What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know Read online

  show on the outside.

  Then I choose a stick of charcoal

  and start sketching a girl

  with dark smudges where her eyes should be.

  I use an oil pastel

  to make a deep red gash

  where her heart should be.

  Next, I draw a ball and chain

  locked to the girl’s ankle.

  And then I add the final touch:

  a shadowy face on the ball—

  mine.

  We Don’t Have Any Other Classes Together

  But between History and English,

  I catch a glimpse of Sophie’s back

  up ahead of me in the corridor,

  weaving through the stampede of students.

  She’s walking by herself.

  Which really gets to me.

  Because before today,

  she always moved in a pack,

  with Rachel and Grace

  and Zak and Danny and Henry.

  Now, she’s alone.

  And all around her, people are smirking

  and whispering and nudging each other.

  I have to fight the urge

  to run and catch up with her

  and shout at all of them to just CUT IT OUT!

  That would only make things worse.

  Because Sophie may feel like an outlaw,

  but thanks to yours truly,

  what she really is

  is an outcast.

  It takes one to know one.

  After School

  I’m blowing on my fingers

  to keep them from freezing,

  waiting for Sophie at the appointed spot—

  by the goalpost

  at the far end of the football field.

  I’m trying not to think about anything.

  Especially not about

  how I’m wrecking Sophie’s life.

  It’s ridiculous how much I’ve missed her.

  We’ve only been apart for two hours,

  but it feels more like two weeks …

  Whoa!

  Here she comes now,

  flying toward me like a perfect fifty-yard pass,

  her brown hair billowing out behind her,

  her eyes reflecting the January sky,

  her long skirt hugging her legs—

  those incredible legs of hers,

  that are carrying her closer and closer to me

  with every step,

  legs that’ll be pressing up against mine

  just a few seconds from now …

  I used to think

  it was only girls

  who got weak in the knees.

  Sophie Hurtles into My Arms

  And suddenly I feel

  like I’ve just scored the winning touchdown.

  She wraps herself around me,

  resting her cheek against my chest.

  And the feel of her against me,

  the smell of her hair,

  thaws every atom

  of my frostbitten body

  and makes my heart reach warp speed so fast

  that I almost keel over.

  There are so many things I want to say to her.

  But all of them are way too lame.

  So I don’t say anything.

  I just kiss her …

  And the cheering crowd

  lifts me up onto its shoulders

  and carries me away.

  When We Finally Come Up for Air

  Sophie’s eyes

  are smiling into mine.

  And it’s amazing, really,

  because all she has to do is look at me

  and my lump of a nose

  straightens out,

  the muscles on my arms

  start to sprout,

  the circles fade

  under my eyes,

  my ears shrink down

  to a normal person’s size …

  If only everyone else

  could see

  what Sophie sees

  when she looks at me.

  She Tells Me Not to Worry

  “Everything will be all right,” she says.

  “They’ll get used to the idea of us being together.

  This’ll all blow over.

  It will.”

  Then she says what she always says—

  “Sometimes I just know things.”

  And I sure hope she’s right about this thing.

  Because if she’s wrong, we’re screwed.

  “Come on,” she says. “You’re gonna walk me home.”

  “But what if we run into someone you know?”

  “What if.”

  And she leans in for one last kiss.

  Then she punches her fist in the air,

  shouting, “Outlaws rule!”

  And when she turns and sprints toward Broadway,

  I chase after her,

  feeling like the luckiest desperado alive.

  Then-THWOMPI

  A snowball explodes

  between my shoulder blades,

  rock hard

  and seething with ice.

  It’s a snowball

  that means business.

  A snowball

  with a message.

  A message that’s coming in

  loud and clear.

  But when we whirl around to see who delivered it—

  nobody’s there.

  Though I could swear

  I hear the wind whispering,

  “What a Murphy …

  Murphy … Murphy …”

  Sophie Rubs My Back

  “You okay?” she asks.

  And that’s when I notice

  that her face has gone whiter

  than the snow,

  that her lips

  are a thin, straight line,

  and her eyes are blinking back tears.

  So I pull myself together

  and do my best stoner impression:

  “Whoa … dude,” I say. “That was cold.”

  And when Sophie laughs at my pun,

  the ache between my shoulders

  disappears.

  Then We Get on a Roll

  And start punning like crazy,

  cracking each other up

  as we make our way toward her house.

  “Man,” she says.

  “Talk about trying

  to freeze someone out.”

