Ninth Grade Blues

  NINTH GRADE BLUES

  Copyright © 2017 by Bruce Ingram

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise— without prior written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations for purposes of review.

  For information about this title, contact the publisher:

  Secant Publishing, LLC

  P.O. Box 79

  Salisbury, MD 21802

  www.secantpublishing.com

  ISBN 978-1-944962-34-0 (paperback)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017935536

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  Many thanks to my Lord Botetourt High School Creative Writing II-IV students who read, proofread, and commented on this book.

  Sophie Barranco

  Alexis Bowman

  Jake Bryant

  Heather Finley

  Krysten Fitzgerald

  Hunter Graham

  Evan Grey

  Alex Heck

  Nikki Jani

  Noah Jarrett

  Jessica Lancenese

  Grayson Palmer

  Daphne Spangler

  Dillon Switzer

  Many thanks also for my Creative Writing I students who did the same

  Maddie Deskins

  Madison Gunther

  McKayla Hoke

  Mikayla Micek

  Logan Olson

  And thanks also to school staff members who read and commented on the book

  Kendel Lively, librarian

  Tim Wimer, English teacher

  Contents

  FIRST SEMESTER

  Chapter One: Luke

  Chapter Two: Elly

  Chapter Three: Marcus

  Chapter Four: Mia

  Chapter Five: Luke

  Chapter Six: Elly

  Chapter Seven: Marcus

  Chapter Eight: Mia

  Chapter Nine: Luke

  Chapter Ten: Elly

  Chapter Eleven: Marcus

  Chapter Twelve: Mia

  Chapter Thirteen: Luke

  Chapter Fourteen: Elly

  Chapter Fifteen: Marcus

  Chapter Sixteen: Mia

  Chapter Seventeen: Luke

  Chapter Eighteen: Elly

  Chapter Nineteen: Marcus

  Chapter Twenty: Mia

  Chapter Twenty-One: Luke

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Elly

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Marcus

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Mia

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Luke

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Elly

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Marcus

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Mia

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Luke

  Chapter Thirty: Elly

  Chapter Thirty-One: Marcus

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Mia

  SECOND SEMESTER

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Luke

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Elly

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Marcus

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Mia

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Luke

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Elly

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: Marcus

  Chapter Forty: Mia

  Chapter Forty-One: Marcus

  Chapter Forty-Two: Elly

  Chapter Forty-Three: Marcus

  Chapter Forty-Four: Mia

  Chapter Forty-Five: Luke

  Chapter Forty-Six: Elly

  Chapter Forty-Seven: Marcus

  Chapter Forty-Eight: Mia

  Chapter Forty-Nine: Luke

  Chapter Fifty: Elly

  Chapter Fifty-One: Marcus

  Chapter Fifty-Two: Mia

  Chapter Fifty-Three: Luke

  Chapter Fifty-Four: Elly

  Chapter Fifty-Five: Marcus

  Chapter Fifty-Six: Mia

  Chapter Fifty-Seven: Luke

  Chapter Fifty-Eight: Elly

  Chapter Fifty-Nine: Marcus

  Chapter Sixty: Mia

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  FIRST SEMESTER

  Week One

  Chapter One: Luke

  I hate the first day of school. I hate school. Yesterday evening after supper, I did what I always do the last evening of summer vacation...ride my bike around the neighborhood. I felt so melancholic (that's a vocabulary word I learned last year in eighth grade meaning gloomy). Yep, that's me...melancholic. I'm pretty much that way all the time, I don't know why.

  Maybe I do. I'm 14 and nothing good seems like it's ever going to happen to me. Take for instance, sports. I've tried most of the usual sports except football. At 5'7" and 135, no football coach is going to take a look at me. One hit from one of those 250-pound seniors and I'd be down for the count, anyway—just a tackle dummy during practices.

  I've played rec league baseball the past three years, and I did okay...well, okay, the first two years. I started at first base all three years and hit about .275 the first two years. But most of the guys got a lot bigger their eighth grade year and I barely grew at all. That third year my average was .185 and all four of the hits I had all season were infield singles. I couldn't hit the curveballs at all and most of the time the pitchers just blew their fastballs right past me. When I would make weak contact, I would dribble the ball somewhere in the infield.

  That's how I got all my hits...weak groundballs and beating the throw to first. Now, I can run fast all right. I never got thrown out trying to steal. I once stole home in a game. That's the biggest thrill I've ever had playing sports. I felt cocky on the base paths, knowing no catcher could ever throw me out. I think that's the only reason the coaches started me, thinking that if I lucked out getting on base, it was as good as a double. And if the next batter hit so much as a blooper into the outfield, I was long gone across home plate. I played first base because I couldn't throw a baseball worth anything—I broke both arms when I was a kid and that will take away the old arm strength. I wasn't what you would call a five-tool baseball player. I was a two-tool one. Running and fielding was about all I can do. I sure couldn't hit for average or power, or throw well.

