Verwandte Artikel zu One Kid's Trash

One Kid's Trash - Softcover

Sumner, Jamie

 
9781534457041: One Kid's Trash
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1534457046 ISBN 13: 9781534457041
Verlag: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

From the acclaimed author of Roll with It and Tune It Out comes a funny, moving, and “not to be missed” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) middle grade novel about a boy who uses his unusual talent for decoding people’s trash to try to fit in at his new school.

Hugo is not happy about being dragged halfway across the state of Colorado just because his dad had a midlife crisis and decided to become a ski instructor. It’d be different if Hugo weren’t so tiny, if girls didn’t think he was adorable like a puppy in a purse and guys didn’t call him “leprechaun” and rub his head for luck. But here he is, the tiny new kid on his first day of middle school.

When his fellow students discover his remarkable talent for garbology, the science of studying trash to tell you anything you could ever want to know about a person, Hugo becomes the cool kid for the first time in his life. But what happens when it all goes to his head?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jamie Sumner is the author of the Roll with It trilogy, Tune It Out, One Kid’s Trash, The Summer of June, Maid for It, Deep Water, Please Pay Attention, Schooled, Glory Be, and Wish You Well. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. She loves stories that celebrate the grit and beauty in all kids. She is also the mother of a son with cerebral palsy and has written extensively about parenting a child with special needs. She and her family live in Nashville, Tennessee. Visit her at Jamie-Sumner.com. 

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Chapter One: The Coefficient of Hugo

Chapter One The Coefficient of Hugo
The beautiful and terrible thing about having your bedroom in the basement is that you never know what time it is. So when Mom yells down the stairs, “Hugo, if you don’t get up this minute, you will miss the bus!” I assume that I am already late. And if I miss the bus, there is only one other option: Mom drives me. Which isn’t really an option at all. I am not having my mother drive me to the first day of middle school. That’s social suicide. A guy like me can’t afford to take chances.

I sprint to the bathroom and take the fastest shower in the history of showers. And then I run up the stairs with socks in my mouth and my arms full of jacket, shoes, and backpack. Mom takes one look at me in the hallway and says, “You can’t go out with your hair wet.”

I spit the socks onto the floor.

“Either I catch the bus, or I dry my hair. You can’t have it both ways, Mom.”

I start yanking on a sock, slightly damp from my mouth. Mom watches in her pink fuzzy bathrobe. Back home she was the first one up and dressed and out the door. She had her own private therapy practice in an office building downtown. Client appointments started at eight a.m., which I never understood. If I could set my own schedule, nothing would begin before eleven.

She crouches down and hands me my other sock. Then she reaches out like she’s going to fix my hair. It’s shooting in a million different directions. I bob and weave like a boxer.

“Mom. No.”

“Okay, I just— Do you have your phone?”

The phone is new. They said I couldn’t have one until I turned twelve, which isn’t until April, but I guess with the move they thought I’d need it sooner. So uprooting my entire life came with one bonus.

“Yeah, I got it.” I stand and grab my bag.

“Here, take this.” She tosses me a chocolate PediaSure.

“No. Uh-uh.” I throw it back to her like a hot potato. “I’m too old for this.”

“You’re only too old when Dr. Ross says you’re too old.” She stuffs the bottle in my bag.

Dr. Ross is my pediatrician. She’s had me on a weight-gain plan since, well, when I came out of the womb two months too soon. I bet I’ve drunk approximately four thousand shakes. “Creamy” chocolate, “French” vanilla, “very berry” strawberry—they all taste like chalk. And they don’t work… obviously. I’m the dot on the growth chart that can’t reach a line. I’m Ant-Man if he couldn’t unshrink himself. My aunt once bought me age-appropriate athletic shorts for my birthday. They came to my shins. Adam, the meanest kid in second grade, took one look at me and said, “Nice pants, Shorts.” That was my name for the next two years. Please, please, please, I say to the universe as I head out the door, don’t let me be Shorts again. The universe probably isn’t listening. I bet it doesn’t take client calls until eleven.

