Seventh Grade in the Life of Me, Penelope Read online

  “Shut up.”

  “You shut up.”

  “What are you gonna do if I don’t.”

  “Give you a lobotomy, that’s what!”

  “What’s a logodomy?”

  “A lobotomy! Look it up, stupid!”

  “I’m not stupid. And I have homework. I do.”

  The air between them filled with Penelope’s urge to slug him.

  “I don’t know. Seems to me homework is homework,” offered Jenny. She was kneeling on the floor wiping up Nathaniel’s crumbs.

  Who asked you? thought Penelope. Go away. Go away. Go away.

  “Yeah!” Nathaniel clapped. “Homework is homework is homework is homework.”

  Penelope shoveled her dinner into her mouth in record time, then announced that she had to go do her homework, her real homework, looking directly at Nathaniel when she said it. She was halfway down the hallway when Nathaniel started singing. It was one of his more annoying habits, inventing songs and singing them in the loudest, most babyish voice.

  “Homework is homework is homework.

  I’ve got homework!

  Penelope’s got more than me!

  Yeah, right! We’ll see!

  She should get a logodomy!”

  Jenny laughed a tinkly little laugh. Jenny and Nathaniel could become best friends, for all Penelope cared; she didn’t want any part of it.

  She lay on her bed and thought about Moe: What if Moe was a zombie? And what if there were a million Moes? There they were! Marching down Riverside Drive! Armed with pens! Writing their names on the sidewalk!

  She imagined doormen running for cover, mothers kicking off their high-heeled pumps, hurling briefcases and purses into the air, fathers hanging off NO PARKING signs, tan trench coats fluttering in the wind.…

  She fell asleep with a head full of zombies, and woke up several hours later to discover it was midnight and she was still wearing her clothes. She had a good six hours of homework to do, which meant if she started now, she’d be finished by the time she had to get ready for school. She even had an Algebra quiz to study for. Dr. Alvin’s warnings — don’t get behind, catching up is very difficult — were the last words she heard before she fell back to sleep.

  A Quiz for Penelope B. Schwartzbaum

  Prepared by Penelope B. Schwartzbaum

  Have you ever had a boyfriend? No.

  Do you want a boyfriend? ??????????????? (That’s my answer.)

  Do you want a new mother’s helper? No!!!!!!!

  Do you think it’s really unfair that you have a new mother’s helper? Yes!!!!!!

  How many mother’s helpers have you had: 17

  Favorite mother’s helper: Ivy

  Second-favorite mother’s helper: Stevie

  Worst mother’s helper: Beverly (French people are weird!)

  What do you think of your little brother? He’s a brat. (Nathaniel, if you’re reading this, that means you.)

  From Penelope B. Schwartzbaum’s Book of Lists

  Moe Was Heres — Page Three

  14. phone booth on 77th and West End

  15. outside Harry’s Shoes

  16. in front of Burger King

  17. under awning of Big Apple Supermarket

  18. on back table at Pizza Joint (scratched in)

  19. in front of Broadway Nut Shop

  20. on the side of Morris Brothersz

  21. inside lobby of Loews 83rd Street movie theater

  22. on stairs to subway at 72nd Street and Broadway

  23. 81st and West End — in sidewalk

  Shirley Commack was not in a good mood. “Stacy Commack!” she yelled. “Sometimes I think I don’t even know you.”

  “Watch, she’s gonna have a fit,” Stacy whispered to Penelope. It wasn’t strange for Shirley Commack to have a fit; she did so at least twice a day. But she usually tried to keep them out of public places. Either she couldn’t help herself or she’d decided that Empire Szechuan no longer counted as a public place since she and Stacy ate half their meals there.

  “What do you mean Oberlin College is an ‘abnormal’ institution for me to have attended? And what’s this college obsession? You’re twelve. Last year you were playing jacks, now you’re — what? — pledging a sorority and picking a major?”

  “I haven’t played jacks since I was eight.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “I’m just saying —”

  “You’re just saying that the college I went to — where my political views were shaped, where I made all of my friends, where I met your father, for god’s sake — you’re just saying the institution I consider closest to my heart is abnormal. And what does this mean, ‘abnormal’?”

