Flipped

According to my mom, he spends all his free time painting.

The man's had a year and a half to get acquainted, and he chooses now to get to know me.

This was the beginning of my soon-to-become-acute awareness that the girl cannot take a hint.

Maybe Juli's aesthetic sensibilities have been permanently screwed up by her father and none of this is her fault, but Juli has always thought that that sycamore tree was God's gift to our little corner of the universe.

She's got ANTAGONIZE written all over her.

Two days before the second grade is when it started, although the anticipation began weeks before—ever since my mother had told me that there was a family with a boy my age moving into the new house right across the street.

Anyway, true to form, Lynetta tried to bait me with Juli those first few days.

I didn't even bother checking around for other candidates—I had her off of him in two seconds flat.

There were about eight kids altogether at our bus stop, which created a buffer zone, but it was no comfort zone.

I never once saw her run laps or do calisthenics.

The tragedy of it catapulted me into the moving van.

That's when I heard a commotion up the hill and could see some big trucks parked up on Collier Street where the bus pulls in.

And on the days she let it all hang down, she'd sort of shimmy and cuddle inside it like it was a blanket, so that practically all you saw of her face was her nose.

Corrupt team officials have also dangled career advancement instead of money before vulnerable young players. Seattle Times (Feb 12, 2013)

And since we're now about done with the eighth grade, that, my friend, makes more than half a decade of strategic avoidance and social discomfort.

He's always denied it, but I've since learned that his code of honor is easily corrupted by weepy females.

Mrs. Shultz is a sturdy lady who probably secretly appreciates the value of a swift kick well placed, and although she told me that it would be better if I let other people work out their own dilemmas, she definitely understood about Shelly Stalls and her hair and told me she was glad I'd had the self-control to do nothing more than restrain her.

It was like watching someone dismember a body, and for the first time in ages, I felt like crying.

Her hand is the first one up; her answers are usually complete dissertations; her projects are always turned in early and used as weapons against the rest of the class.

Something about not wanting to disturb the delicate balance of educational energies.

Now that we're in junior high, she's the undisputed diva of drama, but even back in elementary school she knew how to put on a performance.

And the only thing keeping you from drifting away is the other person's eyes.

I shouldn't have, though, because she wiggled the bathroom doorknob and started teasing Bryce something fierce.

My mom's grinning, looking at our hands and my fiery red face.

It was the day after Juli had rescued my kite from its mutant toy-eating foliage.

It was twisted and gnarled and bent, and I kept expecting the thing to blow over in the wind.

They pull your hair and gouge you and pinch you; then they run off gasping to mommy when you try and defend yourself with a fist.

And so, my friend, I hatched the plan.

I was hoping for herds of teachers to appear so they could see the real Shelly Stalls in action, but it was too late by the time anyone arrived on the scene.

I didn't like the implication.

But after a while, taking all those answers made me feel sort of indebted to her.

Everyone jeered, “Where's your girl friend, Bryce?”

Given no one to justify it to, the man would stare out the window until he fell asleep.

Honestly, one look at him and I became a lunatic.

I refused to wait under that tree with that maniac monkey on the loose anymore.

She goes straight into thrash mode and is too busy drowning in the argument to take a deep breath and dive for calmer water.

Juli always tried to stand beside me, or talk to me, or in some other way mortify me.

My father looks to where she's pointing and mutters, “Oh boy.”

She was fine — that was obvious to anyone with a pair of ears — but I couldn't figure out what they were all arguing about.

Everything blew over at the one-week mark, though, when Shelly officially dumped me and started going out with Kyle Larsen.

He had some new idea for “optimizing positional latitude and longitude,” and when the dust finally settled, I was sitting right in front of Juli Baker.

Somehow that ball will wind up in their yard and you'll just have to go retrieve it.

My sister, on the other hand, tried to sabotage me any chance she got.

This from the girl who lives in a house that's the scourge of the neighborhood.

Mr. Mertins has got some kind of doctorate in seating arrangements or something, because he analyzed and scrutinized and practically baptized the seats we had to sit in.

My sister would roll her eyes and say, “As if,” while I'd slump beneath the window and pray for the light to change before Juli squealed my name for the world to hear.

Juli'd always been sly about sniffing, which really bugged me because no one ever noticed her doing it, but she was just as sly about giving me answers, which was okay by me.

And since we're now about done with the eighth grade, that, my friend, makes more than half a decade of strategic avoidance and social discomfort.

Mrs. Shultz is a sturdy lady who probably secretly appreciates the value of a swift kick well placed, and although she told me that it would be better if I let other people work out their own dilemmas, she definitely understood about Shelly Stalls and her hair and told me she was glad I'd had the self-control to do nothing more than restrain her.

She'd bring in some note and be sure to swoon a little for the teacher the first few days of the year, after which she'd be excused from anything that required muscles.

The tree was an ugly mutant tangle of gnarly branches.

We watched them work for a little while, the chain saws gunning at full throttle, smoking as they chewed through wood.

Juli would've tramped right in if my mother hadn't noticed her shoes and told her to take them off.

She barged and shoved and wedged her way into my life.

I dropped my backpack and wrenched my neck, and that did it.