Frazzled Read online

  I’m convinced she has a third eye in the back of her head. When she wasn’t looking, Tyler Pritchett started to throw a paper airplane at Hayley Parks, but Skeletor gave him detention before he even let it go!

  Talk about scary.

  Homeroom was only fifteen minutes long, but it felt like an

  I stared at my empty notebook the whole time because I was afraid if I looked up, I’d make eye contact with Skeletor and get cursed.

  It was only my first day of school—I couldn’t afford to get cursed.

  The bell rang and I was almost out the door, when . . .

  Skeletor appeared out of thin air and began to interrogate me.

  Then she asked it, the question I had been dreading:

  When I said no, Ms. Skelter’s lip twitched like she KNEW. I don’t know why I decided to lie.

  Maybe it was because I didn’t want her to think I was just like him or maybe I was just sick of always being the Middle Wu.

  WHO KNEW?

  If watching movies should have taught me anything, it was that you did NOT lie to scary underworld creatures who were blocking your escape route.

  Somehow I managed to slip past her before she could say anything. I was safe . . .

  The good thing about starting the day with Ms. Skelter is that, by comparison, the other teachers don’t seem so bad—at least not YET.

  Teachers always pretended to be extra nice in the beginning of the year to catch you off guard.

  One thing I know for sure:

  Teachers here are completely unpredictable. Take Miss Myers, for example. Whenever she’s in a bad mood, she makes the whole class stay late for absolutely NO reason. That is the worst because, for me, PE is right before lunch!

  When I get hungry, two things usually happen:

  1. I transform into an unstoppable angry beast.

  2. I go crazy.

  Sometimes if I stare at the clock for too long, I start thinking about all the lunch foods and wonder whether or not they are as excited about lunchtime as I am. Probably not.

  This is probably a sign that I am losing my mind and if I don’t get something to eat soon, I will go full-blown crazy starve, and die.

  School lunch has always been a tricky business.

  In elementary school, you had to eat the food your parents packed or settle for whatever they served in the cafeteria—the same old rubbery pizza squares or lumpy mashed potatoes or soggy sandwiches every single week.

  Kindergarten was worse. They passed out packs of carrot sticks and celery and called them “snacks.” That’s when I realized that adults have a very warped definition of the word “snack.”

  In middle school, it was SUPPOSED to get better.

  I was actually looking forward to lunch. I had been dreaming about middle school lunches for years, ever since I heard that Pointdexter’s cafeteria had REAL food—cheese pizza, burgers and fries, chicken nuggets with BBQ sauce.

  There were even rumors of a special snack window that sold all kinds of candies and chips and cookies!

  Finally, we’d be able to eat whatever we wanted—cupcakes and curly fries and soda for lunch!

  OR SO I THOUGHT.

  Before I could even get in line, my mortal enemies appeared—the awful, terrible, practically evil Spencer sisters. “Practically evil” because when I said they were FULLY evil, Mom got mad and told me I was exaggerating.

  Maybe she was right. But then again, Mom’s not the one who had to pull Katie Spencer’s chewed bubble gum out of her hair or wrestle her left shoe from Meghan Spencer’s clutches.

  I am pretty sure their sole mission in life is to make my life miserable—starting with lunch.

  Apparently there is a special lunch line for

  Now that the Spencer sisters are in eighth grade, they are determined to make sure we NEVER use it.

  The whole thing seems really unfair, but I guess things just aren’t fair in the Middles.

  The line for everyone else is all the way on the opposite side of the cafeteria.

  It’s so long that it wraps around the entire quad. By the time we found the end and got in line, it was all the way past the trash cans!

  I caught a whiff of uneaten tuna sandwiches, Funyuns, and pepperoni pizza soaked in a weird soda-juice mixture. GROSS.

  We finally made it to the front of the line. I stepped up to the cafeteria window expecting this:

  Instead, all they seemed to have was this:

  There had to be a mistake!

  When I tried to ask for something else, this mean, ogre-ish-looking cafeteria lady just stared at me from behind the counter. She growled like she wanted to rip off my head with her stubby claws and said,

  Turns out, all the food we want is sold at the eighth-grade cafeteria window—the one we aren’t allowed to use!

  I couldn’t believe it!

  Nothing made sense in middle school!

  As if the lunch situation wasn’t bad enough, because I didn’t choose an elective, they stuck me in the worst one—

  Study hall isn’t a REAL class.

  It doesn’t even have a real classroom!

  To get there, you have to walk all the way past the science building and across the soccer field to this cluster of

  The school tries to make it sound all official by calling it a “temporary annex wing of portable classrooms,” but everyone knows what it REALLY is—an exiled wasteland of classes no one actually cares about.

  And of course, study hall is the farthest away.

