Parm—who had not attended Camp Bentley—stared at Gladys. “Wait a second,” she hissed. “Do you
know
him?”

Charissa waggled her eyebrows at Gladys, then linked arms with Parm. “Come on,” she told her. “I'll explain everything outside.” Then, along with Marti and Rolanda, they slipped past Gladys and down the aisle.

At last, Gladys got her feet to wake up.
I've got to get out of here,
she thought. But the rear exit was still too far away. Making a split-second decision, she spun around and climbed the stairs that led to the stage instead.

The lights up there were surprisingly hot and bright; the faces of the students still in the auditorium all blurred together into one dark mass. She heard one titter rise from the audience, then another.

Fuuudge.
Now she'd made it easier for everyone to stare at her. This had been a terrible decision.

“Gladys!” Hamilton said again,
still
talking into the microphone. “I've been dying to tell you—”

But she hadn't climbed up there to talk to him; he had already used, infuriated, and embarrassed her enough. She barreled past him into the wings, where she spotted an emergency exit. Without breaking her stride, she slammed through the heavy door.

DON'T CHICKEN OUT

A
S GLADYS STORMED DOWN THE SIDE
street that led away from school, she considered the possibility of homeschooling more seriously than ever before. Her parents both worked full-time, so there was the small issue of who would teach her . . . but Aunt Lydia could take care of French lessons, and there were surely online programs she could do for the rest of it.

As long as she never had to show her face at school again, she was game for anything.

Well, except for the fact that
Hamilton
was homeschooled, and Gladys really didn't want to follow in that boy's footsteps. She could only imagine how pompously he would crow about being a leader in educational trends if he found out.

Ugh. Why did every decision in her life have to be so complicated?

One choice was simple, at least: Gladys knew she wanted to get as far away from DTMS as possible. As she hoofed the long blocks to Mr. Eng's, she regretted not having ridden her bike that morning. She would have preferred to go straight home, but she'd promised her aunt she would stop in on her first day of work. And maybe, if things weren't too busy, they could start to plan for how to pull Gladys out of middle school for good.

The bell rang overhead as she pushed open the Gourmet Grocery's door. Gladys had expected things to be under better control now that Mr. Eng had help, but in fact, the shop looked worse than ever. The light was still out in the cheese fridge, two produce bins were empty, and the spice wall was partially dismantled. Standing in front of that wall having a discussion were Mr. Eng and Aunt Lydia—and Mr. Eng didn't sound happy.

“I simply asked you to restock the cinnamon,” he said, “not to rearrange the entire wall!”

“I—I'm sorry,” Aunt Lydia stammered. “I just had this vision of how nice the spices would look rearranged by color, and—”

“But that wasn't the task you were assigned!” Mr. Eng snapped. “The spices are arranged alphabetically
so that customers can find them easily. Please put them back the way you found them, and then finish restocking.”

Aunt Lydia stared at the tiles at her feet. “Of course.”

Mr. Eng turned on his heel and stalked back into the storeroom; there were no other customers in the shop just then, and in the heat of the exchange, he hadn't even heard the bell over the door ring. Gladys was starting to wonder whether she could just back out of the store quietly when Aunt Lydia spotted her.

“My Gladiola!” She hastily wiped her eye, smudging eyeliner across her cheek in the process. Then, placing the bright yellow bottle of turmeric she was holding onto the nearest shelf—not the right one at all, Gladys noticed—she hurried over to hug her niece. “
Bonjour, bonjour!
How was your first day of school? My first day here has been
magnifique
!”

Clearly, Aunt Lydia was exaggerating; even if Gladys hadn't just overheard Mr. Eng scolding her, she looked exhausted and slightly disheveled. There was no way Gladys could now dump her own problems at her aunt's impractically sandaled, slightly swollen feet.

“Oh . . . my day was fine,” Gladys lied. “I mean, a few bumps along the way, but nothing serious.”

“That's my sweet star,” Aunt Lydia said, giving her a squeeze. “Mature enough to handle anything life throws her way.”

