Katie Friedman Gives Up Texting! Read online

  I stared at Becca. “You met Jane backstage??? You knew?!”

  She grinned. “When you were running around giving everybody their phones back,” she said.

  “So finally,” Jane said. “If everyone whose name I call can come up onstage. From what I understand, you call yourselves Cavemen. Sounds like a good name for a band.”

  Jane called out all our names. Eliza. Ricky. Tiffany. Amber. Hannah. Jake. Phil. Celia. Becca. Jackie. Katie.

  And when all the Cavemen were up onstage, we took a bow.

  “I had a great time,” Jane said, waving goodbye to the crowd. “See you on tour!”

  As we headed off stage to one last deafening round of applause, Jane pulled me aside.

  “Becca told me about last night,” she said. “How you heard them talking about not really wanting to be in the band anymore.”

  “Yeah,” I said, embarrassed. “I guess I’m a little too intense for them.”

  “You’re passionate!” Jane said. “That’s a good thing, never forget that.”

  “I guess so. It just felt like they were talking about me behind my back, though, so I just left.”

  Jane smiled. “That’s a drag for sure, but that kinda stuff helps us remember that secrets and lies and talking behind people’s backs are bad news, no matter whether they come from somebody’s phone, or somebody’s mouth.”

  I thought about that for a second. She was absolutely right.

  Jane put her guitar back in her case. “One last thing,” she said, heading for the door. “A lot of people write songs only when they’re upset. But that’s not a great way to be. If you want to be a songwriter, you gotta write ’em when you’re sad, happy, and everything in between.”

  She took a long swig of water and gave me a hug that I will remember forever.

  “Because music is great,” she said, “but happiness is better.”

  EPILOGUE

  KATIE FRIEDMAN’S FIRST TEXT

  Don’t control—connect.

  Don’t attack—accept.

  Gifts are for the giving.

  Life is for the living.

  “It’s great to be here!” Jane yelled. “PLAIN JANE is in the house!

  It was two months later, and Plain Jane was back on tour.

  We were there, of course. Cavemen, Phonies, members of CHICKMATE, you name it, we were all there. Before the show, Kit had given a bunch of us a backstage tour—even though it was supposed to be just for Cavemen, somehow Charlie Joe snuck his way in and walked out with an entire bowl of M&M’S. I yelled at him, of course, but gladly stuffed my face with them all through the concert.

  I looked around at everyone. Phil and Celia were arm in arm, swaying back and forth to the music. Hannah and Jake were laughing and holding hands. Becca, Jackie, and Sammie were singing along at the top of their lungs. And Ricky, Nareem, Eliza, Timmy, Pete, Tiffany, and Amber were all in a big circle, slow-dancing together.

  Wow. Music really does do amazing things to people.

  Almost the entire audience was videoing the concert with their phones, by the way, but Jane didn’t seem to mind so much this time. Maybe she figured she didn’t want to be a nag, or maybe she just thought talking about it again would have been boring, or maybe Nareem’s dad had convinced her that people posting videos of her concerts on YouTube was good for business. Whatever the reason, Jane was just up there having fun, singing the incredible songs that she wrote when she was sad, happy, and everything in between.

  The concert was unbelievable. Being there with my friends was unbelievable. The brand-new Plain Jane tour jacket that Kit had given me was unbelievable. And knowing that I could actually consider Jane Plantero a friend was maybe the most unbelievable thing of all.

  Charlie Joe, meanwhile, was taking pictures every five seconds and texting them to me.

  “Cut it out,” I said.

  “You’ll thank me later,” he answered.

  “We’ll see.”

  “Well, can’t you just text me back so I know you got them?”

  “Very funny,” I said.

  Charlie Joe shrugged. “Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  Then he shook his head and laughed.

  Because here’s the thing: Ever since no-phone-weekended, I had my phone back with me—like most human beings—but I still hadn’t sent a single text to anybody. Not one, since the last horrible text I sent to Nareem by accident. Not to Charlie Joe, not to Eliza, not even to my parents. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. In the meantime, everyone had given up trying to text me, or trying to get me to text them. Everyone except for Charlie Joe, that is.

