Trauma Queen Read online

  A whole new definition of mortified . . .

  “Yo, Marigold, your mom’s a performance artist?” Brody is asking.

  “Yeah,” I say. “What about it?”

  “Nothing. I’m just curious. Does she do that thing where she’s buried underwater? Or, wait, what was that thing I saw on TV? Oh yeah: This guy hung upside down in a park for, like, three days. Does she do stuff like that?”

  Jada is looking at me. So are Megan and Ashley. So are Layla and Quinn, and a couple of girls from my gym class. Also Ethan; he’s blushing slightly, or maybe it’s just the weird fluorescent light in this room.

  “No,” I say firmly. “She doesn’t.”

  Now Jada is doing her hyper-sympathetic smile. “Your mom does other things, though, right?”

  “Like what?” Brody demands.

  “Look her up on Wikipedia,” Jada says helpfully. “There’s a whole article.”

  Other books by Barbara Dee

  Just Another Day in My Insanely Real Life

  Solving Zoe

  This Is Me From Now On

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people,

  or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents

  are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual

  events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALADDIN M!X

  Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Aladdin M!X edition April 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Barbara Dee

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction

  in whole or in part in any form.

  ALADDIN is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and related logo

  is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ALADDIN M!X and related logo are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc

  .The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event

  .For more information or to book an event contact

  the Simon & Schuster Speakers

  Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at

  www.simonspeakers.com.

  Designed by Mike Rosamilia

  The text of this book was set in Hoefler Text.

  Manufactured in the United States of America 0311 OFF

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Library of Congress Control Number 2010932960

  ISBN 978-1-4424-0923-1

  ISBN 978-1-4424-0930-9 (eBook)

  For Dad,

  with lots of love

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1: Sleepwalking

  Chapter 2: No Problem

  Chapter 3: Marbles

  Chapter 4: How It Is

  Chapter 5: Terrible Manners

  Chapter 6: Chocolate Night

  Chapter 7: Completely Bonkers

  Chapter 8: Point of View

  Chapter 9: Soon This Will All Seem Normal

  Chapter 10: Inside Out

  Chapter 11: Greasy Fingers

  Chapter 12: Marshmallows

  Chapter 13: Swish, Swish

  Chapter 14: Settle Down

  Chapter 15: Definitely Bad

  Chapter 16: Scraps

  Chapter 17: Cross My Heart

  Chapter 18: Rotating Gyroscope

  Chapter 19: Mine Shaft

  Chapter 20: Snickers

  Chapter 21: Don’t Mind Me

  Chapter 22: The Deep End

  Chapter 23: Yes, And

  Chapter 24: Changing the Scenes

  Chapter 25: Fireworks

  Chapter 26: Performance

  Chapter 27: This is Me From Now On

  Acknowledgments

  Deepest thanks, once again, to my brilliant editor, Liesa Abrams, and my spectacular agent, Jill Grinberg. You two are the best!

  Thanks to all the fab folks at Aladdin, including Fiona Simpson, Bess Braswell, Venessa Williams, Bernadette Cruz, Stasia Kehoe, and Jessica Handelman.

  Zahra Mirjehan Baird, you’re the coolest librarian on the planet, and we’re so lucky to have you. Bell Middle School super English teacher Dylan Gilbert, thanks for sharing those fascinating theater improv books!

  A big xoxo to all my reader pals. I cherish every single e-mail and letter you send me, and I promise to always write you back!

  Mom and Dad, thanks for rearranging the shelves at Barnes & Noble. And rah-rah for the home team: Alex, Josh, Lizzy—and always, Chris, my first reader and number one everything. I love you all!

  Sleepwalking

  I am standing outside homeroom in yellow flannel monkey pajamas.

  Everyone else is dressed normally: jeans, track pants, sweaters, whatever.

  Apparently because today, Monday, February 23, is not Pajama Day at Crampton Middle School. Also apparently I am the only one who is celebrating Pajama Day, because I am the only one whose mother told her it was Pajama Day. After using the New Student Information Packet to line a dog crate for this one-eared beagle she’s babysitting.

