From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess Read Free Page A

gaming devices, even though Dr. Bushy, the principal, has said if you are caught with one during school hours, it will be confiscated and you will lose a merit point.
    I guess eighth graders don’t care about losing merit points, though.
    â€œJustin looks kind of busy,” I said.
    â€œWhatever,” Nishi said. “He’s family . He has to help you.”
    I’ve tried to explain to Nishi many times that, while it’s true that Sara and Justin are my family, it’s only because their dad married my aunt. They aren’t actually blood relations. They’re Aunt Catherine’s step-kids, which makes them only my step-cousins.
    I know this shouldn’t mean we’re any less close than if we were genetically cousins. Families can be made up of all different kinds of people, many of whom aren’t related at all. Sometimes they aren’t even the same species. Our neighbor Mrs. Tucker considers her cats her children and likes to knit them tiny hats.
    But the truth is, I get the feeling sometimes that the fact that I’m not related to them by blood super matters to the O’Tooles.
    â€œDon’t do it,” Sara warned me, over her PB and J rice cake sandwich (no one in the O’Toole household has celiac disease or a wheat allergy like Beth Chandler, who cannot eat gluten or her throat closes up and she has to go to the hospital. Aunt Catherine just thinks gluten makes people overweight, so she doesn’t keep any bread, pasta, or cookies in the house). “Remember what Justin said the first day of school.”
    How could I forget it? The first day of school, Justin gave me a lecture. The lecture was about how even though we’d be attending the same school, I wasn’t supposed to talk to him, not even to ask for directions.
    And I was most definitely not to mention to anyone the fact that at home, Justin likes to sing to Taylor Swift on our household karaoke machine, or that he had cried at the end of both of the movies based on Princess Mia of Genovia’s life.
    â€œOh, Sara, don’t be mean,” Beth Chandler said. “Justin will help her. Justin’s so nice!”
    Only someone who doesn’t have to live in the same house with Justin would say this. Some of the girls think my step-cousin Justin is cute, but that is only because:
    1. They don’t have to live with him, and so have never smelled his extremely gross, stinky socks, like I have.
    2. There are more girls than boys at Cranbrook Middle School, so some of the girls are ready to believe ANY boy is cute, even Justin.
    â€œUh,” I said. “It’s okay.”
    â€œNo, it isn’t!” Beth Chandler said. “Do it, Olivia.”
    â€œYes,” Nishi said. “You should do it, Olivia.”
    â€œDon’t do it, Olivia,” Sara warned.
    â€œIt’s an emergency, ” one of the twins reminded her.
    But Sara just shook her head and sucked on her diet soda.
    â€œShe’ll be sorry,” she said.
    But Nishi and Beth Chandler and the twins urged me to go ask Justin.
    I should have listened to Sara.
    But what other choice did I have? No one was coming up with a better idea, least of all me.
    So I summoned up all my courage and went over to the table where Justin was sitting.
    He was the one holding the gaming device. All the other boys were crowded around him, looking down at the little screen. They were saying things like, “Go! Go!” and “Nuke him now.” It didn’t actually seem like the best moment to interrupt, but, like Netta or Quetta had said, it was an emergency, after all.
    â€œUm, Justin,” I said.
    All the eighth-grade boys looked at me. All except Justin. He kept playing his game.
    â€œGo away, Olivia,” he said.
    â€œI’m really sorry to bother you,” I said. I was aware that Justin’s friends had looked away, dismissing me as not worthy of their attention. Which was all right. There was