Katie Friedman Gives Up Texting! (12 page)

I'd forgotten her first name was Mitzi! What a great name! For a cat. Which I guess made sense, since she was a Katz.

“Claire, I'm not here on a social call,” Mrs. Katz (Mitzi) said. “I'm here because our children have taken it upon themselves to do something completely unacceptable.”

I sat down next to Jake. We glanced at each other and tried not to laugh. This was going to be good. I felt a big
plop!
on the other side and turned to see my dad had joined us on the couch. Apparently he was going to let my mom do the talking on this one.

“Are you referring to the kids giving up their cell phones?” asked my mom. “Because I have to say, I find it quite admirable.”

Mrs. Katz snorted. “Admirable, perhaps, but not practical.” She pulled out her own cell phone. “Can I tell you how many text messages I send to Jake on a given day?” She stared at her phone, counting. “Upwards of forty! He needs lunch, he needs to be picked up, he needs books, he needs his computer, he needs his cello, his baseball glove—”

“Actually, I don't really need my baseball glove,” Jake interrupted, “since I only play about one inning per game.” The three of us on the couch laughed, and even my mom stifled a giggle, but Mitzi wasn't amused.

“And last night!” she stammered. “When I couldn't reach Jake, I thought the worst. The worst! I had to call the school to find out what was going on. But what if, God forbid, something actually does happen to one of our children?” She shook her head. “I don't like this little experiment, I don't like it at all.”

“Mitzi,” my mom said, in her calmest, most soothing professional therapist voice, “I completely understand your concern. In fact, I share it, to some degree. But I think our kids are doing something brave. It's terrific that they've realized how addicted they've become to their phones, and that they've decided to do something about it. And as you and I both know, what they're addicted to is not the staying-in-touch-with-their-parents part. It's all the other stuff, the silly stuff, and the stuff that distracts them from living, and learning, and growing.”

I stared up at my mom, amazed at how smart she was, and how she could say what she was thinking so perfectly. And what
I
was thinking, too, actually.

Mitzi sniffed the air, like she smelled something bad. “Yes, I understand all that. Truly I do. But it doesn't do me any good when I can't text my son to find out what time cello rehearsal will be done, or which court he's on for his tennis lesson.”

I looked at Jake. “You take tennis?”

“Not by choice,” he answered.

Finally my dad decided to enter the conversation. “Mrs. Katz, can I ask you something?”

“Absolutely,” she said.

He stood up and took out his cell phone. “Did you have one of these when you were growing up?”

Mrs. Katz made a face. “Of course not.”

“Neither did I,” said my dad. “Can you believe it? No cell phone! No texting! And you know what else? No computer, no Internet, and no e-mail either!”

“What's your point, Jack?” Mrs. Katz whimpered.

“My point is, we survived,” said my dad. “We did okay. In fact, we did better than okay!” He smiled, satisfied, and sat back down on the couch.

Jake's mom made a face at her son—
we need to run away from these strange people
, I think it said—and picked up her purse. “It's a different world now,” she sniffed. “A faster world, a crazier world, a more competitive world. Everyone is on the go all the time. If you don't keep up, you fall behind. That's all I'm saying. Thank you for listening.”

“Well, thanks for stopping by,” said my mom, holding the door open.

Mrs. Katz saved her last comment for me. “Katie, I'm sorry to ruin your admirable little experiment, but Jake will be taking his phone back tomorrow.”

On the way out the door, Jake caught my eye.

“No, I won't,” he whispered.

 

31

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF NO PHONES

The next day at lunch,
I found myself sitting between Tiffany and Amber—the two Elizettes.

I can safely say that was the first time that had ever happened.

Except for the day before.

It had been only two days, but what was happening was obvious. The people with no phones were starting to hang around together. And not only that, we were actually getting to know and like each another. At lunch, we made sure we all sat at one table.

“I think it's so awesome that you're in a band,” Tiffany said to me. “I've always wanted to play a musical instrument.”

“You don't really have to play an instrument to be in a band,” said Becca, who was also sitting with us. “In fact, I barely do.”

“That's not true,” I said.

“Um, yeah, it is,” Becca said.

Tiffany smiled a little sadly. “I don't have any talent. I'm still waiting to discover what I'm talented at, but so far I haven't figured it out.”

“That's crazy,” I said. Tiffany laughed, a little embarrassed. I couldn't believe it. Eliza, Tiffany, and Amber were on the very top rung of the middle school social ladder. They were as put-together and popular as it gets. It was amazing to hear that any one of them could be insecure about anything.

“Hey, let's play a game,” Celia said. “Everyone say something about themselves that nobody else knows. I'll go first.” She closed her eyes for a second then blurted out, “I want to have seven children. Four boys and three girls.” Then she stared right at her boyfriend, Phil Manning. His eyes popped out of his head.

“Wow,” said Phil.

“Awkward,” said Ricky.

“I'll go next,” said Amber. “Every night before I go to bed I pray that when I wake up my pillows will be made of marshmallows.”

“Cool!” exclaimed Hannah. “Has it ever happened?”

“Not yet,” admitted Amber.

