The Encyclopedia of Me (4 page)

My mom is a former
ballerina
ballet teacher, the result of which is that since the very second I was able to toddle across the room in an effort to escape from my brothers,
BAM
, I was put into ribbony slippers and forced to plié and arabesque my way through my days. Some people are designed to bend and twirl and stand very straight while their hair is compressed into a bun so tight that their eyes can't blink, and some people are not.

I am
not
.

As a result of all that dancing, I now walk with my toes out, like a duck. Thanks, fifth position!

I am currently seeking a new activity that my mom never did and so she can't endlessly make remarks about “hard work” and “sweat and sacrifice” that make me want to scrape out my brain with a plastic fork and throw it out the window at high velocity.

I will likely never mention the ballet again in this encyclopedia as it is a part of my life that gives me a tiny, throbbing pain inside of my head, just above my left eye.

Oddly curvaceous blond dolls with bent feet and vacant expressions, usually dressed in something that sparkles or is so blindingly bright it can be used as a flashlight when the power goes out.

Obviously, at my age, I think Barbies are pointless, but I never liked them. As a child, I would rather have eaten four pounds of liver
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than been subjected to hours of Barbie games. I think you're either a person who loved Barbies, or you are a person who used to cut off their hair, encouraged them to choose a life that didn't involve wearing glittery bikinis for a living, and painted their creepy white plastic skin a more flattering warm, brownish shade. I'm more of the second type.

Freddie Blue is the first.

Sometimes I think our friendship is doomed.

See also
Anderson, Freddie Blue.

Best Friends Forever.

See also
Anderson, Freddie Blue.

The sport of standing on a rolling board and doing impressive things at high speed without accidentally mortally wounding yourself, all the while maintaining an expression of genuine aloofness. People who skateboard are automatically cool by default, due to I'm-not-sure-what. Automatic coolness is rare and is making me consider skateboarding as a hobby. That, and the fact that I think I'd be good at it. Certainly better than I am at ballet.

“Freddie Blue,” I said. “Have you ever skateboarded? Do you think skateboarding is (a) totally hip or (b) only cool for boys?”

“I don't think that ‘skateboarding' is a word,” said Freddie Blue from her position on the floor, where she was systematically flipping through my dad's entire collection of
Everybody
mags, looking for a hairstyle to try. “It sounds better to just say ‘boarding.' I'd probably be good at it,” she said. “I was, like, really good at snowboarding, remember?” She sat up, looking all excited, awash in her happy memory.

I stared at her blankly. I was dumbfounded. (Yes, that is a word.) FB was terrible at snowboarding. Not even good enough to be terrible. She was abysmal, appalling, cata­strophic, ­cataclysmic!

And she hated it!

But!

I
was actually good at it. Really good at it. As soon as I strapped the board onto my feet, it felt right. I didn't want to stop, not to eat or anything. By the end of the day, I could swish like a pro. The snow swooped up with a definite
fwoooom
sound and showered down on my board in a crystal wave. Don't laugh, but I felt like I could fly.

I still have dreams about it sometimes. They are the best kind of dreams, a billion times better than the dreams I have of being forced to perform
Swan Lake
with broken glass strapped to my feet.

But to be honest, I sort of pretended I wasn't as good at snowboarding as I was because of Freddie Blue. She couldn't even stand up! And when she did, she just teetered wildly in place until she finally tipped over and sank into the snow. She said it was hilair,
25
but I could tell she hated it, even though she giggled giddily through her blue, shivering lips. (There were a lot of boys around. Supercute boys. Obvi.)

Poor Freddie Blue
, I thought now. Her beauty and smartness make it all the more mysterious why she sometimes steals my scenarios and makes them her own. I looked at her, worried. She might steal this encyclopedia too. Then what?

“Um,” I said. “Never mind.”

“Are you still writing that book?” she said. “It's so boring. Are you writing about boarding? You don't know anything about boarding! That's so ridic, Tink.”

“I'm not writing about skateboarding,” I lied. “I mean ‘boarding.'”

