FOR ROBIN AND BLAKE WITH LOVE The Fizzy Whiz Kid
SOME PEOPLE RACE DIRT BIKES. SOME people collect snow globes. Some people build boats in a bottle. My mom's hobby is baking desserts. Man, do I love her hobby—it's so much better than boats in a bottle! My dad's hobby also happens to be his job. He's an entomologist, which is a scientist who studies bugs. I don't like his hobby as much; it's kind of weird. Actually, I have a pretty weird hobby myself. I make lists.
WHY I LIKE LISTS
1. Useful for organizing thoughts
2. Fast way to give information to others
3. Easier to read than paragraphs
I've been making lists since first grade, when I first learned how to write. Nobody knows why; it's a family mystery.
OTHER FAMILY MYSTERIES
1. Why does my mom always get the hiccups when she laughs?
2. Why is my dad the only person on the planet who loves cockroaches?
3. What is that weird smell coming from the back of the refrigerator?
4. Why do people in uniforms make my mom nervous?
5. Why does my mom care so much about manners?
6. Why do we keep moving?
The family-mystery list could go on for pages. But instead of that, here's a list about me.
FACTS ABOUT MITCHELL MATHIS
? Age twelve, sixth grade
? Average height, weight
? Pretty good student, but no Einstein
? Pets: black Labrador retriever—"Bandit"
? Favorite book: "The Jungle Book," by Rudyard Kipling
? Favorite food: fried chicken, Mom's chocolate cake
? Favorite sports: baseball, football, ice hockey
? Favorite car: yellow Lamborghini
? Favorite animal: big cats (jaguars, tigers, lions, cheetahs, etc.)
? Favorite activities: making lists, handball, skateboarding, juggling, magic, playing with Bandit, playing guitar, going to the opera (no lie!), exploring, and discovering stuff
? Biggest fear: looking like an idiot
? Best personal trait: I've got guts
FIVE THINGS THAT TAKE GUTS
1. Skateboarding on the highway
2. Staring down a pit bull with a pork chop tied to your neck
3. Standing in front of a 100 mph fastball, with no helmet
4. Eating fifty hot chili peppers with no bread or water
5. Starting a new school after fall session has already begun
Okay, I haven't done the first four things. But I've done the fifth thing on the list many times, and when this whole mess started I was going to do it again. Frankly, I'd prefer to eat the fifty chili peppers.
You may not think it's very hard to start a new school after it's already begun, but you would be very, very wrong. This has been my experience: Weeks before I even get there, somebody's know-it-all mom hears that a new kid (me) is moving into the neighborhood and will be attending the school. She tells her kid. Her kid takes this news to the classroom, and the rumors about the new kid (me) start flying: I'm a genius, I'm a dummy, I'm rich, I'm poor, I was kicked out of my last school, I'm in the witness protection program, I have an identical twin brother growing out of my left shoulder. (None of these things is true. See "Facts About Mitchell Mathis" list.)
Then the big day arrives. I check in at the office. The principal walks me down the hall, like a prisoner on his way to his execution. The principal opens a door, interrupting the class, and introduces me. He gets my name wrong, so I politely correct him. After he leaves, the teacher finds a seat for me, usually one within spitball distance of the meanest kid in the class. Then she assigns somebody to be my "buddy," usually the class egghead. For the rest of the day, I'm stuck walking around the school with the guy nobody else would be caught dead with, who tells me a lot of boring details about the school but leaves out the real important stuff.
STUFF YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW ABOUT A SCHOOL
1. Which bathroom is the good one (safest, least gross, etc.)
2. Which cafeteria food is nasty and which is okay
3. Which water fountains will spray you in the face, and which ones just give a dribble
4. Which yard monitors are the crabbiest
5. Which bullies deliver expert wedgies
This last point is important. I've gotten a lot of wedgies in my day, and they are not pleasant. But I've learned from my mistakes. The main thing I've learned is that first impressions are everything.
TEN THINGS NOT TO DO ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL (BECAUSE THEY MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A JERK)
1. Don't get a haircut the day before.
2. Don't wear brand-new white sneakers.
3. DON'T HAVE YOUR MOM WITH YOU. (Seriously, don't.)
4. Don't wear pants that are too short.
5. Don't wear hats, jewelry, or cowboy boots.
6. Don't carry a lunch box with a picture of a TV show on it.
7. Don't reveal that you like opera music.
8. If you're really good at something, like, for instance, juggling, don't juggle until at least a month goes by, or people will think you're a show-off.
