Sixth Grade I had a good reason to be nervous about starting middle school. When my sister, Brenna, went to middle school, she turned into someone I didn''t recognize. Sure, Brenna looked the same (mostly), but inside she was different--how she talked, what she cared about, even the way she walked into a room changed. Would middle school change me drastically, too? I wasn''t sure how I felt about that. That being change. Change being drastic. My summer had been drastic enough. My elementary school was a one-story building, and I knew how to get around there easily.
The middle school has two floors, two gymnasiums, and wings . I couldn''t tell the North Wing from the South Wing. Having wings made the building seem able to fly away. I wondered where it could take me. Would it bring me back as someone else? Is that what happened to Brenna? When I started kindergarten, Brenna was in third grade and looked out for me. She didn''t pretend not to know me, like she does now. That started in middle school. Now Brenna will be a freshman in high school.
If she was nervous about that, she didn''t tell me. I didn''t like the idea of starting a brand-new school without a protective big sister who could direct me to the right gym or wing, someone who could help me open my locker (is it right, left, right or left, right, left? I can never remember). Perhaps worse, I didn''t like the idea of starting a brand-new school with so many people I didn''t know. Fifth graders from three different elementary schools came together at Noble Middle School. And I didn''t get Mr. Larson for homeroom. Brenna said there was only one teacher worth having for homeroom and he was the one. Instead, I got Mrs.
Delgado, who''s brand new. A wild card. I had her for language arts, too, which meant I''d be in her room three times a day. Who knew what I was getting into? Back-to-School Night at Noble Middle School was rough. Overwhelming. The hallways smelled different from my elementary school. Elementary school smelled like crayons and construction paper, pencil shavings and tempera paint. Noble Middle School smelled like metal and floor cleaner.
Dad grabbed my hand to pull me down the hall. I love my dad. A lot. But taking my hand at Back-to-School Night? Cringey. I snatched my hand away from his so fast, it hit my thigh. Dad whipped his head around, looking confused. I glared at him, and he made a face that looked like it meant something like Oops, my bad . We passed Mr.
Larson''s doorway, where I stood long enough to see Emma and Paige, my friends from fifth grade, embrace in one of those jump-up-and-down hugs. Not only did they both get Mr. Larson for homeroom, but I noticed that they''d be sitting next to each other, too. Paper-tent name tags sat side by side on the desks, their names in thick blue marker: EMMA, PAIGE. "Halle, are you coming?" Dad said, his head poking out from Mrs. Delgado''s doorframe. I held up a finger to let him know I needed a second while I used my other hand to wave at my friends. But they never looked my way.
I quickly dropped my waving hand, as if I hadn''t been totally ignored. I checked my watch to see the date--8-28--and time--6:07--lit in blocky numbers. At least my new watch gave me something to look at, something to do, other than looking left out. I had begged for an Apple Watch. The first time I asked, my parents laughed. "You don''t have a cell phone. Why would you need an Apple Watch?" they asked. So I wrote them a letter explaining why I should have one.
Paige has an Apple Watch, and I know all the things it can do, like tell you the weather and count your steps. Paige can text her mom, too, even though she doesn''t have a phone, either. What I got instead was a digital watch with a stopwatch feature and a lap counter. I was disappointed at first but wore it anyway. The watch doesn''t tick or tock, but the two dots between the hour and the minutes pulse, like a heartbeat. I like knowing what time it is . all the time. At least when I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about the horse, I could count the pulsing dots, watching minutes turn over.
That was better than closing my eyes and seeing what happened on the racetrack all over again. I thought that once school started, I''d be able to erase that memory from my mind. I was wrong.