Next Door to a Star (2 page)

Chapter Two

Lexi and I tried to spend as much time together as we could before moving day. On her last day, a bunch of girls who barely talked to her before were crying like they were losing their best friend. Isabella Bowman, the most popular girl in school, even asked Lexi to sit with her at lunch. Isabella always wore the latest stuff—she had a real Coach bag and not one of those knockoff ones, and all the other girls wanted to be her friend. If Isabella sat with you at lunch, then you were somebody, but if Isabella didn’t know who you were, then nobody else did either…and they didn’t care. Lexi and I used to talk about how great it would be to sit at Isabella’s lunch table, but today Lexi didn’t even ask me to sit next to her. I sort of followed behind them. My best friend’s last day of school and I had to ask people to move over to squeeze in at the table. I guess I understood why she forgot about me, but I never would have done that to her.

I went over to her house after school to say goodbye and there were over thirty people there.

“Lexi, I’m really going to—”

“Just a sec—” she said putting up her hand. She turned and hugged a girl from our algebra class who I barely remembered her speaking to. “I will miss you soooo much, Kylie!”

As soon as Kylie moved away, I went to hug Lexi, but another girl, this one from our health class, beat me to it.

“Lexi! I cannot believe you’re leaving me,” she said, and a bunch of others crowded in. I stood back waiting until they were done so I could have a moment alone with Lexi.

“Okay ladies, Lexi has to get to bed early because we are hitting the road super early and she needs her beauty rest,” Mr. Irvin, Lexi’s father, said. “You can all text and e-mail later.”

“Wait, Lex, we didn’t get to talk,” I said.

“Yeah, I know, sorry. Things got so crazy, but I will call you as soon as we get to Dallas. Maybe even if I get some time when we stop for the night,” she said, hugging me. “I gotta go, my dad wants us up at four a.m. He’s crazy. This isn’t goodbye anyway, it’s see ya when I see ya, ‘kay?”

She smiled and I tried to smile back, but my eyes were filling with tears.

***

The next few days were hard. Lexi had been my lab partner in science, so once she was gone,

Mr. Jeffries, our teacher, had me work with Isabella and her lab partner, A.J. A.J. did all the work, so Isabella and I talked. It seemed like we had a lot in common, so, stupid me, I invited Isabella to come over. I hoped she’d see I was an okay person and want to hang out with me. Isabella told me she had to watch her sister after school while her dad was working, but she was nice about it. However, Isabella’s best friend, Brittany Buchanan, was talking loudly in the gym locker room so that I would hear her.

“Did you guys honestly think someone like Isabella would want to hang out with a loser? Izzy just learned her lab partner’s name and the girl has gone to school with us since sixth grade. How pathetic,” Brittany said, flipping her frizzy red ponytail.

I shut down. I grabbed my bag and walked out of the locker room. I told Coach Jeffers I wasn’t feeling well and he gave me a pass to see the school nurse.

“Do you want me to call your mom and have her pick you up?” the nurse asked.

Mom had already lectured me on how the school might hold me back if I missed any more days. Then I’d be stuck in ninth grade for another year, and even then all the other girls would still have bigger chests than me.

“I don’t think I need to go home,” I said. “Can I stay here a little longer?”

Nurse Cohen let me stay in her office during lunch and she even brought me some crackers. I had been eating lunch in the bathroom ever since Lexi moved. I felt awkward asking people to sit at their lunch table—everyone already had their groups or their best friend, and now that mine was gone, I was alone and looked desperate. I decided I’d rather eat a peanut butter sandwich next to a toilet than have to beg somebody to let me sit with them.

***

My mother met me at the door when I got home. I got bad vibes from the way her lips were set in a straight line.

“Hadley Alana Daniels, the school nurse called and said you’ve been in her office twice this week,” she said.

“I didn’t feel good.” Great, did the school monitor how many times I went to the bathroom too?

“Is everything okay at school?” she asked.

I didn’t want her to know I didn’t have anyone to eat lunch with, so I nodded.

“Is it because Lexi’s gone? Huh?” She put her hand on my shoulder. “What’s going on?”

I pulled away. “I’m fine.”