  “It means I just wouldn’t want to go to school in Ohio. And it’s not Ivy League.”

  “Ivy League is normal?”

  “Normal for kids at Elston.”

  “Kids at Elston don’t go anywhere else for college?”

  “The ones who don’t get such good grades go to other schools.”

  “I see. So, let me get this straight. ‘Normal’ means you are a wealthy kid, you grow up in New York City, and you go to Harvard because you get good grades in middle school and high school and plan ahead.”

  Stacy shrugged.

  “You realize that’s not normal. Normal people go to whatever college they can afford, if they go to college at all. Normal people don’t have half the privileges you and your friends have. Normal people —”

  Stacy cut her off. “I said ‘normal for Elston,’ Mom. I know I’m privileged. You’ve been telling me that my whole life. It’s not my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault, but it’s not your —” Shirley Commack stopped herself. “Oh, forget it. I know you don’t want to hear it. I just hope someday you realize there are no such things as normal and abnormal. And since when is a twelve-year-old a barometer for anything having anything to do with normal?”

  “Stop calling me that,” said Stacy.

  “Stop calling you what?”

  “A twelve-year-old.”

  “You are a twelve-year-old.”

  “You say it like it’s a bad thing.”

  “A bad thing? It’s a great thing! Don’t you think I’d love to be twelve again? To have no responsibilities? To —”

  “But, Mom, I have responsibilities!”

  “Yes, to grow up at a reasonable pace. Not at this super-accelerated-head-straight-for-the-investment-banking-job-and-the-apartment-on-Park-Avenue pace. You’re right. It’s not your fault. It’s that school you go to. I’m pulling you out.”

  Stacy rolled her eyes at Penelope as if to say she’d heard this all before. Shirley Commack was always threatening to pull her out of Elston Prep and dump her at the local public school. Not that she could; the custody agreement between Clay and Shirley Commack stipulated that Stacy could live full-time with Shirley as long as she attended Clay Commack’s alma mater, Elston Prep.

  “At least you’ll have some diversity! Make a friend whose parents don’t have stock portfolios and houses in the Hamptons. No offense, Penelope.”

  “My parents don’t have a house in the Hamptons.” She wasn’t sure about the stock portfolio.

  “I know, honey.” She reached across the table to pat Penelope’s hand.

  “Fine,” said Stacy. “Take me out of Elston Prep. I’ll go live with Dad in L.A.”

  Shirley Commack poked at a dumpling with her chopstick. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? All those clothes! All that superficial crap! Get this? The paper’s running a story about a new surgical procedure where they suck the fat out of your body with a huge straw. Whatever happened to eating healthy? Exercising?”

  Penelope dunked her spoon in the hot-and-sour soup.

  “No,” Shirley Commack said, “people would rather stick a vacuum into their thighs and suck out all the extra glop.”

  Penelope put the spoon back in the bowl without taking a sip.

  Penelope knew that Shirley Comm
ack drove Stacy crazy, but she liked her. Sure, she agreed with Stacy that her mom’s hair was too frizzy. And, yeah, she thought some of her habits were weird: like not getting out of her robe until dinnertime; like eating candy corn for breakfast; and not believing in credit cards, but never having cash on her.

  But there were great things, too. One, she had a secret language with her cat, Mitzi. Two, she paid for Bernice to go to college at night. And three, she loved Chinese food. “God knows what’s in that stuff,” was what Mrs. Schwartzbaum always said when Penelope asked to order it in.

  “So, if Oberlin’s too abnormal for you, where, pray tell, are you considering going?”

  “I’m looking into a lot of places,” answered Stacy. “Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell.”

  Shirley Commack nodded at her daughter with a bemused expression, then turned to Penelope. “Are you equally infected with the collegiate fever?”

  Penelope had a mouth full of food, and Stacy took the opportunity to answer for her. “She’ll try to go wherever I go,” she said.

  “Oh, will she?” asked Shirley Commack.

