Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Not Reading Read online

  Basically it involves picking a topic—capital punishment, say, or child obesity, or smoking in movies—doing a ton of research (which involves reading a ton of BOOKS), and presenting a six-page paper OUT LOUD, IN CLASS to ALL THE TEACHERS IN THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT.

  I know, right? Talk about capital punishment.

  It was obvious that my Billy’s Bargain moment on the pitcher’s mound, combined with the impending doom of the Position Paper, made the situation a full-fledged emergency.

  So naturally, on the night before the deadline for picking a topic, I was in Megan’s room, lying on her bed with her stuffed animals (what is it with girls and stuffed animals?), begging for help.

  “I warned you about the Position Paper,” was the first thing she said. “You didn’t listen.”

  She didn’t really lift my spirits when she told me that writing her Position Paper was the hardest thing she ever had to do in her life—beating out the other hardest thing she ever had to do in her life, which involved telling the 260-pound, slightly insane captain of the high school football team that despite his driving all over our front lawn to prove his love, she still didn’t want to go out with him.

  As I sat there tossing one of her teddy bears up and down, getting more and more nervous, I told her about the frightening Billy’s Bargain episode on the baseball field.

  All she said to that was, “Jake Katz saved the game? That’s awesome!”

  Then I noticed a book lying on her desk: Cliques And Doubleclicks.

  As much as I disliked books, I had to admit that was a pretty interesting title.

  “What’s that book about?” I asked Megan.

  She threw it to me. “Read it and find out.”

  “No, seriously.”

  She grabbed it back. “It’s actually this really cool book about how cliques are bad for kids, how they’re an epidemic in school, and how the Internet is just making it harder for teachers and guidance counselors to deal with them.” She opened up her laptop. “I’m writing a paper about it.”

  Now typically, talk of textbooks and papers is my cue to leave, but all of a sudden a lightbulb went off in my head.

  Cliques. Boys. Girls.

  Hold on a minute.

  Suddenly a beautiful, perfect, fully-formed plan materialized in my brain.

  “I got it!” I shouted, throwing Megan’s teddy bear onto the bed so hard that it knocked over her giraffe, her turtle, and two of her little penguins.

  The next day, I found Timmy hanging out in the hall with a couple of kids who had decided to still be his friend even after Hannah broke up with him. (They probably figured she might change her mind, and they wanted to be there when he got her back.)

  I called him over.

  “Timmy, got a sec?”

  “Sure.”

  I pulled him into an empty classroom so no one else could hear us.

  “I want to run something by you.”

  “What?”

  This wasn’t going to be easy, but I had to be up front with Timmy, because I needed him on my side.

  “We all know that you went out with Hannah to get back at me.”

  Timmy was offended. “That’s crazy!”

  “And Hannah went out with you because she felt bad for you,” I added.

  This time Timmy just looked at his shoes.

  “You know it’s true,” I insisted. “That’s how she rolls. She’s not like the rest of us. She likes to do nice things, and she doesn’t care about what other people think.”

  Timmy thought about it. He was a pretty well-liked kid, but he knew that he wasn’t really in Hannah’s league. A feeling I knew all too well.

  “Come on, that’s what’s so great about her,” I added.

  Timmy sighed, and he didn’t have to say anything. I could tell that he wasn’t about to argue with me.

  “So what’s your point,” he said instead.

  “I’m going to set up Jake and Hannah.”

  You know that expression “his eyes bugged out of his head”? I’d always thought that was a ridiculous exaggeration, until I saw Timmy at that moment.

  “No way.”

  “Yes way.”

  “No WAY!!”

  “Yes way.”

  Timmy took a deep breath. He’d had an up-and-down year, no doubt about it—king of the hill one second, back among the regular people the next—and this might be one roller-coaster ride too many.

  “Why? Did Jake ask you to? Just because she went out with me, suddenly every guy thinks he has a chance?”

  My turn to take a deep breath. “Actually, it was my idea.”

  Timmy was speechless. For about a second and a half. Then he said the only logical thing. “Why?”

  “Because my Position Paper is going to be about why cliques are bad for kids. And if I can get the two of them to go out, it would prove that two kids from totally different worlds could ignore peer pressure and go out,” I explained. (Actually, Hannah was the one who’d feel the peer pressure. Jake would feel nothing but claps on the back from his awed and amazed friends.)

  “But isn’t she still going out with James?” Timmy asked, looking to poke holes in my plan.

  She was indeed. James was a one-man clique buster himself, one of those freaks of nature who managed to do drama club and play sports, and it somehow all worked. Girls LOVED him.

  James and Hannah had been going out for about two weeks, well past Katie Friedman’s nine-day expiration date, but there were rumors they were on the rocks.

  “That won’t last, trust me,” I said.

  He eyed me suspiciously, like he knew I was up to something.

  “It feels like you’re leaving something out,” he said.

  I’d known Timmy a long time. We’d been through a lot together.

  I lowered my voice. “Well, here’s the thing. You know that deal we used to have?”

  Timmy licked his lips, clearly thinking about free ice-cream sandwiches. “Yeah?”