All I needed was my mother calling the school about Brittany. I didn’t get why Brittany had turned on me during gym. She never seemed to have a problem with me before. I wondered if she thought I was trying to get between her and Isabella. Some girls could be weird like that and had to be the one everyone liked the best.

My dad came home from work, and naturally my mother had to tell him I was in the nurse’s office…again.

“What’s going on, Hadley?” he asked when my mom went upstairs.

I shrugged. “Nothing. Some girl was kinda rude to me in gym and I needed to get away.”

“Rude? What did she say?”

“I mean…nothing to my face. She didn’t like that I asked her best friend to hang out.”

“She’s jealous,” he said, waving the whole thing off. “Ignore it.” Then he went into a speech on how these were the “best years of your life, so you better enjoy ‘em.”

Great, so it was only going to get worse? I didn’t know if I could take it. I tried to explain it was hard to find a group to hang out with now that Lexi had moved, but my dad wasn’t getting it. He didn’t understand why you couldn’t hang out with everyone. Then he told me to invite a friend over, because “they’d like you if they got to know you.”

Then, a few days later, a new girl named Jennifer Yamaguchi came to our school. Mrs. Dultrieve had her sit next to me and asked me to show Jen around. I was feeling pretty positive to have someone new to hang out with. I showed her how to order her lunch on the computer in the cafeteria, and I took her to the library because I went there sometimes while everybody else went outside.

“The librarians don’t care if you eat in the magazine section as long as you don’t get crumbs all over.” I pulled out my sandwich and my Jack Brogger bear keychain fell out.

“Are you a Brogger too?” she asked, taking her Jack keychain out.

“Yes! I have the bigger bear too. I ordered from the website and he has a little concert t-shirt on.”

“I want one of those so bad,” she said. “I’ve seen him in concert twice.”

“Jack’s my favorite singer,” I said.

“Mine too. No one else at my old school was that into him. They like that stupid boy band from the U.K. Not one of those guys is anywhere near as cute as Jack,” she said.

We watched Jack videos on my phone until the bell rang.

***

The next day, Jen sat with Isabella and her friends at lunch. I waited for her at her locker, but she never showed up. I had asked Jen to come over after school to hang out and watch
Video Request Countdown
, which was Jen’s favorite show too. I sat in the family room and waited all afternoon for her. Mom thought Jen misunderstood and thought she was supposed to come over tomorrow instead. I nodded and went up to my room even though they were premiering Jack’s new video at night. I didn’t want my parents to see me cry.

***

When I got to school the next day, I saw Jen with Isabella and Brittany. I wanted to ask why she didn’t come over, but I wasn’t brave enough to go over there. I basically knew why anyway. I mean, why be friends with me when you could hang out with someone like Isabella? I bet the only reason Brittany wanted to hang out with her was because Jen’s dad drove a BMW. Jen saw me standing there. Our eyes locked for a minute, but then she started talking to someone else. I’d show them all when I got to hang out with Simone Hendrickson for the summer.

After school, I missed the bus and decided to walk home instead of calling for a ride. I had walked home before and it was no big deal, but today Brittany decided to follow me home. Her house wasn’t even near mine, but she stayed in step with me every inch of the way. I held my bag tightly to my chest.

“Running home to play with your bear?” she asked. Oh my—Jen told her about that? How embarrassing. Why did I tell her about that?

Brittany’s breath smelled like tuna fish and feet as it pressed against my neck. I pretended not to hear her and kept walking. I could see my house coming up and I broke into a run. I didn’t stop until I got into my bedroom. I curled up on the bed, and my heart was pounding as I rested Jack the bear’s head on my chest. I stayed there until my mother called me for dinner.

Chapter Three

The next few days were even worse. Jennifer had told Isabella and Brittany about how I wanted to go to Grand Haven to see Jack and made me sound like a weirdo stalker. So embarrassing. Isabella didn’t say anything, but Brittany wouldn’t let it go and she pretended to cough the word, “loser,” when I walked past her in homeroom. To make matters worse, Mrs. Dultrieve heard Brittany call me a “loser” and made her apologize to me in front of the whole class. I wanted to die. I thought I might get my wish since Brittany seemed like she might murder me.

