Always, Abigail Read online

  Dear Abigail,

  Every Thursday, I’d like you to join the pom squad’s practice. That way you’ll know the routines if you ever have to fill in.

  We’ll start tomorrow!

  See you then!

  Ms. Jenson

  One Thing I Thought About after Reading Ms. Jenson’s Note

  At least I’d get to hang out with the poms one day a week. That was something.

  One Question I Didn’t Want to Think About Because I Already Knew the Answer

  Would that be enough to make me part of the pom crowd?

  The Answer I Already Knew

  NO.

  The Worst Thing about Being an Alternate for the Pom Squad

  Still feeling like you’re not a real pom-pom girl.

  Three Things That Happened at Pom Practice That Made Me Realize That Going to Practice Was the Worst Part of Being an Alternate

  1.All the girls—that is all the girls except me—had matching “POMS FOREVER” T-shirts that Jackie’s mom had specially made for them.

  2.They were learning a new routine, and even though everyone kept making mistakes, Jackie kept acting like I was the only one messing up. She kept putting her hand on her hip, sighing, and then rolling her eyes at me.

  3.At break time, AlliCam totally ignored me because they were so busy listening to J&M talk about a new girl in their homeroom who, as they put it, must be from “the last train to Loserville.”

  “She actually wore overalls the other day,” Jackie said, while pretending to gag herself with one finger. “Who does she think she is? Farmer Fran? This isn’t 4-H camp.”

  She cracked her gum for about the hundredth time. All the other girls laughed, but for some reason, it didn’t sound that funny to me.

  One Way to Describe Being an Alternate at Practice

  Like low-fat frozen yogurt compared to real chocolate ice cream. No, make that a scoop of lumpy, disgusting cottage cheese compared to an extra large hot fudge sundae topped with homemade whipped cream—nothing about it is the same.

  The One Thing That Would Make That Lumpy, Disgusting Cottage Cheese Taste Like It Was Sprinkled with Dirt

  Being in the pom squad yearbook photo, not dressed in a uniform, and listed as an alternate—and I was afraid this was going to be my destiny.

  One Thing I Was Thankful For

  I wouldn’t have to go back to pom practice for a whole week.

  One Thing I Wanted to Do after Practice

  Talk to AlliCam about how bad I felt.

  One Reason I Didn’t

  I’m not sure they cared, and that made me feel worse.

  The Note Miss Hendrick Pulled Out of Her Old Hawk Mailbox Friday Morning

  Dear Miss Hendrick,

  We love exchanging friendly letters! Thank you for giving us this opportunity to communicate with our peers using our writing.

  Since we’re enjoying it so much, maybe the friendly letter partners should spend some time together. How about partner spelling practice or partner vocabulary sentence review? If we get to know our partners better, we’ll probably have more things to write about.

  Sincerely,

  Sixth-Grade Spirit in the Sky

  Four Things Old Hawk Said after Reading the Letter

  1.“What a marvelous idea!”

  2.“See how much the English language, when used properly, brings people together, my friends?”

  3.“All that text messaging and IMing has left this generation starved for good old-fashioned written communication.”

  4.“Let’s make this partner day, shall we? Please push your desks together and spend the entire class period getting to know one another better.”

  (She said all four things with that HUGE smile she’s had on her face ever since Gabby gave her that insanely stupid mailbox.)

  Three Things I Was Thinking after Old Hawk’s PDA (Public Display of Appreciation)

  1.I have to spend the entire language arts period with my desk pushed up next to Gabby’s?

  2.Isn’t my life miserable enough already?

  3.I’m going to kill Gabby for writing that note to Old Hawk.

  One Thing I’m Sure the Rest of the Class Was Thinking While They Pushed Their Desks Next to Their Friendly Letter Partners

  Who cares who my partner is?! This whole period is going to be a BLOW OFF!!!!

  One Thing Everyone Did with Their Partners

  T-A-L-K-E-D for the whole forty minutes.

  Here’s a List of What Everyone Talked About

  1.How lame the friendly letter assignment is.

  2.How genius the Old Hawk mailbox is.

  3.What was on TV last night.

  4.How the tuna casserole in the cafeteria must be part cat food to taste as bad as it does.

  5.What movies were showing this weekend.

  6.What movies just came out for rental.

  7.How great it is to get to talk with partners for the whole class period. (The only thing better is watching a movie.)

  One Thing I Heard Jackson Ask Brent Once All Our Desks Were Pushed Next to Our Partners

  “Don’t Abigail and Gabby look cute together?”

  One Question I Wanted to Ask the Whole Class

  Is there anyone more annoying than Jackson Dawber?

  One Thing Brent Said to Jackson to Answer His Question about Gabby and Me

  “They’re perfect for each other.”

  One Thing I Asked Myself

  What does that mean?

  One Thing I Overheard Brent Ask Jackson

  “You trying out for basketball this year?”

  Two Answers Jackson Gave Brent

  1.“No way. Last year I went to conditioning for two weeks, and all the guys were all buddy-buddy the whole time, but then I got cut, and no one on the team even talked to me anymore.”

