How to Make Friends and Monsters

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ZONDERKIDZ

How to Make Friends and Monsters

Copyright 2013 by Ron Bates

This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook.Visit www.zondervan.com/ebooks.

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Zonderkidz, 5300 Patterson Ave., SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

978-0-310-73607-3

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Editor: Kim ChildressArt direction: Deborah WashburnCover design: Deborah WashburnIllustrator: Andr Jolicoeur Interior design: Ben Fetterley and Greg Johnson/Textbook Perfect

Printed in the United States of America

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!"#$%$&'You know how theres always that one kid who cant finda place to sit in the cafeteria because people save emptyseats for imaginary friends whenever he heads their way?So he has to carry his Salisbury steak, potatoes, and hot

roll all the way to the table in the very back of the room?Only he trips and falls before he gets there and, when hestands up, hes got cream gravy in his shirt pocket andgreen beans where his eyebrows should be?

Im that kid.My name is Howard Boward (yeah, thanks Mom and

Dad), but most people just call me How. Well, not just

How, they call me How Weird, or How Lame, or HowDid You Get That Chair? Its Saved! Things like that. Untila few weeks ago, I was more of a Who (Whos the dorkby the water fountain?), a What (What is wrong withthat kid?) or a Why (Why is he wearing a unitard?). So,when you think about it, the fact that I am now a How iskind of a step up.

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Not a giant step or anything. Youcan only go so far up the popularityladder when half the seventh gradehas seen you running down the hall ina unitard which, for the record, waspart of an experiment I was doing oninvisibility. My hypothesis was correct:unitards cure invisibility.

Ive actually created a chart of thepopularity ladder and I fall somewherebetween gym-class asthmatic and thatdog that bit Vice Principal Hertz. Itsnot as bad as it sounds. A lot of peoplelove that dog.

The point is, its become increasingly apparent I need toimprove my social status. And I need to do it fast because,in middle school, being unpopular is like having a disease.Symptoms include fear, loneliness, wedgies, and a sudden, unex-

plained loss of your lunch money. If you think you may be experi-encing unpopularity, ask your bully if daily beatings are right

for you.Im kidding! You cant ask a bully to cure a disease.

Bullies are the disease! And Dolley Madison Middle School(Go Manatees!) is the center of the epidemic. I shouldknow, Im like candy to those people. Its weird theres

just something about me that attracts the big, brainless,and angry. Id like to say its my sparkling personality, butsince the only thing about me that sparkles are my braces,its probably one of these things:

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#$%&'(& * +, -.//0 1%(20 Im built for it. If they ever make a movie about

those rubber stick figures that have bodies likepencils and flexible, spindly arms, Hollywood willknock at my door.

Somewhere behind the massive constructionproject in my mouth are the remains of my originalteeth. Im told Ill probably have a magnificentsmile someday. I just cant imagine why Id everuse it.

I have G.A.S. (Goosebumps Addictive Syndrome).I am totally addicted to the novels byR.L. Stine. I read them in the bathroom at schoolbecause, when I get to the scary parts, I tend toscream. This is a completely involuntary response.Coincidentally, pretty much the whole schoolthinks I have some painful digestive-disorder,though Ive told them repeatedly, No, I haveG.A.S. This doesnt help.

I use big words like digitibulist when I could justsay thimble collector.

I am a digitibulist. My hair is cotton white and stands bolt-upright on

the top of my head so that I constantly look like

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Ive been frightened by a creature in an Abbottand Costello movie.

I watch Abbott and Costello movies. I have nerdism, a condition that requires me to

love science and wear bulky, un-cool eyeglasses. The other kids are all jealous of me. (This one

is kind of a long shot but it makes the list comeout with ten items. I like to list things in groups ofexactly ten.)

I am smart.Number 10 is the worst offense, and the one most

responsible for my problem. See, your average bully can

smell a big, juicy brain from up to three blocks away.Thats bad news for me. Imagine roaming through a packof wild dogs with bacon in your head.

(FYI, I dont actually know what a brain smells like. Butintelligence smells like bacon.)

Now, about the incident . . . I guess it would be easyto blame what happened in the fall of seventh grade on

the bullies, but I wont. No one made me do what I did.Everything that went wrong, and all the madness thatcame from it, is my responsibility. Judge me as you will.

All I ask is that you keep in mind I am only twelve yearsold, I had a ton of homework, and these were my firstmonsters.

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()* ,"-)*. /"01

It all started the day Mom walked into my room, and, outof the deep blue nowhere, said, Howard, why dont youbring a friend home to play after school?

My gut instinct was to say, Great idea, Mom! Whosefriend should I bring? But I didnt because she might actu-ally have picked one. Anyway, I knew what was happening.I could tell by her too-eager smile and the way she keptrolling the tips of her hair around her fingers. This wasnta real question this was Mom-language! You know, thatsecret language of double-speak moms use when theyretrying to say something without saying it.