“Hadley, I’m sorry I said you have no friends and the only person who would ever be your friend is a bear because you’re such a loser,” Brittany said. I sank down in my seat. I thought Mrs. Dultrieve would see through her fake apology, but sometimes it felt like even the teachers were on the side of the popular people.

“See, not so hard,” Mrs. Dultrieve said. “Now what do you say, Hadley?”

“It’s okay,” I said.

“You’ll have to speak up. We can’t hear you,” she said.

“It’s okay.”

“Open your mouth wider, dear.”

“It’s okay.” It came out loud and the whole class laughed.

I couldn’t wait until school ended. Everything would be all right on June third—the last day of school. No more Brittany stepping on the back of my shoe as I walked down the hall or people telling me “this seat is saved” when I asked if I could sit with them. As soon as this year ended, I would be free until September. Or so I thought.

***

At night, I sat down to dinner with my parents. I was taking a bite of my dinner when my mom dropped a bombshell.

“Hadley, Dad and I have been talking, and we think you should go away to the school’s camp this summer.”

Camp? No way, they could not do this to me. I was supposed to spend my summer looking for Jack Brogger in Grand Haven, not going to some stupid camp for losers.

“That camp is more for the middle schoolers. High school kids can train to be counselors there, but you can’t apply for that unless you’ve gone to the camp before, and I haven’t,” I said.

“That’s not what we’re getting at. We think it would do you some good to socialize more this summer.”

“But you already said I could go to Grand Haven,” I said.

“Yes, but you’ve had a hard time since Lexi moved, and this would be a great way for you to get to know some of your classmates better, and I bet there will be some new people there,” Mom said as Dad handed me the crappy camp flyer my stupid school had sent everyone.

“There’s swimming, hiking, painting—”

“I don’t like to do any of those things.” I interrupted my dad.

“You like to paint,” he said. “Take your hair out of your mouth, Hadley. It’s a disgusting habit.”

“You can’t make me go. I don’t even know how to swim,” I said. “I’ll drown and die.”

My mother reminded me I did know how to swim, so I reminded her of how I almost drowned in Mr. Stevens’ pool six years ago. Mom said she’d write me a note so I wouldn’t have to swim and told me losing one water-wing didn’t count as drowning.

“Mom, I went underwater and I couldn’t breathe.”

“Oh, maybe for two seconds. There’s plenty of other things you could do at camp,” she said.

I almost started to cry right at the table. Summer was supposed to be my chance to get away. To get to know Simone and go somewhere I wasn’t invisible and start all over. Maybe even be somebody else. To be anyone but who the people at school thought I was.

“Well, you can’t spend your whole summer watching TV,” Dad said.

Why not? He spent
his
summers in front of the TV. There was no way I could go to some stupid camp with a bunch of people who didn’t notice me now. I mean, I couldn’t sleep without Jack the bear, and I couldn’t imagine what would happen if I brought him with me. I had seen enough movies about camp to know there’s always some kid who all the other campers make fun of for the whole summer. In the movies it was always some spoiled rich kid who was the target, but even then that kid was rich, so they didn’t have too much to complain about.

“There’s a girl my age next door to Grandma—”

“Yes, but your father and I thought this would give you an opportunity to get to know the kids around here. Now that Lexi is gone, you really need to branch out and meet some new people before sophomore year.”

So my own mother thought I was a friendless loser and that I better make some friends now or else the rest of high school was going to stink. Fabulous. Well, maybe she shouldn’t have sent me to some stupid private school with like, twenty kids in each class. How was I supposed to meet people when there was nobody to meet? And don’t get me started on the boys. They were all short and talked about going to the toilet all the time. Sure, it would be great if I could spend all summer hanging out with people around here, but I knew I wasn’t going to get to know anybody at camp. At least in Grand Haven I could have fun. Besides, maybe Simone and I would become friends.

She sighed. “Well, if you want to go to your grandparents’…I guess we did say it was all right. Maybe you and the neighbor girl will hit it off.”

Somehow I doubted we’d become best friends, but maybe we would hang out once in a while. And maybe Jack Brogger and I would be dating by the end of the summer too. Yeah, that was probably not gonna happen, but a girl could dream.