I flopped back on the Itchy Couch and scratched my bare legs while picturing myself swooping gracefully up a ramp and then flying off the other side.
Bam!
I was sure the wheel-sounds-on-pavement would be just as good, if not better, than the crunching-snow-sounds of the snowboard.

I sighed. If only I wasn't
grounded
.

Mom and Dad were both at work, putting me in charge of meting out my own punishment, which made me feel kind of like I was raising myself, much like an orphan but not nearly as glam.

“Do you think a movie star would adopt me if both my parents were gone?” I asked Freddie.

“No,” said Freddie Blue. “You are too old. They only adopt really adorable big-eyed babies from exotic nations.”

“Oh,” I said. “Not fair.”

“Life isn't fair,” she said wisely.

“Right,” I said.

“Oh, sigh,” she said. “I'm so bored. We've got to do something.”

“I know,” I said. “I wish I could.” I closed my eyes and imagined a skateboard under my feet.

“Hey!” she said, reading my mind. “I've got it! We're going to go boarding! I am so psyched. This could be our way of being super ultraglam this year at school. We'll be the only girls who board. I bet by Christmas, everyone will be doing it. Then we'll stop and do something else that's less . . . malg.”
26

I squinted at her. “Ruth Quayle boards,” I said. I felt stupid saying “boards,” like I was pretending to speak a language I didn't know.

“Ruth!” FB barked with laughter. “So?”

“So,” I said. “I mean, maybe it won't make us popular. Ruth isn't.”

“She would be if she wasn't so . . . Ruth,” said FB. “It's not the boarding that's the trouble. It's just her general Ruthiness.”

“I like Ruth,” I said. I actually think of her as Ruth! with an exclamation point. (This is because Ruth is always exclaiming! About everything! All the time!) Not that I would tell Freddie Blue that, because Freddie Blue is not the most tactful person in the world and she might let it slip and hurt Ruth!'s feelings. The way Ruth
skate
boarded was cool because she was the only girl who was ever out there, jumping around and whatnot in baggy pants and amusing T-shirts.

“Whatever,” Freddie Blue said. “Ruth is a dork. Her whole thing with Jedgar Johnston is weird.”

Sometimes FB's scorn is so sharp, it's like a glittery paring knife peeling the skin off an apple in one smooth, long curl. You do not want to be the apple.

“What's weird about it?” I said. “They're best friends. So what?”

“SO she doesn't have any girls who are friends,” said FB. “That's weird.”

“I don't think so,” I said. “It's just what it is.”

“You aren't going to help us be pops
27
if you like people like Ruth,” said FB. “Sorry, but you know I'm right. I'm just trying to help you, Tink. To help
us
. We're in this together, right? Cause you're totally my BFF.”

“FB,” I said. “Go back to your magazine. I am trying to write.”

“Don't be snappish,” she said. “I love your crazy idea! About being boarders! It's the best idea you've ever had! Let's go right now. Don't look at me like that. I know you're grounded. But you can sneak out! Besides, you've been good, you get time off for good behavior. And this is important. AND a sport! You know how your parents love sports! They would actually WANT you to do this.”

Hortense leaped onto my chest, whumping the air out of my lungs. It was so hot in the room, I felt like I was drowning. I gulped a big breath of air and tried to pry her off me. Going outside actually did sound sort of good, but only if I could guarantee I would not be caught. Being caught would mean . . . well, I had no idea what, but I knew it would be capital-
B
Bad. Hortense struggled and scratched my arm. “OUCH,” I yelled. She scratched me again in a frenzy of claws and skin. “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” I said. “Dumb cat.”

FB laughed. “That cat is so ugly,” she said. “You're maimed! You're maimed!”

“It isn't funny!” I said, pushing Hortense off. My arms stung. I looked out the window. The leaves of the Tree of Unknown Species were rising and falling in the breeze, like they were whispering, “Come outside, come outside . . .”

“You are such a goody-goody, it gives me a pain in my heart.” FB rolled around dramatically, clutching her chest.