  Basketball wasn't my sport, either. I may be fast but I'm not quick, and there's not much call for 5'7" shooting guards who can't handle the ball well and can't get off their shots against taller players. Last year on my middle school's eighth grade team, I scored two points the entire year...which is about right when you're the third string shooting guard. I think I'm done with baseball, basketball, and football except for pickup games with other guys who can't play any better than I can. Maybe I'll try tennis...maybe I'll try track. That could be my sport, I don't know.

  My mom wants me to go to college. She says I've got potential. She says I'm a very good writer; that she loved to read the stories I would write when I was a kid. I still write those stories, but I never show them to her anymore. I bet she knows I still write them, but I always tear them up as soon as I finish them.

  I'm an only child. I don't know why I don't have brothers or sisters; Mom and Dad seem to get along really well. Dad and I don't get along. He yells at me all the time, like when I'm mowing the lawn. He says I don't keep the lines straight when I'm mowing the grass, that I keep missing spots. I try, but all we have to mow with is a big, heavy push mower and sometimes I think it's pushing me around instead of the other way around.

  I think Dad is so angry all the time because he works all the time. He works third shift, midnight to 8 A.M. at the plant and it's hard, physical labor. Then he comes home and runs his used car business from our house. We've always got four or five old cars at the house that he is fixing up to sell. He'll sell a couple, then buy a couple more c
lunkers and fix them up and sell them too. He makes me wash those cars and is always yelling that I leave streaks all over the place. He's right; I do, I'm not tall enough to reach across the top of the car, and my attitude is bad anyway, because I know he's going to yell at me no matter how hard I try.

  After he works on the cars, he tries to get some sleep for a few hours. When I was little and I would accidentally wake him up in the afternoon, he would run down the steps, yelling, and then cut a switch from our forsythia bush. And whip me four or five times across the legs. I'll never have a forsythia bush in my yard when I grow up.

  Dad doesn't want me to go to college. He said he only made it through eighth grade and things turned out okay for him. Mom finished high school, but her family didn't have the money to send her to college. She and Dad got married right after she graduated anyway. Dad was already working at the plant. He's worked himself up from being a window washer to an assistant floor manager, whatever that is. I'll say this for him...he's a hard worker.

  I don't see how I can go to college when I hated grade school and middle school so much. Maybe high school won't be so bad when I get there today.

  Chapter Two: Elly

  I like school, and I can't wait for the first day back, especially English, history, and math classes...just about everything except health and gym. You see, I gained six or seven pounds in both the seventh and eighth grade, and I was a little heavy before that. I don't want people looking at my chubby legs in those short little gym shorts.

  I don't like to play the sports we play, especially basketball and softball, in gym class, either. I can't dribble a basketball and some of the taller, more athletic girls are always stealing the ball from me, and I feel like they smirk after they do. It's so embarrassing. Softball's just as bad. I can't hit that stupid ball, and I always play the outfield when my team is not batting. I try to sort of hide out there, but somehow the ball always seems to find me, and then I have to run after it, and I just feel like the other girls are saying, "There goes old chubby legs chug, chug, chugging after the ball."

  Then come the showers, and I feel like the other girls are staring at me all over again. I have frizzy brown hair and it frizzes up even worse when it's wet. The gym teachers never give us enough time to work on our hair after we finish playing those stupid sports. And then I've got to go to my next class and my frizzed hair is all clumped together, and I look worse than usual. Once I put on my glasses, which make me look like a half-blind mouse, everybody can see that I'm a dazzling beauty.

  All summer my best friends Mary and Paige have been letting their hair grow out. They say the high school boys will like it longer. That must be true because when I see high school girls at the mall, most of them have long hair. But the way I see things with my hair, if I grow it out, I'll just have longer frizzy hair that's out of control. Right now, my hair just comes to the top of my shoulders. I don't know what I'm going to do about it.

  I'm the oldest of three kids. My brothers Michael and David are four and six years younger than me. They don't bother me much except when they come snooping around in my room when I'm reading. But both of them can't seem to hold thoughts in their stupid, little male heads for more than three seconds, so they usually don't stay long. I love my little brothers, and just last year Mom and Dad started paying me to let me babysit them when they go out to dinner.

  I love my parents. Daddy's a manager at the telephone company, and he gets these fantastic deals on cell phones. As soon as some new phone technology comes out, Mom, Dad, and I get new phones—it's great. I guess we're what you call middle class. Our house is nice and Dad pays somebody to mow our lawn, and every summer we go on a couple of vacations, usually to the beach and a state park. Mom doesn't have to work, but she has plenty to do around the house and with her sewing group and church. I don't mind helping her clean up around the house.

  I want to start dating this year, even if it's just some boy having his parents drop us off at the mall or at a movie. Or maybe my parents will let Mary, Paige, and me meet some boys at the mall or at the movies. Dad hasn't said whether I can go out with boys this year. I worry that no guy will want to go out with a frizzy-haired, chubby-legged girl wearing mousy glasses. So Dad doesn't have too much to worry about.

