Wendy Windust has done the impossible: fired a perfect fastball on the low inside corner

and hit a towering home run at the same time.

~Chris Crutcher, author of Deadline

This memoir is dedicated to my daughter Indi.

May you survive middle school in one piece,

-

In the locker there are many things. A magnetic, mini-whiteboard. Tiny, erasable,

rainbow-colored pens. Pictures of friends. Many other odds and ends decorate the

blue metal as well. There is one thing, however, that stands out among the hearts

and colorful happiness. It is what led to a one-week suspension from middle school.

I didn’t hear the office messenger come in. Using my Judy Blume book du jour as a

shield, I sat in the uncomfortable, plastic orange chair, biding my time until language

arts class was over. With my right elbow resting on the faux wood desk supporting

my head’s weight, I made a plan to convince my parents to let me go to Stephanie’s

party on Friday. I couldn’t wait to tell my friends at break time. “Wendy. Wendy!”

As my name found my ears, I rocketed back to the stuffy, pea green cinderblock

classroom. Mrs. Crow, my language arts teacher, was demanding to be heard,

frustrated by her fruitless attempts to gain my attention. As my head jerked up, I felt

caught in her laser-like stare, and knew I was in trouble. Her smiling, kind face was

replaced by a scowling schoolmarm. In her right hand, she grasped a paper between

two fingers. She wiggled the pink note as a clue.

“Wendy,” she called once again in her singsong voice, please come up here.” Her

eyebrows arched and lips puckered as she cut off each syllable.

I didn’t think in a million years that a pink slip from the office would be for me. We

all knew what a pink slip meant. We all knew that it meant nothing good, nothing but

trouble. I awkwardly disentangled myself from my chair and stood up, pulling down

my skirt that may or may not have met dress code. Trying to look confident, my

flaming cheeks told another story. I glanced over at my friends. They were singularly

focused on their books. Not a normal sight. This should have been my first clue. It’s probably because of my tardy this morning, I thought, convincing myself. I

never felt like I could get enough sleep at night and every morning was a battle, kids

vs. parents, to get my brother and I out the door. This morning was especially bad

and when I missed the bus, my dad drove me to school in silence. Head down, I somehow made it to the front of the room and received the tiny

piece of paper that directed me to go to the office immediately, post haste, do not

pass go and do not collect 200 dollars. Walking down the corridor, it reminded me of one of those Western movies,

missing only the lone tumbleweed, blowing across a barren landscape and the eerie

music at a high noon standoff. The Santa Ana breeze picked up a lost scrap of paper

and spun it up into the air like Forrest Gump’s feather. As I passed my locker and

then my friends’ lockers, one by one, I looked more closely at the Pepto-Bismol pink

rectangle in my hand and saw that the box beside “Mr. Hall, principal” was checked.

Continuing my journey, I passed the benches where my friends and I always met for

break, perching on the tall flowerbeds that looked like they had never held a living

thing save clumps of dry, sun-browned grass. I could see us there now, laughing

over how I was so freaked out to go to the office. How it ended up being nothing,

nothing at all. As I walked slowly, my mind raced. A mantra looped in my head, Please, oh

please, oh please, let it be nothing.

“Hey Wendy, what’s up?” A girl from my math class came out of the bathroom, re-

applying what looked like her zillionth coat of Wet and Wild lipgloss. “Oh, um, hey Charice,” I smiled and mumbled in what I hope could pass for a

normal tone.

Swishing past me, I could have sworn her grin was sympathetic yet knowing, a

Cheshire-like smile.

Finally reaching the front of the office, the door, heavy as Sisyphus’s boulder,

took all my strength to crack open and slip through. Rewarded with a blast of cold

air, I spotted Mrs. Frye, the secretary standing at the reception counter. She cradled

the phone between her shoulder and chin as she glanced up, her pencil pointing the

way to the row of blue, hard plastic chairs, lined up like a formation of soldiers

outside Mr. Hall’s torture chamber. Heavy legs and a heavier heart led me to the

seat on the end. I wished for a quick escape but didn’t know the charges against me-

-yet. By the time I heard Mr. Hall’s door whooshing open, I was puke-worthy

nervous. His deep timbre requested my presence. He stood at his door, tall and lanky, a grasshopper suited up in plaid and

wingtips. Waiting until I stood in front of his desk, he closed the door sharply. As I

recovered my heart back into my chest, he sidled over and glanced down at me. “Have a seat young lady,” he prodded, not even a ghost of a smile on his face. I was in trouble, big trouble. “First of all, let me begin by telling you how very disappointed I am to have to call

here today.” He crossed one plaid leg over the other, folding his hands below his

chin in a sharp steeple. “I’m afraid I have some very, very bad news for you,” the

words tumbled out of his mouth like ice cubes. He sighed regretfully, shaking his

head. The minutes ticked by. I could feel his eyes on me as I examined the thread-worn

brown carpet. Was he waiting for me to crack under pressure? Finally, the door opened. Freedom? As if it could get any worse, who should walk

in but my life-giving parents, looking none too happy with their 12-year old offspring.

Earlier that morning, our kitchen simmered with frustration. “Why can’t I go to Stephanie’s party?” I accused, disappointed with my unyielding,

difficult parents. “You can’t go to the party because number one, you are still grounded after

talking back to your mom last weekend and number two we don’t know Stephanie or

her parents and don’t feel comfortable with you staying over at her house,” dad

explained in a low voice. “We are very disappointed in the choices you’ve been

making lately and don’t really feel like we can trust you right now,” he went on, words

fast as staccato clicks on a keyboard.

