Always, Abigail Read online

  So why do I feel like I’ve done something wrong? I can’t change what everyone thinks. I can’t make the other kids stop laughing. And I certainly can’t stop Jackson Dawber from being his usual stupid self. (I’m pretty sure nobody can do that.) But even so, my Gabby Guilt is like a bad mosquito bite. I scratch it and scratch it, but the more I scratch it, the more it itches. And it just won’t go away.

  Five Questions My Mom Asks Me Practically Every Day While I Mope around the House

  1.Why don’t you give Alli and Cami a call?

  2.Have you made any new friends in sixth grade you’d like to invite over?

  3.Do you want to make some cookies with me?

  4.Why don’t you finish that scarf you’re knitting?

  5.Can’t you find something to do?

  Five Answers I’d Like to Give My Mom but Don’t

  1.Because I’m not a real pom-pom girl.

  2.New friends, Mom? Really, do you remember at all what middle school was like?

  3.C’mon, Mom, I’m not five.

  4.Seriously, Mom, a scarf?

  5.The only thing I WANT to be doing is the only thing I CAN’T be doing.

  One Question My Brother Asks Me Every Day

  What’s YOUR problem?

  The One Thing I’d Like to Say to Him but Don’t

  Three Reasons Why I Didn’t Sleep Over at Cami’s House This Weekend

  1.I would’ve been the only NON-pom there.

  2.If I heard any more pom-pom politics, I was afraid I might barf all over everyone’s sleeping bags.

  3.Most of all, I knew that AlliCam didn’t really care if I came or not.

  Two Things I Thought About While I Tried to Watch a Movie by Myself Friday Night

  1.No poms = No AlliCam

  2.But what did no AlliCam = ?

  One Thing I Did after I Turned Off the Movie Halfway Through

  Finished reading A Wrinkle in Time, which I had borrowed from Old Hawk’s classroom library.

  Three Reasons I Stayed After School Monday to Help Old Hawk

  1.Staying after school would earn me ten extra credit points, and I needed the points because I’d bombed my last vocabulary test.

  I wouldn’t have cared so much, but I didn’t want to get another note from Old Hawk listing all the things I was lacking. I was supposed to be living up to my mother’s potential.

  2.I needed to find ways to keep myself from devouring the rest of the 100-calorie snack bags left in our pantry.

  3.I needed something to do. Anything. Willingly volunteering to help Old Hawk was proof of how desperate I was.

  The Reason I Wished I Hadn’t Volunteered to Help Old Hawk

  Gabby volunteered to help too.

  Three Things Old Hawk Said to Gabby and Me After School

  1.“Remember, girls, you are earning extra credit points, so I expect a wholehearted effort.”

  2.“The storage cabinet is full of old books that have been there for years. It is in desperate need of being cleaned. Place the worn-out books in the trash. Save the ones that are in good condition.”

  3.“I will be attending a faculty meeting. Please mind your p’s and q’s while I’m gone and get down to brass tacks. I shall return in the hour.”

  Six Things Gabby and I Did after Old Hawk Left

  1.Stared at each other for at least one full minute. (I kept waiting for Gabby to start laughing in her usual bizarro way, but she didn’t.)

  2.I emptied the top shelf of the storage cabinet onto the floor, and Gabby took an empty box from the back counter. We both sat down in the middle of the pile of books.

  “Too bad these are all picture books,” Gabby said. “I collect old paperback books.”

  What was Gabby? A librarian in training? I mean, I liked books, but c’mon, no normal person I knew “collected” old paperbacks.

  3.We both picked up books from the heap and tossed them into the throw-away pile or put them into the save box.

  It was strange that Old Hawk’s classroom library of novels was so elaborate and organized, when this pile of picture books was a mess.

  4.After ten minutes, Gabby broke the silence with, “I LOVE this book!” She was holding a copy of The Little Engine That Could. It was tattered and worn, and pages were falling out. Gabby tossed it into the throw-away pile.

  I loved that book too. My mom had read it to me so many times that I knew the first page by heart.

  I wondered who had read the book to Gabby. Was it her mom? And did seeing the book remind Gabby of her? I wanted to say something, but what could I say?

  5.Just after Gabby found The Little Engine That Could, I found another one of my favorite books, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. After this year I could write my own book. Abigail and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year Of Sixth Grade.

  6.Gabby kept finding books she remembered and loved, and she made comments about each one. I kept finding books I remembered and loved, but I kept my mouth shut. I was helping Old Hawk for the extra credit points, not to become “book buddies” with Gabby Marco.

  The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Thing That Happened on the Way to Catch the Late Bus

  Since we had stayed after school to help Old Hawk, Gabby and I had to take the late bus home. All the kids on sports teams and pom-poms take it too. I didn’t want the pom girls to see me getting on the bus with Gabby. I knew J&M would have something snotty to say about that. So I took my time getting my stuff out of my locker. I made sure Gabby left ahead of me. I must’ve stalled a little too long because I was still at my locker when I heard the driver toot the horn, signaling that the bus would leave in sixty seconds. I knew I was going to have to run. Running to the bus isn’t such a horrible thing. I’d done it lots of times before. It’s what happened while I was running to the bus that was the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing.