9. Don't hang around with the class egghead.
AND MOST IMPORTANT:
10. DON'T STAND OUT.
But here's the thing about lists—no matter how much you try to use them to prepare yourself, sometimes they let you down. Sometimes they're not complete, and you don't know it until it's too late. I went over that list a hundred times, but nothing could prepare me for DeMille Elementary. I didn't know it then, but I was already doomed.
My family had just moved to Hollywood, California, and we hadn't fully settled in yet. Our house was filled with packing boxes, and I didn't know where anything was, so we had to buy a backpack, even though I already had one that I really liked packed in a box somewhere. Of course the stores didn't have very many backpacks left, but I managed to get one that didn't look too stupid.
Remember: First impressions are everything.
My mom dropped me off at the principal's office, where I met Principal Lang. He led me out of the main building and past a bunch of long, rectangular buildings called "bungalows." Each one held two classrooms. He opened the door to bungalow twelve, and all eyes shifted to the source of the disruption: me. I can read people pretty well. You could even say I'm gifted in that area. Those eyes were all saying the same thing: I'm glad I'm not you, you poor jerk.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Samuelson," Principal Lang said. "I'd like to introduce your new student. This is Matthew Mitchell. He'll be joining your class…."
"It's Mitchell Mathis…." I said.
"What?"
"My last name is Mathis," I repeated a little louder. "Mitch Mathis."
"I'm sorry. Anyway, Mitchell comes to us from St. Paul, Minnesota. I'm sure everyone here will make him feel welcome." Principal Lang paused to admire the autumn wall decorations and then clapped his hands together. "Well! I'll leave you to it!" He couldn't get out of the classroom fast enough.
Mrs. Samuelson was middle-aged, with short, gray-brown hair, glasses, and a stocky build, and something about her made me like her right away… maybe it was the fact that she kind of smelled like pancakes.
"Mitchell, why don't you take that empty seat?" Mrs. Samuelson pointed to the front desk in the third row, the one right in front of a kid with jet-black hair that fell over one of his eyes, making him look like a punk pirate. He wore a black T-shirt with a skull on it, black jeans, and green sneakers, and he had a diamond stud in his nose. He was fidgeting with a ballpoint pen, clicking it in and out, in and out, in and out, click click click…. Already I wanted a new seat.
"You came at a very good time," Mrs. Samuelson continued. "We're right in the middle of social studies, and this week we are doing a lesson on heritage and family history. Today we are talking about our names. You see, your name says a lot about you, your parents, and their values. Everyone was given the assignment to find out where his or her name came from." She looked out at the class. "Who would like to start?"
A flurry of hands shot up.
"Okay, okay," Mrs. Samuelson said, and laughed. "Dash, why don't you go first. Stand, state your full name, and tell us where it came from."
A tall boy with dark, curly hair and glasses stood up. He was rail thin and had an elegant but slightly bored attitude, like a British aristocrat.
"Dashiell Bogart Silverman. Dash for short. I was named after my parents' favorite mystery writer, Dashiell Hammett, and their favorite film noir actor, Humphrey Bogart. 'Film noir' is what they call those black-and-white crime movies of the nineteen forties, and a lot of these movies were based on Dashiell Hammett's stories. See, film noir, crime, and mystery are my parents' hobby. They're both film writers, and they met in college at a screening of The Maltese Falcon, which, by the way, starred Humphrey Bogart and was based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett. We have the DVD of The Maltese Falcon, so I've probably seen it a hundred times. It's very cool."
Dash sat down with a satisfied smile on his face. You could tell he loved where his name came from. Next, a girl stood up, her crazy-looking red hair held back by a headband decorated with fake bumblebees. She pushed her glasses up on her nose, and her voice clicked along like a typewriter.
"Julia Jodie Schwartz. My dad is a talent agent at Creative Quest Agency, and I was named after his two highest-earning female clients. Interesting fact: If I had been born a boy, my name would've been Brad Tom Johnny Schwartz, based on my dad's highest-earning male clients. Unfortunately, last year these two female clients were stolen from my dad by a competing talent agency, which was totally disloyal of them. My dad spent a lot of time building their careers! If it weren't for him, they'd be waiting tables at Jerry's Deli! Anyway, we don't talk about them anymore. My dad refuses to even say their names, so now my parents just call me J.J."
