Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! (3 page)

Now think about the exact opposite of that. Got it?

Welcome to Grandma Dotty’s neighborhood. Also known as our new home.

“This is where you grew up?” Georgia said, and not in a nice way.

“It used to be… different,” Mom said, but you could tell she meant
better
. Now I knew why Grandma always came to visit us in Hills Village and not the other way around.

All the houses on the block were crammed together, one after the other. They didn’t have any
side yards or front yards. Just sidewalks. I saw a lot of garbage cans and graffiti too.

“I’m never going to make any friends here,” Georgia whined.

“Come on, honey. I know it’s a big adjustment, but you’ve got to stay positive,” Mom said.

“Okay,” Georgia said. “I’m
positive
I’m never going to make any friends here.”

Mom took a deep breath. “How about you, Rafe? Are you ready to give city life a chance?”

“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

The truth was, I felt exactly the same way as Georgia. I didn’t want to live here, and I
definitely
didn’t want to go to school here.

But unlike my little sister, who never knows when to shut her mouth, I knew that Mom was doing the best she could.

“Well, here we are,” she said, and stopped in front of the fifth house from the end of the block. “Six twenty-five Killarney Avenue.”

Georgia made a sound like she was coughing up a hair ball. “It’s the worst one on the street!” she said.

“It just needs some spiffing up,” Mom said. “You’ll see. All it takes is a little imagination. Isn’t that right, Rafe?”

“Sure,” I said. “Just a little imagination. That’s all.”

I
always used to hear Mom say Grandma Dotty was a big pack rat. And to be honest, I never really thought about what that meant. I just thought:

But as soon as we walked into her house, I knew exactly what it meant. If there were two words to describe Grandma’s place, they would be
small
and
full
.

“Come in, come in, come in!” she said, hugging us all like crazy. “Do you have much more to bring in from the car?” Grandma asked Mom.

“Not much,” Mom said. Most of our stuff was in a big storage locker back in Hills Village.

“That’s good. I’m a little short on closet space at the moment,” Grandma said, but it looked to me like she was a little short on Rafe-Mom-and-Georgia space too.

“What’s with the long faces, kiddos?” Grandma asked me and Georgia. “You two look like someone’s dog just died.”

“They’re just tired,” Mom told her. “It’s been a big day.”

“This little one’s ready to drop,” Grandma said, looking at Georgia. “And Ralph, I’ll bet you could eat a horse and a half by now.”

“Um…” I said, but I was thinking—

All of a sudden, I felt even weirder about being here.

“It’s
Rafe
, Mom,” my mom said. “Not Ralph.”

“Well, of course it is,” Grandma said. “I’m sorry, Rafe. Just a slip of the tongue. Now, come on—who’s hungry?”

I looked at Mom, and she nodded like everything was going to be fine. And in fact, whatever Grandma was cooking smelled amazing, just like Mom’s lasagna from home.

Then, when we came into the kitchen, I saw something else familiar.

“Isn’t that one of yours?” I asked Mom.

“Sure is,” she said.

The last time I’d seen any of her paintings on a wall was at Swifty’s Diner, but those had gone up in smoke, along with everything else.

“In this house, your mother is a famous artist,” Grandma said. Then she turned around and bowed right down in front of Mom.

Mom laughed. Georgia did too, for the first time in about a week.

“That’s the ticket!” Grandma said. “Much better.”

She reached over and tickled Georgia under the chin, and pretty soon everyone was laughing.

“Now
these
are the Khatchadorians I remember,” Grandma said, and hugged me all over again. “We’re going to have a great time together. Isn’t that right, Ralph?”

I
t’s two in the morning and I’m wide awake. Mom gave me the choice between sleeping on the couch downstairs and sharing the guest room with Georgia, which of course was no contest. At least down here I have a little privacy.

Still, I can’t sleep. I’m too busy trying to figure out how I’m going to get through this year. It hasn’t even started yet, and all I see is rough road ahead.

I finally drift off, but it isn’t long before Leonardo the Silent strolls into my dreams.

“What are you doing?” he says.

“I’m trying to sleep,” I tell him.

“No, you’re trying to mope,” Leo tells me. “Come on. There’s a whole big city out there. We’ve got better things to do.”

He’s right, of course.

I jump out of bed (out of couch?), and we make a fake Rafe under the blankets, including a superrealistic mask of my face, just in case Mom or Grandma comes down in the middle of the night. Then we slip into our stealth gear and out the door. A second later we hit the streets.

“Where do you want to go first?” Leo asks.

“Somewhere up high,” I say. “Let’s get a look at what we’re dealing with.”

“Excellent choice.” He points the way toward the city’s tallest building. “Good thing I brought the climbing gear.”

We move like shadows, using back alleys and hidden passages to get there. With all the shortcuts Leo knows, we’re standing at the base of Megamega Towers in no time.

“So that’s what three hundred stories looks like,” I say.

“Wait till you see it from the top,” Leo tells me.

As soon as we’re harnessed up, we step into our suction-cup boots and head toward the sky.

“Don’t look down until we get there,” Leo tells me. “It’ll be worth the wait.”