  “Hey, Marigold,” some girl across the hall is calling. “That’s your name, right? Um, no offense, but why are you in your pj’s?”

  I don’t answer. That’s because my ears are burning and my eyebrows are sweating. It’s hard to say something casual and jokey like whoops, silly me with sweaty eyebrows. I dig my thumbnails into my palms, but I’m not waking up.

  Now this buzz-cut–headed eighth-grade boy is starting to laugh. And point. “Yo, New Girl. Yeah, you. Did you forget something? Like getting dressed?”

  That’s it; I’m done. I escape from homeroom. My poofy blue bedroom slippers skid on the waxy floor. “Excuse me, no running,” some office lady calls out from down the hallway. Which is when I start to run, seeing a mob of giggling girls turning the corner and coming toward me.

  I bang open the door to the girls’ room and hide myself in a stall. Then I yank my cell phone out of my backpack and speed-dial Mom.

  It rings five times. Six times means I’ll get her voice mail, which means she’ll never get my message, because she doesn’t ever check her voice mail. Pick up, I pray. Pick up, pickuppickuppickup.

  “Hello?” she finally shouts. “Marigold?”

  Then a truck honks. Right in my ear.

  “Mom?” I say.

  “Oh, sweetheart, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “No.” I wipe my sweaty face on my flannel arm. “I’m wearing pajamas.”

  “I know. Those cute monkey ones.”

  “Because you said it was Pajama Day.”

  “Right, it is. I read it in the packet.”

  “Except it isn’t.”

  “It’s not Pajama Day? Are you sure? The first day of—what do they call it? Spirit Week?” I can hear dogs barking now. She must be downtown with her Morning Walkers.

  “No, it’s not,” I say loudly. “I’m the only one in the entire school wearing pj’s. I look like a total dork.”

  “I’m sure you don’t, baby.”

  “I’m sure I do. I’m coming home.”

  “Oh, Mari. You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you just got there five minutes ago.”

  That’s so illogical I can’t even argue. “Okay, then can you please bring me some other clothes?”

  “Yes, of course.” She shouts this over yapping and arfing dogs. “But you’re going to have to wait a few minutes.”

  “How come?”

  “Because I’m not home. I’m at least a mile away, with three of my Walkers. And I’m supposed to pick up two new greyhounds by eigh
t o’clock.”

  “But this is a major emergency.” I check my watch: three minutes until homeroom. “Can’t the greyhounds wait?”

  “Oh, come on now, Mari,” she says in a voice meant to be soothing. Except you can’t soothe when you’re shouting; it kind of spoils the effect. “So you’re wearing pajamas. Have fun with it; improvise. Pretend you’re sleepwalking.”

  “What?”

  “See where it takes you. Think of it as a costume.”

  “I don’t wear costumes.”

  “Oh, sure you do, baby. We all do. Every single day.”

  “Mom,” I say. “Can we please not have a big philosophical discussion about this?”

  “Sorry.” A truck honks. “Well, look at it this way. At least you’ll be comfortable.”

  That’s when the door to the girls’ room creaks open. I can hear the sound of heels on the floor tiles, and then the sharp click of someone locking another stall door. “Just listen to me, okay?” I whisper desperately into my cell. “I won’t be comfortable. I’ll be the opposite of comfortable. I’ll be traumatized for the entire rest of my life. Just please, please bring me different clothes. Please. I’m begging you.”

  She processes. A dog arfs. Finally she says, “All right, I’ll be there in a few minutes. BEEZER, SIT. I’m not fooling, buddy. SIT. Good dog.”

  “Mom? MOM?”

  “Just try to hang in there, Mari, okay? First I need to get the greyhounds.”

  The line goes dead, as if everything’s settled. Whatever; at least I got through to her. Mom usually does better in person, but even then, normal back-and-forth conversations are definitely not her strong point.

