Better Than Weird

  ANNA KERZ

  BETTER

  THAN WEIRD

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Copyright © 2011 Anna Kerz

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Kerz, Anna, 1947-

  Better than weird / Anna Kerz.

  Issued also in electronic format.

  ISBN 978-1-55469-362-7

  I. Title.

  PS8621E79B48 2011 JC813’.6 C2010-907944-2

  First published in the United States, 2011

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010941928

  Summary: When Aaron’s long-absent father returns, Aaron must cope with bullying at school, his grandmother’s illness and his father’s pregnant new wife.

  Better Than Weird is a stand-alone sequel to The Mealworm Diaries.

  Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this

  book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing

  programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada

  through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts,

  and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council

  and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover photography by First Light and Dreamstime

  Typeset by Jasmine Devonshire

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 5626, Stn. B PO BOX 468

  Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  14 13 12 11 • 4 3 2 1

  To Katie and Alex, who love stories and listen well

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY - ONE

  TWENTY - TWO

  TWENTY - THREE

  TWENTY - FOUR

  TWENTY - FIVE

  TWENTY - SIX

  TWENTY - SEVEN

  TWENTY - EIGHT

  TWENTY - NINE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ONE

  “Aaron!” Gran called from downstairs. “Are you up, Aaron?”

  Aaron heard, but didn’t answer.

  “Aaron!” Gran called again, louder this time.

  “Okay! Okay! I’m up.” He flopped over and lay spread-eagled in his bed.

  “Aaron Stewart Waite!” Gran hollered. “Get up right now!”

  Sighing, Aaron patted his night table for his glasses and put them on before he rolled out of bed and stumbled out of the room. He was standing in front of the toilet when his grandmother called for the fourth time. “For goodness sake, Aaron! Close the door.”

  Aaron flushed, watching the water swirl before it swooshed away. He flushed a second time just to see the water spin. He would have flushed again, but a creak on the stairs warned him that Gran was on her way up. He closed the door.

  “Hurry up, now,” Gran said. “You don’t want to be late again.”

  Aaron was pulling an arm out of his pajama sleeve when he noticed a tuft of hair sticking up on one side of his head. It looks like a chimney, he thought. I have a chimney growing out of my head. He chuckled and raked his fingers through the unruly tuft. The hair separated and flattened, then bounced back. He patted it gingerly with the palm of his hand. It would be funny if it stood up like that all day.

  He was still chuckling when Gran said, “Aaron! Get in the shower—now!”

  “Okay. Okay. Okay,” he said, his head bobbing.

  He stepped out of his pajama pants, climbed into the tub and closed the curtain. When the water ran warm, he pulled up the little toggle that made it pour from the showerhead. Then he stood, eyes closed, to let it pulse against his forehead. Sounds like rain, he thought. He began to sing tunelessly: “Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.”

  He stopped, his head filled with thoughts of rain. “Not the day my dad comes home,” he said out loud. “Don’t come then.”

  “I’ll be there before the end of November,” his dad had said when he phoned. “And I’ll bring a surprise.”

  “For me?” Aaron had asked.

  “For you and for Gran.”

  “Is it big? Is it a big surprise?”

  His father wouldn’t tell.

  Tipping his head back, Aaron opened his mouth and let the spray fill it. Then he spouted, sending a stream of water arching to the tiled wall. He laughed, then turned and let the spray thrum against the back of his head.

  He could think of lots of things his father might bring for him…but for him and Gran? What could that be? What?

  He turned again, face into the spray, until Gran called, “Aaron! Get moving!”

  Gran was at the top of the stairs when he hurried past, a towel wrapped around his middle, his hair and body shedding water like rain. “I don’t suppose you remembered to use soap this morning?” she said.

  He grunted, jumped into his room and closed the door with his hip.

  “Put on the clothes I laid out on your bed,” she called as she started back down. “The stuff you wore yesterday is filthy. Put it in the laundry hamper.”

  He was almost dressed when he saw his underwear still neatly folded on the bed. “Oops! Forgot,” he said. He wadded it up, intending to throw it into the hamper with yesterday’s clothes. His arm went back for the toss, then stopped. Could he go to school without underwear? If Tufan knew, he’d say, You’re weird.

  Aaron heard the words so clearly, he glanced around in case Tufan had magically appeared in his bedroom. He was relieved to find himself alone. But in his head, Tufan’s voice kept taunting. Weird. Weird. Weird.

  “Am not,” Aaron snapped. Hearing his own voice in the empty room made him feel silly. “I’m talking to myself,” he said. Then he groaned, remembering something Tufan really had said: “His dad’s gonna take one look and disappear all over again.”

  “Is not!” Aaron had shouted back. “He’s coming back to stay! He said! He said!” But the words were a lie. His father had said he was coming, but he’d never once said he would stay.

  I’ll be good, Aaron thought. I’ll be so good he’ll want to stay.

  He sighed. He knew how hard that would be. For one thing, he knew he talked too much. That’s what everybody said. That’s why they called him Aaron Cantwait.