  “Well, ever since we got caught, I’ve been trying to come up with a new plan.”

  He suddenly got where I was going, and just started shaking his head in disbelief. I pretended not to notice.

  “Well anyway,” I continued, “I figured Jake would be so happy going out with Hannah that he wouldn’t mind just doing me one little favor.”

  Timmy knew the answer to the question he was about to ask, but he asked anyway. “What favor?”

  “Reading all my books for the Position Paper.”

  Timmy didn’t say anything, so I filled the silence. “Well? What do you think? Awesome, right?”

  Timmy let out a whistle. “So let me get this straight,” he said. “The girl you’ve had a crush on since kindergarten, the girl that made you so jealous when I went out with her that you couldn’t sleep for two weeks, the girl that you plan on marrying some day, whether she agrees to it or not … you’re going to set her up with Jake Katz just so you can get out of reading some books?”

  Jeez, did he have to put it that way?

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  He laughed and scratched his head. Suddenly I wondered what I would do if he told me it was a terrible idea.

  But Timmy didn’t think it was a terrible idea. In fact, he had a pretty good idea of his own.

  “Instead of being sneaky about it, why don’t you just tell them both that you’re doing it for your paper? That way they could become part of your experiment, and they’d probably both get really into it,” Timmy said.

  I blinked. “You think?”

  Timmy nodded. “Definitely. Hannah loves to surprise people. Like you said, she’s not like the rest of us. I learned that early on in our relationship.”

  It occurred to me that Timmy’s use of the word relationship to describe their brief moment in time together was a bit extreme, but why bring that up when he was being so supportive?

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it a relationship,” I said.

  Sometimes a guy just can’t help him
self.

  Charlie Joe’s Tip #18

  IF YOU HAVE TO READ, READ ABOUT GIRLS. IT HELPS YOU UNDERSTAND THEM BETTER.

  We all know how painful reading can be. So if you have to read, at least make sure you get something important out of it.

  And learning how to deal with girls is important.

  Therefore, you should only read books with lots of girls in them. It’s a great way to learn about these mysterious, fascinating creatures.

  (I should mention this tip is primarily for boys. I suppose for girls the reverse is true, but I wouldn’t know.)

  Katie Friedman had never worried about being popular, as long as she was popular.

  Meaning she wasn’t one to be concerned about being “in” with the “in kids,” because she didn’t really have an “in kid” personality. But all sorts of differents kinds of kids liked Katie, because she always had good insights into people’s behavior, and was generous and not too judgmental. (Now that I think about it, she probably will make a good therapist someday.)

  She did, however, have a hard-core group of friends she cared deeply about, a bunch of smarty-pants types who all shared the same interests—namely, a complete lack of interest in anything other people were interested in, and a total fascination with things nobody else even knew existed.

  The day after my conversation with Timmy, I found Katie and her friends in the middle of a big discussion about why the original cast of the 1975 Broadway production of Chicago, starring Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera, was way better than the original cast of the 1996 production of Chicago, starring Bebe Neuwirth and Anne Reinking, even though the revival was way more successful than the original.

  The only reason I knew this on such a frighteningly detailed level was because I had heard this particular debate about seven thousand times. It was not information that I, nor any middle school kid, should ever need or want to have.

  I knew that Chicago was where the Cubs played, and personally that was good enough for me.

  Which was why I didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty for interrupting rudely.

  “Katie, I need to talk to you. NOW!”

  Katie looked up from her tea—a beverage that middle school kids drink to look like high school kids, and high school kids drink to look like college kids—and, as usual, made me her priority.

  The girl could give lessons in being a good friend.

  “Over here,” she said, walking to the Forbidden Zone. (In the old days, when our school was a high school, the Forbidden Zone was the smoking section of the cafeteria. It still had kind of a naughty, scary quality about it, so no one ever sat there.) She pulled up a chair and patted another one for me. “What sort of trouble has my favorite scoundrel gotten himself into now?”

  I wasn’t sure what she meant by scoundrel, but it had the word favorite attached to it, so I let it go.

  “No trouble.”

  She laughed. “You don’t come to me unless you’re either in trouble, or you’re hatching a plan. So spill.”

  I grinned. “Right. Like I said, no trouble.”

  A horrified look crossed her face. “Oh God. This is no time for one of your schemes. You need to be laying low and playing by the rules for the foreseeable future.”

  Did I mention that Katie was the one person in the world who knew absolutely everything about me? That I sucked my thumb until I was seven, that I was afraid of the dark until I was nine, that I was too scared to sleep over anyone’s house until I was about, well, now, and that Timmy and I had had our books-for-ice-cream-sandwiches arrangement for two years until he ruined everything with the telling-on-me-then-dating-Hannah thing?

  Katie knew all that. She even knew that the mere mention of Mark Twain could bring me to tears.

  So obviously she knew what she was talking about when she told me I should stop what I was about to start.

  Only as usual, I wasn’t listening.

  “So I want to set up Jake Katz and Hannah. Do you think she’ll go for it? She likes to shock people, right?”

  She looked at me.

  “How clueless are you?” she asked. “Don’t you remember what happened when you talked to Eliza about Timmy?”