Something like, You dont have any friends, do you,Howard?

I gulped.See, this opens up a whole gray area because it really

depends on how you define friends. I mean, I interactwith a lot of people. Wedgies, for example, can be a

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bonding experience, and I get no less than one a week.That has to count for something.

I stepped away from my desk and looked up at her. Mymoms got this thick mop of dark-brown hair and thesepuffy bangs that flop down just across her eyebrows.Except this time she had the front pulled back, and I couldsee these little wrinkles on her forehead. Not old-ladywrinkles. Worry wrinkles.

Im pretty sure I gave them to her.Dont ask me how she does it, but Mom has a way of

getting to me. All of a sudden, those wedgie-relationshipsfelt as flimsy and unsupportive as my overstretchedunderpants. Funny, being friendless had never botheredme before. But now, having to say it out loud and having tosay it to someone who actually worried about these things,it felt, I dont know . . . wrong.

So I did what any son would do in my position. I told hera fictionalized version of the truth.

Kids dont go to each others houses anymore, I said.We all hang out online. Youd be surprised how much theInternet has streamlined the friendship process. Im closepersonal friends with a lot of people I dont even know.

Her worry lines deepened.What do you talk about? she asked.Oh, sports. Politics. How to build better parent-teen

relationships. That kind of thing.OK, I was grasping at straws. I had to. It would be

humiliating to tell my own mother the last thing I got onmy FaceSpace page was a survey titled Who Looks More

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Like a Mole Rat? It came with two photos: me and amole rat.

My advanced algebra book was sitting on the edgeof my desk so I picked it up and started to leaf throughthe pages. This seemed like a painless way to wrapup the conversation. After several seconds of intensefake-reading, I glanced up. She was still standing in thedoorway, half-swallowed inside one of Dads old, graysweatshirts. What was she waiting for? My mom is a smartwoman, she knew how we played this game I pretendedto answer her questions, and she pretended to believe me.

But this time was different. It was like she kind ofwanted to believe me.

All right, then, she said at last.I didnt know what it was, but something about her tone

bothered me. Because she didnt say it like, All right, then.I guess Ill leave. She said it like, All right, then. That gold-fish isnt going to flush itself.

It was a tone of action the kind of tone people usewhen theyre trying to talk themselves into doing some-thing unpleasant. Im wrong about a lot of stuff. But I knowmy tones.

The unpleasantness was Reynolds Pipkin and it was inmy room.

Howard, Mom said cheerily, as if the universe was notimploding. Look who stopped by to see you!

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As I mentioned earlier, there is a lunch table in the backof the cafeteria that is the final destination for kids whohave been rejected at every other place they tried to sitdown. It is the saddest table in the world. If I had knownhow this situation was going to escalate, Im sure I couldhave dragged home someone from the sad table. Not toplay with, you understand, but just for show.

I pulled my covers up over my head.Howard? my mother poked. Arent you going to say

hello?Hello, Mom, I said from the safety of the bed tent.Reynolds was a year younger than me, which meant he

was in elementary school, which meant he was a differentspecies.

Hello, Howard, I heard him blink behind his oversizedowl-style glasses. Your mother asked my mother if I couldcome over for a play date.

Oh, the agony! No one in seventhgrade has play dates! If I wastoo big for footie-pajamas, themost comfortable PJ ever, I wastoo big for this. I pulled downmy covers and shot powerful,imaginary laser beams at hispumpkin-shaped head.

Not now, Reynolds, Isaid through gritted teeth.Im doing middle-schoolstuff.

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What kind of middle-school stuff?Im growing a mustache.Neat, Reynolds said. Where are you growing it?Why dont you show Reynolds your chemistry set?

Mom said.At this suggestion, I filled both my cheeks with air

and then blew it out hard so that my lips made a flappingnoise. This is what you do when you dont like something,but youre not allowed to say bad words.

I got off my bed, walked to my closet, and pulled a large,rectangular, plastic box off the top shelf. The cartoon-covered front said Lil Genius Chemistry Set!

None of this, I remind you, was my idea. You may hearsome talk about an explosion. Dont believe it. It was more

of a pop, the kind you get when a balloon breaks. I knewthis would happen if I mixed certain chemicals together.What I did not know is whether it would happen if I hadReynolds mix them together.

Reynoldss skin was back to its normal, non-greenishcolor in less than a week. His parents insisted he still hada weird smell, but I think thats because they forgot how

Reynolds usually smells.Mom made me write an apology letter and not one

that said, Dear Reynolds, Im sorry you stink, but it wasworth it. Her Pipkin-plot had gone up in smoke just likeReynoldss black, flame-kissed eyebrows.

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A few days later, I walked into my room and saw a rectan-gular package wrapped in plain brown paper on my pillow.Written on the wrapping were these words: You arespecial, Howard. Love, Mom.

It was a book: How to Make Friends .

Documents

How to Make Friends and Monsters