  I'm going to college. My parents have already started saving money for me to go. I think I want to become a teacher. I like little kids, and I want to do something with my life that is meaningful. I think I would like helping little kids learn how to read and write. I could see these little second and third graders coming to me for help and I'm showing them something new or how to add or subtract or something like that. Then those kids start smiling at me and I go home feeling good about myself and my day and feeling that I'm doing something meaningful with my life.

  And I see myself coming home to a big house in the suburbs with definitely a husband and maybe two kids waiting for me. My husband will be tall with dark hair and kind and good looking. He'll be a businessman like Dad or maybe a doctor or lawyer or something like that. We'll have enough money to do things, but we won't be wasteful or snobbish.

  Our church wedding would have been perfect, not too big or small, and Mary and Paige would have been my maids of honor. The three of us talk all the time about what type of guys we're going to marry and what we are going to do for a living and what type of house we're going to live in. I want to find someone to love me, but I know I don't really know what real love is. I'm too young for a serious relationship this year, but I would like to have a boyfriend if Dad will allow it. I worry that probably no guys at school will be interested in me.

  I've been studying my school schedule. It says I have first period English 9 Honors with Ms. Hawk. Mary and Paige are in the same class and they say that they heard that this is Ms. Hawk's first year of teaching. I love to read books, especially romance novels, so I hope she will have something interesting for us to read.

  I hope Ms. Hawk has got it together. I hate those classes when those young female teachers let the boys get all out of control. Boys my age are so immature. I want to date at least a tenth grader this year. A junior would be even better.

  Chapter Three: Marcus

  Well, today is the first day of school, but I've already been back a month because of football practice. I'm a freshman on varsity. That's pretty impressive if you ask me. I have to be honest, I thought coach Dell was going to ask me to be on the team after the season I had last year in middle school. I ran a 4.8 in the 40-yard dash, and I was the starting wideout. My favorite play is the end around. Once I juke my way past the linebackers, the next stop is the end zone. Not even the corners can keep up with me. And the safeties are trailing way behind.

  I'm planning on getting a college scholarship to a D-I school like Alabama or one of the other SEc schools or maybe a Big 10 school. I think I can be ready for the NFL after my third year in college, but if it takes four I can handle that. I'm 6-foot already and my brother Joshua is a junior and 6'4" and the starting tight end on the team. So I see myself being at least as tall as him.

  I really look up to Joshua. He's got a smoking hot girlfriend, Jordan, who's also a junior. Joshua said that we could double date some this year with the first time being Homecoming in October. I haven't been on any dates yet, but Mom and Dad said I could this year if I get a girlfriend.

  That shouldn't be too hard. I've got a half dozen girls already hitting on me, smiling and flirting and flipping their hair. Jordan told Joshua that some of the ninth graders in her neighborhood are already asking if I've got a girlfriend. Look, I know I sound cocky, but I've worked long and hard to get to where I am. I ran sprints and distance all summer and then I cooled down by lifting. I feel really good about myself and how I look and feel.

  Mom and Dad said they would buy me a car after I pass my driver's license test next year. They said that was only fair because they gave Joshua one when he was a sophomore. Dad runs an insurance agency and Mom makes good money as a real estate agent, so we
're doing okay. Joshua got a new car when he started driving, so I think I will deserve one, too. I don't want some four- or five-year-old piece of junk to drive around girls and my friends in. That would be embarrassing.

  The house we're living in now was one that Mom was going to try to sell, but she thought it was perfect for us and we bought it. It's on five acres with a pool and an indoor tennis court. The setup is great for Mom and Dad throwing parties, and they said Joshua could have a party this fall if he wants to. But with both of us on the varsity football team, and chances are that we will be going to regionals, Joshua thinks we may have to wait until wintertime to throw a big bash. That makes sense.

  My schedule says I've got Ms. Hawk for first period English 9 Honors, then math, history, lunch, biology, art, and gym. coach Dell fixes it so that his players have easy classes the last two periods in case we have to travel to a Friday game.

  I've always done pretty good in school, I usually get a B or a C in all the core classes and ace the elective stuff. I just want my grades to be good enough that when I get offered a D-I football scholarship, no coach is going to have any concerns over my grades. I don't really have a favorite class, and I don't have to do much studying to make good grades. Just listen when the teacher thinks she's talking about something important, then cram the night before a big test. It's a good system.

  I'm going to major in sports medicine or sports journalism or something like that in college. I'd like to go into TV or work for ESPN when my pro football career is done. I could see myself being a color commentator or something like that. They hire a lot of ex-players for those jobs.

  I like to dress sharp. I like it that Coach Dell requires his players to wear a nice shirt and tie on game days and wear a blazer on road trips. I think the girls like to see us looking sharp, not decked out in steel-toe boots and a camo shirt like those redneck country boys did in middle school. They look even more ridiculous when they wear their hunting jackets during deer season. I bet their fashion sense won't have improved when they hit high school.

  They're not my competition for girls or sports or anything else anyway. I don't have any competition. I'm competing against myself to get bigger, stronger, and faster this year. It's like Joshua says—when you can walk the walk and talk the talk and look the part, you're not bragging. You're telling it the way it is. It's going to be a great year.