Operation Final Notice - Softcover

Landis, Matthew

 
9780593109779: Operation Final Notice
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593109775 ISBN 13: 9780593109779
Verlag: Penguin Young Readers Group, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Learning to ask for help is hard, but living with no help is harder as these two friends find out in this middle grade novel that Publishers Weekly calls, "A feel-good story with Hallmark Christmas movie vibes"

As Christmas and the new year inch closer, so do Ronny and Jo's anxieties. Because Ronny needs $878 by January 4th to keep his family's only car from getting taken by the bank. Ever since a workplace injury disabled his dad and forced the family to move from their home into the apartment complex across the street, Ronny’s had a crash course in repossession. 

His best friend Josefina Ramos is also counting down until the start of January when her life could change forever—that’s when she has her big cello audition at the prestigious music academy Maple Hill. Except she can’t play a solo performance without something disastrous happening and no one seems to hear her when she talks about how nervous she is.

As the countdown to the new year rolls ahead, Ronny and Jo learn what can happen to best-laid plans and how to depend on one another and their community when things get tough.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Matthew Landis slays boredom wherever it lurks in his eighth-grade social studies classroom. He lives in Doylestown, PA, with his wife and four kids, thirty chickens, and hopes to one day achieve whatever level of fame allows his giant family to vacation in Cape Town and go on endless safaris.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1
The Invitation
Jo
Papi lays the envelope next to my dinner plate. I put my fork down and stare at it.
I’ve been waiting three months for it. We mailed the application back in August, just before I started seventh grade.
“It won’t open itself,” Mami says.
Papi smiles. His large black eyes sparkle. “Go on, mijita.”
I turn the envelope over and slowly pry it open. I’m worried about tearing it—like any mistake now could change what’s inside.
Mami scoots her chair next to mine at our small kitchen table. She smells like bleach and lavender from a day spent cleaning houses with Señora Reyes. “You can always apply next year,” she says. “Si sabes, verdad?”
“I know.”
But I don’t want to apply next year—I want to be there next year.
I break the seal and pull out the letter. Mami whispers a prayer to La Virgencita. Papi leans forward, his elbows on the table. There is no sound in the apartment except for my pounding heart.
I unfold the piece of paper and read the typed note.
Dear Ms. Josefina Ramos,
We are pleased to invite you for an audition . . .
I don’t read the rest.
Instead, I laugh—and get smothered in a family hug.
Maple Hill Conservatory, here I come.

2
Cheese Is in My Future
Ronny
I’m dreaming about cheese when Bianca wakes me up with her weird sleep talking.
“Dragonfly,” she says.
I’m real confused because where am I? I sit up and bang my head on the ceiling because these rooms are super small and I been sharing a bunkbed with my fifth-grade sister for two years now.
“Dragonfly,” she says again.
“No dragonflies in here.” The little clock on our desk says 5:38 so I get off the top bunk to get dressed for school and check on Bianca. Her hair is all over her whole face like a brown blanket. “Are you okay?”
She says something but she’s sleeping again in a couple seconds. I pull the covers up and she has like a hundred animal books in all these stacks on the floor so it’s hard to not knock them all over and wake her up.
I’m getting my socks on and see a bedroom light in one of the townhome windows right across the street. It’s way up high because the garages there are on the bottom and I remember always going up a ton of steps to get to my room which is funny because now our apartment has zero steps and is really tiny. Probably the kid who lives in my old room doesn’t have to share a bunkbed with his little sister and deal with her weird dreams.
I go to the kitchen and there’s my mom in her blue nurse clothes for work. She’s eating breakfast and doing her favorite thing which is reading one of the papers from the giant blue folder of bills.
“Hey bud,” she says. “How’d you sleep?”
“Good.”
“Any dreams?”
“Cheese.”
“Again?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Not turkey?”
“Ha come on,” I say because last week she got this big Thanksgiving food box thing at the grocery store with the good stuff. She made this giant turkey and I ate so much but there was more turkey left so we had to keep eating it for dinner. “No, it was cheese.”
“Hmm,” she says. She always sits up real straight when she does her bills, like she’s in the army or something. Her hair used to be long like Bianca’s until she cut it shorter than mine last year. “You do like cheese.”
“Probably it’s a sign. Like cheese is in my future.”
“Or maybe it was my amazing dinner last night, which included cheese.”
“Yeah, probably it was both.”
I eat cereal and she’s staring at this bill that says FINAL NOTICE in big red letters. I see her do bills every morning but I never seen her face get real serious like this. Now she’s looking under the table at my jeans and grabbing the bottoms.
“Are those pants too small?”
“Come on, they’re fine.”
“You’re getting taller.”
“Yeah, I’m a seventh--grade giant,” I say which is zero true because I’m barely taller than my friend Jo Ramos and she’s a girl.
“They look small.”
“Mom, come on.”
“You’re growing so fast.”
She makes this weird face like something hurts and now she’s looking at the FINAL NOTICE bill again. It’s real quiet and I can hear my dad doing his back exercises in him and my mom’s room. It stinks because they hurt him but the doctor said it’s the only way to get better after the surgery.
“Probably you should get Bianca’s brain checked out,” I say.
“What?”
“She talks about bugs in her sleep.”
“I can’t tell if you’re serious.”
“Mom, I’m serious,” I say but I’m sort of laughing.
“It’s always so hard to tell.”
“She could have a condition. Probably you should scan her head with one of those machines at your work.”
She’s laughing too. “So now you’re a doctor?”
“I mean there’s something happening up in her brain cage you should get checked.”
She’s pushing her plate across to me. “Eat some toast.”
We eat toast and now the people above us are stomping around their kitchen. Bianca gets up and is banging around the bathroom.
“I’m gonna go play games on my laptop,” I say.
“Maybe I should have them scan your brain.”
“Ha yeah and ask about the cheese dreams.”
“You need to eat some fruit.”
“No, I’m good,” I say. “I have cheese in my future.”
I go into the living room and pretend to play games but really I’m googling FINAL NOTICE. It says a final letter or other communication sent to somebody by a creditor warning that if payment is not made on a specific date, legal action will be taken.
Now I’m looking up creditor and it says a person or company to whom money is owed.
My breakfast feels like slushy snow in my stomach because I’ve seen legal action before. It was on that big orange sticker they put on our townhouse window right by the front door and like a week later we were moving into this super small apartment.
Jo knocks on the door and my mom is hugging me. “Have a good day, buddy. Love ya.”
“Yeah,” I say, and she’s looking at the FINAL NOTICE bill again all serious.

3
The Secret
Jo
I walk down the Apartment’s sidewalk with Ronny. I’m excited—and nervous. I didn’t tell him I applied to Maple Hill. I wanted to wait until I actually got the invitation.
And Esther—I need to tell her too.
I have to do it soon.
Today?
“I think it was cheddar,” Ronny says. He fixes his snow hat and pushes a dark clump of hair out of his eyes. “Like it was all shredded.”
“What color was it?” I ask.
“Orange. Or the yellow kind.”
We climb onto the school bus. I sit with my cello, and Ronny plops down in front of me with my backpack. Inside is my music folder.
Inside that is The Secret.
I say, “You were swimming in it?”
“Maybe I was drowning.”
“Was it a pool?”
“Probably it was an ocean.” He puts his chin on the seat back and stares at me....

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Verlag
Penguin Young Readers Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593109775
ISBN 13 
9780593109779
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
288
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

Friedensallee 273
Hamburg
22763
Deutschland

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