The 47 People You'll Meet in Middle School: Chapters 1–9

I know I’m supposed to give you the scoop, show you the ropes, hand you the keys (and a bunch of other cliches Mom and Dad used), because I’m your big sister.

“Well,” the teacher explained, “this is the eighth-grade entrance. Sixth graders go to the back.”
“Oh, okay.” That seemed pretty inhospitable to me, making the new kids go to the back door.

Even though Rob is kind of dopey, he’s usually an okay kid. He’s always been Mom and Dad’s first choice to walk Iris when we’re gone on a day trip somewhere, and he was never jerky to us like some of the other older neighborhood boys were. So hearing his familiar voice on the first day of school was simultaneously comforting and embarrassing.

Rob shooed me away like I was a pesky dog, never mind that he had been the one detaining me.

The next person I recognized was Addison Aldrich, standing near a picnic bench with the same pose she’d had every day as she held court during recess in fifth grade: backpack loosely hanging off one shoulder, right leg ramrod straight, and left foot poised on tiptoe, as though the ballet flats she owns in every color were actual toe shoes.

“Hey, girl!” Marcy yelled to the kid who’d called her name, raising skyward an arm full of bangle bracelets that were only a little bigger than her giant hoop earrings.

“You summered there, huh?” Louie, I know you (and Mom, and Dad) always hate my sarcastic tone, but this was ridiculous. Who uses “summer” as a verb? And twice in the same sentence?

And I think Mr. Smeed heard the same thing I did: Nick stifling a laugh as we headed out the door to first period.

And then whoever didn’t spot the turtle first would get mad at the person who did, then we’d get in a big fight about who had really seen it first, and then Mom and Dad would get exasperated and suggest that we go for ice cream just to distract us and make us stop fighting.

“Riiight...you said that,” I reminded her. She seemed a little manic. “I’m going to science too. Who’s your teacher?”

I guess the moral of this story is, be wary of familiar faces on the first day of middle school.

I guess the moral of this story is, be wary of familiar faces on the first day of middle school.

Anyway, I also know you’ll hear stories about scary middle-school teachers from other kids before you get to Meridian. Those stories spread like crazy; I know because I’d heard them too. The gym teacher who was in the Mafia. The history teacher who’d been arrested during a botched toy-store robbery.

Not only are the stories fascinating, but the more time he spends telling them, the less time we have to discuss amoebas or the periodic table of elements.

(She said it was going to be a Sadie Hawkins dance, which meant that girls were supposed to invite boys as dates or invite the boys to dance once we got there. More on that later, but in a nutshell: no thank you.)

(I had to google “shadowboxing” when I got home. It means “practice fighting with an invisible opponent.” I’m not sure I got Mr. McCabe’s point, but it was an interesting metaphor for a middle-school dance.)

To clarify, she pointed to herself and said, “Hannah,” then went down the line and introduced Una and Gabby.

Mr. McCabe looked at them blankly for a second, then said, “Well. The only one who goes by a first name in my classroom is Lorenzo.”

They laughed and squeezed through the doorway arm in arm, hugging once more before going their separate ways for second period. I had several thoughts about the Huggers right off the bat (no pun intended, Lorenzo).

For example, on the first day of school Ms. Tedesco went through the roll call and asked each of us what we did over the summer. (I’d hoped we would have outgrown that first-day-of-school ritual by middle school. But no.)

Considering she’d already said way more about my summer than I’d planned to, I declined. “No, that’s it,” I answered, slinking down in my seat and waiting for her to move on to the next kid.

“I think it’s fine now,” I answered over the sound of muffled snickering in the classroom.

“I think it’s fine now,” I answered over the sound of muffled snickering in the classroom.

Ms. Tedesco’s Facebook revelations continued at least once or twice a week, especially when we started studying United States politics.

Then her mouth did a downward turn, and I could have sworn I saw her mouth the word “divorce” as she made a little note on her clipboard. With the same expression someone might use while contemplating “cockroaches” or “nuclear war.”

I noticed that even Mr. Singer, who was almost always in a peppy mood, rolled his eyes when the lockdown announcement was made that day.

Gabe Garrett is smelly. And he has dandruff. Lots of it. And when I try to hide behind him so Ms. Tedesco will stop asking me personal questions, all I can see is a world of dandruff, and I can only look at it for so long before I have to shift positions and risk Ms. Tedesco calling me out again. It’s a vicious cycle.

I guess we could have opened our locks at the same time. But with Davis Davis being the height he is and me being the height I am, it made for an awkward configuration.

As I was marveling at the perfectly arranged contents of his locker (color-coordinated binders, spiral notebooks lined up in size order), I felt a sharp, stabbing pinch on my bottom, followed by a braying cackle.

As I was marveling at the perfectly arranged contents of his locker (color-coordinated binders, spiral notebooks lined up in size order), I felt a sharp, stabbing pinch on my bottom, followed by a braying cackle.