J.J. sat down. There was a pause as everyone waited for the next person to speak, a really pretty girl with short blond hair, cut like a boy's, and big blue eyes. She was staring out the window, but not at anything in particular. J.J. turned around and pounded the girl's desk. She turned, surprised.
"Is it my turn?" She stood up. She wore an outfit that looked like she'd dug it out of the thrift-shop grab bag: the kind of vest my grandpa would wear over a T-shirt, dress, rainbow-striped leggings, and knee-high moccasin boots. On anyone else it would have looked crazy, but it looked okay on her. "I'm Tangerine Dream Bestor. Both of my parents are actors. They're very creative, so they didn't want to give me an ordinary name. They wanted to give me a name that was meaningful and important, so they named me after their favorite fruit."
She sat down and looked back out the window to the muffled snickers of the class.
"Tangie, perhaps you can tell us where the 'Dream' part of your name came from," Mrs. Samuelson prompted, trying to hide her own amusement. Tangie blinked and rose to her feet again. She was so mellow, it seemed as if everything she did was in slow motion.
"Well, a tangerine is a healthy food that feeds your body, but dreams are food for the soul. Without our dreams we are nothing. They're what drive us and keep us going in hard times. You have to have both to be a complete person, right? It's all about balance."
Wow, that answer wasn't bad! She drifted back to her seat as gently as a leaf settling. I could tell that at least some kids in the class had a new respect for her. Now I wished my name was like hers, maybe something like… Pineapple Courage Mathis.
But when it was my turn I stood up and said, "My name is Mitchell Christopher Mathis, and I was named after my two grandfathers—my dad's father's name is Mitchell, and my mom's father's name is Christopher. I prefer Mitch." Then I sat down. Pretty boring, I thought. So did everybody else.
The punk pirate behind me stood up. Actually, it was more like he jumped up. He moved fast, like a squirrel. Like a squirrel who'd drunk too much coffee.
"I'm Skywalker Ortega, as you all know," he said quickly. "No middle name, so I'm forced to use the wacky first name. If it's not obvious, my dad's favorite movie of all time is Star Wars, and his favorite character is Luke Skywalker. Why he didn't name me Luke, I don't know—I guess it's kind of a joke, but it's no worse than being named after a citrus fruit."
"It could be worse. You could've been named Jar Jar Binks," Dash called out. Everyone laughed.
As kids continued down the rows, I started to see a pattern developing. Out of twenty-eight kids, ten were named after actors. Seven were named after movie characters. Five were named after book characters or authors. Three were named after something in nature, and only three had family names, like me. It was the first clue that I was doomed… but I'll get to that soon enough.
After everyone had a chance to talk about his or her name, we had a math lesson, then we went to the music room, and then it was time for lunch. Mrs. Samuelson had asked Dash to show me around. Dash had a weird habit of leaning forward while he walked, like his head wanted to get someplace and couldn't wait for the rest of his body to catch up.
"DeMille Elementary has what you call an 'open plan,'" he said. "It's really a bunch of bungalows surrounding a courtyard. Kindergarten through third-grade classrooms have their own playground, and fourth through sixth grade get the upper yard. Here's the library," he said, leading me up to a cluster of bungalows. "You've already seen the music room, and the next door is the computer room." He pointed at a door. "Don't go in this bathroom unless you enjoy walking through toilet water. There's always a clogged one in there."
We walked farther, past a building with the words LANGLEY GYMNASIUM painted in huge letters on the outside.
"Who's Langley?" I asked.
"I don't know, some dead guy. Now, over here we have the lunch tables and the cafeteria," he said, pointing to the line of windows. "Don't order the broccoli cheese pasta. Ever. And on Fridays watch out for airborne pudding cups."
I liked this guy.
Since we had both brought our lunches that day, we didn't stop at the cafeteria, but just sat at one of the tables on the patio outside. A group of kids from the class joined us—Skywalker, Tangie, J.J., and Brandon, a blond kid with neatly trimmed hair, a lime-green polo shirt, and creased slacks. Brandon Samuel Goldwyn was named after his great-great-grandfather, who started a movie studio called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, or MGM, in the nineteen twenties. He seemed to think that made him king of the classroom. I could tell Dash didn't care much for Brandon; he bristled as Brandon brushed crumbs off the table before sitting.
