Katie Friedman Gives Up Texting! Read online

  “Got it,” my dad said. “Jen Romero.”

  “Dad, you are just so hilarious tonight.”

  He grinned. “Thanks.”

  “And yes,” I said, “meeting Jane did change my life, and this is part of that change.”

  My mom hugged me, and my dad leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Well, we can thank whatever her name is,” he said, “because I think it’s pretty cool. And if it means we get to hang with you a bit more, well then, I’m all for that, too.”

  “Cool,” I said. “Can I see the remote?”

  “Of course, honey,” said my mom, handing it to me.

  I turned the sound back on just in time to see the dad eating his dinner with a pitchfork.

  My dad rolled his eyes. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously,” I said.

  He harrumphed. “Fine, but only because this is a special occasion.”

  By the end of the episode, both my parents were hooked.

  27

  THE NEXT LETTER

  Dear Jane,

  I hope you’re doing great!

  I was so honored to meet you the other day, and was so inspired by your words. In fact, I wanted you to know that it’s happening! I found ten friends, and together we’ve all decided to give up our cell phones for a whole week. We started today and will go all the way to our school talent show, which is this Saturday. Technically that’s only six days, but I hope that’s okay. We want to make a big announcement at the talent show and show everybody that we did it!

  I am also working on the song and will send it to you as soon as it’s done.

  Thank you for trusting me. I promise to stick to my end of the bargain! I won’t let you down.

  Your absolutely biggest fan ever,

  Katie Friedman

  28

  WRITING A SONG IS HARD, BUT MAKING A PHONE CALL IS HARDER

  After Daughter Of The Devil, and after ice cream, and after playing with the dog, and after trying to play charades but realizing it’s hard with three people, and after playing War instead, and after finishing my homework, and after writing a letter to Jane, and after doing everything possible that doesn’t involve a cell phone and a computer, I got out my guitar and tried to write music for my song, “How.”

  It turns out writing music for a song is really, really hard.

  It doesn’t seem like it should be that hard to put a melody to a few words.

  How do you

  Speak the words

  That you never thought would be spoken?

  How do you

  Break the heart

  That never has been broken?

  Pretty soon, I’d written a new verse:

  How do you write a song

  If you’ve never written one before?

  How do you write a melody

  That doesn’t sound like nails on a chalkboard?

  After about twenty minutes, I threw my guitar on my bed in disgust and reached for my phone to text Becca.

  Except my phone wasn’t there.

  Ack!

  Okay, fine. I’d call her.

  Except my phone wasn’t there.

  Ack again!

  I raced down the stairs.

  “Mom? I need help!”

  My mom was in the kitchen, making chicken soup from the leftover chicken. It smelled amazing.

  “What’s up?”

  “I need to talk to Becca, but I don’t have my phone, and she doesn’t have her phone.”

  She stirred her soup. “Well, okay, so use our home phone. Do you know her number?”

  “Of course I don’t know her number! I don’t even know how to FIND her number!”

  My mom smiled. “Well, there are these things called phone books. You can use that.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Good question.” She rifled through a few drawers, looked in a few cabinets, then finally pulled out a tattered old book that looked like it was found in a Dumpster somewhere. “Here ya go!”

  I picked it up. It was heavy. Who were all these people? I started thumbing through the pages—the print was tiny! After about two minutes, I finally found it: Clausen, 79 Sniffen Road (203) 555-0157.

  Now all I had to do was find our phone.

  I hadn’t used it in about two years. Except for when Jane called me a few days before. Yeah, there was that.

  I went to the place where it was supposed to be, and the receiver part was still there, but no phone.

  “Has anyone seen the phone?”

  They shrugged.

  “Don’t you guys know where it is?”

  “It’s probably where the remote is,” said my dad. “I can never find that, either.”

  Great. I started overturning every cushion in the house, until I finally found it wedged underneath a couch in the living room.

  “There you are,” I muttered.

  I dialed the number.

  Nothing happened.

  “Mom? Dad? The phone’s not working!”

  “Maybe it’s out of battery.”

  “Try charging it.”

  I stared at the phone. I realized I was breathing hard. I was actually out of breath, just from trying to make a phone call.

  Wow, I thought. That’s sad.

  I dropped the phone in my mom’s lap.

  “I’m going to bed,” I said.

  My dad chuckled.

  “Welcome to 1987,” he said.

  29

  THIRD LIE

  The next day was Tuesday, the second day of our phone strike. Nothing that fascinating happened at school, except that Mr. Radonski, our crazy gym teacher, told me he was so inspired by what we were doing that he was going to give up his cell phone for a whole year.

  “But Mr. Radonski,” I reminded him, “then you won’t be able to check the sports scores all during softball practice.”

  Mr. Radonski frowned. “Good point. Forget it,” he said.

  After school, I had a stop to make.

  When my mom pulled into Nareem’s driveway, I didn’t get out of the car right away. She put the car in park and turned to me.

  “What is it, honey?”

  I stared straight ahead. “Well, he doesn’t know I’m coming, since I didn’t have my phone to call him, so I’m thinking maybe he’s not home.”

