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Daily Field Journal of A
My palms were slick as I walked into class on Wednesday. They’d been slick on Monday, too, because Chloe and I had figured we’d be getting our tests back then. But Mr. Froggy had decided to take the weekend off and promised us we’d have our grades “theees Weeednesdeee.”“You ready for this?” Chloe asked, tucking her skirt under her as she sat.“I think so.”But what if I’d been wrong? What if I hadn’t done as well as I’d thought? If I got that test back with a big red C, or worse, a D, I was going to walk right out of here and never look back.Or not. Because that hadn’t really worked so great as a strategy before.“Goot aufteernoon!” Mr. Froggy walked in with his briefcase. He put the papers down on the desk. And once again, they scattered all over the floor thanks to the fan. This time, for some reason, I was the one who jumped up to help. I practically flattened the front row girl as she started to get up from her seat.“Ah. Meeester Grayton. Thank yeuu,” Mr. Froggy said.I couldn’t help glancing at the names and grades as I picked up the pages. Darlene Robinson: B. Ta
“Mom! Mom, you’re never going to believe this.”For a second, in the driveway, I’d considered not telling her. I mean, why make her think that I was excited? That she’d somehow done the right thing by grounding me for the whole freaking summer? But I couldn’t help it. I was too excited to not say something.My mother was at the desk in her office, just off the kitchen, going over some bills. She looked up when she saw me, and smiled.I hadn’t seen her smile all summer.“Look,” I said, holding up the paper and letting my backpack drop to the floor. “I got an A.”It felt really good to say that. Why had I never realized how good it would feel to say that?“Jake! That’s amazing! I’m so proud of you!” My mom got up and gave me a hug. I one-arm hugged her back. No need to go completely crazy here. “And there’s more good news.”She turned back to her desk and picked up a folded page, which she held out to me.“Your practice scores from last weekend,” she said. She folded her hands and stepped back to watch me take it in.I’d scored a twelve hundred. My best score yet.“Wow.” I looked at her. “Maybe I’m a genius.”She cracked up laughing. “See? I told you. All you had to do was cut out the distractions and apply yourself and—”“Mom. You’re ruining the moment,” I said.“Sorry.” She held up both manicured hands.Then she just stood there for a second, her eyes shining as she looked at me. I started to feel self-conscious.“What?”“I’ve just . . . never seen you excited about school before,” she said. “It’s nice.”I cleared my throat. Could she be any dorkier? But then it hit me. There was a slim possibility I could use all this goodwill to my advantage.“Nice enough to get me ungrounded?” I asked.The smile died and she pressed her thumb and forefinger into her forehead above her eyes. “Jake—”“Come on, Mom. It’s August already. I have to be in soccer practice, like, next week.” She looked at me and shook her head, but she was considering it. I could tell. Something in her eyes said she wanted to cut me a break. “Just . . . let me go see a movie or something with Chloe. Come on. We’re both bored out of our minds with all our friends down the shore.”She sucked in a breath through her teeth and blew it out. “All right, fine. One movie.”“Yes! Thank you, Mom!” And this time I hugged her, still clinging to my two best scores ever, one in each hand.“But only because it’s with Chloe,” she said as I released her. “I think that girl’s been a good influence on you.”The way she said it made my stomach flip. Like she thought me and Chloe were together or something. She walked past me over to the junk drawer and removed my keys.“Here,” she said, dangling them in front of me. “You can drive her for once.”Whatever. Let her think what she wanted to think. If it got me my car back, I didn’t care.“Thanks, Mom,” I said, grabbing the keys from her as I headed out to the foyer.“Thank you, Jake!” she shouted after me.I ran upstairs, grabbed the phone, and called Chloe.
Daily Field Journal of A
I sat in my room on Friday night and stared at a page in Wuthering Heights, ignoring the multiple texts from Cooper. All I had done for the past few nights was hang out with him, get drunk, and hook up. I couldn’t believe this was my life. Two months ago I hated drinking. Now it was a part of my daily life.Well, not tonight. Tonight I was just going to sit here and read and not feel bad about myself. Although I would miss the hooking up part. The hooking up part was not at all bad. We hadn’t actually had sex or anything. I wasn’t about to give it up to a guy I’d known for two months. But we’d done a lot of other stuff. Stuff that made me blush whenever I thought about it. Like now.There was a knock on my door and my mother stuck her head inside. I cleared my throat and wiped my palms across my face as if I could clear away the red. “Hey,” she said. “Can we talk to you?”My heart lurched and I sat up a little straighter. “We?”She opened the door farther and my dad stepped into view. I was so shocked I almost fell off the bed.“Dad!” I jumped up and ran over to hug him. “What’re you doing here?”“I just came to see how you’re doing,” he said.I took a step back. There was something off about his tone. Like it was too chipper or something. Him and my mom were both looking at me with these sort of plastic smiles, and concerned eyes.“What do you mean?” I said, edging back toward the bed. “I’m fine.”My father cleared his throat and looked at my mom. He was wearing a black polo shirt and his arms looked really tan for someone who’d supposedly been stuck inside a coffeehouse all summer.“Well, your mother mentioned that you had a new boyfriend,” my dad said. “How’s that going?”I sat on the edge of the bed. There was something all wrong about this conversation. Why hadn’t I known my dad was coming down, for one? We could have made plans to go out to di