I tried to think of the right Tink Aaron-Martin Patented Stare to give her,
28
but I couldn't come up with one. Besides, outside sounded good. And it was a sport! My parents DID like sports! So . . . maybe . . . I . . .

“OK,” I said. “Let's do it.”

The minute we stepped outside, the heat hit us like the kind of massive tidal wave that will one day crush all of humanity and even New York City if you believe what you watch on movies. It felt tolerable until we got to the end of the driveway, by which time we were sweating like pigs, although I've never seen a pig sweat as much as we were.

Freddie Blue kept staring at my maimed left arm and wrinkling her nose. “That's going to leave a scar,” she said.

I shrugged. I was about to say something witty about how the scars would look like dot-to-dot drawings on the freckles when she suddenly shouted, “OK, cover me. I'm going in.”

“What?” I said.

Before I could stop her or even figure out what she was doing, she scampered up the long, steep driveway of the house next door. A house where I have never been. A house that I purposely
avoided
! Because whether they knew it or not, the people who owned that house ALSO owned the Tree of Unknown Species.
My
tree. (Which was technically theirs, even though it was closer to my house than theirs.)

Ringing their doorbell was tantamount to saying, “HELLO, WE WOULD LIKE TO DRAW ATTENTION TO THE FACT THAT WE EXIST! AND WE LIKE TO TRESPASS IN YOUR TREE!” I would never do that!

“Don't ring the bell!” I shouted.

She didn't answer. But in about thirty seconds, she ran back to me with two skateboards under her arms, like a bad guy making a getaway, except she was laughing her head off.
29

“Let's go!” she said. “It's an adventure. Adventure Number 308 in the Famous Adventures of Freddie Blue and You!”

“Um,” I said. “Whose boards are those?”

“Some blue-haired kid's,” she said. “Borrowed them. Don't worry about it.”

“Freddie Blue,” I said. “I am worried about it. Did you ask? You didn't have time! Did you even ring the bell? You don't just borrow someone's skateboard. That's like borrowing their . . . socks. And really is it ‘borrowing' if you don't ask?”

“How is it like borrowing their socks?” she said. “It's totally different. You don't wear a skateboard on your feet. Borrowing socks would be like borrowing underwear. Hey, socks are the underwear of your feet! You can put that in your encyclopedia if you want, but give me cred, OK?”

“It's not that kind of book,” I said. “It's . . . deep.”

She snorted. “Oh, sorry. Anyway,” she said, “don't worry about it, OK? Just do it. You steal their tree all the time, this is the same thing.”

“You can't steal a TREE,” I said. “It's attached to the ground. I just . . . borrow it.”

“So we are just BORROWING these!” she said triumphantly. “Now let's do it!”

“Freddie,” I said. “Do what? What are we
doing
?”

“We're going there,” she said, pointing down the hill.

I stared.

“Don't think like that,” said Freddie. “You have to believe in, like, the power of positive thinking. You won't hurt yourself if you don't THINK you'll hurt yourself. It's all up here.” She tapped her head knowingly.

“Freddie,” I said. “You are being obnoxious. And ridiculous. I was thinking ‘I've always wanted to try skateboarding, but maybe skateboarding down a steep hill on a stolen board is a dumb place to start.'”

“Borrowed,” she hissed. “Don't be a coward.”

Freddie Blue tossed her hair and dropped her board. It slid three feet and rolled onto a lawn. She put it back on the sidewalk and stared at it with grave determination. I hoped she didn't hurt herself too badly, but I really couldn't help her. I knew I was going to be OK, thanks to my talent at snowboarding, which was virtually the same thing. Probably. Or at least, it looked similar. I put my foot on my board and waited for it to feel right.

Then I lifted my other foot of the ground to push off.

But something was wrong.

And that something was that I was on a hill.

And I was facing the wrong way.

But luckily I have excellent balance!

Unluckily, this meant I stayed on all the way to the bottom of the hill!

Where I shot out into traffic! And was almost killed! By a bus!

And then I hit the railroad track and was catapulted skyward at great speed, landing jarringly on the sidewalk! On my head!