  “Well, the only way to find out is if you get out of the car and ring the doorbell.”

  I sat there for another minute, doing neither of those things.

  My mom turned the car all the way off. “Well?”

  “I guess I’m a little nervous.”

  She rubbed the back of my shoulder. “This is worth talking about for a second. Do you know why you’re nervous?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course. Because I’m about to ask the boy whose feelings I hurt for another favor.”

  My mom shook her head. “Not exactly. You’re nervous because you’re about to ask the boy whose feelings you hurt for another favor in person. Ordinarily, you would have texted him. You would have texted, HEY I WROTE ANOTHER LETTER TO JANE, IF I LEAVE IT IN YOUR MAILBOX CAN YOUR DAD GIVE IT TO HER? And he would have texted you back, OKAY. But this way, you’re forced to actually look him in the eye and ask him face-to-face. This is a good thing. This is what real communication is.”

  I stared straight ahead, out the windshield of the car and up toward Nareem’s front door. It didn’t really feel like a good thing. But I realized my mom was right.

  “Okay, here goes.”

  My mom gave me a kiss for luck. “I’ll be waiting right here.”

  I jumped out of the car and ran up to Nareem’s front door, almost as if I were worried that if I didn’t do it quickly, I would change my mind. I rang the doorbell, and five seconds later the door opened.

  Just like last time, it was Ru, Nareem’s little sister. She looked up at me, but said nothing.

  “Hi, Ru!” I said, a little too cheerfully. “Is your brother home?”

  “Yes,” she said, as if that
was all I wanted to know.

  “Well, could you please tell him I’m here?”

  She thought that one over for a minute—long enough for me to actually wonder if Nareem had told her what happened—until she suddenly turned around and sprinted up the stairs.

  I waited.

  After pretty much the longest minute of my life, Nareem appeared at the door.

  “Hi, Katie.”

  Way-too-bright smile. “Hi!”

  We stared at each other for a minute.

  “I thought I said we shouldn’t talk for a while,” he said, finally.

  “I know. Can I come in anyway?”

  Nareem stood off to the side of the door, a silent invitation to enter. I slipped past him and looked around his house like I’d never seen it before, even though I’d been there at least five times. Finally I forced myself to look at him.

  “I have a favor to ask you. Just one thing, and then I promise, I won’t bother you anymore.”

  He gave me a blank look. “What is it?”

  I pulled the letter out of my bag. “I wrote another letter to Jane, to tell her the latest news.”

  “What latest news?”

  “You know,” I said. “That a whole bunch of us are giving up our cell phones for a week.”

  Nareem frowned. “Why would you need to tell her that?”

  I realized that Nareem didn’t know why this was so important to me. He didn’t know about the deal I had with Jane.

  “I just think she would really enjoy knowing that not only did I decide to give up my phone, ten other kids did, too,” I told him. It was the third lie I’d told Nareem in three days. Who says face-to-face communication helps people connect? So far it just seemed like it was helping me become a better liar.

  “Fine, yes. I will do it.” Nareem held out his hand, and I gave him the letter.

  Poor Nareem. He’s such a good person that even when he wants to be mean, he can’t pull it off. “Thank you so much, Nareem, you’re the best. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I turned to head toward the door, but Nareem stopped me.

  “If you don’t mind, now I would like you to do something for me. Okay?”

  I smiled. “Of course! Anything!” I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Nareem still cared about me enough to think I could do something to help him. I felt the warmth of relief spread through my body.

  He pointed up the stairs. “All you have to do is come with me. I want to show you something.”

  I could hear his mom singing as we passed the kitchen. She was making something that smelled amazing. Every time I came to their house, Nareem’s mother was making some incredible dish. It made me wish a little bit that my mom didn’t have such a busy job, so she could stay home and cook more. But then I felt a little bad thinking that, and made myself stop.

  We climbed the stairs and went into his room. He stopped. I stopped. I waited, but he didn’t move.

  “Nareem? What did you want to show me?”

  He walked over to his desk and opened his computer. The screen-saver was a photograph.

  Of me.

  It was from the Plain Jane concert. My face was lit up with pure happiness as I watched the band onstage. My hands were in the air, and it looked as though I was dancing a little bit.

  It was the first picture I’d ever seen of myself where I thought, hey, I actually am kind of pretty.

  “When did you take that?”

  “When you weren’t looking.”

  “It’s really nice.”

  “It is.”

  Nareem closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again. Without another word he headed out of his room and back down the stairs. I followed.

  He went to the front door and opened it. As I went through it, I stopped and looked at him.

  “Why did you want to show me that picture?”

  Nareem looked like he was trying to decide whether he wanted to speak or not. Finally he decided. “Jane was right about trying to connect with each other,” he said. “She was right about trying to communicate. But sometimes memories are the only connection and the only communication we have.”

  I felt tears behind my eyes. “Thank you, Nareem,” I said. “For everything. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I didn’t want him to see me cry, so I turned and headed to my mom’s car.

  “Katie.”

