The New Kid, page 1
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2011 by Mavis Jukes
Jacket art copyright © 2011 by Karl Edwards
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jukes, Mavis.
The new kid / by Mavis Jukes.
p. cm.
Summary: When almost-nine-year-old Carson Blum and his father move to Northern California, he is worried about adjusting to his new, large public school and finding friends.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89631-6
[1. Moving, Household—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Single-parent families—Fiction.] 1. Title.
PZ7.J9294Ne 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010048826
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
To the memory of Marguerite Jukes—
a legendary teacher, a great mom, a great
grandma, and a great great-grandma.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue: The Plan
1. Good-Bye, Pasadena
2. Hello, El Cerrito
3. Hello, Mr. Nibblenose
4. Hello, Hello Bingo
5. Hello, Buster’s Barbecue
6. Hello, Mrs. Crabbly
7. Hello, Homesick
8. Good-Bye, Tri-Tip Sandwich
9. Hello, Bob
10. Good-Bye, Coop
11. Hello, Buñuelos
12. Hello, Star Jar
13. Good-Bye, Buñuelos
14. Hello, Dollie
15. Good-Bye, Mr. Nibblenose
16. Hello, Mrs. Nibblenose
17. Hello, Carnival Day
18. Hello, Stuffed Animal Day
19. Good-Bye, Moose
20. Hello, Heartache
21. Hello, Nick
22. Good-Bye, Hair Frog
23. Hello, Morp!
24. Hello, Yo-Yo!
25. Good-Bye, Deputy Dustbusters
26. Hello, Happy Birthday!
About the Author
PROLOGUE
The Plan
Carson would be moving before the school year ended, from a very small private Montessori school where he knew everybody to a very huge public elementary school where he knew nobody.
Carson would be the New Kid.
And that was something he’d never been before.
His dad had been offered a new position in a different area. His decision to change office locations had been a difficult one. He would make a better salary, and be given more interesting assignments. Plus, he could name his hours, and sometimes work from his computer at home. Best yet, he could spend more time with Carson, and drive him to school each morning, and pick him up each afternoon. Being able to spend more time with Carson had been the tipping point. He accepted the offer.
Changing jobs and schools is never easy, but everything is easier once you have a plan, and this was the plan they made together:
Carson, Genevieve, their Labrador, and Moose would stay at Carson’s grandparents while his dad got established up north in El Cerrito, California.
At Carson’s grandparents’ house, Genevieve would carry rocks around in the backyard. Evenings they would walk her with the nose leash over to the neighborhood park, where she would bark at birds. At night, after Bird Patrol was over and done with, she’d doze on her blankie in her basket by the back door and guard her toys and food dish.
Moose would sit tight and cool his hooves on Carson’s bedspread. At night, he’d recline—with the backs of his two bald ears on the pillow, his eyes wide open, and his nose sticking up.
Carson didn’t put it on the ten o’clock news that, at age going-on-nine, he slept next to a stuffed animal.
But he was planning to boot Moose out of the bed sometime before his next birthday. When Carson turned nine, it would be time to put Moose up on a shelf.
That wouldn’t happen until after they moved.
Once Carson’s dad had rented a house and supervised the move on both ends, they would be ready to roll. They’d ferry the old classic orange Porsche up, and later on Carson’s grandparents would bring up the other car, the station wagon, stay awhile, then fly back to Pasadena. That would happen on his grandpa’s vacation.
So yes. They had a plan, and the plan went off without a hitch.
1. GOOD-BYE,
Pasadena
Early one evening, when crickets were creaking and the smell of flowers was in the warm, damp air, Case and Gavin, Carson’s two best friends, their families, and other friends and neighbors gathered, along with the teachers, at the Montessori school for a Good-Luck Potluck Farewell.
Everybody knew what Carson’s favorite dinner was, and many families forgot to check the sign-up list, so there were eleven pans of lasagna and twenty-two loaves of garlic bread.
They all chipped in on a present for Carson and his dad: a croquet set in a carrying case. Carson’s grandparents would bring it up in the station wagon, just in time for croquet games on sunny summer afternoons.
The morning after the Good-Luck Potluck Farewell, beneath a pastel peach Pasadena sunrise, Carson and his dad backed the orange Porsche out of the driveway onto the street. Grandma and Grandpa were standing on the front lawn, Grandpa’s arm slung around Grandma’s shoulder. If they were sad, they wouldn’t have shown it. They lifted their coffee cups to say good-bye.
