Middle School--Born to Rock Read online

  And you know how it is with bubbles, right? They never last long enough.

  Because this one was about to go POP in a major way.

  Pool Girl

  The first thing I heard was the sound of the pool house door opening. When I looked over, Missy’s Doberman, Benjamins, came running out.

  Straight at me.

  I dropped my giant vacuum stick (which was a mistake, since it was the closest thing I had to a weapon) and turned to head for the main house.

  Too late. He’d already caught up with me. I felt two paws on my shoulders.

  “Help!” I yelled.

  Benjamins knocked me down, right onto a fluffy pool chaise cushion. I tensed, waiting for those giant Doberman teeth to sink into me.

  “HELLLLLP!” I tried again—just before I got a big wet lick on my cheek. And then another lick. And a third slurp that went right in my ear. I couldn’t move, but only because Benjamins was giving me doggy kisses like my head was one big ice cream cone.

  “Benjamins, COME!” someone said, and he jumped down.

  When I looked over, you-know-who was standing there in the pool house door. The Empress of Evil herself.

  “Ohhh, sorrrr-eeee,” Missy said. “I didn’t know you were out here.”

  In other words, she definitely knew I was out there. And she’d been bluffing with Benjamins, too. Because he was no attack dog. He was just a big, scary-looking cream puff.

  “Anyway,” Missy said. “We’re having a little study party in here, and I’m going to need you to take our snack orders.”

  That’s when I realized how many people were inside the pool house. It wasn’t just the Princess Patrol. It was more like the Princess Patrol and their whole Popular Posse, all looking at me like I was yesterday’s kitchen scraps.

  And today’s maid.

  “Your mom said I should clean the pool,” I said, but Missy snatched my house radio away, turned it to channel three, and started talking.

  “This is Sparkle Sparrow calling Big Bird,” she said. “Mom? Come in, Mom.”

  The radio squawked and then I heard Mrs. Trillin.

  “What is it, sweetheart?” she said. “I’m in the middle of a pedicure—”

  “Can I borrow Georgia?” Missy said. “The pool cleaning can wait, right?”

  “Yes, yes, fine,” Mrs. Trillin radioed back. “But for goodness’ sake, Missy, be nice!”

  “Of coouuurse,” Missy said, looking at me like her definition of “nice” was the same as “evil.”

  Then she gave me back the radio.

  “I’ll have a blueberry-banana smoothie with skim milk and vanilla yogurt,” Missy told me.

  “Me, too,” said Chloe, who had marched up behind her. “But I’m dairy-free. Soy milk for me.”

  “Can I get strawberry-banana but no yogurt?” Alicia asked.

  “Do you have any chips?” Dexter McCourt asked. “And maybe some Zoom?”

  “You know what? You’d better write this down,” Missy said. “Here. You can use the back of this.”

  She handed me a piece of lavender stationery with some kind of long list on it. I saw lots of words like “clean” and “organize” and “perfect.”

  “That’s my to-do list,” Missy said. “Well, more like your to-do list now. Don’t worry if you can’t get to it all today. There’s always the next time. Or the time after that.”

  The whole thing made me want to vomit in Missy’s enormous pool. Except of course then I’d just have to clean that up, too.

  I also wanted to cry a little. But there was no way I’d let Missy and her Popular Posse see me doing that.

  Still, I didn’t know what to say. If I told Missy to shove it, would she complain to her mother? And would Mrs. Trillin fire me? And would I be paying for Major Hills’s head until I was eighty years old?

  I really wasn’t sure. Which meant I couldn’t risk it.

  “Oh, and one other thing,” Missy said. Then Alicia came out of the pool house carrying a pink uniform on a hanger. “Make sure you put this on before you come back with our snacks. ’Kay? Thaaaaanks.”

  And that’s when I started to realize just how bad this whole thing was getting.

  Lemon Bars

  I tried talking to Mom about the Missy situation that night, but there wasn’t much she could do. It’s not like we could suddenly afford to pay for Major Hills’s head.

  “You know what I’d do?” Mom said. “I’d try to focus on the positive.”

  “What do you mean? Like how lucky I am that Missy isn’t a twin? Or how nice it is to get all that exercise running laps around the Trillin estate?”

  “Nothing like that,” Mom said. “You’re a Khatchadorian, Georgia. We don’t always have it easy in life, but we don’t give up, either. Try to worry less about Missy and think more about what’s been going right lately.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, even if I kind of wanted to. So I went back to my room instead. I closed the door, opened my notebook, and tried to think about something positive. Something good in my life.

  Like Lulu.

  And the contest.

  And We Stink’s first number one hit—even if I hadn’t written it yet.

  Our Big, Medium-Sized Break

  Saturday morning, I was outside when I saw our neighbor Mrs. Gorman putting some balloons on her mailbox. There was a HAPPY BIRTHDAY sign on the front door, too.

  And that’s when it hit me—BRAINSTORM!

  McCasalin Gorman was the closest thing our band had to a fan. She came over to the garage sometimes to watch us practice. Probably because she was in the fifth grade, which made us at least a little bit cool to her.

