Stu Truly

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An imprint of Bonnier Publishing USA

  251 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010

  Copyright © 2018 by Dan Richards

  Jacket illustration by Simini Blocker

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Yellow Jacket is an imprint of Bonnier Publishing USA, and

  associated colophon is a trademark of Bonnier Publishing USA.

  First Edition

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

  yellowjacketbooks.com

  bonnierpublishingusa.com

  To the NYBA Trailblazers Team:

  thanks for reminding me what it’s

  like to be twelve

  Contents

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  Acknowledgments

  Let me start by saying I believe in telling the truth. It’s just that sometimes the truth is complicated.

  For instance, if you happen to staple your finger to your seventh-grade history assignment, you might be tempted to yell, “I’M BLEEDING OUT!” But that kind of truth might upset those in your class who faint at the sight of blood. Instead, it’s better to say, “Please excuse me while I go get a tissue. And a bucket.”

  And if your vision begins to blur, it’s best not to slump to the floor whimpering, “Mama, hold me. I’m heading for the light.” Not because your classmates are squeamish about dying, but because your best friend, Ben, will repeat it to you every day for the rest of your life.

  Sometimes the truth can seem obvious, until suddenly it’s not. For example, I eat meat. I’m pretty sure if you checked kids’ lunches everywhere you’d find meat in most of them. There would, of course, be the occasional peanut butter sandwich and perhaps a lunch or two filled with nothing but candy, but I’d bet you’d never find anything remotely resembling tofu, grilled vegetables, or Greek yogurt. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for such things. I’m just saying I can’t think of a place and doubt I ever will.

  Being truthful about eating meat seemed like a no-brainer until the day Becca showed up. She and her family moved to town to be near her grandmother and get out of the “rat race,” she explained her first day in class.

  I can’t really say I was paying attention. A new girl in school was about as interesting as, well, another girl in school. It wasn’t until she finished that our eyes met for a moment. That happened to be the moment I was stapling my history assignment.

  The next day at lunch I found everyone gathered around Becca. Before her lay the most unnatural lunch I had ever seen. Something thin, limp, and red had been cruelly placed between two slices of bread so dark they looked like they’d been colored with a permanent marker. “What is that?” I demanded.

  “A roasted pepper sandwich,” one of the girls whispered.

  “Roasted what?” I could feel the bile creeping up my throat.

  “Pepper,” Becca confirmed. “It’s amazing on rye bread with brown mustard. Anyone want to try a bite?” She looked up at me with eyes as big and round as Oreos.

  “Sure,” someone said, someone who sounded a lot like me.

  Becca tore off a piece and held it out. “Okay.”

  I stared down at the dark mass, wishing I could learn how to keep my own mouth shut.

  “Mama, hold me. I’m heading for the light,” Ben whispered from behind.

  Taking a deep breath to keep from punching Ben, I shoved the bite in whole. This was a mistake. My tongue found itself wedged up against two cardboard-like pieces of bread. Jutting out from between them was something slimy that I could only hope was the roasted pepper. I wanted to gag.

  “What do you think?” Becca asked.

  I tried to swallow, but the bread refused to budge. Meanwhile, the pepper slowly slithered around my mouth like a snake searching for sunlight. “Mmbbfthl,” I mumbled. I reached down and grabbed the nearest drink and took a swig. Just my luck, it was lemon-lime soda. The bubbles sizzled, agitating the bread into a swollen rage. The foam expanded into my throat. I tried to hold it down, but instead, the chain reaction exploded like an atomic bomb. The next thing I knew, kids were running in all directions screaming, “Ooh, gross!” and “That’s disgusting.”

  I finished my coughing fit to find Becca sitting all alone at the table with a mixture of soda, bread, and flecks of pepper strewn around her like the wreckage of a tropical food storm.

  I grabbed a couple napkins and tried to wipe the table. “I’m sorry,” I sputtered.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Considering I had just spewed food all over her sweater, her concern came as a real surprise. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve. “Uh, yeah,” I lied.

  “I take it you didn’t like it.”

  I kept my distance from her eyes. They were unnerving. “No, it was great,” I lied again. “It was really great.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  I threw the napkins into the trash. Both fell short. I bent to retrieve them. “Yeah, it was good. Kinda nutty tasting. My family eats stuff like that all the time.”

  Becca dumped the remainder of her lunch into the garbage can. “Really? Is your family vegetarian?”

  Warmth spread up the back of my neck. The truth. Stick to the truth. “Yes.”

  She beamed. “That’s so cool. My family, too.”

  I ran to get a mop, racking my brain for the answer to the question Why did I just tell her I was a vegetarian?

  When I got back, Becca was gone. I leaned against the table. In the last few minutes, I had made an important discovery. Sometimes the truth is complicated. And sometimes it’s downright impossible.

  Something told me I was in trouble. Deep trouble.