“We just don’t know what you’re thinking lately, Wendy,” my mom added a rock to

the mountain of frustration growing exponentially. As anger coursed through my veins, I pretended to take interest in the horrible

wallpaper print of lime green and yellow kitchen utensils. I was afraid to open my

mouth, to tell my parents what I really thought of them and their stupid rules, and

further jeopardize my already hopeless social life. “Now, young lady,” Mr. Hall started, sitting back down in his creaky chair and

leaning forward on his elbows on the oversized wooden desk, “We’re here today

because we’ve had several reports of a death threat given to one of our grade 7

students.” He went on, forehead creasing, looking more and more stern as his voice

took on a reprimanding edge, “In fact, I heard that the death threat came from you.”

The day before, I stood at Felicia’s locker, flicking through the combination, a

skilled safecracker. As the royal blue locker clattered open, I wrote “Hi Babe!” heart,

heart, heart on her mini-whiteboard and set the note from Stephanie on the locker’s

ledge where Felicia would see it when she first opened it after the last class of the

day. A picture of the three of us caught my eye. Out of the 2,000 kids attending

Kraemer Middle School, I knew I was lucky to have found such amazing friends.

When Stephanie asked me to put the note in Felicia’s locker, I didn’t even give it

a second thought since she knew the combo as well as the rest of our tight-knit

group but was in a hurry to run to PE all the way across campus. Folded into a blue-

lined origami triangle, the note gave off no alarm bells. In fact, I hadn’t given it

another thought until now, when the events of the day before whooshed through my

head, a blurry video. As Mr. Hall dropped this bombshell, my parents silently communicated through a

long look over my head. It didn’t take a mind-reader to interpret that I was in trouble,

big trouble. Should I tell them that I wrote the note? Maybe this will be one of those

stories that Stephanie, Felicia and I will laugh about, years from now. A loss for

words was rare for this twelve year old but I couldn’t think of even one thing to say in

my defense-- or Stephanie’s.

As my parents escorted me back down the desolate corridor, I begged to wait

until class was over to go back into the language arts classroom. My dad demanded, “Do you really feel like you have the right to make requests

right now?”

My parents stood by the door, arms crossed. When I walked into class, I went over to Mrs. Crow. She met me beside her desk

as she whispered, “Yes, I know, Wendy. Get your things and I’ll see you in a few

days.” Her smile, warm again, barely registered in my frozen brain. Don’t cry, Don’t cry, I commanded myself as I walked back down the row to my

desk and packed my things into my backpack. Thirty sets of eyes weighted my steps

on my walk of shame back outside. “I don’t even know what to say to you right now. I can’t believe that you just got

yourself suspended from school for a week--an entire week!” my mother proclaimed

from the front seat of the car as we left the crime scene. “A week! Geez! That’s so unfair!” I yelled, my throat aching as I angrily wiped the

tears away. As I looked out the car window, I didn’t see anything but the scene from

the day before replaying again and again.

You don’t even want to hear my side of the story, I thought, miserable and alone.

Over the next week, the phone rang off the hook. As the information pieced

together, it came out that the death threat was a joke, penned by Stephanie after she

found out that her crush had been calling Felicia. Even though I was a clueless pawn

in the drama, when it came down to Stephanie’s word against mine, one of us told

the truth and both of us were suspended from school, from life, from friends.

Stephanie still had her party. I most definitely didn’t get to go.

Seventh grade was a big year. I found out that friends can betray and disappoint

and let you down when you need them the most. I learned that truth isn’t always

believed.

When the excitement died down, and my week of suspension ended, I never did

go back to Kraemer Junior High.

When I felt like it was me versus the world, my parents came to my side as

unlikely allies and tipped the scales just enough. I’d be lying if I said that my

relationship with my parents was transformed that day. It wasn’t. In fact, it took

another decade to appreciate how much my parents gave up as my dad home-

schooled me for the rest of the year. When everything else fell away, my parents

stood by my side and though they didn’t know it at the time, it meant everything to

me.

No joke.

I DIDN’T THINK IN A MILLION YEARS THAT A PINK SLIP FROM THE

OFFICE WOULD BE FOR ME. WE ALL KNEW WHAT A PINK SLIP

MEANT. WE ALL KNEW THAT IT MEANT NOTHING GOOD, NOTHING

BUT TROUBLE.

Grade 7. Middle School. One year in Wendy Windust’s

life. One big year.

No Joke is Wendy Windust’s second novel for

young readers. It was a 2012 Prinz Award

Winner as well as an ALA~YALSA Top Ten Best

Book for Young Adults, a Notable Book for a

Global Society, and a Junior Library Guild

Selection. Her first novel, Northwest

Apartment, was ALA~YALSA Top Ten Best Book

for Young Adults and an ALA~YALSA Quick Pick

for Young Adults and was made into a major

motion picture. Windust lives in Warsaw,

Poland, where she teaches grade 7 language

arts to talented young writers.

Like her novels, Windust’s memoir is full

of heartbreak and poignancy. Candid and

casual, Windust shares a story from her

grade 7 year in Placentia, California.

Reminiscences of some of her youthful

rites of passage are painful yet universal.

Don Sullivan

Randomhouse.com/teens

Cover art ©Wendy Windust

Cover design by Wendy Windust