Carson’s dad chose the scenic route. Genevieve sat with Moose in the front seat, and Carson sat in the back, in the jump seat. Actually, Genevieve sat on Moose in the front seat, but Moose didn’t mind. Moose was a mellow guy. He couldn’t see much scenery, but it was nice and warm under Genevieve.
Genevieve’s suitcase was strapped onto the rear deck with bungee cords. In it were her dog dishes, kibble, blankie, and squeak toys. Most of the squeak toys didn’t squeak anymore, but that didn’t keep Genevieve from poking them with her nose or holding them in her mouth. She was holding a silent rubber ham in her mouth and looking out the window at a breathtakingly scenic stretch of long and lonesome highway when the engine sputtered and died.
Luckily, the cell phone worked way out there in the middle of nowhere, and they called for roadside assistance.
Half an hour passed before they saw the big blue and yellow tow truck come down the highway. Carson held Genevieve on her leash, and she sat like the good girl that she always tried to be, and sometimes really was.
It was dicey getting the Porsche onto the back of the flatbed truck. At one point, when the chains were rattling and clanging and the motor was grinding and whining, Carson’s dad had to cover his face with his Porsche cap.
Carson and his dad and Genevieve and the tow-truck guy all rode crammed into the front seat of the cab as they headed to the nearest town. Carson sat buckled up in the middle, in front of an ashtray brimming with cigarette butts, ashes, and gray wads of chewing gum. Outside the window, the view was mighty nice.
They rumbled along, first next to a rocky stream with light dancing on the water. Then they chugged up through a canyon and into a grassy basin dotted with black cattle. Carson saw piney ridges and rocky hillsides, a silver river, and craggy, glacier-topped peaks against the backdrop of a clear, sunshiny blue sky.
Genevieve sat happily plopped on Carson’s dad’s lap, squashing him and blocking his view, her tongue hanging out—and her nose making smudges on the window. And her tail wagging every once in a while, with the tip bopping Carson on the ear.
Eventually, they came to a one-horse highway town. The tow-truck guy dropped the Porsche off at a tin garage with AUTOMOTIVE REPAIR and a picture of a gorilla painted on the front.
It was closed for the day.
Carson, Genevieve, and his dad walked over to the little old-timey Three Cowboys Motel. They were happy to see the sign that said WI-FI, CABLE TV, PETS WELCOME ON MANAGER’S APPROVAL. Carson unzipped his jacket and took Moose out. Outside the office, a creepy gnome with a chipped nose and fat cheeks was sitting with a family of plaster skunks in the grass.
Virgil, the motel owner, manager, handyman, and maid, approved Genevieve and gave Carson’s dad the Wi-Fi password, then his dad opened his laptop and located a website that shipped classic Porsche parts anywhere in the United States.
So that’s where they stayed for three days, in the Three Cowboys Motel, waiting for a rebuilt fuel pump to be delivered by UPS.
They were traveling light. Good thing because the motel room was small.
Carson brought in his suitcase, which contained a change of clothes and his treasure box—a cookie tin containing Various Important Small Items, including his bottle-cap collection.
The motel room had twin beds, bent miniblinds, a dresser, and a small TV in a pine cupboard. The bathroom
A lock with a spiderweb in it could be adjusted to allow the window to be left open a crack, and Carson slid the window a couple of inches to counteract the boggy smell.
A cheery little lamp on the night table had horseshoes printed on the shade and a carved tipsy cowpoke on the base of it, dozing against a pole. Out the window, a blinking arrow pointed to MABEL’S FAMILY-STYLE CAFÉ, the town’s one-and-only restaurant, located right next door. A bright red neon sign flashed EAT, EAT, EAT, EAT, EAT, EAT, and that’s where they ate, ate, ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Evenings Carson and his dad wandered out to stargaze in the meadow behind the motel. Genevieve came, too, and sat quietly with a yellow Frisbee in her mouth.
Carson looked up at the sky and wondered who he would meet at Valley Oak Elementary School that could be as good a friend as Gavin or Case.
Would anybody even like Carson?
Even a little bit?
He couldn’t see why not.
But he’d have to wait to find out.
Carson’s dad turned the delay into a photo op. They investigated a tumbledown old cabin.
“Can you believe people used to homestead places like this? Squatters’ rights,” his dad said.
He squatted down and pointed his camera right at a bumblebee that was bouncing and bumbling from flower to flower like a fat black and yellow ball. He zoomed in and clicked. The bumblebee zoomed up. And chased him into some mucky goop by a spring.
“You okay, Dad?” Carson called.
He was fine. Muddy pants, wet shoes. So what.