  Two hours into the concert though, just before the last encore, my phone buzzed again. I looked down, shaking my head, thinking it was another picture from Charlie Joe. But it wasn’t.

  It was a text from Nareem.

  I stared down at it.

  HAVING FUN?

  I looked at him. He looked back.

  We smiled.

  I held my phone in my hands for what seemed like a lifetime before I finally decided to text him back.

  YES.

  Charlie Joe’s Top Ten Reasons Why Texting is Awesome

  By Charlie Joe Jackson

    1.  It’s a way to read and write, without having to actually read and write.

    2.  It helps parents and kids communicate with each other. Like, twenty times a day.

    3.  Phone call + Noisy game or concert = Doesn’t work.

    4.  You can tell people you speak another language. BRB TTYL LOL!

    5.  Moms can’t overhear texts.

    6.  Ten people can have a conversation without getting annoyed that they’re interrupting each other.

    7.  You can win a contest just by pushing a few buttons!

    8.  It’s quieter than yelling.

    9.  I just love that sound my phone makes when a text comes in. It’s a sound that says, “Somebody cares.”

  10.  It’s great exercise for your thumbs.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tommy Greenwald is the author of the Charlie Joe Jackson series and Jack Strong Takes a Stand. He swears he doesn’t text that much, although he has been known to occasionally walk into telephone poles while staring at his phone. Sign up for email updates here.

  Also by Tommy Greenwald

  Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Not Reading

  Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Extra Credit

  Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Summer Vacation

  Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Making Money

  Jack Strong Takes a Stand

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Introductions

  Part 1: Jane’s Deal

  1. A Busy Morning

  2. The Nareem Thing

  3. Change of Plans

  4. A Conversation, Kind of

  5. Don’t Control, Connect!

  6. Backstage

  7. Two Lies in Two Minutes

  8. Meet the Parents

  9. Different Dreams

  10. The Last Text

  11. How

  12. Something Beautiful

  13. Nareem

  14. The Letter

  15. Sometimes It Takes a Little Sadness

  16. Two Pelicans

  Part 2: The Same, Only Different

  17. A Not-So-Busy Morning

  18. Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Why Texting Is Awesome

  19. Hallway Conversation

  20. To Ba
nd Or Not to Band

  21. Eliza Decides to Save Her Brain

  22. Save Our Brains Week!

  23. Peggy Changes Her Mind

  24. Ms. Kransky

  Part 3: The Phonies Versus the Cavemen

  25. Now What?

  26. TV Night

  27. The Next Letter

  28. Writing A Song Is Hard, But Making A Phone Call Is Harder

  29. Third Lie

  30. Mrs. Katz

  31. A Day in The Life of No Phones

  32. It’s for You

  33. Show Me Your Moves

  34. What the Heart Wants

  35. The High Point

  36. Missing

  37. Who Did It?

  38. A True Friend

  39. The Last Letter

  40. Creating Something

  41. Two Apologies

  42. The Last Rehearsal

  43. The Long Walk Home

  44. Pretty Typical Middle School Stuff

  45. Preshow

  46. Happy Reunions

  47. Showtime

  48. Encore

  49. Jane’s Plea

  Epilogue: Katie Friedman’s First Text

  About the Author

  Also by Tommy Greenwald

  Copyright

  Text copyright © 2015 by Tommy Greenwald

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 by J.P. Coovert

  Published by Roaring Brook Press

  Roaring Brook Press is a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

  mackids.com

  All rights reserved

  eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Greenwald, Tom.

  Katie Friedman gives up texting! (and lives to tell about it.) / Tommy Greenwald; illustrated by J. P. Coovert. — First edition.

  pages cm

  Summary: “Charlie Joe Jackson’s best friend Katie Friedman is tough, but can she convince her fellow middle schoolers to give up their phones for a week?”—Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-59643-837-8 (hardback)—ISBN 978-1-59643-839-2 (ebook)

  [1. Text messages (Cell phone systems)—Fiction. 2. Cell phones—Fiction. 3. Middle schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Singers—Fiction. 6. Rock music—Fiction. 7. Humorous stories.] I. Coovert, J. P., illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.G8523Kat 2015

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014037585

  First edition 2015

  Book design by Andrew Arnold