“Text if you need anything, okay?” Mom says. I sigh but give her a side hug as Dad comes skidding down the hall at a run.

He’s in jeans and he’s fighting the zipper on his Patagonia jacket. The zipper seems to be winning. It’s weird to see him without a tie. “Come on, I’ll walk you to—” He checks his watch. “Er, we’ll jog to the bus stop.” That’s the other new thing. We sold Mom’s Tahoe to help save money while she builds up her practice again and Dad does… whatever Dad plans to do. Now he has to catch the bus, just like me. Except his bus carries him to his new job in Creekside, the resort town at the top of the mountain, and mine takes me to purgatory—I mean, middle school.

I follow him out the door. His hair may be a totally different color, carroty red compared to my dark brown, but it looks just as bad as mine—permanent bedhead. Outside, the wind is fierce and yellow birch leaves dart through the air like angry hummingbirds. It’s only the beginning of September, but you can smell the cold coming.

We jog toward the end of the block and then break into a sprint when the bus passes us on its way to the corner. It screeches to a halt in a cloud of exhaust—the little engine that couldn’t—and I barely make it before it chugs off again. This is good. I’m so late I don’t have time to be nervous. I hurl myself into the heat of the bus before the doors whoosh closed behind me. I dart up the steps as fast as I can, praying for invisibility. But when I turn down the aisle, the bus driver says, “Hey, little fella, there’s plenty of room up front.” She points to the empty seat right behind her. Little fella. Two girls across the aisle giggle. I don’t even dare to look at anybody else. I walk all the way to an unoccupied row near the back. Outside on the sidewalk, Dad waves and waves and waves. I ignore him and blink back the tears that could only make this situation worse.

And so it begins.

Beech Creek Middle School looks a lot like every other public school in the universe. When we pull into the circle, I take my time filing out and give the place a nervous once-over. It’s a brick, one-story building, one long Lego, except it has stone columns in front of the main entrance—an attempt to be as classy as the resort up the hill. But it’s just a game of dress-up. If you live down here, you’re not a part of that world. Anybody rich enough to actually live in a lodge/chalet/palace up on high goes to the private school outside Vail.

How do I know this, as the new kid? My cousin Vijay, Vij, also lives here and goes to Beech Creek. He gave me the lowdown on the who, what, when, and where of the place. He was trying to help, but every conversation ended with me hanging up the phone and gently banging my head against the window of the bedroom in Denver that I did not want to leave. Trying to fit into a new school is like studying for a test for a class you’ve never taken.

It took me until fourth grade to make any friends worth keeping—Jason and Marquis and Cole, who are probably already searching for my FIFA replacement. Marquis was the first one to show me how to double tap the shoot button at the right time. I scored some sublime goals because of him. He’s also the first one who invited me over for game night and introduced me to Jason and Cole and their intense love for spray cheese. I will not miss the cheese, but I will miss them.

I hitch my backpack up on my shoulders. Vij waits for me by the main entrance. He’s wearing sunglasses even though the sky is one long blanket of cloud, and he’s throwing a bouncy ball over and over against one of the stone columns. He looks like he’s been here his whole life. I wish I had that level of confidence about anything.

“Hey,” I say, and duck as the bouncy ball goes careening off the stone, over my head, and into the street.

Vij lets it go.

“Hey, dude. You ready?” He lifts his glasses and his eyebrows at the same time. I’m not ready. Of course I’m not, but what am I going to do, hide under the cars with the bouncy ball? I take a deep breath and let him lead me inside.

I do not make eye contact with a single person. My stomach sloshes with Cinnamon Toast Crunch and nerves. Vij high-fives everyone, including the secretary, who hands me my schedule and ruffles my hair on my way to first period....

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Verlag
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Erscheinungsdatum
2022
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1534457046
ISBN 13 
9781534457041
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
256
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande