Happy Kid! Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group. Published by The Penguin Group. Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

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  Text copyright © 2006 Gail Gauthier. All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off.

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  Published simultaneously in Canada.

  Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Gauthier, Gail, 1953-

  Happy kid! / Gail Gauthier. p. cm. Summary: After his mother bribes him into reading a self-help book on how to form satisfying relationships and enjoy a happy life, cynical eighth-grader Kyle finds there may be more to the book than he realized.

  [1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Self-help techniques—Fiction.

  3. Middle schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-04280-9

  eISBN : 978-1-101-04280-9

  First Impression

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Rob and Dan, my sources of inspiration and information and thanks to everyone I train with at Tae San Taekwondo Academy

  CHAPTER 1

  “Kyle, Lauren, I have back to school presents!” Mom said as she handed us packages at dinner the night before my first day of seventh grade.

  This can’t be good, I thought.

  I still hadn’t recovered from my birthday, when Mom had given me a magazine subscription to encourage me to read, a pedometer to encourage me to exercise, and a museum pass to encourage me to be an old fart. A back to school present might be better, I supposed. But probably not.

  My sister didn’t think so, either.

  “You open yours first,” Lauren ordered.

  “You’re older. You should have to go first,” I shot back.

  Lauren sighed and opened her package. “Oh,” she said as she studied the jewel case in her hand. “A computer program for preparing for the PSAT. What an unusual gift. How creative of you to think of it. I’ll treasure it always. I—”

  “You’ve probably said enough, Lauren,” Dad said.

  “What is the PSAT, anyway?” I asked.

  “It’s a test Lauren has to take this year as a practice for the Scholastic Aptitude Test she needs to take next year so she can go to college,” Mom explained. “But, uh, you don’t need to worry about that for a while.”

  “What? You said I don’t have to take any more of those big, weird tests after I finish with the State Student Assessment Surveys in eighth grade,” I reminded her.

  “What I meant was that you wouldn’t have to take the SSASies again after eighth grade,” Mom said. “They stop giving them after that.”

  “Mom! You said—”

  “Don’t go off the deep end, Kyle,” Dad said. “I’m trying to eat.”

  “I’m not going off the deep end!” I shouted.

  “Hey, Kyle,” Lauren said. “Remember when Mom told you you wouldn’t have to have any more shots after your last physical? Well, guess what?”

  I turned to my mother. “Is that true?”

  “I meant you wouldn’t have to have any more of those kinds of shots. But why are you getting all upset about shots and tests that you don’t need to even be thinking about for years? Look! You haven’t opened your present,” Mom pointed out. “I saw it when I was shopping one day, and it just screamed your name.”

  “Open it up and get it over with, Kyle,” Dad ordered. “I’m trying to eat.”

  I was backed into a corner with nothing to do but pick up the package and rip the gift wrap off like I would a Band Aid—quickly so the pain wouldn’t be dragged out any longe than necessary.

  “Happy Kid!” I read out loud when I saw the cover. “A Young Person’s Guide to Satisfying Relationships and a Happy and Meaning-Filled Life!” I looked at my mother. “Thi screamed my name?”

  “It was the strangest thing,” Mom admitted. “I was cutting through the book department to get to men’s underwear be cause your father needed new briefs. All of a sudden I no ticed something shiny off to my right. It was the ligh reflecting off the gold lettering on that book. I saw the words Happy Kid, and your name popped into my mind. Righ then and there I just knew that you could be a happy kid. also, uh, well, I also suddenly experienced a feeling of grea peace.”

  I dropped the book onto the table. “That’s always a bad sign,” I said.

  Lauren agreed with me. “I know I’d be scared to death if suddenly experienced a feeling of great peace while shopping for tightie-whities. Still, I have to admit it, Mom’s right. Tha book is you all over, Kyle.”

  “Did you save the receipt?” I asked Mom. “Can I return it?

  “He took that well,” Dad said as he helped himself to some pineapple chicken.

  “Now, Kyle, what have you been taught about receiving gifts?” Mom said. “We aren’t always going to get things we like, but we have to remember the effort and thought behind them.”

  “Thank you for believing I’m such a reject I need a book on how to be happy,” I said. “I really appreciate the thought.”

  “You are most welcome, I’m sure,” Lauren replied as she popped a piece of pineapple into her mouth.

  “Lauren, let your mother handle this,” Dad said.