"We're taking a poll," J.J. said. "What's the funniest show on TV? Not classic TV. The show has to be in production right now."
"Monty Montgomery's House of Weird is the best thing on TV," Dash said. "His sketches are brilliant."
"Brilliant?" Brandon scoffed. "They barely make any sense."
"Yeah, well, it's for people who have read a few books—you know, people who think." You know how you get an uncomfortable feeling, like you don't want to be somewhere but you can't leave? That's what I was feeling. But Brandon didn't seem to mind Dash's jab.
"Hey, like my dad always says, 'If it's a thinker, it's a stinker,'" Brandon said with a shrug. "As far as I'm concerned, the House of Weird is the House of Boring."
"Oh yeah? Well, what do you watch?" Dash snorted. "Let me guess, something with a lot of poop jokes."
"Down and Dirty."
"You've got to be kidding!" Dash howled. "That idiotic show is like the amateur hour! It's embarrassing that it's even on the air!"
"Yeah," Skywalker agreed, tossing his hair out of his eyes with a flick of his head. It fell right back. "The production values are really cheap."
"It's the top-rated show on Friday primetime," Brandon pointed out. "And it's got an eighteen share. You guys may not like it, but the rest of America does."
"What about Kiss the Bride?" Tangie said, to break up the argument. "It's really big in England…."
"I prefer the American version, Kick the Bride," J.J. said. "It's just more accessible. What do you think, Mitch?"
They all turned to me. I was completely lost. Production values? Primetime? Eighteen share? It's like they were speaking another language.
"Yes, Mitch," said Tangie. "What do you think is the funniest show on TV?"
"You know, I really don't watch a lot of television," I admitted.
"What's the matter—TV's not good enough for you?" J.J. said. "I'm sick of you movie snobs. Listen, TV has some really great stuff. You're missing out—"
"I don't watch movies either," I interrupted. "My family never really got into that."
Now everyone looked confused.
"You're kidding. How about Star Wars? You have to have seen Star Wars episodes one, two, three, four, five, or six, right?" Skywalker asked.
"Well, I've heard of them of course, and I know the story, sort of, but no, I haven't actually seen any of them. I've flipped through some of the books…."
"The Star Wars saga is not a book!" Skywalker laughed. "Wow, you're really serious! Wow." He shook his head, unable to say more.
"Hey, a lot of people don't go to the movies," Tangie said, coming to my defense. "Renting is a lot cheaper, and you can watch it in your own house."
"I think he's saying he doesn't watch any TV or movies in any form at all," Brandon said, one eyebrow raised. "Isn't that right, Mitch? Not even on an airplane, right?"
"That's impossible," J.J. said. "I mean, unless you belong to some kind of weird cult or something…." She turned to me with a suspicious look.
There was an eerie silence. Then I felt Dash tugging my arm. "Come on, Mitch, I want to show you the gym."
"But we already saw the…"
Dash dragged me away before I could finish. After we got a fair distance from the others, he turned to me.
"You were joking, right? About not watching any TV or movies?"
"Well, you can't watch a lot of TV when you don't own a TV…."
Dash put his hands on his hips and looked up to the sky, like I had presented him with some big problem. "Mitch. Let me give you a little history lesson. Right now we are standing in DeMille Elementary, right? That's Cecil B. DeMille Elementary. Cecil B. DeMille was a major movie director. He produced and directed a whole bunch of films—won tons of awards—but one thing he did that was particularly important was that he made the first full-length feature film ever, and he made it in Hollywood. It was called The Squaw Man, and that film drew more people out to California, to Los Angeles, to Hollywood, to make more films."
"So…?"
"So, you weren't listening in class today. Names are important. You go to a school named after the guy who practically founded Hollywood. You might want to catch a movie or a TV program now and then. You know, to fit in? Think about it."
Dash chucked the rest of his lunch into the garbage can and headed toward the classroom. I would've followed him, but a huge kid blocked my path. He was so big and ugly, he had to be part rhinoceros.
"Hey, weirdo," he said. Then he grabbed the back of my underwear and yanked as hard as he could. My first wedgie of the year. News traveled fast at Cecil B. DeMille Elementary.
The new kid (me) was a weirdo.