  “This is different,” I said.

  “Different how?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll explain later,” I went on.

  Katie sighed. She looked at me like she was on a cliff, and I was the water, and she couldn’t decide if she wanted to jump in or not.

  “I don’t want to know,” she finally said.

  I exhaled and spoke at the same time.

  “My question is, do you think I need to give Hannah something to get her to do it? Like, what do you think I need to give her to make her go along with the plan?”

  Katie thought about it for about eight seconds.

  “She loves The Beatles, right? If you really want to be sure, give her one of your cool Beatles tchotchkes. That ought to do the trick,” she said. (I think tchotchkes is a Jewish word, but don’t quote me. And if I’m spelling it right, you can thank the computer.)

  No questions. No judging. Just the right answer.

  I hugged her, and as she walked back to her friends she looked back at me and said, “Just be careful.”

  That’s why Katie Friedman is awesome.

  * * *

  But the other part? The “I’ll explain later” part, about me getting Jake to read my books?

  I never did explain that to Katie.

  And she didn’t find out about it until it was too late.

  The next day at lunch, Hannah Spivero was finishing the last of the three chocolate puddings she had every day for dessert (I told you she was perfect). I sat down next to her and cut to the chase.

  “You and James broke up, right?”

  She giggled. “Yup. He’s amazing, but it didn’t work out.” I wasn’t sure how that made sense, but I didn’t have time to analyze it.

  “Do you like anyone else?”

  “Not at the moment. Why, are you interested?” she said.

  I know, that sounds mean because of course she knew I was interested, but it wasn’t. We always played this silly game, where she would flirt with me and I would never have the nerve to actually flirt back.

  But this time was different. This was no time for games. I said, “I need you to do something for me.”

  She put down her pudding.

  This was a side of me she’d never seen before. All business. Brisk and serious. Commanding even. Absolutely no pathetic-ness whatsoever.

  “What is it, Uncle Charlie?”

  Usually I wasn’t crazy about it when people gave me nicknames, like “Chaz” or “Chuck” or “Chuckles” or “C.J.” Why couldn’t I be just plain old “Charlie Joe”? But when Hannah came up with “Uncle Charlie,” it sounded like the most natural nickname in the world. Almost like music. The most—

  Dang it, I was getting distracted again.

  I took her hand. (It’s amazing how brave a desperate man could be.) “I think you should go out with Jake Katz.”

  Her eyes narrowed in confusion. I was confusing her! This was definitely a side benefit of my plan. Anytime I caused Hannah to feel any kind of real emotion, it could definitely be considered a triumph.

  “Why would I do that?” she asked.

  “Because if you do, you would have my undying love forever,” I answered, looking deeply into her glowing eyes.

  “I have that already,” she answered back, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Which it was.

  I remembered Katie’s suggestion, and much as it pained me, it was the only way. Hannah Spivero had broken my heart long enough; it was time to break my own heart.

  I sighed. “Okay listen. If you do this for me, you can have my original limited-edition collectors’ item “Dead Babies” Beatles Yesterday and Today LP album cover,” I said mournfully.

  Just a quick explanation: one time The Beatles put out an album where the cover was a picture of them hold
ing a bunch of bloody baby parts, which became known as the “Dead Babies” cover. Even though the babies were clearly fake, like dolls, people were still totally grossed out, and The Beatles had to change the cover immediately. As a result, there were barely any of the original covers printed, but I was lucky enough to own one—a birthday gift from my dad (who was still trying to make up for the Mark Twain disaster).

  It was yet another element of Hannah’s amazing-ness that she loved The Beatles as much as I did, and surely she would love owning this album cover almost as much as I did.

  “Wow. You would actually part with that just to make people think that I like Jake Katz? I don’t get it. I’m not interested in dating Jake Katz, so why would I suddenly agree to go out with him? No one would believe it anyway.” She winked. “It’s almost as crazy as people thinking I’m suddenly in love with you.”

  Ouch. That was a shot to the gut.

  I soldiered on bravely, silently reminding myself that a truly great man fights on even when the odds are against him. “That’s not necessarily true. I mean, I know, yeah, everyone knows I’ve always kind of had a thing for you (‘Kind of had a thing?’ Who was I kidding?), but it’s possible that other kids could think that maybe deep down, you could like someone like me. Or Jake.”

  She giggled, and suddenly I felt the need to backtrack a bit. “I’m not saying it’s true, not at all, but it’s not like it’s impossible, right?”

  Hannah looked at me like she was looking into the future, like she was thinking, well, God knows I don’t like this little puppy dog licking his paws right in front of me, but it’s not out of the realm of human existence that maybe, someday down the road, I might find him reasonably attractive.

  “I suppose not,” she finally admitted, giving me a tiny sliver of my dignity back.

  I suddenly remembered Timmy’s advice to be up front about the reason. “I’m glad we got that out of the way,” I announced. “So here’s the thing. I’m writing my Position Paper on why cliques are bad for kids, and why it’s important that we figure out a way to stop them. I want to show people that it’s possible, and the best way to do that is for someone like you to go out with someone like Jake.”