The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet - Softcover

Arlow, Jake Maia

 
9780593112977: The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593112970 ISBN 13: 9780593112977
Verlag: Penguin Young Readers Group, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

A hilariously honest book about surviving middle school while navigating a chronic illness from the Stonewall Honor-winning author of Almost Flying.

Twelve-year-old Al Schneider is too scared to talk about the two biggest things in her life:

1. Her stomach hurts all the time and she has no idea why.
2. She’s almost definitely 100% sure she likes girls.

So she holds it in…until she can’t. After nearly having an accident of the lavatorial variety in gym class, Al finds herself getting a colonoscopy and an answer—she has Crohn’s disease.

But rather than solving all her problems, Al's diagnosis just makes everything worse. It’s scary and embarrassing. And worst of all, everyone wants her to talk about it—her overprotective mom, her best friend, and most annoyingly her gastroenterologist, who keeps trying to get her to go to a support group for kids with similar chronic illnesses. But, who wants to talk about what you do in the bathroom?

The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet is a wildly funny and honest story about finding community, telling the truth even when it’s hard, and the many indignities of middle school life.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jake Maia Arlow is a podcast producer, writer, and bagel connoisseur. They studied evolutionary biology and creative writing (not as different as you might think) at Barnard College. They live with their girlfriend and their loud cat in the Pacific Northwest.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One
AN UNFORTUNATE GURGLE
Some “scientists” claim that everybody poops.
Which might be true, but I have a hard time believing it.
I’m not saying I want to see some proof, because that would be disgusting. But if everybody poops . . . how come no one talks about it?
And even if everybody does poop—which, as I mentioned, I don’t believe—I’m pretty sure no one on Earththinks about pooping as much as me. Not because I want to think about it—I don’t. I’d rather think about anything else, such as being mauled by a walrus or having my face eaten by a bunch of tiny cute mice.
But the problem is, my body makes me think about it. My stomach hurtsall the time—at home, at school—and especially during gym class.
I wish that my brain didn’t have to be attached to my body. Having flesh and bones and arms and legs and intestines is the cause of almost all my problems. If I were just a brain in a jar connected to a supercomputer, I’d never worry about having stomach pain or pooping or doing something embarrassing. No one would be able to tell if I was a kid or an adult or someone with a messed-up stomach or a normal one. No one would be able to tell if I was a girl or a boy or maybe something else.
But I’m not a supercomputer, so I have to run laps.
“Do you think the Addisons sweat at all?” That’s Leo. He’s not a fan of gym either.
We’ve been walking around the track for like fifteen minutes, and at this point my pit stains have pit stains.
All the other gym classes got to stay inside today, but Mr. DiMeglio used to be a professional wrestler, so he’s really hard on us. He doesn’t care that it’s a hundred million degrees on the track.
“No, definitely not,” I whisper to Leo, watching as the Addisons—Madison and Addison—lap us for the second time. “They’re robots.”
Madison and Addison (yes, those are really their names, and yes, it’s annoying) are best friends, and they’re both super athletic. They never post pictures on IG without each other, and all their posts get a ton more likes than everyone else in seventh grade, and sometimes more than people in eighth.
Leo and I are not friends with the Addisons. We’re pretty much only friends with each other.
“Wanna know what my Italian teacher told us last period?” Leo asks as we walk to the outermost lane of the track to let everyone pass us.
“That you should’ve taken Spanish with me?”
He rolls his eyes. “No, he said it’s the language of opera.” Leo turns to me and grins, and then, when he’s sure no one’s listening, he imitates an opera singer, arms outstretched. “CIAO, MI CHIAMO LEOOOOOO.”He sings it so that only I can hear, and I can’t help but laugh.
“What does that even mean?”
He slips his hands into his khaki shorts’ pockets. He never changes for gym if he can help it, and I don’t blame him. I always wear shorts or sweatpants and a T-shirt on gym days and then swap whatever shirt I wore to school for a baggier, dirtier one that hides my body.
“It means ‘Hi, my name is Leo,’” he tells me. “It’s the only thing I know how to say in Italian so far.”
We both lose it at that, giggling so hard that we have to stop walking.
“Leonard! Alison! This isn’t the mall! I want to see you jog!” Mr. DiMeglio shouts at us from his lawn chair. Yup, hislawn chair.
Leo and I cringe. Neither of us likes our real first names—we’re Leo and Al, thank you very much, but Mr. DiMeglio never calls us that.
I swing my arms a little so it looks like I’m jogging, but Leo actuallystarts jogging, so I run to catch up.
“I hate him,” he mutters. “ ‘This isn’t the mall’? Who says that? What does that evenmean?”
“Don’t listen to him,” I tell Leo. “Remember when they fired him from Positive Youth Development for being too negative?”
Leo shrugs, but he keeps jogging. After a minute he asks, “So, did your mom make you that doctor’s appointment yet?”
I look behind us to check that no one heard. “Not here,” I whisper, then run ahead, even though the bouncing makes my stomach clench. Because we can’t talk about this in public.
I’ve had stomach problems for a while, but they got really bad last winter. I tried to hide them from my mom, except she saw how often I was in the bathroom, and now I have to go to the most embarrassing doctor to ever exist (apoop doctor—yup, you read that right) even though I’m basically fine. I didn’t want Leo to find out, but my mom told his mom, and now he knows, through the mom-gossip grapevine.
After a minute of running in silence, we somehow get lapped by the Addisonsagain. And that’s when it hits me.
First, there’s the gurgle. Next, there’s that feeling, the one where all I can think about is what’s happening in my intestines. I want to stop jogging, or maybe scream, or just not be on this horrible, too-hot track in the first place.
I try to hold it in. I try, I try, I try. But I don’t think I can. I skid to a halt and dig my fingers into my hands and groan because what am I even supposed to do? I don’t have time to run inside the school to get to a bathroom.
Leo turns to me, his eyes wide. “Do you need me to do anything?” He must realize what’s happening even though I’ve done my best to hide my emergencies from him.
DiMeglio blows his whistle and shouts something at me as I shake my head at Leo, because I’m beyond help.
Then I see it: a porta potty off in the distance.
I take off. The only thing that exists in the whole world is the porta potty on the other side of the track and my messed-up stomach on this side. I’m sprinting, running faster than I ever have in my life.
I fling the porta potty door open. It smells like rotting garbage, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I rush to put toilet paper over the seat the way my mom taught me when I was little.
Then: relief.
Pure relief.
For, like, two seconds.
Before I realize what just happened.
My entire gym class watched me run into a porta potty. A PORTA POTTY.
I have to drop out of school. That’s my only option.
I guess I could say I threw up, because for some reason vomiting is less embarrassing than pooping. I bend over and put my head between my knees as a particularly painful bout ofyou-know-what happens.
I wish I could jump into the porta potty.
But I know it’ll get worse the longer I stay in here, so as soon as I’m done, I pump some of the gross old soap residue onto my palm and walk out into the bright September day.
Everyone’s huddled together by the edge of the track. I walk over as quietly as I can, hoping no one will notice me, but as I make my way to the edge of the group, Mr. DiMeglio looks up and says, “Glad to have you back, Alison,” and the Addisons whisper to each other and start giggling.
Gym class should be illegal. I wish I had hopped into the porta potty when I had the chance.
Mr. DiMeglio tells us that we’re running the mile next week, and Leo leans over and whispers, “You all right?”
I stare at the yellowing grass.
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Chapter Two
MY KISHKES
“You sure you’re okay?” Leo asks as we walk home from school later that day.
Gym is the only class we have...

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Verlag
Penguin Young Readers Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593112970
ISBN 13 
9780593112977
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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