Flipped

by Wendelin Van Draanen

After all, the last thing I needed was for Juli Baker to think I missed her.

“A painting is more than the sum of its parts,” he would tell me, and then go on to explain how the cow by itself is just a cow, and the meadow by itself is just grass and flowers, and the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light, but put them all together and you’ve got magic.

It was on a day like that when my father’s notion of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts moved from my head to my heart. The view from my sycamore was more than rooftops and clouds and wind and colors combined. It was magic.

I hung the painting across the room from my bed. It’s the first thing I see every morning and the last thing I see every night. And now that I can look at it without crying, I see more than the tree and what being up in its branches meant to me. I see the day that my view of things around me started changing.

“One’s character is set at an early age, son. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life.” He was quiet for a minute, then dropped the curtain and said, “I hate to see you swim out so far you can’t swim back.”

I felt sorry for my father. I felt sorry for my mother. But most of all I felt lucky for me that they were mine.

Maybe it was all how you looked at it. Maybe there were things I saw as ugly that other people thought were beautiful.

I left him. Just walked into the living room and left him. If he was making it up, he was quite an actor. If he was telling the truth, then Chet was right—he was a coward. Either way, I didn’t want to be anywhere near him.

Then there was Bryce—the most disturbing of all because I had to admit that I didn’t really know him, either. And based on what I’d discovered lately, I didn’t care to know any more.

“No, Bryce,” he said softly. “She’s the same as she’s always been; you’re the one who’s changed.”

She looked from me to the stage and back to me. “You got nothin’ to lose but your self-respect.”

Darla with that shaaaade

“I’m sorry,” I whimpered, because I knew I was hurting her feelings. I sat up and said, “Mom, all those years I liked him? I never really knew him. All I knew was that he had the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen and that his smile melted my heart like the sun melts butter. But now I know that inside he’s a coward and a sneak, so I’ve got to get over what he’s like on the outside!”

good for you girl, good for you!

“I don’t want to wind up like Mrs. Loski!”

a very sensible goal