  My mother is a child-and-family counselor. She handles everything. Always. For everybody. Friends, neighbors, people standing next to her in line at the grocery store—if they have a death in their family, a crazy relative, a kid in jail, work problems, car problems, pet problems, or plant problems, Mom will be all over it. />
  “If only she could handle this,” Lauren sighed dramatically.

  “A meaning-filled life?” I read again from the cover. “What is that, anyway? And I have satisfying relationships.”

  “You have relationships?” Lauren asked. “Since when?”

  “Of course your brother has relationships,” Mom said to Lauren. Then she looked toward me. “You just haven’t . . . done anything . . . with them lately.”

  “Uh-oh. She must have noticed you spent the whole summer alone in the living room watching disaster documentaries,” Lauren said. “And the Sci Fi Channel, of course.”

  She just can’t shut up. It’s like a curse or something with her.

  “We care about your happiness,” Mom told me, looking into my eyes with this sensitive, kind expression that must really creep out her clients. “You’ve changed since you started middle school last year. Even before the problem with . . . Mr. Kowsz . . . you weren’t happy. You got upset so easily . . .”

  “You started getting really hairy, too,” Lauren broke in.

  “And you were only in sixth grade. What was with that?”

  “Hey!” Dad said. “I’m trying to eat.”

  “Argh!”

  “See what I mean about getting upset?” Mom went on.

  “You also saw less and less of your friends last year. You saw no one at all this summer. It’s not good for you to spend so much time by yourself.”

  “I could have seen Jake Rogers,” I replied. I was beginning to get a little angry because Mom and Lauren were dumping on me. “Would you have liked that? The last two weeks of school last year he wanted to be my new best buddy, you know. And you remember how he kept calling here the first few weeks of vacation?”

  “He did seem awfully attracted to your notoriety, didn’t he?” Mom admitted. Then a look of panic shot across her face as she realized she’d just admitted that I’d developed a little bit of a bad reputation at school the year before. “Not that you’re notorious,” she stammered. “And . . . and . . . I can’t believe . . . um . . . that Jake Rogers is the only person you could have seen this entire summer. Not that there’s anything . . . wrong . . . with the boy,” Mom added quickly.

  Sometimes I wonder just how well she does with the child-and-family-counseling thing.

  “That’s right, there’s nothing wrong with Jake,” Lauren agreed. “Except for the little business about being a future criminal. You know, I never understood that saying about people being known by the company they keep until you and Jake started getting so tight. You may not realize this, but he’s not going to help your status at school at all.”

  “We’re not tight!” I told her. “I don’t want his company! He wants mine!”

  “What about Lukie?” Mom asked me. “You guys were friends for years.”

  “Luke, Mom. Nobody says ‘Lukie’ now. We don’t do things together anymore because we weren’t in any classes together last year. We didn’t even have the same lunch section. I didn’t see him for most of sixth grade. You can’t do things with someone you never see.”

  “He was in a different classroom, not on the other side of the world,” Mom insisted.

  “He might as well have been.”

  “Kyle, for the first time in your life you didn’t have friends over for your birthday this summer!” Mom said.

  “I was twelve, Mom. Give me a break.”

  “I had a big party for my twelfth birthday,” Lauren recalled happily. “I had boys at my twelfth birthday party.”

  I spent part of my twelfth birthday with my grandmother. Oh my gosh. I am such a loser. A hairy loser.

  “When you got your schedule from the school, did you even call any of your friends to find out if they have the same classes you do this year?” Mom asked.

  I had a hard time imagining just which friends she was talking about. What with all the different classes we had last year at the middle school, I hadn’t seen much of the people I’d known in grade school during the day. I had so much homework that I couldn’t see much of anyone after school, either. You can’t just call people you’ve hardly talked to since you left elementary school and hope they’ll think you’re friends. I wouldn’t have been in good shape in that department even if there hadn’t been the “problem with Mr. Kowsz,” as Mom liked to call the worst thing that ever happened to me.

  She was right, though. After the “problem,” I did become notorious. Being famous for something no one wants to be famous for didn’t suddenly make me a people magnet, either. Except for Jake Rogers, of course. He was the last straw. Once he started following me in the hall and hanging around me in the locker room before gym class (mine—he stopped going to his back in March), anyone who had been thinking about so much as asking if I’d been able to do last night’s homework changed his mind.

  A lot of people stared, though.

  I didn’t want to make my mother feel bad because I had no one to call, so instead of telling her that, I yelled, “Would you leave me alone!”

  “No,” Mom said. “I won’t. Tell us what was wrong last year, and we’ll try to help you fix it.”