  My full name is Stuart Cornelius Truly. My father likes to joke that he wanted to name me Yours, as in Yours Truly, but I know he’d never do something like that. I don’t think. My mother is the one who picked the name Stuart. As a child, she was a big fan of the novel Stuart Little. She couldn’t get over the idea how cute it would be to have a mouse for a son. Unfortunately, my mother got a boy for a son. She named me Stuart anyway.

  It didn’t take long for kids to find out where my name came from. By the middle of first grade, I was known as Stuart the Little. By second grade, just the picture of a mouse was enough to send me into a rage. In third grade, my teacher shortened my name to Stu after a boy brought a copy of Stuart Little to class. I went after him with a math book and a dry eraser. I have no memory of it, even after they showed me the dent in the dry eraser. From
that day on, I was known only as Stu, or sometimes That Crazy Kid with the Dry Eraser. Mostly they just called me Stu.

  For the remainder of the afternoon, I stayed as far away from Becca as possible. There was something about her that made my stomach knot up, and not like when you’re going to throw up, either. That kind of knot has a purpose. This knot just sat there refusing to budge. Maybe I was allergic to her. I had heard of such things before. Ben once read a book about a boy who became allergic to his dog. Eventually, the boy discovered his dog was an alien trying to take over the world. It was a good book. I should have read it.

  PE gave me the perfect chance to get some help thinking things through. Every Tuesday we did a fitness run around the school. A fitness run meant sprinting until we were out of Mr. Snedaker’s sight, then slowing to a crawl so we could talk with our friends.

  I joined my usual posse. “Do you think being a vegetarian is cool?” My eyes darted like a cornered rabbit. “No reason. Just curious,” I threw in for good measure.

  “Not if your friends are vegetables,” Ben said, giving me an elbow.

  “My dad’s crazy. He thinks vegetarians are a cult,” Tyler said.

  “Cult? Seriously?” Ben replied. “They eat vegetables, not worship them.”

  “That’s not what my dad says,” Tyler explained. “He thinks vegetarians worship animals like chickens and stuff.”

  “No one worships chickens,” Ben said. “Not even chickens.”

  “I hate chickens,” Ryan said, spitting. “I pray every day our chickens will run off so I don’t have to clean up after them anymore.”

  Ben’s face lit up the way it does when he’s just remembered a fact bound to make everyone else wish he hadn’t. “I once read in Ripley’s Believe It or Not about a guy who kept dozens of chickens in his house. He even slept with them and everything.”

  By this point, I had to accept I would get nothing useful from these guys. Should have seen that coming.

  “Okay,” I interjected, “how is it my dog will eat something dead on the side of the road but avoid a cooked carrot I drop on the floor?”

  Ben bumped my shoulder. “Smart dog.”

  “Amen,” I agreed.

  “Hold up,” Ben said. “Time to look like we’ve been running.”

  Ben led us to the drinking fountain, where we took turns splashing water on each other to give the impression we were sweating. It was a nice touch—so long as Ben didn’t get carried away. We sprinted the final corner and raced to where Mr. Snedaker was addressing the rest of the class. How they’d gotten back ahead of us was a real mystery.

  “Don’t forget we start our unit on nutrition next week,” Mr. Snedaker said, eyeing the hand-shaped sweat stains Ben had plastered on my shirt. “You need to keep a journal of what you eat between now and then. Make sure you record each food and what food group it belongs to. Bring your journal in on Friday.”

  After the bell sounded, Ben and I walked together to our next class.

  “What food group do Oreos go in?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t think they’ve discovered that food group yet,” I said.

  “Then what do I put for breakfast?”

  “Well, if you eat them with milk, maybe you can call them cereal. I think there’s a food group for cereal.”

  “Good idea. What do you have in the morning?”

  “Cereal.”

  “That’s too bad. Maybe you can come over for cereal at my house Saturday.”

  I grinned. “Sounds good.”

  “How’s your finger doing?”

  I looked down at the bandage. “It’s okay. My butt still hurts, though, from the shot they gave me.”

  “They gave you a shot in the butt because you stapled your finger?”

  “Yeah, with a really big needle. I guess a staple can infect your butt.”

  Ben looked entirely too excited about the idea. “An infected butt would be nasty. I’d like to see that.”

  “The doctor says I’ll be fine in a few days.”

  Ben let his shoulders droop. “That’s too bad. Just think if your butt turned all green and nasty.”

  We stepped through the doorway into our next class just as the bell rang. For once in my life, I was thankful Ben would need to be quiet.

  At dinner that evening, my father read the sports section of the paper as usual. He liked to say you could get all the news of the day just by reading the sports section, if you knew how to read between the lines. Apparently my mother didn’t. She peeked down at the front page lying next to his plate.

  “This is interesting,” she said.

  “Mmm,” my father replied.