  “I’m not weird, just different,” he muttered, repeating something Gran told him. “We can’t all be the same,” she often said. “You’re just a little different.”

  Better than weird, he thought. Even so, he didn’t want to be so different that his dad would come home after eight years away and then leave again.

  With a little huff of frustration, he pulled off his pants and put on the underwear. Just in case.

  He had his hand on the knob, ready to leave, when he saw the calendar tacked to his door. There were large red Xs marked through all the days of November so far. He reached for the
red marker on his bedside table and drew a new X through the box for November 16, then counted to the 28th. Twelve. His dad was coming home in twelve days. Twelve. Everything would be different once his dad was back. Everything.

  Taped up beside the calendar were two lists. That’s what his Big Brother, Paul, had told him to do. “If you want to organize your life, make a list,” Paul had said. Aaron had listened.

  Paul was different too. But he was cool different. Paul had two rings pierced into his right eyebrow. He had a tongue stud, and he was talking about getting a tattoo. Paul knew stuff. He was in high school. If he said lists were good, Aaron was willing to make lists.

  Things Dad will teach me

  1. how to hit a homerun

  2. how to ride a bike

  3. how to rollerblade

  4. how to skateboard

  5. how to kick a soccer ball

  6. how to play the guitar

  Things to do with Dad

  1. go skiing

  2. play baseball

  3. visit the dinosaur exhibit at the museum

  4. eat popcorn and watch all the Star Wars movies

  5. visit the Science Center

  “Oh, Aaron,” Gran said the first time she saw his lists. “You’re expecting too much. Your dad…I’m not sure he’ll be able to…” She stopped, then went on in a rush. “For sure he can’t teach you to play the guitar. He doesn’t know how to play himself.”

  “Okay,” Aaron said. He drew a line through the last entry on the first list and added 6. learn to play the guitar to the second list.

  Aaron counted the empty boxes on the calendar one more time, just to make sure. There were still twelve. He reached for the door.

  “Oops!” he said. “Almost forgot.” Turning back, he dropped to his belly and wriggled under his bed.

  On the floor under the head of his bed was a cardboard box filled with dirt, home to his pet toad. “How you doin’, Buddy?” Aaron asked as he looked into the box. “You okay?”

  The toad, half-buried, stared back.

  Aaron stroked the creature’s head. The eyes closed. “You like that?” He stroked Buddy’s head again.

  Keeping a pet toad wasn’t easy now that winter was coming, and keeping it a secret from Gran was even harder. He had been feeding it worms and bugs from the garden. Now bugs were getting hard to find. Luckily, he could still dig worms out of the compost bin. He just had to be careful to dig when Gran wasn’t looking.

  The doorbell rang.

  “I’ll bring you some worms after school,” he said as he slipped the box back into place and backed out from under the bed. He scrambled to his feet and headed downstairs.

  “It’s Jeremy,” he hollered as he went. “I gotta go. We’re doing announcements.”

  “Announcements? You haven’t even had breakfast,” Gran called from the kitchen.

  “Have to practice.”

  He had already struggled into his coat and was hoisting his backpack to his shoulders when Gran hurried into the hallway and blocked his way. He tried to get around her, but she refused to move. “Stand still and listen,” she said. The sharpness in her voice made him look at her face. She was frowning, but she was also holding out two muffins. “Take these,” she said. “You can eat on the way. And this is for recess.” She held out an apple.

  He stayed long enough for Gran to shove the apple into his backpack, but the whole time he was hopping from foot to foot. “Okay. Okay. Okay,” he said, head bobbing.

  He was out the door and scrambling down the porch steps before he thought to say goodbye. When he turned to wave, Gran was almost invisible, blurred by the fog that had formed on the glass of the storm door. He thought he saw her wave back, but he wasn’t sure, and when Jeremy called, “You coming or what?” Aaron hurried to catch up.

  TWO

  Every year the grade-six class took on the job of making the morning announcements at school. On Friday afternoon, Mr. Collins had picked Jeremy to be responsible for the following week. “You can choose a friend to share the job,” he had added.

  That was all Aaron needed to hear. “Me! Me! Me! Pick me, Jeremy! Pick me!” he called out.

  He saw Jeremy glance at Horace, who shrugged and shook his head. Jeremy sighed. “Okay. I’ll do it with Aaron,” he said.

  All weekend Aaron felt lucky, and now that it was Monday, he felt even luckier. Jeremy picked me, he kept thinking. He picked me to be his friend.

  In September, Jeremy had come from Nova Scotia and joined their class. Mostly he played with the boys, but sometimes he played with the girls too, and sometimes he walked Karima home.

  “Do you like her?” Aaron asked one day.

  “A little,” Jeremy admitted. “She’s really nice.”

  Aaron figured Jeremy liked Karima a whole lot. He thought Jeremy liked him a lot too. After all, they had done the mealworm study together and now they were working on the new science project about space. They were building a city with houses and launching pads and rocket ships.