Gladys couldn't help but chafe at this undeserved praise.
Yeah, really mature,
she thought.
Ready to quit school just because someone embarrassed me!

In any case, she was pretty sure that her aunt needed her help right now more than she needed her aunt's. “Hey, Aunt Lydia,” Gladys said, “I don't really have any homework yet. How about I hang out here for a while and help you put this wall back together? Mr. Eng keeps the spices alphabetical, right? I can take
A
through
L
, and you take
M
through
Z
.”

Aunt Lydia grunted something about alphabets being uncreative—but, to Gladys's relief, she agreed. “Thank you, my Gladragon. That would be a huge help.”

Thirty minutes later, the spice wall was fixed, and Gladys had even coaxed her aunt into filling the empty bins by asking her what was supposed to be in them. When her aunt headed back to the storeroom for produce, Mr. Eng quickly emerged; it seemed he wasn't too keen on being in the same area as his new assistant.

• • •

When Gladys arrived home, Sandy was sitting on his front stoop, still in his school uniform. “Jeez, Gatsby, where've you been?” he cried. “I've been waiting out here for ages.”

“Sorry,” Gladys said, taking a seat beside him. “I
just . . . well . . . lots of first-day craziness. But how about you? Was the dragon fruit a hit?”

A crispy piece of Sandy's gelled hair came loose at his temple as he shook his head. “Turns out there's this new kid, Jonah; I guess he was basically the King of Gross at his old school. All through lunch, he kept telling stories about the disgusting stuff he ate last year. He actually laughed at my dragon fruit.”

“Oh, no!” Gladys still felt kind of ambivalent about the whole idea of a grossness champion—but if there was going to be one, she wanted it to be Sandy.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “And then, he pulled this . . .
thing
out of his lunch box. Have you ever heard of gefilte fish? It's basically a pale, slimy fish meatball. Jonah's family is half Jewish, and I guess they eat them during holidays. Anyway, he held it up for everyone to smell, and then, once all the other kids were completely grossed out by it, he ate it in one big bite.”

“That doesn't seem fair,” Gladys said. “He should have at least given you a chance to try some, too—you know, to prove he wasn't the only one brave enough to eat it.”

“Yeah, well, that's what I said.” Sandy pushed the rogue piece of hair back into place on his head. “I said he couldn't just waltz in and claim the title of Gross Foods King without giving other people a shot at a comeback. So then he said; ‘Okay, let's have a rematch
next week—whoever brings and eats the sickest thing on Monday wins for good.' He pretty much challenged me to a duel.”

“So what did you say?” Gladys asked.

Sandy looked at her like she had just sprouted a second head. “I said yes, obviously! What, don't you think I can win?”

“Of course you can!” Gladys cried. “I didn't mean that. I just . . .” She thought about how she had run away from Hamilton earlier. “I guess head-on conflict isn't really my thing.”

“Yeah, well, you can stay behind the scenes all you want on this,” Sandy said, “but I'm definitely going to need your help. You know more about food than anyone, even my mom. What's the grossest thing you can think of?”

They spent the next few minutes brainstorming nasty-yet-edible school lunch ideas, and Gladys promised to save time that weekend to go on a yucky-food shopping spree together.

When she rose to return home, though, Gladys's brain circled back to what had happened at school. Sandy was bravely taking on his challenge, even though it might lead to some uncomfortable situations. Gladys, though, had chosen to turn her back on Hamilton rather than let him know why she was upset with him. She had chickened out. Was that really how
she wanted to kick off her middle-school years—by running away from every complicated situation?

Gladys made her way up to her bedroom and scanned her bookshelf for her copy of
Zombietown, U.S.A.,
its black spine standing in a spot of honor between her other favorites:
Matilda
and the Harry Potter series.

She flipped it open to the inscription Hamilton had written on their last day of camp.

For Gladys,

Chef, swimming coach, muse, and friend extraordinaire.

Hamilton Herbertson

He had included his phone number under his name.

Gladys carried the book into the office, picked up the phone, and—before she could lose her nerve—dialed.

