Homeroom Diaries By James Patterson
Prologue
LET’S GET HAPPY
I’m starting over.
With this diary. With everything.
So welcome to it.
And if we’re going to be friends—and I know we are—then I might as well be completely straight with you. I mean, what kind of person lies in her own diary? There’s something I need to get out of the way before we get any further.
I started this diary as a patient at “Crazytown.” That’s what us locals call the psych ward at St. Augustine Community Hospital in Portland, Oregon, where I went for a ten-day “observation period” not too long ago.
Look, before you jump on the pity train and start thinking that this is going to be one of those god-awful books where the “big reveal” is that the girl goes nuts and a lot of her quirky, lovable friends in the asylum go berserk and try to kill her, let me just say that It Wasn’t That Bad. People were actually really nice to me. In fact, everyone found me fascinating!
In other words, they observed me. And I observed me, too. It was all very observational. They were trying to make sure I wasn’t going to hurt myself, and I was trying to figure out why I had spent the last three months crying absolutely all the time and at the most embarrassing moments possible, like at my friend Katie’s house while we were watching Bridesmaids. I mean, I completely lost it when Melissa McCarthy pooped in the sink. Katie started to get really concerned then because that is not like me. At all.
Does that sound sane to you?
But after ten days in Crazytown, I finally decided that I wasn’t too much crazier than most kids I know. I was just furious—mostly at my mom, who disappeared one Tuesday afternoon without a word or even a good-bye kiss.
For a while, I worried that something horrible had happened to her. Then I worried that nothing had happened and she just decided to leave. I still don’t know the answer, which can definitely make someone a certain kind of crazy (we’re talking squirrel-stuck-in-a-storm-drain freak-out).
But I am feeling a lot better now. I’m working on Getting Happy. My best friend, Katie, has been doing a lot of reading on happiness lately—like, books on how to Get Happy. (Yes, there are instruction manuals.) Some of the books say you should challenge yourself and try new things. Writing in my diary is supposed to help, too.
Now that I have been certified “sound of mind,” things are really looking up.
Chapter 1
THE UN-UNITED NATIONS
I’m Cuckoo Clarke.
This story mostly takes place in a small town outside Portland called North Plains. There’s a gun shop outside town that has an annual Back-to-School Sale. (I’m anti-gun.) Every August, our town hosts the World’s Largest Elephant Garlic Festival. (I’m pro-garlic.) Most people around here wear Nikes, Portland’s proudest. (I prefer Uggs, but I wouldn’t say I’m definitely pro- or anti-footwear.)
And now, welcome to the main setting of this show: North Plains High School! It looks the way you’re probably picturing it.
The hallways are full of the Usual Suspects: Jocks, Nerds, Twinkies, Otaku, Barbies, Goths, Eurotrash, Jailbait, Stoners, Joiners, Glommers, Delusionals, Haters, Wankstas, Thespians, Teachers, Terror Teachers, Zomboids, Robots, Gleeks, United Colors of Benettoners, Libertarians, Activists, Juvies, Baristas, Blahs, and—my best friends—the Freakshow.
That’s right. We call ourselves the Freakshow. My best friend, Brainzilla (Katie), had this idea that we should give our little group a nickname that’s far worse than anything any of the diseased minds in our school could dream up.
Don’t most high schools smell/look/sound the same?
Anyway, after the Freakshow was born, we actually took it a step further and gave ourselves insulting individual nicknames, too. I think we did a pretty good job with them:
Brainzilla is number one in our class. She’s IB (that’s International Baccalaureate) and determined to be the first person in her family to go to college. She has set her sights on Yale and has even already scheduled an interview—two years early. She works her butt off constantly and then goes home to take care of her three little brothers. Her parents work weird shifts, so her house is messy and complicated and basically covered in snot.
Hana named herself Eggroll (“Eggy” for short) after a couple of racist creeps asked her about her “dumplings.” She has about a thousand interests, but sadly for her parents, school isn’t one of them. Paul has zits everywhere that I know about, so “Zitsy” was an easy choice. He’s deathly afraid he’ll end up working in his father’s plumbing business. Peter covers us with both the jocks and the Religious Right, so “Tebow” seemed like a good fit. He’s also insanely good looking. Flatso, formerly Beverly, is overweight, but also flat breasted, which is rare and borderline tragic. She happens to be strong enough to rip your head off. Not that she would. She’s the sweetest person I know.
And then there’s me, Cuckoo.
So now you’ve met the whole gang. You’d think with the zillion other cliques, clubs, and posses in this place that we’d all fit in somewhere, but we don’t. The truth is that this school is a mess of warring nations. Jocks hate Nerds. Barbies hate Goths. Blah blah blah. But my friends and I are planning to do something about that.
It’s Monday, and it’s raining, so the hallways are wet as we all drag in droplets on our shoes and clothes.
Digger Whitlock gives me a cheerful hello as he passes by my locker.
His family owns the local funeral parlor. They specialize in Vegas-glitz coffin interiors, and Digger’s dad will—for an extra two hundred bucks—dress up as Elvis and sing “Love Me Tender” at your beloved’s interment. So he’s allowed to be a little messed up.
And there’s also this: Digger’s older brother died in a car crash last year. He had a beautiful coffin. But even so, it gives me the shivers to think about Andy Whitlock. I really hate the idea of being dead. (Although I love sleeping, so I’m not sure what that’s about.)
I think I just hate endings in general. They’re so… final.
Maybe that’s another reason I’m starting this diary. I’m a big fan of beginnings. Especially beginnings—and second chances.
And short chapters, obviously. So, I think you get the picture. Of me. Of my friends. Of North Plains High School.
Basically, it’s like being back in the asylum.
With more homework.
Chapter 2
HOW TO SURVIVE HOMEROOM (AND THE REST OF THE DAY)
I’m sitting in homeroom scribbling and surviving.
I was reading Pride and Prejudice a minute ago, and I’m really into the book. I just love that Janie Austen.
Now I’m imagining myself meeting a boy in my personal version of Pride and Prejudice. His name is Laurence Darcy, and he’s the younger brother of Fitzwilliam Darcy, better known as Mr. Darcy, and he is just so charming and British and Jane Austen-y that it’s like I’m in homeroom heaven!
We start chatting at a society ball at Netherfield Park.
Laurence Darcy is pretty dreamy. I’m just loving all those great nineteenth-century manners!
Hmm. I may be in love. Stay tuned.
Laurence Darcy gets me through the rest of homeroom and, let’s face it, the rest of my classes, until lunchtime.
Hold your fire, Teachers, Barbies, and all Haters, I think as I walk through the cafeteria doors. I’m immediately hit in the face with the greasy, smelly reminder that the caf offers almost nothing that hasn’t taken a long and luxurious bath in the FryDaddy. It’s sick. The Activists are lobbying for a salad bar, and I say, “Dare to dream, Activists!” I really love their hopeful energy and vision for a brighter tomorrow!