  “Bert P. Trotts Middle School is the gateway to hell!” I shouted. “How are you going to fix that?”

  “Yeah, I’d like to know that, too,” Lauren said.

  Mom turned so her back was toward Lauren. Which meant she was giving me all her attention. Yippee.

  “Why is it the gateway to hell, sweetheart?” Mom asked me.

  I decided I’d had enough of trying to be nice to my mother. I tried to change the subject and said, “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Nah, he just wants to whine,” Lauren announced.

  “Lauren,” Dad warned.

  “I do not whine!” I shouted. “All the kids at Trotts spend all day every day being ordered around. ‘Take this subject!’ ‘Listen to that teacher!’ ‘Run to your next class.’ ‘Read this book you don’t like, do this homework you don’t understand, sit with these kids you don’t know.’ ‘Do this. And this. And this.’ It never lets up. Not for a minute. ‘You got your homework done? Great! Here’s some more.’ ‘And what do you think about what happened in the book we’re reading? Really? Well, you’re wrong!’ ”

  “Wait until you get out in the work world,” Dad told me, man-to-man. “You’ll wish you were back at the gateway to hell.”

  “Honey,” Mom said to me, “we know the new accelerated English and social studies classes you took last year were tons of work. I felt just terrible when you had to drop out of Boy Scouts because you didn’t have time for the meetings. And then there was the . . . well, the problem with Mr. Kowsz . . . in June. But you need to understand, sweetheart, that there are two responses to difficulty. One is positive and one is negative. You’ve become very negative and defensive, and we’d like to help you become positive and accepting. We’d like to help you—”

  I couldn’t listen to any more of that stuff. “I am not negative!” I exclaimed.

  “Not negative?” Lauren repeated, laughing. “Kyle, your glass isn’t just half empty . . . it’s broken and the water has spilled all over the floor.”

  I could have added that the water was muddy and full of bacteria, but I didn’t. I have a much sunnier personality than I get credit for.

  Mom either smiled or gritted her teeth at me. “You always look for the worst in every situation, Kyle. And then you get all upset about it. It’s as if you don’t know how to do anything else anymore. We’re worried about your happiness. Your father and I think it’s time for you to start fresh.”

  Oh, yeah, sure, like Dad had anything to do with any of this.

  “Kyle, read this book,” Mom insisted. “It could change your life.”

  “Is it part of a trilogy?” Lauren asked. “Because one book is not going to be anywhere near enough to fix what’s wrong with him.”

  “You’d need an entire set of encyclopedias,” I shot back.

  “Read the damn book, Kyle,” Dad said. “
At worst it will be a waste of time. And at best my ulcer will shrink up because there won’t be squabbling at the dinner table anymore.”

  “Dad, you do not have an ulcer,” Lauren groaned.

  Dad corrected her. “No one has been able to find my ulcer. But it is there. And it’s growing. Terrorist threats, unemployment, new diseases, and now two adolescents living in the same house with me. Why I’m not on a liquid diet by now is a mystery to me.”

  My father isn’t exactly what I’d describe as positive and accepting. Why doesn’t Mom ever jump on him?

  “I’m not reading that book,” I announced. “You can’t make me.”

  “I’ll pay you a dollar for every chapter you read,” Mom suddenly offered.

  Lauren gasped—one of those big fake ones that involve a huge, noisy sucking-in of air. She’s tall and thin, and she usually wears her dark hair in a ponytail or pinned up on the back of her head with a clip. With her hair up you really notice her gray eyes popping open when she’s surprised.

  I look just like her except I don’t have breasts.

  Actually, she doesn’t, either.

  “You’re going to bribe him?” Lauren asked.

  “It’s behavior modification,” Mom said grimly. “Read a chapter, get a reward.”

  “And that’s different from bribery because . . . ?”

  I picked the book up and looked it over. It was pretty big.

  “Not worth it,” I said.

  “Kyle, you idiot,” Lauren exclaimed. “You only get seven dollars a week for allowance. If you read a chapter a day, you’ll double your income. How long are the chapters? They’re only a page long! Give me that book. For a dollar a page, I’ll read it.”

  “No,” I said, pulling the book away from her. “It’s mine.”

  CHAPTER 2

  When I woke up on the first day of seventh grade, I wanted only three things from life. I wanted to keep people from staring at me and whispering. I wanted to get my name off any school lists of students who were likely to snap and go violent. And I wanted to buy one of the bacon, egg, and cheese bagels the Bert P. Trotts Middle School lunch ladies sell before first-period classes start.