  “It says right here that the president and his wife will be celebrating National Vegetarian Day next week.”

  My ears perked up.

  “What’s a vege-table-man?” my five-year-old brother, Tommy, asked.

  My mother gave him the sort of smile you give an infant after they’ve just dribbled milk bubbles down your shirt. “A vegetarian is someone who doesn’t eat meat.”

  “Wait,” I cut in. “Are you saying the president is a vegetarian?”

  My mother gave me a knowing smile. “Yes, both the president and his wife are vegetarians.”

  My father and I choked at the same time. The sports section slipped to the floor. As did my cooked carrots. Chester, our dog, immediately turned away.

  “What is wrong with people these days?” my father muttered. “It’s unnatural.”

  It should be noted that besides being the world’s foremost authority on barbecuing, my father also owns Truly Meats, the only butcher shop in town. That might explain why he was holding his half-eaten pork chop before him like a crucifix.

  “Frank, there’s nothing wrong with vegetarians. Doctors say we should all eat more vegetables and less meat.”

  My father crossed himself with the pork chop.

  “I like meat,” my little brother blurted in an act of solidarity.

  “Dang right you do,” my father encouraged. “Can you believe someone came into the store the other day asking for vegetarian meat loaf? It’s MEAT loaf for crying out loud.”

  My mother rolled her eyes. “Stu, will you help clear?”

  I stacked my brother’s plate on my own and dumped them into the sink. Why on earth had I told Becca my family was vegetarian? Nothing could be further from the truth. If my family were stranded on a desert island with nothing to eat but vegetables and sand, we’d be eating sand morning, noon, and night. There’s lying and then there’s LYING. I was pretty skilled in the art of lying, but LYING, that was a whole different matter. Lying required altering a few details in your life. LYING required relocating to another state and changing your name to Armando.

  Maybe it wouldn’t come up again. But I knew better. The things I want to avoid most in life always come up again.

  “Stu,” my mother called from the dining room. “Don’t forget to clean up the carrots you dropped on the floor.”

  See? Always.

  After cleaning up the pile of orange mush formerly known as my carrots, I retreated to my room. I got out my homework, but my mind kept wandering.

  The simple choice was to avoid Becca at all costs. That seemed easy enough. I had been avoiding girls my whole life. It wasn’t a conscious act, more of a habit I had never questioned before. Yes, they took up desks in class, but other than that, they were like homework—best avoided. Why then be concerned? Deep down a little voice told me this was different. But why? There seemed no logic to it.

  My mother stopped in with a plate of cookies. Not just any cookies, either, Oreos. The cookie made in heaven by other cookies, and that’s without even bringing milk into the equation. I fell asleep that night soothed by their crunchy sweetness. Sometimes a little sweetness does a body good.

  I woke the next morning to discover the dark cloak of death had descended on me during the night. I could barely lift my head off the pillow to call for help. Or breakfast. My mother hurried up
stairs with bacon, eggs, and a thermometer.

  “Ninety-nine point one,” she said, reading the thermometer. “You’re not exactly dying.”

  “It feels like it,” I croaked through a mouthful of egg.

  She left the tray on the floor and went to call the school, mumbling something about how in her day only pneumonia kept a child home.

  I managed to keep breakfast down, even the second helping. But the effort left me exhausted. I lay back and closed my eyes, trying to get some much-needed rest before lunch. Grilled cheese would take all my strength. In the stillness, my mind wandered.

  I found myself in the opening scene of my favorite video game, Death Intruders. Everywhere I turned, putrid-smelling zombies with bad teeth and rotting limbs chased me. I ran into a dark forest, hoping the evergreen scent would cover my irresistible flesh smell. As I wandered about, a cabin appeared. Near the back was a small window. Peeking through it, I saw a dingy room with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Hiding in one corner crouched Becca. Her frightened eyes told me all I needed to know. I tested the window. Locked. The back door was locked, too. Using my daydreaming strength, I lifted the entire door off its hinges. Daydreaming strength is the best.

  Becca’s eyes widened as I entered the room where she had been hiding. I motioned for silence. My keen hearing detected zombies coming down the hall. With catlike reflexes, I slammed the door on the first one. As he slid to the floor, I leapt into the hallway. The second swung a rotting arm. I ducked under it, then launched my foot into his groin. He fell with a whimper.

  I took Becca by the hand, pulled her from the cabin, and led our escape into the woods. When we were safely away, she pulled me to her, wrapping her arms around me.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  At that moment, my mother arrived with lunch tray in hand. “Oh my, you’re sweating. Maybe your fever is breaking.” She placed her hand on my forehead.

  Maybe I was sicker than I thought. Something was wrong with me. What other explanation could there be for daydreaming something like that? My mother sat on the edge of the bed and stroked my head. I needed to talk this thing out. I opened my mouth. “Is that wheat bread on my grilled cheese?”