  We’d had too much rain in the last few days, and whenever that happened, the parking lot on the side of the building always flooded. In order to get to the bus, everyone used the sidewalk alongside the water. That’s where the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing happened. I slipped off the sidewalk and fell into the big parking-lot-sized puddle of water. I was sitting in the water looking up at a busload of pom-pom girls, basketball players, and volleyball players, wondering if I had just made myself the new outcast of Crestdale Heights. The laughter coming from the bus windows made me feel worse than the wet jeans I’d have to sit in on the way home.

  Before I could even get up, Gabby headed out the doorway of the bus. She grabbed my backpack and helped me up.

  She said, “Just remember, I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.”

  As I followed Gabby to the bus, water dripped from every seam of my jeans. When I looked up, I saw all the pom girls, faces plastered against the bus windows, staring at me and laughing. Even AlliCam.

  All I could think was, “I can’t come back to school tomorrow. I know I can’t. I know I can’t. I know I can’t.

  The Reason I Hardly Slept That Night

  I tossed. I turned. I sighed. I tried everything not to think about how AlliCam hadn’t gotten off the bus to help me out of the puddle. I tried everything not to think about everyone laughing. I tried everything not to think about what J&M would be saying tomorrow about Gabby helping me.

  When I finally fell asleep, I woke up a couple of hours later, and all I could think about was Gabby. She was the only person who had helped.

  I wouldn’t have helped her if she had fallen. I would’ve been one of the people at the bus window staring, and probably laughing too—not because I thought it was so funny, but because I wouldn’t have wanted to be the only one not laughing. Knowing that about myself made me feel even worse than falling into the puddle.

  Two Reasons I Faked Sick and Stayed Home from Scho
ol the Next Day

  1.The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad puddle incident.

  2.Gabby Guilt—it was giving me a headache. I didn’t know why I was so worried about Gabby when I had plenty of my own problems. It’s not as if me being nice to her would change her status at Crestdale Heights. Especially with the condition of my status. So what was I feeling so guilty about?

  Two Things My Mom Did When I Stayed Home Sick

  1.Made me my favorite rice pudding.

  2.Let me use her laptop to watch a movie in bed.

  Two Things I Did That Made Me Feel Worse

  1.Acted grumpy.

  2.Acted ungrateful.

  Two Reasons Why I Wished I Wasn’t So Mean to My Mom

  1.She was being really nice to me.

  2.Gabby didn’t even have a mom to be mean to.

  One Thing I Wrote the Next Morning on the Mirror in the Bathroom When My Mom Was in the Shower

  Thx, Mom!

  U R the BEST!

  A

  Two Things I Found in My Friendly Letter Mailbox When I Went Back to School

  1.A piece of spiral notebook paper with all the assignments I’d missed written in Gabby’s handwriting.

  2.A note from Gabby. (Not a friendly letter. A note.)

  Hey Abigail,

  Old Hawk wants us to finish cleaning out the metal cabinet. She said she’d negotiate with us for more extra credit points. With all these extra points, LA will be an easy A, so I’m in. How about you?

  Gabby

  P.S. I can’t stay after to do it today. How about tomorrow?

  A Note I Wrote Hoping It Would Get Rid of My, Now Daily, Gabby Guilt Headache

  Gabby,

  Okay. Tomorrow.

  Abigail

  Three Things That Happened the Next Day While Cleaning Out Old Hawk’s Cabinet

  1.Gabby found The Three Billy Goats Gruff and said, “Oh, remember when that storyteller came to our class in first grade and told us this story?”

  I hadn’t thought about it in a long time, but I did remember. How could I forget? The guy made the story so scary every first-grader had nightmares for a week.

  “WHO’S THAT TRIPPING OVER MY BRIDGE?!!!!” Gabby bellowed.

  She sounded so much like the storyteller guy, I got chills on the back of my neck.

  “It seems pretty stupid now, but I made my brother sleep in my room for a month after that child-abusing storyteller visited our classroom,” Gabby confessed.

  “I slept with the lights on for the rest of the year,” I said.

  Gabby seemed surprised that I agreed with her, but she kept talking. “Yeah, for the longest time, I thought for sure there was a troll living under my bed.”

  2.After our troll phobia connection, we got back to work. That’s when Gabby started her usual bizarro laughter, and for some reason it made the lava in my volcano start to heat up again.

  At least this time I didn’t try to tackle her. I just yelled, “WHAT? WHAT’S SO FUNNY? DON’T YOU KNOW EVERYONE THINKS YOU’RE CRAZY WHEN YOU LAUGH LIKE THAT?!!!”