  “We’re best friends,” replied Stacy, as if that answered everything. Penelope concentrated on the sweet-and-sour chicken, which was a particularly fluorescent shade of pink.

  The waiter arrived to ask if they wanted anything else. “No,” said Shirley Commack, “just the check,” which he brought back promptly along with a tray of fortune cookies and sliced oranges. “I think this college thing could be an editorial,” she mused, reaching into her pocket for money. “How they put the pressure on kids so young, and how it affects education.… The hook could be: Does anyone learn for learning’s sake?”

  “Whatever, Mom, just as long as you don’t mention me,” muttered Stacy, watching her mom shuffle through a wad of wrinkled bills.

  “One, two, oh good, here’s a five, so that’s seven.” Shirley Commack unfolded more bills. “Whoopee, another five! It’s seventeen total, so what should I leave for the tip?”

  Stacy had already calculated it.

  “Oh, well, I’m a little short, then. I’m sure they’ll understand. I’ll bring Ling Tan the rest when we come back tomorrow.” Stacy’s face turned a deep crimson. “Oh, don’t be so easily embarrassed. It happens to everyone.” Except it didn’t happen to Stacy, who actually kept her money in a wallet. She handed her mother the extra cash. “Well, at least you know I’m good for it,” Shirley Commack said, laughing.

  On the way back from Empire Szechuan, Shirley Commack stopped to call her editor from a pay phone, while Penelope and Stacy gazed at the jewelry on display in the window of P.S. I Love You. “Do you think I’ll look like I’m copying if I get the ones Annabella wore today?” Stacy asked, pointing to a pair of fuchsia feather earrings. “It’s not fair, because I thought about getting them a really long time ago.”

  It was happening more and more that Penelope had no idea how to respond to questions Stacy posed. Usually she just said what she thought Stacy wanted to hear. “I’m sure no one will notice,” she assured her.

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Penelope waited outside while Stacy bought the earrings. “Where’d my college-bound daughter go?” Shirley Commack asked when she was off the phone.

  Penelope pointed inside the store.

  “I rue the day her father gave her that credit card,” groaned Shirley Commack, gazing through the store window at her daughter. “Look at her buying accessories like a grown woman. When did twelve-year-olds get so old?”

  A Quiz for Penelope B. Schwartzbaum

  by Penelope B. Schwartzbaum

  Extra-Credit Question

  (Answer and Destroy Immediately!!!!)

  What do you do when you realize you and your best friend don’t match?

  a. Nothing.

  b. Nothing.

  c. Nothing.

  d. All of the Above.

  Answer: D — All of the Above!

  Annabella and Pia cast menacing shadows over the lunch table.

  “Nice earrings, Stacy.”

  The bite of turkey sandwich in Penelope’s mouth turned to paper as Pia lowered her face to meet Stacy’s and repeated herself.

  “She said, ‘Nice earrings, Stacy.’ ”

  Stacy, who’d been eating a corn muffin, looked like she was going to choke. “Thanks,” she said, and coughed.

  Annabella peered down at her immaculate white cotton sweater, grimaced, and flicked an imaginary crumb from her chest. “Say it, don’t spray it,” she hissed. Stacy’s face turned red, as if she were being strangled by invisible hands.

  “So, where’d you get those nice earrings, Stacy? P.S. I Love You? They’re sooooo nice.” Pia said “so” as if it were a twelve-syllable word.

  Stacy didn’t say anything. “I don’t think she got the point,” remarked Pia.

  Annabella had a soft lilt to her voice, so that even when she was saying something mean or embarrassing (and oftentimes she was), you didn’t figure it out until you were thinking about it later. “I agree, Pia,” she said. “I don’t think she got the point.”

  It was funny how big people could seem in some situations, and how small they could seem in others. Under Annabella’s gaze, Stacy positively shrank. “What? What’s the point?” croaked Stacy, still struggling to swallow.

  Pia’s large face zoomed in to meet Stacy’s. “You could have called Annabella to ask if she minded. It’s rude — don’t you think? — to buy the same earrings.”

  “I-I bought these before. I just waited awhile to wear them,” lied Stacy, fidgeting in her chair to distance herself from Pia.

