Nothing Read online

  “I don’t really get it,” said Davindra.

  Miss Mathers’s face hardened. “I will help you individually, Davindra.”

  “I don’t get it either,” said a girl named Suzette, whom Frankie considered to be one of the dumbest people in the entire world.

  While Miss Mathers explained the assignment five or six more times, Frankie looked down at her paper. Completely anonymous? Yeah, right. No way was she writing down anything important.

  “1. What you don’t know about me is—”

  She paused. What?

  Nothing. I have no secrets because nothing ever happens to me.

  Frankie chewed on her pen. She looked at the back of Chris’s head. What you don’t know about me is that I got together with that guy over there during break. Though—now that she thought about it—Chris knew, which disqualified it as an item.

  She tried to think of something better. Christmas? What you don’t know about me is I got this fabulous dress for Christmas and I look amazing in it.

  Couldn’t really put that down.

  What you don’t know about me is that on New Year’s I saved my brother’s relationship with his girlfriend. That was a pretty good thing, she thought. And then I got them to drive Charlotte to Oregon to meet Sid. Less good. Or maybe just Outcome Unknown. Still. I was responsible for a lot of relationship development over Christmas break. Thank you, Frankie. I might be a little bossy, though.

  Oh! What you don’t know about me is that I drove a car without a license. Oh yeah, that’s a good one. Call the cops. Ruin my life.

  What you don’t know about me is—dang if I know.

  Concentrate.

  What you don’t know about me is that this man I’d never seen before in my life kissed me.

  Nah. Sounds good, but that’s not why I was so happy.

  What you don’t know about me is that this man looked at me and saw something that blew him away.

  Nah, that’s not it, either.

  What you don’t know about me is that I had a moment that was completely separate from the rest of my life.

  Closer.

  Like I’m going to write any of that. Miss Mathers would call CPS.

  Frankie looked around the classroom, seeking inspiration. What you don’t know about me is that I know this crap is going to be over soon.

  She looked at the clock. Yow. Class was going to be over soon, too. Quickly, she wrote

  1. What you don’t know about me is that I’m allergic to bell peppers.

  2. What you don’t know about me is that I’m the youngest of five children.

  3. What you don’t know about me is that—Frankie decided to throw Miss Mathers a self-exploratory bone—according to my friend Charlotte, I’m a jump person, not a ledge person.

  NOTHING

  (This is an epilogue. I never understood why books have them, but now I do.)

  Frankie looks up from my laptop. “We suck.”

  “Told you,” I say. I wait for her to say something else, but she doesn’t. Hello? The author could use some love here. “Ahem!” I cough.

  “What?”

  I glare at her. “The author is feeling unappreciated.”

  Frankie peers at me. Then she gets it. “Oh. Oh, it’s great—I mean, you are really a good writer and it’s really funny.” She nods vigorously.

  I find this less than satisfactory. “Feh.”

  Frankie tries again. “Okay, here’s another thing—I think it’s amazing that you can make us sound the way we really do. You did what you said you were going to do, and it’s great. It’s a searing document about how boring our lives are. A grown-up might freak about the swearing and drugs and stuff, but really, it shows that we’re model citizens, most of the time.”

  Better, but still. I shake my head.

  “Jeez. Authors are a pain in the ass. How about this? You made something. And it’s really good. You created something. You’re, like, a real writer.”

  That’s more like it. I did make something. I think about this for a second—I made something. Like an artist. Like Sid. I can see why a person might want to do this, you know, as a calling. Maybe I’ll be a writer instead of a spy. I nod graciously. “Thanks.” Pause. “Think I should change Eden’s name?”

  Frankie thinks about it for a minute and then shakes her head. “She won’t read it. You’re not going to turn it in until you’re a senior, are you?”

  “I don’t know if I’m ever going to turn it in.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “What? I thought that was the point. I thought it was your senior project.”

  I shrug. “First of all, it’s kind of personal, and second, I’m hoping something better will happen between now and senior year that I can write about.”

  “Jesus, I hope so,” she says. “I’m hoping that all the stuff in here is just the introduction to some incredible thing that’s going to happen next year.”

  “Probably not,” I say. “Sorry to crush your hopes and dreams.”

  “I know.” She looks down at my computer. “Couldn’t you add in something exciting? You know, put in just one untrue good thing?”

  “And then there was a tsunami and as they clung to a palm tree, they realized that they had always loved each other, but at the moment their lips met, Charlotte lost her grip on the tree and was dragged out into the ocean, and the last thing Frankie saw was her butt.”

  Frankie laughs. “Yeah, like that. I was thinking something like we go to Paris and meet hot guys, but yours is fine, too.”

  “The point is to tell the truth.”

  “Yeah, but you know, we’re in process here,” she says. “We’re probably destined for exciting events. You could just slip one in before it actually happens.”

  “Who’s the author here?” I huff. “I’m leaving it the way it is.”

  “Fine. Have it your way. But it’s kind of bumming me out.”

  “Too bad,” I say. I hold out my hand and she passes me my computer. “Nothing rules.”

  Frankie groans.

  Okay. So.

  I really was right, you know. Nothing did happen. The history of Charlotte’s sophomore year: Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, zits, nothing, nothing, nothing, repeat. That is the genuine honest-to-god truth.