  “I’ve heard of giving people

  the cold shoulder,” I say,

  “but this is ridiculous.”

  “Why can’t they just accept the fact

  that they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell

  of breaking us up?” Sophie says between giggles.

  And when we get to the corner,

  we don’t even hesitate—

  we turn onto Quincy instead of going straight.

  Neither one of us mentions it,

  but both of us know that if we use this route,

  we probably won’t bump into Rachel and Grace.

  So what

  if it’ll take us ten minutes longer

  to get to Sophie’s house this way?

  When We Step Inside Her Front Door

  We hear the theme song

  from Days of Our Lives,

  just sort of hanging there in the air

  like a layer of smog.

  Sophie glances up the steps

  and seems to sag a little,

  like she’s just put on one of those heavy padded vests

  that they make you wear when they x-ray your teeth.

  She calls out, “Hi, Mom. I’m home.”

  And then she adds, “Robin’s with me,”

  in a voice that sounds like what she really means is,

  “So don’t come down here—whatever you do.”

  Mrs. Stein calls down a muffled hello

  as Sophie grabs my hand

  and pulls me into the kitchen,

  kicking the door shut behind u
s.

  I fiddle with the knobs on the radio till I find K-ROK,

  the station that plays all the best golden oldies.

  Then I start singing along with the Righteous Brothers,

  telling Sophie she’s lost that lovin’ feeling.

  “No I haven’t,” she says.

  And she pulls me to her for a kiss—

  one of those incredibly deep soul-type kisses,

  that switches off my brain

  and switches on the whole entire rest of me …

  But a Second Later

  Sophie’s mom shoves open the door!

  She just stands there, blinking at us.

  Like maybe she’s seen a ghost—

  a ghost that’s been kissing her daughter!

  I’ve never been caught

  making out with a girl before,

  so I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do.

  Apologize?

  Act like it didn’t happen?

  Run like the wind?

  I don’t know who’s

  turning redder,

  me or Mrs. Stein.

  She keeps opening her mouth and closing it again,

  like she really wants to say something,

  only she doesn’t know exactly what.

  Finally,

  she clears her throat.

  Then she clears it again.

  Then

  she clears it a third time

  and says,

  “Hi.”

  That’s All She Says

  Just “Hi.”

  And suddenly

  I get this overwhelming urge

  to bust out laughing.

  But I swallow hard

  and pull myself together.

  “Hi, Mrs. Stein,” I say. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” she says. “And you?”

  “Oh, I’m fine, thank you,” I say,

  trying to sound kind of decent and upstanding

  and like she didn’t just catch me

  in a lip-lock with her daughter.

  Sophie,

  on the other hand,

  doesn’t say anything to her mom.

  But if looks could kill…

  A Partial List of Mrs. Stein’s Excuses for Coming into the Kitchen Every Five Minutes After That to Spy on Us

  - she needs to put the roast in the oven

  - she needs some bottled water from the fridge

  - she needs to add Post-its to the shopping list

  - she needs to recycle the junk mail

  - she needs to check on that roast

  - she needs to search for some toothpicks

  - she needs a sheet of paper and a pen

  - she needs an envelope and a stamp

  - she needs to check on that roast again

  - she needs to get the laundry out of the dryer

  - she needs the iron and the ironing board

  - she needs to make sure that we aren’t having sex

  - she needs to check on that roast again

  But In Between All of Her Mom’s Interruptions

  Sophie and I

  still manage to engage in

  some pretty serious footsies

  while we do our homework.

  Then we start playing that game where one person

  draws a random squiggle on a sheet of paper

  and the other person

  has to turn that squiggle into something.

  Which is when K-ROK starts blasting out

  Ray Davies singing “You Really Got Me.”

  That’s when I notice that Sophie’s squiggle

  sort of looks like Ray Davies.

  So I tell her I’m gonna turn it into a portrait of him.

  “Who’s Ray Davies?” she asks.

  And while I draw him,

  I tell her all about him—

  about how he was

  the lead singer of the Kinks,

  this amazing British rock group

  from the sixties.

  I tell her

  the name of every song Davies ever wrote,

  who performed it,

  and what instruments they played.

  And when I finish, Sophie just stares at me

  in this real I-don’t-believe-this kind of way,

  and says, “But I bet you can’t tell me

  where they bought those instruments.”

  “Well, actually,” I say,

  “I think they got them from this store called—”

  But Sophie puts her finger to my lips.