A voice-mail recording picked up on the first ring. “You've reached the Herbertsons. Please leave a message.”

Gladys gulped. “Hey, Hamilton,” she said after the beep. “Um, I'm sorry I ran off like that today. I'd like to talk to you, so . . . just give me a call when you have a chance. Bye.”

She hung the receiver up gingerly; then, determined
not to waste the rest of her afternoon staring at it, headed to the kitchen and began pulling ingredients out for a baking project.

Since her aunt had arrived from Paris, Gladys had thought about attempting macarons, the notoriously delicate and tricky French sandwich cookies made with egg whites and almond flour. Aunt Lydia might still be missing her old life in Paris, but if Gladys did a good job, maybe the macarons would give her a taste of home.

She had just finished piping careful rounds of macaron batter onto a baking sheet when her parents arrived home from work.

“Well, well—what have we here?” Her dad placed his briefcase on the table and approached the baking sheet; Gladys had to shift her body to block him just as he was about to dunk an unwashed finger into one of her perfect circles.

“No way,” she said. “You can try these when they're done, just like everyone else.”

Her dad laughed, but when her mom spoke, her voice was noticeably cooler. “Cooking, Gladys? On the first night of school?”

“Well, I don't have any homework yet,” Gladys said.

“Then I would think you might have time to hang out with some of your friends.” Gladys's mom was always getting on her case about being more social;
sometimes she wondered if her mom was more paranoid about Gladys's friends dumping her than Gladys was.

“I saw Sandy earlier,” Gladys told her, “and Parm and Charissa both had after-school activities.” She left out the drama with Hamilton—her parents didn't need to know about that.

“After-school activities—now that sounds like fun,” Gladys's dad said. “I still remember my first Debate Club meet in middle school . . . talk about adrenaline!”

Gladys nodded as politely as she could. Debate sounded almost as awful as Student Leadership Council, with the possible exception of a debate about the merits of superfine sugar versus confectioner's sugar. But somehow she doubted that was a topic on the debate team's agenda.

“Gladys,” her mom said, “have a seat for a moment.”

The macarons needed to rest before they went into the oven anyway, so Gladys followed her parents to the kitchen table.

“Honey,” her mom started, “your dad and I have talked about this, and we think it would be best to impose some limits on your cooking during the school year. You know, to make sure you'll have plenty of time to meet new people, try new activities, and really get the most out of your middle-school experience.”

“What?”
Gladys couldn't believe her ears. The last
time her parents had restricted her cooking privileges, it was because she had started a fire in the kitchen. “But I didn't do anything wrong!”

“This isn't a punishment, Gladdy,” her dad said. “It's just an effort to make sure you have a healthy balance in your schedule. Now, there must be some after-school activities you'll want to try in your spare time.”

“There's just one,” she said. “French Club. And that doesn't even start up until next week!”

“Then maybe you should find a few more,” Gladys's mom suggested. “Or maybe a sports team you'd like to try out for?”

Gladys stared down at the fake-wood pattern of the kitchen table. She'd thought that her parents had made a lot of progress over the summer—that they'd really started to understand her passion for food and cooking. But this just proved that they didn't understand her at all.

“You can still finish your cookies tonight,” her dad said, “but starting tomorrow, your kitchen access will be restricted to once a week.”

“
Once
a week?” Gladys had a list of recipes to try that was almost three pages long. If she was only allowed to cook one time a week, it would take her years to perfect them all. “This is so unfair!”

“We thought you might feel that way,” her mom said, “but we've discussed this, and we think it's for
your own good. I bet you'll even thank us once you get more involved in other activities. You might find something else you love to do just as much as cooking!”

“But I already know what I love to do.” Gladys could tell she was not going to win this battle, but she couldn't help trying anyway.

Her dad reached over and ruffled her hair. “Just give this a shot, kiddo. Don't be afraid of having new experiences.”

Gladys found this statement particularly ironic coming from the man who'd been ordering the same exact chicken lo mein from Palace of Wong every week for the last nine years.