  Study hall doesn’t have a REAL teacher either. I heard the old one had a mental breakdown last year and got shipped off to a psych ward. And because I am the unluckiest person in the world and the Universe hates me, the school put Ms. Skelter in charge!

  Some people think Skeletor hexed the old teacher so she could take over the class and use its students as guinea pigs in her twisted, evil experiments. I don’t doubt it.

  The other thing about study hall is that there is no purpose for it. The class description says it is:

  An elective course designed to improve study skills, supplement academic instruction, and promote independent activity.

  That is basically school talk for

  And even then, the last two are pretty optional.

  Maxine says that the key to surviving class is to find friends and allies, but I don’t think I want to be allies with anyone in study hall—let alone friends!

  The kind of people who purposefully choose study hall as an elective are:

  . . . and now

  Does that make me one of THEM?

  It was only the beginning of the year, and I had already:

  Lied to at least three teachers.

  Been blacklisted by the cafeteria staff.

  Swallowed an eraser (well, ALMOST swallowed) in a fit of blind hunger.

  Somehow my life was already a

  When it came down to it,

  I blamed the Middles.

  I blamed middle school.

  I called an EMERGENCY BEST FRIEND MEETING for after school, then spent all of study hall brainstorming alternative non-school-related lifestyle options for us:

  1. Run away and join the circus. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea since we’d probably end up having to ride in that crowded clown car.

  2. Become international pop stars. They didn’t have to go to school, right?

  3. Time travel to the future, where school is irrelevant and all knowledge can be downloaded into your head by swallowing a microchip.

  I didn’t get a chance to share my ideas with them because the minute Maxine, Logan, and I started talking about school, I found out . . .

  How was that even possible?

  Were we even going to the same school??

  Were we even living in the same dimension???

  It got worse when Maxine and Logan started talking about how GREAT their electives were and how much FUN they were having.

  I couldn’t take it!

  It was all they wanted to
talk about!

  Ever since we started at Pointdexter, things had been a little off. The Middles had a way of making me feel like I was always being left behind.

  Maxine finally had the chance to live out her acting dreams, and Logan found a constructive outlet for his weird genius mind powers. It wouldn’t be long before things started taking off from there.

  It felt like their lives were getting further and further away from mine.

  But we were BEST FRIENDS. That wasn’t supposed to happen!

  Well, maybe not EVERYTHING was changing. At home, things were more or less the same.

  Peter was still the star player of the high school soccer team.

  Clara was still as cute and conniving as ever. Apparently now she was also a budding artist and she made sure to rub it in my face every time I wanted a snack.

  Mom still seemed to think middle school was an “exciting new adventure,” even though it was very obviously NOT.

  My weekly routine hadn’t changed much either.

  MONDAY: Definitely still the hardest morning of the week.

  TUESDAY: My regular after-school visit to Antonia’s. Istvan DID add a new double fudge chocolate cake to the selection, but THAT was a change I could handle.

  WEDNESDAY: Wheel of Fortune marathon with the family—even though it was totally unfair that you could lose everything just because the spinner landed on

  THURSDAY: Laundry day.

  FRIDAY: Family dinner with Aunt Lisa. After dinner, she and Mom always watched Law & Order and fell asleep within twenty minutes. I don’t think they ever finished an episode . . . and she had been coming over for as long as I could remember! At this point, it was basically a Wu family tradition.

  I used to think this kind of stuff made us boring, but ever since the Middles started turning my life upside down, I didn’t mind so much. There were enough things changing in my life, thank you very much.

  Plus, I like Aunt Lisa. She is an older, tanner version of Mom—only way kookier. Everyone thinks she’s nuts.

  Well, Mom calls her a “free spirit.”

  Aunt Lisa lives in a mobile home because she likes the idea of being able to pick up her life and go somewhere new—even though it has been parked in the same exact spot for years.

  I am almost positive it isn’t really “mobile” anymore.

  Aunt Lisa is very into karma and cosmic energy and something called “hot yoga.” She is always saying strange things. In the middle of dinner, she suddenly stopped eating and declared:

  I don’t know why she looked at ME.

  Could it be because I didn’t have a Thing? Could I really be the ONLY ONE left in the Universe without a Thing?

  I always thought the Universe was supposed to send me some kind of sign. Like, all of a sudden, I would discover that I was a genius at something and that would be my sign from the Universe and THAT would be my Thing.

  But so far . . . NOTHING.

  I hoped that the Universe would get back on track by the end of dinner, but then Aunt Lisa cornered me in the kitchen and asked:

  I didn’t even know I HAD a core. How was I supposed to know if it was okay?

  Usually when adults ask about your life, they want you to spill your guts and tell them everything so they can be “involved.”

  Aunt Lisa doesn’t REALLY count, though. She isn’t your “typical adult,” the kind that always complains about taxes or insurance claims or real estate.

  If I was going to talk to anyone about my problems, Aunt Lisa was my best bet.

  Still, I wasn’t always sure I trusted her advice. It usually had something to do with meditating.

  The Wus are NOT made for meditation. Mom usually falls asleep halfway through, and I clearly can’t do it right because both my legs always go numb.

  Peter is the only one who looks like he’s actually meditating, but then one day, I found out that he secretly listens to music the whole time. When I confronted him about it, he just shrugged and said:

  Meditation might not be our thing, but it seems to work for Aunt Lisa. She says listening is a part of meditating, and she is a VERY good listener.

  When I finished telling her everything, she closed her eyes and was quiet for a long time. I thought she might have fallen asleep.

  Then, all of a sudden, she opened her eyes and said:

  Stop thinking? That seemed impossible. Even so, I felt better after talking to her. It might have helped that she also treated me to ice cream later.

  The funny thing is, I DID stop thinking about it after a while . . . but only because I had

  Between the group projects, dioramas, book reports, work sheets, essays, write-ups, presentations, tests, quizzes, homework, and reading assignments, there just wasn’t TIME to think about anything else! I got a huge headache just THINKING about thinking.

  It didn’t look like lunch was EVER going to get better. I knew there would be bullies in school, but I didn’t expect them to be wearing hairnets and serving food.

  The whole cafeteria system was completely corrupt and the lunch ladies were basically heartless.

  They expected us to wait for food that wasn’t even real food. Worst of all, the eighth-grade line was right there torturing us! We could see and smell everything we weren’t allowed to have!

  One time, we tried to pass as eighth graders, but the Spencer sisters were patrolling the line like hawks. They kicked us out before we could even get to the cafeteria window.

  I thought lunch would be better in middle school; it was only better if you were in eighth grade, and that was a whole TWO YEARS away.

  Once again, Mom’s packed lunch was my only option. But when I opened my lunch box, it was worse than I could’ve ever imagined:

  The whole thing was a disaster waiting to happen.

  If I opened the Tupperware, the whole cafeteria would start to smell . . .

  . . . and just like that, my middle school social life would be OVER.

  I could NOT let that happen.

  Of course, the Spencer sisters showed up at our table with huge slices of extra-cheesy pizza just to rub it in our faces. I tried to pretend like I wasn’t jealous, but the drooling gave me away.

  I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and that didn’t really count. I was the last one to the table, so I got stuck with the cereal crumbs at the bottom of the box. Typical.

  Halfway through study hall, it really started to hit me. I could feel my hunger building. It was grumbling and rumbling and growing until I just couldn’t control it anymore!

  Then the unspeakable happened. My stomach made the

  The classroom went dead silent for a second. That’s when I knew that EVERYONE had heard it.

  I could feel them looking. I could hear them whispering. For the rest of the year, I’d be THAT girl—the girl who made weird noises in class. The GRUMBLER.

  I couldn’t live like that.

  Good thing I always had an escape plan handy.

  But then, in the middle of plotting my new identity and ironing out the details of my life on the run, I heard a rumble even louder than mine!

  I turned around to see Mikey Mathers grabbing HIS stomach. I thought he would cry from the embarrassment, but instead, he looked right at me and smiled. Then he started laughing his head off!

  I always suspected he was crazy. Now I knew for sure.

  Maybe I was a little crazy too. Before I knew it, I was laughing WITH him.

  Then everybody in class started laughing—TOGETHER.

  We didn’t stop until Ms. Skelter shushed us and threatened to give us all detention.

  After that day, things just felt DIFFERENT.

  Something about knowing we were all kind of, sort of in this thing together made it a little more bearable.

  We talked a lot about how unfair it was that eighth graders got a special lunch line and how we were always SO hungry after lunch was over.

  This was when I learned that everyone has something they just don’t like in their lun
ch box.

  One day, I was complaining about having cherry-grape fruit rolls for lunch AGAIN.

  I always left them uneaten in my lunch box hoping that Mom would get the hint, but she never did. First off, cherry and grape are two of the worst fruit flavors.

  They’re bad enough on their own, but TOGETHER?

  Secondly, there are four different flavors in a box of twenty-four—strawberry-melon, cherry-grape, lime-orange, and mixed berry.

  Mom packs them randomly, but honestly, what are the odds of getting cherry-grape FOUR days in a row?

  I bet Peter and Clara NEVER got cherry-grape.

  That day in study hall, I found out that Mikey LOVED cherry-grape. He offered to trade me his whole bag of peanut butter-covered pretzels for them, but I was allergic and if I ate one, I’d probably blow up like a balloon and he’d get in trouble for poisoning me.