  I leave my stall and check myself out in the mirror. Great. My cheeks are flushed, my eyes look huge and freaked-out, and my wavy brown hair is damp and limp.

  Plus, of course, there’s the jammie issue. Can’t forget that.

  I drown my face in freezing water, then crank out some paper towel. The other bathroom user shuffles her feet. Which, I suddenly notice, are in pointy-toe black leather boots. Scary boots. Get-out-of-my-face boots.

  I cram the paper towel into the trash can. “Well, bye,” I call out, so that at least Pointy Boots knows that I realize she’s an earwitness.

  “See you, Marigold,” Pointy Boots answers in a quiet, amused sort of voice.

  No Problem

  Samuel J. Crampton Middle is my third school in four years. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about middle school by now, it’s this: Attention is bad. Any attention. And now here I am in seventh-grade homeroom with, like, thirteen girls crowding around my desk, all paying attention to my dorky monkey pajamas.

  “Omigod, Marigold,” says this tall one named Jada Sperry. She has perfectly straight dark blond hair with no split ends, and hyper-sympathetic brown eyes. As far as I can tell, she’s in charge. I mean, of everything. “What happened? Did you think it was Spirit Week? That was last month!”

  “I know. I guess I read the calendar wrong.”

  “Omigod, I feel so, so sorry for you! What a total nightmare.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You must want to die. Omigod, if it was me—”

  “It wouldn’t be you, Jada,” says this girl named Ashley with curly brown hair and green rubberbands in her braces. “You’d never mix up the month.”

  “Hey, everybody makes mistakes,” Jada says seriously, and all the other girls nod, like, Ooh Jada, you’re so understanding.

  Then this thick-looking boy named Brody comes up behind me, pokes my shoulder, and snores into my ear: HONK-Schwee, HONK-Schwee. He leans over my desk; I can smell his minty toothpaste. “Hey, Marigold, want a bedtime story? And your teddy bear? And a nice glass of milk?”

  “Go. Away,” Jada says, giving him a look. “He’s such a loser, Marigold. Just ignore him.”

  “Thanks,” I say. I’m starting to figure it’s my best line in this scene, so I’ll just keep saying it until everyone leaves my desk.

  And miraculously it works. After another round of Jada announcing to everyone how sorry she feels for me, she finally takes her seat. Then Ashley does, and then this superskinny girl named Megan does, and then all the others take theirs. One girl named Layla with smudgy mascara and a bright orange streak in her hair is curled up in her chair and staring at me in a rude-curious sort of way, kind of like a nasty cat, but at least no one’s crowding my desk anymore. Maybe, I tell myself, if I just keep acting grateful and boring and monosyllabic they’ll forget I’m even here.

  Another poke from behind. I spin around, but it’s not that moron Brody again. It’s this teeny pale girl with big eyes, who I’m pretty sure is named Quinn. “Do you want to borrow my sweater?” she asks in a voice so quiet I can barely hear her. I tell her no because I’d probably be roasting, but thanks for the offer. She looks embarrassed. Maybe I should just take her baby-blue, doll-size sweater, I think, even though there’s no way it would fit over my baggy pj’s.

  I’m about to turn around to ask for it when Mr. Hubley the homeroom/science teacher says in this really juicy, phlegmy voice, “Attendance, please. Settle down.” Nobody’s listening, so he tries again: “ATTENDANCE, PLEASE. SETTLE YOURSELVES DOWN, PEOPLE.” The louder he talks, the juicier he sounds, and he doesn’t even bother to clear his throat. Oh help, I think. Because what if this isn’t a cold, and he’s just going to sound like this for the entire rest of the year? If that’s the case, I’m not sure I’ll pass homeroom, and let’s not even discuss science.