  I stopped and looked back. Nareem smiled sadly.

  “I took that picture with my cell phone,” he said.

  30

  MRS. KATZ

  My mom asked me a bunch of questions on the way home, but I didn’t feel like answering any of them. Eventually she left me alone, and let me put on Plain Jane. Since Nareem lived close to me, we only had time to listen to one song, and I picked “Houses”—an amazing song Jane wrote, about being a child of divorced parents.

  Two warm beds

  Two kitchens

  Two places to be

  Two backyards

  Two front porches

  Two parents who don’t agree

  A person who

  Divides herself

  Can never truly be free

  So why do I

  Have two houses

  When there’s only one me.

  “Wow,” said my mom. “Intense.”

  “That’s one word for it,” I said. “Awesome is another.”

  My mom looked thoughtful. “Maybe her parents weren’t honest with her about what was going on, and that’s why she’s so focused on people communicating with one another.”

  There goes Mom, putting her therapist hat on again.

  When we pulled into our driveway, there was a strange car there. It took me a minute to realize whose car it was.

  Jake’s mom’s.

  I mentioned her before, right? I think I did. I can’t remember. Anyway, in case I didn’t, here’s a quick reminder: She’s a little crazy.

  Mrs. Katz is one of those moms who is in their kid’s business all the time. I mean, all the time. She wants to know where Jake is, what he’s doing, and why he’s doing it, every second of every day. She’s kind of out of control about it. I think they call them “helicopter parents” now, because of the way they hover over your every move. Anyway, she was one.

  Which is why I was pretty sure I knew why she was at our house.

  “There you are!” she shouted, when my mom and I walked through the door. Jake was there, too, looking embarrassed. And my dad, who was never a huge fan of Mrs. Katz’s, looked incredibly relieved to see us.

  “Mitzi,” said my mom sweetly. “How nice to see you.”

  I’d forgotten her first name was Mitzi! What a great name! For a cat. Which I guess made sense, since she was a Katz.

  “Claire, I’m not here on a social call,” Mrs. Katz (Mitzi) said. “I’m here because our children have taken it upon themselves to do something completely unacceptable.”

  I sat down next to Jake. We glanced at each other and tried not to laugh. This was going to be good. I felt a big plop! on the other side and turned to see my dad had joined us on the couch. Apparently he was going to let my mom do the talking on this one.

  “Are you referring to the kids giving up their cell phones?” asked my mom. “Because I have to say, I find it quite admirable.”

  Mrs. Katz snorted. “Admirable, perhaps, but not practical.” She pulled out her own cell phone. “Can I tell you how many text messages I send to Jake on a given day?” She stared at her phone, counting. “Upwards of forty! He needs lunch, he needs to be picked up, he needs books, he needs his computer, he needs his cello, his baseball glove—”

  “Actually, I don’t really need my baseball glove,” Jake interrupted, “since I only play about one inning per game.” The three of us on the couch laughed, and even my mom stifled a giggle, but Mitzi wasn’t amused.

  “And last night!” she stammered. “When I couldn’t reach Jake, I thought the worst. The worst! I had to call the school to find out what was going
on. But what if, God forbid, something actually does happen to one of our children?” She shook her head. “I don’t like this little experiment, I don’t like it at all.”

  “Mitzi,” my mom said, in her calmest, most soothing professional therapist voice, “I completely understand your concern. In fact, I share it, to some degree. But I think our kids are doing something brave. It’s terrific that they’ve realized how addicted they’ve become to their phones, and that they’ve decided to do something about it. And as you and I both know, what they’re addicted to is not the staying-in-touch-with-their-parents part. It’s all the other stuff, the silly stuff, and the stuff that distracts them from living, and learning, and growing.”

  I stared up at my mom, amazed at how smart she was, and how she could say what she was thinking so perfectly. And what I was thinking, too, actually.

  Mitzi sniffed the air, like she smelled something bad. “Yes, I understand all that. Truly I do. But it doesn’t do me any good when I can’t text my son to find out what time cello rehearsal will be done, or which court he’s on for his tennis lesson.”

  I looked at Jake. “You take tennis?”

  “Not by choice,” he answered.

  Finally my dad decided to enter the conversation. “Mrs. Katz, can I ask you something?”

  “Absolutely,” she said.

  He stood up and took out his cell phone. “Did you have one of these when you were growing up?”

  Mrs. Katz made a face. “Of course not.”

  “Neither did I,” said my dad. “Can you believe it? No cell phone! No texting! And you know what else? No computer, no Internet, and no e-mail either!”

  “What’s your point, Jack?” Mrs. Katz whimpered.

  “My point is, we survived,” said my dad. “We did okay. In fact, we did better than okay!” He smiled, satisfied, and sat back down on the couch.

  Jake’s mom made a face at her son—we need to run away from these strange people, I think it said—and picked up her purse. “It’s a different world now,” she sniffed. “A faster world, a crazier world, a more competitive world. Everyone is on the go all the time. If you don’t keep up, you fall behind. That’s all I’m saying. Thank you for listening.”