  “Robin,” she says, flashing me a heart-stopping grin.

  “I was kidding.”

  Then She Asks Me

  How come I know so much

  about prehistoric rock and roll.

  And I explain that it’s because my parents

  turned me on to it when I was like zero years old.

  I mean, my dad used to play

  his Beach Boys records for me

  when I was still swimming around in the womb,

  for chrissake.

  And after I was born,

  instead of singing me “Rock-a-Bye Baby,”

  my mom used to sing “Baby, I Love You,”

  this awesome old song by the Ronettes.

  My parents didn’t read to me

  from Mother Goose.

  They turned me on

  to the Mothers of Invention.

  I grew up knowing more

  about Dr. John the Night Tripper,

  than I did about Dr. Seuss.

  “I didn’t bother collecting bugs …” I tell her.

  “… I had the Beatles!”

  “And Ray Davies,” Sophie Says

  Then she grabs my pencil

  and starts drawing a picture

  of this happy little guy jumping for joy.

  “Who’s that?” I ask.

  “It’s Hooray Davies,” Sophie says.

  Which cracks me up.

  So then I draw this dude

  spinning around inside a blender.

  “Say hello to Pureed Davies,” I say.

  Which cracks her up.

  And we spend the rest of the afternoon like this—drawing funny pictures for each other.

  We draw Toupee Davies,

  Valet Davies, Partay Davies,

  Betrayed, Dismayed, and Tooth-Decayed Davies.

  And when we finish, Sophie says,

  “That was the most fun I’ve ever had drawing

  in my entire life.”

  I love having an artist for a girlfriend.

  It’s Time to Go

  But it’s hard to say good-bye to Sophie.

  And downright impossible to kiss her good-bye,

  what with her mother lurking, silent but deadly,

  just a few feet away from us in the hallway,

  giving me the evil eye …

  You know, on second glance,

  Sophie’s mom doesn’t look that unfriendly.

  In fact, I could have sworn

  she just cracked a smile at me.

  It couldn’t be because she likes me, though.

  It’s probably because I’m finally leaving—

  and with her daughter’s virginity

  still intact!

  But I wouldn’t be

  so sure of that if I were her.

  There was that one six-and-a-half-minute stretch

  when she forgot to check on us …

  (I’m just playin’ wit’ ya.)

  On the Walk Home

  I’m watching the sun

  paint the snowdrifts pink,

  my grin so wide

  it practically won’t fit on my face,

  still floating

  from my afternoon with Sophie,

  feeling like someone who’s fun to be with,

  like someone who’s cool,

  someone who’s funny,

  someone who’s got a girlfriend,

  someone who’s worthy

  of ha
ving a girlfriend, even …

  just floating along

  feeling like

  someone.

  As I Pass by the Playground

  Of my old elementary school,

  I happen to notice

  a couple of little kids

  zipping around on the ice rink.

  I watch as the girl skates up behind the boy,

  yanks off his hat and whizzes away with it,

  making him lose his balance

  and crash down hard on his butt.

  The boy doesn’t even try to get up.

  He just sits there and starts crying.

  The girl looks guilty at first.

  Then she slams her mittens onto her hips.

  “Geez,” she says

  as she skates back over to him

  and starts pulling him up by his sleeve.

  “Don’t be such a Murphy”

  And when I hear her say this,

  I feel like I’ve been kicked,

  real hard,

  in the stomach.

  “Don’t Be Such a Murphy”

  It was Fletcher Boole who coined that phrase.

  Not long after I moved here

  in the middle of fourth grade.

  I was such a clueless little goofball back then

  that it took me forever to figure out

  that he was using “Murphy” as an insult.

  But when I finally did,

  I started lying awake at night,

  inventing new last names for myself:

  Robin Greightguy.

  Robin Nycekidd.

  Robin Neetboi.

  So that if Fletcher or anyone else

  ever tried to use my name

  to diss someone again,

  they’d end up having to say something like,

  “Whoa, man …

  you are such a Kewldood!”

  Kept myself entertained for hours that way.

  But I’m Not Feeling Particularly Entertained at the Moment

  I’m trudging toward my house

  with my fists jammed deep into my pockets,

  trying to make sense out of what just happened.

  I mean, I knew the Murphy-as-insult thing

  had followed me to middle school.

  And then, this fall, to high school.

  But, until now,

  I hadn’t even considered the possibility

  that I’d become a legend

  in my own time.

  That even after I left a place,