  2.“Forget that, man. I got better things to do.”

  Three More Questions I Had

  1.Was poms like basketball?

  2.What better things did Jackson have to do—think of new ways to make an idiot of himself?

  3.Would I have to find better things to do too?

  Three Things Old Hawk Wrote on the Chalkboard

  With Your Partner:

  1.Spend ten minutes telling each other three things you’ve enjoyed about writing friendly letters.

  2.Spend fifteen minutes practicing next week’s spelling words.

  3.Spend fifteen minutes writing next week’s vocabulary sentences.

  A List of What Gabby Said and a List of What I Did While We Sat Next to Each Other

  1.“That Old Hawk mailbox is working out all right, isn’t it?”

  I stared at my spiral notebook.

  2.“Beats listening to Old Hawk’s cute little first-grade spelling tricks for each spelling word, or her ten-minute-long supposedly humorous explanations of each vocabulary word.”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  3.“So you must be pretty bummed about poms, huh?”

  I clenched my teeth and stared at Gabby. I wished I could fold up her freakishness, stuff it into an envelope, and mail it to the South Pole. (That was the farthest place I could think of.)

  4.“It’s not the end of the world, you know.”

  That’s when all the anger, frustration, and disappointment of my shattered pom-pom girl dreams turned into hot lava. It erupted from me like I was an active volcano.

  What Happened When the Volcano Erupted

  When Gabby said, “It’s not the end of the world, you know,” I lunged at her like it was Friday night at the fights. I knocked her off her chair and somehow ended up on top of her. Old Hawk swooped down on us before I even realized what I’d done. She pulled me off Gabby like she’d worked in a prison her whole life and breaking up fights was something she did every day.

 
; “What is the meaning of this completely inappropriate outburst, Abigail!”

  Gabby jumped up right away and said, “Oh, nothing, Miss Hendrick. Abigail was just showing me this trick she learned in her self-defense class. I’m okay. I asked her to show it to me.”

  I was in shock. I didn’t know what to say. The rest of the class stared at us like we were aliens. Old Hawk looked at us like she didn’t believe Gabby. We sat down, and Old Hawk went back to her desk.

  Five Things That Happened after I Tackled Gabby

  1.I said, “Thanks,” but wondered why Gabby had covered for me.

  2.Gabby and I opened our notebooks and, without saying a word, wrote our vocabulary sentences.

  3.When Gabby finished her work, she grabbed a grimy paperback sticking out of the pocket of her backpack and cracked it open. It was a copy of Stone Fox.

  Mr. Kirby had read it to us last year, so I didn’t know why Gabby was reading it again. I noticed there were little stick figure drawings and writing in the margins on almost every page.

  4.Five minutes before the bell rang, with her head still buried in her book, Gabby started her usual laughing for no reason. Stone Fox wasn’t a funny story, so what was she laughing about? She covered her mouth and chuckled to herself for at least a full minute.

  5.I let out an exasperated sigh and wondered how someone could act so normal one minute and so bizarre the next. No wonder Gabby Marco had no friends. It was her own dumb fault.

  The One Thing Gabby Did on the Way Out the Door

  Pulled out a stack of yellow business cards from her back pocket and stuck one in the palm of my hand.

  The One Sentence Printed on the Yellow Business Card

  When life hands you lemons, don’t pucker and pout, make lemonade and laugh out loud.

  Margaret Marco

  The Four Questions I Had after Reading the Card

  1.What in the world did it mean?

  2.Why in the world did Gabby give it to me?

  3.Who in the world was Margaret Marco?

  4.Was this why Gabby decorated her shoebox-mailbox like a carton of lemonade?

  One Question My Dad Asked at Dinner

  “Anything interesting happen at school today?”

  The Answer I Gave

  Shrugged my shoulders and said, “Not really,” before I shoved a huge spoonful of mashed potatoes in my mouth.

  The Letter I Found in My Friendly Letter Mailbox the Next Day

  Abigail,

  Yesterday was hilarious! When you tackled me, it probably looked like we planned it as a prank. I think Old Hawk was ready to have a heart attack.

  I didn’t mean to make you mad, but I meant it when I said, “It’s not the end of the world.” My mom always used to say that to me. And she was right. She always said that thing about making lemonade from lemons too.

  That’s why I made the cards—to give them to people who seem like they have a lot of lemons and don’t know what to do. Seems like you have a bunch.

  Sincerely,

  Gabby

  One Thing I Wondered after I Read Gabby’s Letter

  Where was Gabby’s mom?

  The Note I Passed to Gabby in Social Studies When I Got Up to Sharpen My Pencil

  Gabby,

  Where is your mom anyway?

  Abigail

  The Note Gabby Dropped on My Desk When She Got Up to Throw Something Away

  She died when I was in third grade.

  One Thing I Felt after Reading Gabby’s Note

  Awful.

  One Reason I Felt Awful

  Knowing Gabby didn’t live with her parents didn’t seem like a big deal, but knowing her mom was dead made me feel horrible.

  Three Things I Wondered

  1.How had Gabby’s mom died?