  And I thought—why didn’t I come up with this before? Hills Village Elementary School had hundreds of fourth and fifth graders. What if we could turn every single one of them into a vote for We Stink?

  I hated to admit it, but Rafe was right. We needed to think big. If we could crack the birthday party circuit, we were going to be one giant step closer to winning this whole thing.

  “Hi, Mrs. Gorman,” I said, like I just happened to be walking by. “I see you’re having a party. How would you like some free live music? My band had a cancellation this morning, so we’re available.”

  “Really?” she said. “Do you play music that’s appropriate for children?”

  “Sure!” I said. Which was true. We’re not exactly a parental advisory lyrics kind of group.

  “Well, that would be wonderful,” she said. “I was supposed to have Shrimpy the Clown, but apparently he picked up a case of head lice at his last party, so… can you be ready in an hour?”

  “Of course we can!” I said.

  I thought it was a little weird for McCasalin to want a clown at her birthday, but it didn’t matter now. Shrimpy’s bad luck was our big break. I turned around and ran home to call the girls and get ready.

  We were going to need our instruments, of course. Also Nanci’s phone, for filming purposes. And something to tell people about the contest. So right after I called Mari and told her to call Patti and Nanci, I made the world’s quickest flyer on Mom’s computer. It wasn’t great, but I didn’t have time for great.

  “What are you doing?” Rafe asked me.

  “See? I can think big,” I said, and handed him one of the flyers. “We’re going to get every fourth and fifth grader in Hills Village to vote for us.”

  “Wow,” Rafe said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “No,” he told me. “It’s more like I’m starting to feel sorry for you.”

  “Here’s an idea,” I said, and snatched the flyer out of his hand. “Don’t bother me about it.”

  It was stupid to even try and have a real conversation with Rafe. Not to mention a waste of my time. I had to get busy launching the VOTE FOR WE STINK campaign, once and for all.

  “I’m just saying—”

  “La-la-la-la-la-la!” I said to Rafe, as I picked up my stuff and flew back out the door. “Not listening!”

  “Yeah,” I heard my brother say behind me. “That’s pretty much your problem, right there.”

  Change of Plans

  Okay, in my defense, I want to say that what happened next could have happened to anyone. It was all just a misunderstanding.

  When I got back to the Gormans’ house, Mrs. Gorman had her hands full. She was carrying around McCasalin’s baby brother, and he was crying up a storm, so she just pointed me toward the backyard and kept moving.

  Nanci was already there, setting up her drums. Patti and Mari were on the way. And the whole house smelled like cake.

  As soon as I saw McCasalin, I went right over to her. She was our ticket to the rest of Hills Village Elementary, so I wanted to be especially nice and get her pumped for our show.

  “Hey, McCasalin!” I said. “Happy birthday! That’s a nice jacket! Did you get it as a gift?”

  But McCasalin looked at me like I was speaking some kind of secret language. A bunch of other adults were just getting there, too. And the weird part was, they all had babies and toddlers with them.

  “It’s not my birthday,” McCasalin said.

  “Wait… what?” Mari said. She and Patti had just gotten there, too. Now everyone was staring at me.

  “It’s Adam’s birthday,” McCasalin told me, and pointed at her one-year-old brother. “I hope you guys know ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider,’ because that’s his favorite.”

  “Hey, sweetie!” Mr. Gorman yelled from a car in the driveway. “The movie starts in twenty minutes. Let’s roll!”

  “Catch you next time!” McCasalin said, and took off, just like that.

  I didn’t even think about giving her a flyer until she was already gone. I was too busy noticing the way Mari, Patti, and Nanci were looking at me—like I had one big “OOPS!” tattooed across my forehead.

  So basically, the first show of our big campaign didn’t go quite as planned. I mean, we did end up with a houseful of screaming babies, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the music.

  Let’s just say it gave our band name a whole new meaning. And not in a good way.

  Mixed Messages

  After that disaster, I was really looking forward to Monday after school. That’s when I had my first maybe-date with Sam. And, boy, was it romantic. We went to the junk shop, the city dump, and the hardware store, looking for parts for our Rube Goldberg machine.

  “What about this?” Sam asked, picking up a giant spring at the junk shop. “Maybe we could use it to trigger a catapult.”

  “And then have it toss a ball into this,” I said, holding up an old butterfly net. “That could be cool.”

  I know, I know. Not exactly romantic. But most of the couples I know in middle school don’t even get past holding hands in the hall between classes. At least we were off school grounds.

  See, I still hadn’t figured out if Sam and I were friends, or more than friends, or just plain old science partners and nothing more. But it’s like Mom said: “Khatchadorians don’t give up easily.” So while we looked for machine parts, I also tried to look for clues.

  “This is all so time-consuming,” I said, as casually as I could. “I wonder how real scientists find time for other stuff.”

  “What other stuff?” Sam asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Like having a social life. Going on dates. Or whatever.”

  In other words: HINT HINT HINT HINT HINT.

  “Hmm,” Sam said, as he picked up a rusty old hinge from one of the twenty-five-cent bins.

  Just “hmm.” That was it.

  It’s possible he’d gotten my drift, and maybe he was just too shy to do anything about it. But it was also entirely possible that a bin of old rusty hinges was more interesting to Sam Marks than I could ever hope to be. The point is, I had no idea.