  “Yeah, well, the more people who own something, the less its market value,” spat Pia. Her dad owned a mall in New Jersey, so she knew a lot about the fashion industry.

  Annabella Blumberg’s left hand had a knack for finding its way to her left hip, which was perpetually jutting out; it gave the impression that — even if you were telling the truth — she didn’t believe a word you said. “And what if I’d been wearing them today? That would have been pretty embarrassing. Did you think about that?”

  “Well, sorry,” squirmed Stacy, who, unlike Penelope, didn’t have a tendency to apologize when it wasn’t necessary, and clearly thought she was in the wrong. “I’ll take them off,” she offered, reaching for the earrings.

  Annabella tilted her head to the left so her shiny brown hair flipped over her left eye. She looked straight out of a blow-dryer ad. “No need,” she told Stacy. “It’s too late now. But I accept your apology.” There was an awkward silence until Stacy said thank you. “No problem,” said Annabella with regal flourish. “And, by the way, they look nice on you.”

  “Oh, no, but they look better on you,” Stacy said.

  Satisfied that Annabella had gotten what she wanted, Pia declared that they needed to go, referencing a mysterious meeting regarding The Pledge. “Oh, and Penelope?” she added, her back turned. “No one wants your stinking fries. Don’t be such a pig.” Penelope hadn’t realized it, but since Pia’s arrival, she’d been cupping her hands protectively over her lunch tray. She moved her hands to the side lamely, then picked up a fry. It was cold and soggy.

  In a matter of minutes, Stacy had experienced terror, relief, and gratitude, and it took several moments for her to collect herself: She took four long sips of soda. She wiped a napkin across her forehead. She readjusted the barrettes holding back her curly hair. She swept stray corn muffin crumbs from her lap. She dabbed her lips with Blistex. Then, she exploded in fury. “That was all your fault,” she roared.

  Penelope turned her head, half-expecting to see that Pia had returned to the table, that Stacy was screaming at someone other than herself. But no one else was there. “What d-did I-I do?” she stammered.

  “You know what you did,” steamed Stacy.

  “I didn’t tell them you were wearing the earrings!”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Then what?”

/>   “You tell me.”

  Stacy could be tricky when she was angry.

  “I don’t know why you’re mad,” Penelope balked.

  “Think about it!”

  “I can’t think of anything.”

  “Think harder!”

  “I don’t know. ’Cause I told you to get the earrings?”

  “See, you admit it!”

  “I didn’t tell you to. I gave you my opinion!”

  “Yeah, well, it was the wrong one.”

  “Opinions can’t be wrong.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Stacy blandly. She reached for her right ear and unhooked the earring. She reached for the left.

  Penelope gaped. “You’re taking them off?”

  “They’re so heavy, they’re killing my ears.” Stacy rubbed at the inflamed holes in her puffy earlobes. “I think I have an infection. You want to wear them?”

  “My ears are closed up. You know that,” muttered Penelope. The thought — that bad thought! — was zipping through Penelope’s head: We don’t match. We don’t match. We don’t match. She watched Stacy pocket the earrings and only half-heard her when she said, “Oh, and we have to sign The Pledge.”

  Mr. Bobkin and his belly galumphed from desk to desk, returning the quiz. As Mr. Bobkin’s stomp got closer, Penelope made sure not to make eye contact with the teacher. When he laid the quiz on her desk, she shut her eyes before she could see the grade, and slapped her hand over the right corner of the page. She thought, If I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

  But of course that wasn’t true.

  Penelope unglued her fingers so she could see a speck of what was underneath.

  Please be the triangle tip of an A!

  Nope. No tip. A slight curve.

  Could it be the bulging top of a B?

  If I pray this is a B, it will be a B, she thought. Please be a B! Please be a B!

  But it looked more like a C.

  Maybe Mr. Bobkin’s pen slipped. Or maybe he’d written in lowercase. Maybe it was a lowercase A.

  Penelope moved her hand. She clenched her eyelids shut, then opened them. The light made tiny little pink and purple spots on the page, and it took her a second to focus. It was a …