  Jeremy was good at stuff Aaron wished he could do: cross-country, volleyball, even skipping. When Mr. Collins started a skipping team, they both joined, and Aaron went to all the practices, even though skipping was hard for him.

  Jeremy picked me, he thought as he hurried to catch up. He picked me.

  “Here,” he said, holding out one of Gran’s muffins. “Banana. With raisins…and chocolate chips.”

  Jeremy took the muffin, and the boys ate as they walked on in silence.

  When Aaron finished, he brushed the crumbs from his lips with the back of his hand. “He’s coming in twelve days,” he said. “My dad. You wanna meet him?”

  Jeremy shrugged. “Maybe. I guess.”

  “When you come to my house, I’ll show you my lists.”

  “Lists?”

  “Yeah. It’s all the stuff I’m gonna do with my dad. And if you want…you can think of stuff to do with my dad too. I’ll just add it to the lists and we’ll do it together. You and me and my dad.”

  “Maybe,” Jeremy said, walking a little faster.

  Aaron was confused. Why wasn’t Jeremy excited? Didn’t he want to do stuff with him and his dad? He licked his bottom lip as he tried to figure it out. When his tongue snagged against a loose flap of skin, he gnawed on it absently. The skin lifted, bit by bit, until it broke free. It hurt. He licked the sore spot, tasting the rusty tang of blood.

  “Is Paul still gonna be your Big Brother when your dad comes back?” Jeremy asked.

  “Paul?”

  “Yeah. I just wondered, ’cause he was your Big Brother when you didn’t have a dad, but when your dad comes back, what happens to Paul? Does he still get to be your Big Brother, or do the people at Big Brothers find him some other kid who doesn’t have a dad?”

  “I dunno.” Aaron hadn’t thought about losing Paul. Then he brightened. “Maybe when my dad comes back, Paul can be your Big Brother. And he can be your Big Brother forever, ’cause your dad’s dead, isn’t he, so he’s never coming back, right?”

  Jeremy didn’t answer. That confused Aaron, and they plodded the rest of the way to school in silence.

  * * *

  The school felt a little eerie so early in the morning. It was quiet without any other kids around, as if it was sleeping. Aaron was relieved to see Miss Chang, the kindergarten teacher, walk by. “Good morning, boys,” she said. They said good morning back before she hurried away, her shoes click, click, clicking against the floor tiles.

  They went straight to the office. The music teacher, Ms. Masilo, and the secretary were inside, talking. They looked happy. Jeremy waited. It was clear he didn’t want to interrupt, so Aaron waited too. It felt like a long time before they were noticed and the secretary waved them in.

  “What’s the problem, boys?” she asked.

  But before they could answer, Ms. Masilo snapped, “You should be outside. You’re not allowed in the school before the bell.”

  Aaron was startled by Ms. Masilo’s
voice. She was smiling a minute ago, he thought. What made her mad?

  “We’re doing the announcements this week,” Jeremy said. “Mr. Collins said he’d meet us in the office to show us how to use the pa system.”

  “You’re doing the announcements?” Ms. Masilo looked right at Aaron.

  “Mr. Collins said. He said we could,” Aaron managed to say.

  “Yes, I did,” Mr. Collins said, coming up behind them. “Come on in, boys, and I’ll show you the ropes.”

  “The ropes?” Now Aaron was really confused. “Do we have to skip while we make announcements?” he asked.

  He heard Mr. Collins chuckle, and he saw Ms. Masilo’s painted-on eyebrows climb up her forehead. He guessed moving her eyebrows was something she did on purpose, and since Mr. Collins had laughed, he decided it would be good to join in. The sound that came from him started as a snort and turned into a high-pitched hoot. He stopped when he saw Ms. Masilo’s lips tighten. She made a face, not at him, but at Mr. Collins. Then she turned and left the office.

  “Come here, Aaron,” Jeremy said, waving him over to where Mr. Collins was waiting by the pa system. “Pay attention. We don’t want to mess up.”

  Mr. Collins showed them which buttons to push to make their voices heard in each of the classrooms. Then he had them practice speaking into the microphone. “Testing. Testing. One, two, three,” Jeremy said. When Aaron tried, his voice came through with a funny whistling sound.

  “Don’t get too close,” Mr. Collins said. “You don’t want to swallow the mike.”

  “Swallow the mike,” Aaron echoed. The thought of swallowing something so large made him want to laugh, but Jeremy wasn’t even smiling, so Aaron pressed his lips together and stayed silent.

  They decided to divide the work. Jeremy would turn on the speakers and make the first two announcements, and Aaron would read the third and then turn everything off.

  Mr. Collins made them read the announcements twice. “Remember now,” he said before he left, “speak slowly and clearly so everybody knows what you’re saying.”

  “Okay,” Aaron said. He was determined to do this job right.

  Once the final bell rang and all the kids were in the school, Jeremy turned on the speakers and played the anthem. Then he began the announcements. “From Mr. Collins, this message is for volleyball players: Please eat in the lunchroom, then meet at the gym doors at twelve fifteen. Remember your knee pads and running shoes.