  In a perfect world, middle school boys would come equipped with a button you could press to make them tell you exactly what they were thinking at any time. But of course this isn’t a perfect world.

  Maybe what I really needed was a whole new kind of machine—one that would get me an A in science, a Nobel Prize, and maybe, just maybe, a boyfriend, all at the same time.

  But you know what they call that, right?

  Wishful thinking.

  Worse Than I Thought

  So if my Monday with Sam was a C-plus, then my Tuesday was more like an F. Unless there’s such a thing as an F-minus.

  There I was, minding my own business at school, when Missy’s friend Alicia came right up to me in the hall and held out this little bag.

  “I need these washed by tomorrow,” she told me. “Missy said you could take care of it for me at her house this afternoon.”

  At first I thought Alicia must be joking. But then I remembered that the one accessory Princesses don’t come with is a sense of humor.

  “Are you seriously trying to give me your laundry?” I asked.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Alicia said.

  “Good,” I said. “Because there’s no way—”

  “It’s just a few delicates that need hand-washing,” she said. “If I was giving you my laundry, it would be a much bigger bag.”

  I think Alicia actually expected me to take it. But instead, I told her where she could stick her delicates and sent her on her way.

  “You haven’t heard the end of this,” she said.

  “Whatever,” I said.

  About ninety seconds later, I had a face full of Missy Trillin. She came right up to me in the cafeteria.

  “If I want you to wash my friends’ clothes, then you’re going to wash my friends’ clothes,” she said.

  I could feel my face turning red. People were starting to stare. I wished I had a dozen fresh eggs to throw at Missy. That would give her some laundry, all right!

  But lucky for me, there weren’t any eggs on hand, and I couldn’t afford another punishment. So I just told her the same thing I’d told Alicia, except I gave her the spicier version. Let’s just say it was somewhere north of PG-13.

  And then I walked away while Missy steamed and stewed.

  It felt pretty good, to be honest. But it was also only like winning a teeny-tiny battle in the middle of a ginormous war. Because I knew for a fact that Alicia’s handwashables were going to be waiting for me when I got to the Trillins’ that afternoon, like it or not.

  In other words, I wasn’t just working for one evil troll now. I was working for all of them.

  And the only thing I could do in the meantime was make sure Missy never got to see just how badly she was driving me CRAZY.

  What’s the Big Idea?

  After four days online, We Stink’s video was barely getting any votes at all. So far we were in forty-eighth place. Out of fifty-one entries.

  And I’m not even sure the other three were real bands.

  I was starting to feel the pressure, big-time. Between this impossible contest and my impossible prison sentence at the Trillin estate, not to mention my homework and guitar practice, it was starting to feel a little head-explodey, if you know what I mean.

  But if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a quitter. (Actually, there are lots of things I’m not, like popular, or pretty, or rich. But the point is—I wasn’t giving up yet.)

  “The voting period is only two weeks,” Mari said that afternoon at band practice. “I don’t think we’re going to make it.”

  “Come on,” I said. “We still have a week and a half to get into the top twelve! We can do this!”

  The truth is, nobody loves Lulu and the Handbags more than I do. Which I think meant nobody wanted this more than I did. And maybe that’s why I was doing most of the work so far.

  “We’re going to have to pull off something drastic,” Nanci said.

  “Something big to get people’s attention,” Patti said.

  “Something really big,” Mari said.

  And that’s when my next idea hit me—hard. Let’s call it the World’s Most Unwanted Brainstorm. It was like a giant gift that came wrapped in barbed wire and poison dart frogs, with signs that said DANGER!, KEEP OUT!, and DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

  Except I was thinking about it. Because the truth is, my brother knows how to think big. And getting attention is one of Rafe’s specialties.

  So I waited until after practice. Then I went inside.

  I took a deep breath.

  I crossed my fingers.

  I crossed my toes.

  And I slowly walked toward the point of no return… the brink of disaster… the entrance to the Dangerous One’s Lair…

  Also known as Rafe’s door.

  Crossing Over to the Dark Side

  So in other words,” Rafe said five minutes later, “you’re willing to do my homework for the rest of the year if I help you?”

  “Uh… no,” I said. “Were you even listening?”

  “Oh, I was listening all right,” he said. “And all I heard was the sweet sound of desperation.”

  I knew this was a bad idea. But now it was too late to turn around. Not until I gave it my best shot.

  “Listen,” I told him, “this contest comes with some prize money—”

  “Prize money?” he said. Now he looked interested, like I’d dangled a giant hot-fudge-and-dollar-bill sundae in front of him. “How much are we talking about?”

  “My share would be two hundred fifty—”

  “Done!” Rafe said. “You can start your internship by getting me a can of Zoom and a bag of chips from the kitchen. Or you can run to the store, if we’re all out. Which we probably are.”

  I took another deep breath. Something told me I was going to be taking a lot of those for the next week and a half. But if I just imagined Lulu waiting for me at the end of that long, dark tunnel, I could make it through anything.

  In fact, now that I had something Rafe wanted on the table, we could really get down to business.