“Oh, darn,” said Hannah. “Call me when it does. I love marshmallows.”

Amber smiled brightly. “I totally will!”

I should point out here that this was probably the longest conversation Amber and Hannah had ever had with each other.

Eliza raised her hand. “I have something,” she said.

We all turned, waiting for her to continue.

“Sometimes I hate being super pretty.”

Everyone stared at her, not sure if she was kidding or not.

“I know you guys think I'm being a big bragger or obnoxious or something,” she said. “But I'm not. I'm being serious. I know I'm pretty. I can tell by the way everyone treats me and looks at me and how people want to hang around with me.”

Amber and Tiffany looked at each other, then at the ground.

“And it is awesome a lot of the time,” Eliza went on. “But not always. Sometimes it's weird and uncomfortable and I know people make fun of me because they resent me and sometimes I wish I looked more like regular people.” Suddenly she looked right at me. “Like Katie.”

“Uh, that sounded like an insult,” I said. “Just sayin'.”

“I'm sorry! You know what I mean,” said Eliza. “You're really cute. But you're not so pretty that it's the only thing people say or think about you. They think about how you're smart, and funny, and nice, too. With me, people only think one thing. Beauty. And yeah, it's a good thing, but I'm a lot more than that.”

Eliza stopped talking and took a few deep breaths, like talking that much had exhausted her. And maybe it had. I'd never heard her say so many words in a row in my life.

“I think you're more than just pretty,” Jackie offered. “I've always thought you had a great sense of style.”

“Yeah,” added Celia. “I love your clothes. A lot.”

“Thanks, you guys,” Eliza said, but she didn't seem all that cheered up.

“I don't think that's what she's talking about,” Jake said. “Style, clothes—it's all part of the same thing. Eliza's saying she's tired of being judged by her appearance. She wants other kids to look beneath the surface.”

“Yes!” Eliza said, staring at Jake as if seeing him for the first time. Which she was, in a way.

“I'll be honest with you,” Becca said to Eliza. “I've never really liked looking beneath your surface. Because when I did, I saw a girl who just loved being the prettiest and didn't mind letting other people know she loved being the prettiest.”

Everyone froze.

“What?” Becca said, defensively. “Isn't this what this is all about? I bet everyone at this table has texted that very same thing about Eliza to somebody else. Because we've all thought it at some point or another. Well, guess what? Nobody has their phones now, and nobody has the chance to text behind anybody's back, so I'm just trying to get in the spirit of honesty and open communication and all that.” She turned to Eliza. “I'm sorry. And you know what? The fact that you just said what you said makes me see you in a totally different way. I'm sorry I judged you.”

We all looked at Eliza, wondering how she'd react. The first thing she did was flip her hair—an unconscious move that she did all the time.

“No, you're right,” she said to Becca. “Usually I do love that people think I'm super pretty. And I guess I can be obnoxious about it sometimes.”

“There's nothing wrong with being proud of who you are,” Jake chimed in. “I love being the smartest, for example.”

Hannah elbowed him in the ribs. “Who says you're the smartest?”

“You do,” Jake told her.

Hannah shrugged. “I was just trying to make you feel good.”

“Can we move on?” Ricky said. “Yay for Eliza and her feelings and all that, but we have a lot more people to get through if we're going to hear one secret from everyone.”

Suddenly a huge burst of laughter came from down the row. We all looked up and saw Timmy, Charlie Joe, and Pete staring at one of their phones and cracking up.

“Must be the latest video of a cat riding a pig,” Jackie said.

“Yeah, give me a break,” Phil said. He stood up. “What are you guys watching? Let me guess—there's poop involved.”

Everyone at our table cracked up, including me.

Charlie Joe looked up. Then he elbowed Pete and Timmy and they looked up, too.

“Are you guys getting in touch with your feelings?” Charlie Joe yelled over at us.

“Yeah,
are
you?” Pete echoed, not very imaginatively.

I stood up. “We're just having a normal conversation, Charlie Joe,” I said.

“It's called ‘communicating without being snarky or mean,'” Hannah added. “You should try it some time.”

Charlie Joe turned red. He'd had a massive crush on Hannah pretty much forever, and the fact that she had just talked snarkily to him was devastating. Or, it would have been devastating, if it had been anyone other than Charlie Joe Jackson.

“I get it,” he said, making a quick recovery. “You guys think you're superior, because you're not using your phones for a whole week. Well, whoop-dee-doo for you.”

“Yeah, whoop-dee-do,” Timmy said, who apparently was just as original as Pete.

“That's not true. We don't think we're better than anyone,” I said, but I wasn't sure I believed myself. Charlie Joe was right: It had only been a couple of days, but those of us without phones were starting to form a little club, and people who still had their phones weren't really invited.

“You're too good to sit with us,” Timmy said. “We get it.”

“Timmy,” Phil said, then stopped. Phil did that a lot—said the first word of a sentence, then stopped. If anyone else did it, kids would get annoyed, but since Phil looked more like a high school football player than any other kid in middle school, we all just learned to patiently wait for him to say whatever it was he was going to say next.

“Yeah?” Timmy said, eventually.