  2.Where was Gabby’s dad?

  3.What did it feel like to be Gabby?

  The Terrible Thing That Happened on the Bus on the Way Home

  When I got on the bus, I saw kids crowded around a seat in the middle of the bus, talking and laughing. It looked like they were standing by the seat where Gabby usually sat. When I got closer, I realized it was Gabby’s usual seat, and I saw the words SUMO WRESTLER written on a big piece of construction paper taped to the seat. Even before I spotted Jackson “the idiot boy” Dawber sitting in the back of the bus grinning, I knew who’d done it. I wished I had the guts to slap that grin right off his face.

  A minute later, Gabby got on the bus. Everyone froze.

  No one said a word until Jackson yelled from the back of the bus, “Introducing Crestdale Heights’ homegrown sumo wrestler, better known as Babe the Blue Ox!”

  Kids laughed like the audience of a live sitcom. Gabby didn’t move. I didn’t either. I don’t even think I breathed. I was worried that Jackson might come up with a sumo name for me. After all, I was the one who wrestled Gabby to the ground. And if I kept chowing down on those snack bags every day after school, pretty soon, I might actually be sumo size.

  Gabby closed her eyes, pressed her lips together, and took a deep breath. Then thankfully the bus driver came up the steps behind Gabby. Everyone scurried to find seats. Jackson’s friend Brent tore off the sumo sign and crumpled it into a ball. Gabby sat in the seat behind the driver, and I sat down next to some fourth-graders a few rows back.

  I wondered if Gabby was sorry she had covered for me with Old Hawk. I knew I was sorry that I had found out about Gabby’s mom because it only made me feel worse about everything.

  The Note I Left Sticking Out of the Pocket of My Mom’s Purse

  Dear Mom,

  Thanks for working on my shoebox-mailbox with me.

  It never would’ve turned out so cute without your help.

  It was fun!

  Abigail

  The Reason Why Writing the Note to My Mom Felt Good and Bad

  Good: because making the mailbox with my mom had been fun, and I hadn’t remembered to thank her.

  Bad: because it made me think about how Gabby’s mom wasn’t even around to help her with her lemonade carton mailbox.

  An Even Worse Thing That Happened on the Bus the Next Day

  I was barely awake when we got to Gabby’s stop the next morning, but I woke up quickly when Gabby’s brother, aka Paul Bunyan, was waiting for the bus with her. He was all scruffy looking with sort of a beard. He wore old work clothes that looked dirty. But nobody paid too much attention to what he looked like because he screamed at all of us, “IF ANYONE EVER MAKES FUN OF MY SISTER AGAIN, I’LL SNAP YOU LIKE TWIGS!! YOU BUNCH OF SPOILED LITTLE BRATS!”

  He reached down and picked up a stick lying in the grass, held it up, and cracked it in half, then turned and walked up the driveway. The stick was small enough even I could’ve broken it, but I don’t think that mattered. Gabby’s brother had made his point.

  Gabby got on the bus and sat in the seat behind the driver. (I had a feeling this was going to be her new usual seat.) The bus driver radioed to the bus garage at school to tell them what happened.

  I couldn’t hear what she said because as she pulled away from the curb, King of the Jerks Jackson yelled, “Is that guy nuts or what?! He spends so much time in the trees, he’s gone squirrelly.”

  And everyone on the bus laughed. Everyone except Gabby. And me.

  Three Reasons Why Sixth Grade Is a Living Nightmare

  1.I NEVER see AlliCam anymore; and when I do, all I hear is pom-pom politics. Stuff like Alicia’s mad at McKenzie because she said one of the moves Alicia suggested looked like something you’d see in an X-rated movie. Then Alicia said, “Whatever. Like you’ve even seen one.” And then McKenzie threw a pom-pom at her.

  Audra, the eighth-grade captain, isn’t talking to Jackie Swanson because she says she’s the biggest flirt at Crestdale Heights, and she says if Jackie even thinks of stealing her boyfriend, she’ll
make her life so miserable she’ll wish she was never born.

  And Ms. Jenson’s mad at the whole squad because one day when they were supposed to run the track for a warm-up, all the girls sat behind the bleachers and talked. (The equipment boy for the football team told on them. Now they’re planning to write fake secret admirer notes to him for revenge.)

  The whole thing is worse than a soap opera, and since I don’t have a starring role, all I want to do is scream at the top of my lungs, “WHO CARES?!!!”

  2.I have nothing to do after school. I have nothing to do on the weekends. I have no one to call. I have no one to e-mail. I have no one to text message. I have no one to hang out with. Did I mention I have nothing to do?

  3.I’ve come down with a strange sickness: “Gabby Guilt.” Ever since I found out about Gabby’s mom, I feel responsible for the misery of Gabby Marco. This is crazy because Gabby has been Crestdale Heights’ biggest outcast since fourth grade. How could I possibly be responsible for that? I wasn’t the one to call her “flabby.” I wasn’t the one to make fun of her house. I’m not the one who makes her laugh out loud for no reason at all. (She does that all by herself.)