  Except that about seven months later, something did sort of happen. And in honor of Frankie, I’m going to add it in. [Okay, Frankie? Are you happy now?]

  Not that it’s a big deal. It’s not. But it is what I guess you could call an outcome. A related event.

  Somewhere in the middle of July—can’t remember exactly when; a few days after Frankie and Noony and I got back from this camp we’ve been going to for a hundred years, but now we’re CITs—I got a text from Sid saying he’s coming into town. Because—another previously unmentioned Sid fact—his aunt lives in San Francisco, and he and his mom are coming to visit her for a day and a half before they fly to New York for some damn thing. So. What? I freak out a little because after the Sisters of Living Hell, it took us, like, a month to get normal again. But we did get normal, and even a tiny bit more, ah, personal. Not as in sexting, you pervs, as in

  Help, my mom’s crying what shd I do?

  Hug her, you tap

  Okay

  Anyway, after I freak out a little, I do some major consulting with Frankie and we decide that the best way to avoid the Sisters of Living Hell is to keep moving. So I put together an astoundingly—if I do say so myself—fun day, where we go all over the place and see all the things I think an artist guy would like to see (that we can get to by bus and walking). We go to the top of the university tower; we go see these weird dinosaur heads they have in the science building; I show him a house shaped like an orange, which he thinks is really funny; we eat at Flats, which is a crepe place; and we go to a store that’s famous around here for selling creepy stuff.

  After that, I’m thinking that he’s going to say he has to go (because doesn’t he have to see his aunt? He’s only here for a day an
d a half!). But he doesn’t. He says, “Show me the rock where you take all those pictures.”

  So I take him up to Canyon. And by this time, it’s pretty late in the afternoon. Not a glowing and romantic sunset—real life here, folks—but still and nice, and the water in the bay is incredibly blue. I sit down in my normal place, a curve of the rock right near where we stuck the ugly little Christmas tree last winter. And Sid sits down on a jutting-out piece of rock that’s kind of behind me. And we’re talking about some shit or other and laughing and at the same time, I am thinking Thank you, God, for making this better than the Sisters of Living Hell, when Sid says, “Stop. That’s it.”

  “What?”

  “No, shut up, don’t move.”

  I’m sort of turned toward him, so I see him getting out his phone. “What’re you doing?”

  “I’m taking a picture of you that shows how you really look.” He’s lifting the camera up and staring at my face.

  “Well, now it won’t,” I say. “And can I just point out that I put up a shitload of great pictures of me looking pretty and you’re saying that’s not the way I really look.”

  “Shh. Wait a sec.” He’s looking back and forth between his camera and me. Intently. That’s the word. And then, while I’m waiting a sec, he does that thing where he flops his ponytail behind his shoulder without touching it, and I swear to God I am fucking overcome with lust. I’m talking melting nuclear core. Jesus Christ. Never had that happen before.

  Luckily he takes the picture slightly before I become bright red (oh so sexy) and then I can turn around and try to collect myself a tiny bit before he notices. But he doesn’t notice; he’s chattering away about how boring everyone’s pictures are on Instagram, how everyone looks the same. So I am blushing and trying not to, when I hear him say, “You’re way prettier when you’re talking.”

  I start laughing (which makes me stop blushing, praise the lord) and say something like, My orthodontist would be really happy to hear that.

  And he says, “No, I mean the way you get animated when you talk. When you take your own pictures, you look posed.”

  “Of course I’m posed,” I say. “That’s the point.”

  “You look better unposed,” he says.

  I turn around to make a face at him, but inside I’m thinking that it’s pretty good, a guy who thinks girls are prettier when they’re talking. That’s pretty good. And then I see he’s looking at me, and I’m looking at him, and I very carefully reach up and pull his ponytail over his shoulder and hold it for a second. His hair is really black and thick. It’s beautiful.

  I let go.

  Silence. Tense, but not Living Hell.

  “Will you do that thing?” I ask him. “That thing where you flop it over your shoulder without touching it?”

  He looks down at his ponytail and then at me, kind of questioningly. And then he does it.

  “Oh,” I sigh. “I like that.”

  Then he leans over and kisses me, and, of course, it’s awkward, what else? But nice. Only nice. But that’s okay because, really, first kisses between people who like each other—nice is about as good as you’re going to get.

  Here’s the best part, though. While we’re kissing—in the total of six seconds that it lasts—I’m thinking: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. In about four or five months, I’m going to take his hair down. More melting nuclear core. This is going to be good.

  “Feel better?” I say.

  “Much better,” says Frankie, passing the computer back to me.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ANNIE BARROWS is a middle-aged lady who doesn’t talk very much, which is why none of the kids who hang out in her house noticed that she was writing down everything they said. She’s like a ninja, except she’s never killed anyone. Okay, okay, she’s also the author of the Ivy + Bean books—remember them? They were fun!—and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. All of which were New York Times bestsellers, if you care about that kind of thing.

  www.anniebarrows.com

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  CREDITS

  Cover art © 2017 by Sarah J. Coleman

  Cover design by Sylvie Le Floc’h

  COPYRIGHT

  NOTHING. Copyright © 2017 by Annie Barrows. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-06-266823-3 (hardback)

  ISBN 978-0-06-279651-6 (ANZ)

  EPub Edition © August 2017 ISBN 9780062668257

  17 18 19 20 21 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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