Simon Sort of Says: (Newbery Honor Book)

by Erin Bow

I mean, isn’t that the American Dream? Hint: no.

Lol

So, we packed up our stuff and moved to a little town called—I swear this is true—Grin And Bear It, Nebraska.

Grin And Bear It is on the Dismal River, and on the edge of the Dismal River National Forest.

(In addition to being a deacon, my dad likes to make up his own wise sayings. So that’s Dad.)

There’s something about the way the houses here spill onto the front lawns that makes me think no one in this town has ever locked a door in their life.

It’s weirdly warm considering it’s February—the kind of day where in Phoenix they might have on parkas with their shorts, but in Nebraska a few kids are wearing shorts with their parkas.

(My brain, if you haven’t got this yet, specializes in disaster scenarios.)

The principal’s name is Ms. Snodgrass, and she looks like she’s spent her whole life trying to overcome being called Ms. Snodgrass.

It's giving K Barb

She smiles, owlishly. Like she would totally eat Mr. Tuna.

The teacher, a young one with long hair and a long skirt, nods, stands up, and comes over to me. She half-smiles—she has a kind of Disney-Princess-sings-with-the-animals look—

This one is giving mrs woodruff

“Would your mom rent it out for school dances and stuff?” asks another girl. She has a three-ring binder in front of her and a general air of “class president.”

Close enough welcome back eighth grade me

The music department stores some portable risers there, probably violating the fire code in like seven different ways.

But the end of the hall is out of the way, and the exit gives me an escape route, so it suits me just fine.

Sus

cheese-and-jam sandwich

Nasty

Sure, because her name is the part that tripped me up.

“Look, I’m trying to kind of…fly under the radar here.” “That’s okay,” says Agate, and for a second I think she’s going to leave. But she says: “This doesn’t have anything to do with radar.”

Lol

And for sure the school’s not divided into warring factions or anything. Schools aren’t like that except in books, and it’s not like the Team Science kids are building death rays while the Team Farm kids are flinging manure bombs. Agate, for instance, lives on a farm but is definitely the seventh grader most likely to build a doomsday device.

To be honest, I was ready to flip a coin when Agate turned up like a penny landing on its edge.

It’s fenced off with the same elaborate wrought iron as the Garden of Peace and Memory, but around the Garden of Recycling and Crabgrass the fence is peeling and rusted, and the gate screeches. That would be fine, except the peacock—who has a tail the size of a golf umbrella and a brain the size of a shriveled lima bean—always thinks the sound is another male peacock. Like, every day he thinks this. And every day he comes bursting out from behind the hearse garage or down from the porch roof or up from the pits of hell to challenge that other peacock to a duel. He yodels and sticks his neck out like a goose. He snaps and spits and attempts to rake you with his spurs. He is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he does have some very sharp parts. We call him Pretty Stabby.

Agate frowns. “I think your peacock is sexually harassing me, Mr. O’Keeffe,” she says.

My dad looks flummoxed. The last time I had friends from school over I was in fifth grade and it didn’t matter if they were girls. Now I’m in seventh, so maybe it does. I mean, not to me, obviously. But maybe Dad thinks it should. Or maybe flummoxed is just his default state these days. Being the only sackbut player in Grin And Bear It, Nebraska, can do that to a man.

“I am an autistic person,” she says, cheerfully, as she sorts the cheese and crackers and carrots into separate cupcake piles. “Separating food textures is one of my things.” “That’s cool,” I say, trying to sound as cheerful as she does. I mean, it is cool—I’m not an expert or anything, but Emma J. in my old class was on the autism spectrum and she was interesting and nice. But also: Agate being cool about her brain stuff makes me feel a little safer about my brain stuff. Not safe enough to get into it or anything—but safer.

“My mom bought it for the year I was homeschooled. She said I wasn’t going to be one of those people with widows’ humps who had to have their spines broken so they can lay flat in a coffin.”

She was Scottish and she was very smart and she could swing a sledgehammer.

Actual peacock scientists—scientists who study peacocks, not peacocks who are scientists

The whole GNB gentler, more organic pace of life works better if you can get your hands on Cool Ranch Doritos once in a while.

Real

the Very Large Radio Telescope. (That’s apparently how scientists roll when it comes to names. According to Kevin, there are plans for an Extremely Large Telescope and an Overwhelmingly Large Telescope, but for now, the Very Large Telescope is where it’s at.)

As far as I am concerned, “no computers” is half the point of Grin And Bear It.

I preclear it with my parents—who absolutely would call the FBI if they didn’t know where I was after school—

Kevin told me that his last name, Matapang, is Filipino, but his mom turns out to be the whitest of white ladies: blond, Karen haircut, mom jeans, the whole package.

“Behold,” he says, “the Kennel of Science.” “We’re not calling it that,” says Zeny. “We’re totally calling it that,” I say. Because now that I see it, the name is perfect.

forbidden microwave,

He puts a Hot Pocket in the forbidden microwave and fires up the forbidden computers.

The forbidden microwave forbidden beeps.

“I have lost the strength to go myself, and you, my only son, must save me.” “…Okay?”

“I sent him to pick up a new client and he tried to bag up the roommate.” “Who was also dead?” I ask, without much hope. “Who was napping,” Mom says. I’m horrified. Mom’s horrified. The silence is horrified.

She slides her special thermos cup across the table toward me. It’s double-walled steel and could probably be used to smuggle uranium.

“If coffee was my comfort drug, you’d be buying two.”

“But no adult has heard you say that!” I glance behind me. There are in fact a bunch of adults who heard me say that.

It tastes kind of like vanilla, if vanilla were also a potato.

Kevin and me lean back against the cold glass curve of the counter and watch his dad hovering over the junior scientists like a teacher reassuring some weeping kindergarteners.

that’s smaller than a football field, which is our standard way of measuring things in Nebraska.

A family whose kids are named Jade, Jasper, Coral, Agate, Onyx, Mica, and Amber has a dog named Todd. And that is the least weird part.

“So. You’ve got a genius dog that can open doors and turn on lights and operate heavy machinery or whatever, but he doesn’t care about pleasing people?” “I admire him,” says Agate, and she smiles like the moon.

“My trauma specialist tried to get me a dog,” I say, rubbing the little guy’s ears. “You’ve got a trauma specialist?” Oh, great job, Simon. Why did I tell her that? But I love the way she says “You’ve got a trauma specialist?” just as if she were saying, “You’ve got a telescope?” Like it’s cool and interesting. “Back in Omaha.” I shrug. “The alpaca incident was very traumatic.” She looks at me seriously. “Do you find our goats triggering?”

because, like I said, no one told Agate it wasn’t 1980

“Hello, Mr. O’Keeffe,” she says, bouncing on her toes. “I brought Simon a puppy.”

Mom turns and throws her arms open, a kind of “come-at-me-bro” gesture that has been known to give pause even to Pretty Stabby. “Don’t you dare,” she says. “I will roast you like a Roman dinner.”

My dad is not a morning person—many sackbut players aren’t—

She’s wearing another home-printed sweatshirt, this one of a badger blowing on a dandelion, captioned The Hufflepuffiest.