  Gabby didn’t even look startled that I’d yelled, and she didn’t even answer my question. All she said was, “Doesn’t the troll look just like Jackson Dawber?”

  “Are you crazy?” I asked, disgusted with myself for wasting any time feeling guilty about Gabby being an outcast when she was such a freak.

  “No, seriously. Look at this picture. It looks just like Jackson,” she said, pointing to the book. I looked at the book. Gabby was right. The troll’s hair looked just like Jackson’s moussed-up hairdo (which he thought made him look cool). The troll’s chin was pointy and stuck out just like Jackson’s. (His stuck out even more when he thought he was being funny.) And their noses were almost identical (which meant that Jackson Dawber had been born with a troll nose). That was something to laugh about.

  I burst out laughing, and Gabby snorted like a pig, which only made us laugh harder. “I told you!” Gabby said, taking a breath. “They should make a copy of this picture and put it in the yearbook next to Jackson’s photo.”

  I leaned back and laughed even harder and hit my head on the metal cabinet. Gabby snorted again.

  Wiping tears away, I said, “Jackson Dawber, most likely to become a troll.”

  And that just made both of us collapse in hysterics on the piles of books lying on the floor.

  They always say, “Laughter’s the best medicine,” and at that moment, I felt cured from all my Gabby Guilt.

  3.We were still laughing by the time we heard Old Hawk clearing her throat as she walked back into the classroom.

  “Are my friendly letter partners becoming too friendly?” she asked as she sat down at her desk to grade papers. “Remember why you are here, young ladies. I do not award extra credit points for horsing around.”

  We were quiet again until Gabby started making troll faces at me. I giggled to myself like Gabby usually did. The harder I giggled, the more faces Gabby made.

  “Girls…” Old Hawk scolded, without looking up from her desk.

  I felt like I would explode from laughter, but it was so much better than feeling like an active volcano.

  Something That Made My Gabby Guilt Come Back in Full Force

  Because of the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad puddle incident, I had asked my mom to pick me up so I wouldn’t have to ride the late bus. But the puddle wasn’t the only reason I’d asked her to pick me up. The other reason, the bigger one, was Gabby. I didn’t want anyone on the late bus seeing us together and thinking we were friends.

  I knew that made me a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad person. But I couldn’t help it.

  Already SPF with AlliCam was evaporating one letter at a time, and the other girls on the pom squad couldn’t care less about me. If anyone thought I was actually friends with Gabby, that would be the final straw. I’d be another wannabe wandering the middle school halls without anyone even knowing I was alive, or worse, like Gabby, I’d become the punch line in Jackson’s newest joke.

  So when after leaving Old Hawk’s room, Gabby said, “Let’s stop at the water fountain before we head out to the bus. All that laughing made me thirsty.”

  I lied and said, “I have a dentist appointment, so my mom’s picking me up.” That’s when the Gabby Guilt hit me like a bad flu, and I was sure I was going to throw up.

  I walked to my mom’s car feeling like a bigger troll than Jackson Dawber.

  A Note I Found in My Friendly Letter Mailbox the Next Day

  Dear Abigail,

  You and Gabby seem to have become fast friends. How simply delightful that an assignment meant to improve proper letter writing techniques has accomplished so much more.

  Mrs. Carwell, our lead kindergarten teacher, requested that I recommend a couple of sixth-grade students to be guest readers for the classrooms in her wing. You and Gabby would be perfect for the job!

  If all goes well, you would be given permission to skip homeroom once a week. In addition, it would enable you to earn points toward your middle school service requirement.

  Please come to see me about it by the end of the week. I look forward to talking with you!

  Sincerely,

  Miss Hendrick

  Five Things I Thought after Reading the Note

  1.Missing homeroom once a week would be great!

  2.I used to babysit for a couple of kindergarten-aged kids, and I loved them. They were so cute!

  3.Gabby and I could practice the stories after school, and that would give me something to do.

  4.Getting service points for reading to little kids was way better than visiting a smelly nursing home or picking up trash at the park.

  5.THERE’S NO WAY I CAN DO IT!

  Two Reasons Why I Could Never Do It

  1.I might as well tattoo the w
ord “LOSER” on my forehead if I volunteered for this job with Gabby.

  2.I could just hear J&M when they found out. “Abigail’s hanging out with Gabby Marco? Maybe we need to find an alternate for our alternate.”

  The Note Gabby Left in My Locker after Homeroom

  Dear Abigail,

  Can you believe Old Hawk wants us to read to the kindergartners? We could be like the storyteller guy that came to first grade. (Only we wouldn’t scare the kids half to death.) Pretty easy way to earn service points, huh?

  Gabby

  The Note I Stuffed into Gabby’s Friendly Letter Mailbox after Math

  Gabby,

  Reading to a bunch of bratty five-year-olds sounds lame. I’ve got better things to do. Forget it.

  Abigail

  The Thing I Wrote at Least 100 Times All Over the Inside Cover of My Social Studies Notebook When I Should’ve Been Taking Notes