  He starts calling out names, so to distract myself from his drippy voice I stare at the second hand on my watch: 8:10 and 32 seconds, 8:10 and 33. Mom said she was picking up the new dogs at eight, which was, like, eleven minutes ago, so where is she? Of course, she said they were greyhounds, which means they’re probably impossible to walk with a bunch of normal-size Walkers. I try to think who else is on Mom’s Morning Walk list this week—Beezer the beagle, Tristan the mutt, Darla the shepherd-something-mix. Nobody too alpha, so hopefully they’re getting along okay. Probably she’s just crossing a street somewhere, trying to coordinate five leashes without getting herself all tangled up the way she always does. She pretty much sucks at dogwalking, even though these days it’s basically her job.

  Attendance is over. Mr. Hubley is typing on his computer now, so the room starts getting noisy again.

  “Honk-Schwee,” whispers Brody from across the aisle. “Wake up, Marigold. Don’t press that snooze alarm.”

  “Shut up, Brody,” Jada tells him. “Like you never made an honest mistake before.” She smiles sweetly at me.

  “Hey, at least I remember to get dressed.”

  “Marigold didn’t forget to get dressed. She thought—”

  “That we all wanted to see her sexy lingerie?”

  Layla snorts loudly. “Save me,” she mutters, then rests her head on her arms.

  I see Megan whisper something to Ashley, who laughs and turns around to stare at Layla. Then she says something to a dark-haired boy named Ethan, who’d be seriously cute if it weren’t for the fact that he’s Brody’s best friend.

  Brody makes a chimp face. “Aah-aah, ooh-ooh, eeeeee,” he says practically in my ear. “Got any bananas, Marigold?”

  Jada rolls her eyes at me. Before I can thank her for rolling her eyes, the PA comes on. You can hear an office lady tap in the mic, then say, “Marigold Bailey? Please come to the main office immediately!”

  Everyone looks at me, like Whoa. So now you’re in trouble? This is getting good.

  “Your mother is here,” the office lady explains. “Marigold Bailey? Main office!”

  “Don’t wanna be late, Bananas,” Brody teases. He scratches his armpits at me.

  Layla makes that snorting sound again. “Evolve, Brody,” she says, stretching her legs in front of her. That’s when I notice the pointy-toe black leather boots she’s wearing.

  For a second I freeze. She looks right at me and yawns.

  “You’d better go,” she says,
like it’s permission.

  I grab my backpack and skid out of the room. When I get home, I am totally tossing these slippers, I promise myself. In the same trash can as these stupid pajamas.

  Inside the main office, there’s my mom in her purple Wagley College sweats, her cheeks glowing, her too-long brown hair looking frizzy and wild, as if she’s just run all the way over here with a bunch of tangled-up dogs. Which she probably has.

  I’m so relieved to see her that I give her a huge hug even though the office ladies are staring at both of us. “Where are they?”

  “Where’s who? You mean the dogs?”

  “I mean my clothes.”

  She cocks her head. “Mari, I told you. I wasn’t home when you called—”

  I pull her out into the hall. “Mom. Mom. You didn’t bring any clothes?”

  “How could I, baby? You were in such a big rush for me to get here! I didn’t have time to go home first.”

  I open my mouth. Then I close it. Then I say, “So why did you even come?”

  “You wanted to change out of your pj’s, right? So just wear my sweats for the day. I don’t mind. It’s the least I can do for messing up.”

  “Mom,” I say.

  Dogs are barking off in the distance somewhere, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She’s grinning at me as if she’s starting to enjoy this. “Is there a bathroom nearby where we can switch? I thought I remembered one from Orientation.”

  “Mom.”

  “It’ll just take a second. No one will even notice.”

  “Mom. I’m not wearing your sweats, okay? And you’re not going home in my pj’s.”

  She laughs. “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll get arrested. For weirdness.” The image of my wild-haired mother walking five dogs all over town IN MY MONKEY PAJAMAS isn’t something I can bear to think about. And if she can’t see for herself how impossible that would be to live down, even if we stayed in this town for another seventy-five years, then what’s the point of standing in the hallway trying to explain it?

  “Oh, Marigold,” she says, laughing. “This is what I do; I’m supposed to get noticed. Think of it as free publicity.”