Contents
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Annie
Jessie
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright © 2016 by Catherine Lo
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
www.hmhco.com
Cover photographs: © Thomas Vogel/Getty Images (paper heart); © Colonel/Getty Images (masking tape)
Cover design by Cara Llewellyn
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Lo, Cathy, author.
How it ends / Cathy Lo.
pages cm
Summary: Jessica is a good student who hates school because she is bullied by the “cool” girls, and she is startled and grateful when Annie, the new girl in her southern Ontario high school, seeks her out on the first day of tenth grade and defends her from the bullying—it is a friendship that both girls need, but one based on assumptions and misunderstandings that ultimately threaten to drive them apart.
ISBN 978-0-544-54006-4 (alk. paper)
1. Best friends—Juvenile fiction. 2. Bullying—Juvenile fiction. 3. Miscommunication—Juvenile fiction. 4. Families—Ontario—Juvenile fiction. 5. Dating (Social customs)—Juvenile fiction. 6. High schools—Ontario—Juvenile fiction. 7. Ontario—Juvenile fiction. [1. Best friends—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Bullying—Fiction. 4. Miscommunication—Fiction. 5. Family life—Ontario—Fiction. 6. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 7. High schools—Fiction. 8. Schools—Fiction. 9. Ontario—Fiction. 10. Canada—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.1.L6Ho 2016
[Fic]—dc23 2015007154
eISBN 978-0-544-78767-4
v1.0616
For Ernie, Ethan, and Mackenzie.
ALWAYS
and
FOREVER.
HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION
By Jessica Lynn Avery
Recuperating from the disaster that was 9th grade.
Working in the mailroom at my dad’s law firm, because:
My dad is a strong believer in learning about the real world, and
My mom is a strong believer in constant parental supervision.
Creeping the Facebook pages of my classmates so I could torture myself with evidence of what normal people do all summer.
Reading everything John Green has ever written.
Dreading today. The last day of summer. The day before 10th grade begins.
Jessie
Here’s what I wish I could say about my summer vacation:
Working in the city was every bit as glamorous and exciting as I anticipated. My dad and I bonded over executive lunches and spent our train rides to work gossiping about our coworkers. The awkwardness that usually colors our conversations fell away, and my dad was proud of how I blossomed in the workplace, leaving my issues behind and functioning like everyone else. Down in the mailroom, I met the kids of other lawyers, and we engaged in the types of shenanigans you would expect from a bunch of teenagers experiencing their first taste of independence. On our last day, my new friends and I exchanged tearful goodbyes and promises to keep in touch online. I left work feeling ready for the new school year, knowing that the losers who torment me at school are just unsophisticated hicks who lack the intelligence and social graces to behave like decent human beings.
Here’s how it actually went:
My father and I rode the train to work in silence. He read the paper or sent emails from his phone while I played Angry Birds on mine. Each morning, we parted at the front doors, where he gave me a heartfelt pep talk along the lines of Work hard and don’t embarrass me. While he headed up to his posh office, I headed down into the bowels of the building, where a bunch of overprivileged kids pretended to work. I was greeted on the first day with about all the instruction I received all summer: do whatever the suits tell you, look busy no matter what, and what happens in the mailroom stays in the mailroom.
After that, I pretty much spent the summer walking the fine line between working hard enough to look busy but not hard enough to make my coworkers look bad. I’d finish my duties by lunchtime and then spend the afternoon hiding in a back corner of the mailroom, reading and fantasizing about how to transform myself into an Alaska Young or Margo Roth Spiegelman.
While my dad ate fancy lunches with clients, I snuck out to buy sauerkraut-covered hot dogs, devouring them right there on the street before scurrying back to the mailroom. I don’t know where the other kids went. Most of them were the children of partners, and they looked down on me because my dad is just a regular lawyer. They moved together like a flock of birds, twittering away as they passed my desk each day at lunchtime, carefully avoiding eye contact. I’d watch them go, struggling to fill my lungs with air while the weight of loneliness settled itself on my chest.
So basically, what I learned about the world of work is that it’s depressingly like high school. There are still cliques, everyone does the least amount of work possible to get by, and the beautiful people are in charge.
Aren’t I a ray of sunshine?
The thing is, I know there are people who have it worse than me. I don’t have a terminal illness, I’m not homeless or hungry, my parents are still married after a gazillion years, and I’ve never had to go through losing someone I love.
I keep reminding myself that things could be worse, but there are shades of gray, you know?
I do suffer from terminal loneliness, I’m so far from popular that the light from popular would take a million years to reach me, my parents fundamentally disagree about how to parent a kid like me, and I’ve never experienced love, because I’m apparently invisible to boys.
But on to the current crisis: tomorrow is the first day of school. Tenth grade.
I hate school. Which is ironic because everyone thinks I love it. I’m a straight-A student (booknerd) who always tops the honor roll (loser) at Sir John A. Macdonald High School (Seventh Circle of Hell) in our quaint little Southern Ontario town (hickville) in the great country of Canada (where everything is more expensive and less cool than in America).
It’s not the idea of course work that has my stomach aching and my hands shaking. I have my fellow classmates to thank