They strolled along the fence line behind the automotive repair shop where the Porsche was waiting to be fixed, now parked inside and all by itself except for a pack rat Carson spotted through the window. The pack rat was hiding behind an empty metal paint can—holding on to the edge and peering at them with beady black eyes and twitching its whiskers.
Carson didn’t mind pack rats, but his dad wasn’t a fan. He stared through the dusty pane, shook his head, and sighed deeply. “Wow. I didn’t sign up for this.”
Carson and his dad uploaded some landscape photos, a portrait of the gnome, and a close-up of the bumblebee onto the laptop and emailed them to Carson’s grandma and grandpa, Case, Gavin, and Carson’s Montessori teacher, Ms. Juli.
On the last evening, they each sat in front of a pile of Mabel’s too-red spaghetti, which tasted like noodles dunked in ketchup. Carson sat by the window, where he could slyly part the checkered curtain to keep his sharp eye on the motel room, where Genevieve was sleeping.
His dad twirled some spaghetti in a spoon and grumbled, “I’ve had a bellyful of the scenic route, Carson.” He sucked in one very long noodle.
“There’s sauce on your chin, Dad.”
“Thanks, son.” He went on to say that he had once heard of a pack rat that nested in the engine compartment of a Porsche Speedster. “So before any fuzzy, flea-ridden, beady-eyed, bucktoothed rodent takes up residence in the Porsche,” he told Carson, “I want to get us the heck outta Dodge!”
He stabbed the salad: iceberg lettuce with a big blob of bottled ranch dressing on top. He told Carson that, although he owned one of the greatest pairs of cowboy boots ever made by Dan Post, when it came to home on the range, home on the ranch, dude ranches, ranchettes, ranch dressing, or ranch anything else—no thanks. Home on the front porch of the sunny two-story house he had rented in El Cerrito—yes please, and the sooner the better.
“I thought you said you were giving those cowboy boots away because they pinch your toes,” Carson told his dad.
“They do, but I couldn’t part with them.”
Carson took a bite of the garlic roll. Yum! He liked squishy white rolls, but his dad was critical of too-soft bread. His dad wasn’t officially a restaurant critic, but he was a certified foodie. He had a blog: Gourmet Grub.
Mabel came around with a pot full of coffee the color of tea and asked how everything was, and Carson and his dad both said great! So she brought them a complimentary dessert: soggy corn flakes and granulated sugar on baked apple slices with whipped cream on top that she blasted out of a can. Carson liked it!
“How many stars would you give this place?” he whispered.
Carson’s dad made a zero sign by touching his thumb to his pointing finger and peering at Carson through the circle. “But don’t tell Mabel. She’s a peach!”
He got up and dropped a few quarters in the jukebox and stared down at the selections. When his first song began to play, he stood with his hands on the jukebox, bopping to the music and jutting his chin in and out.
The next morning the part arrived. A tall mechanic with bright blue eyes and a bushy orange beard as big as a bird’s nest installed the rebuilt fuel pump.
Off they went! Carson’s dad shifted through the gears. To Carson, there was no place he’d rather be than driving with his dad through wide-open spaces—fast and low to the ground.
Except maybe heading back to Pasadena to plan a birthday barbecue with his family and friends.
Many hours later, Carson’s dad announced, “Okay, son. We’re almost home.”
They drove down a two-lane highway, past a billboard for Atlas Speedway that said DEMOLITION DERBY and had a big picture of a bashed-up car splattered with mud. They came to the WELCOME TO EL CERRITO PLEASE DRIVE CAREFULLY sign, and drove carefully through the center of town. Then they turned into a residential neighborhood full of tree-lined streets that crossed each other.
“Get ready. We’re really close now.”
A moment later, they turned into the driveway of their spacious, gracious rented home, which had a big front porch and a garden full of flowering bushes.
Carson’s dad shut off the engine and turned to Carson. “Like it?”
Was he kidding?
Carson loved it!
As much as he could have, under the circumstances of being the New Kid, with no friends in town.
2. HELLO,
El Cerrito
The first thing Genevieve wanted to do after her suitcase was unpacked was to investigate her new surroundings while holding a tennis ball in her mouth.
So, off they all went to Green Gulch Regional Park.
Green Gulch Regional Park wasn’t a city park with trimmed bushes and pink cement paths and a fountain with a bronze dolphin spitting water in it, like the park in Pasadena. It was a wilder park.
At the northern entrance, there was a group campground in a meadow. A trail wound up through the redwoods, ending at a small amphitheater. They sat in on a talk about predatory birds, given by an enthusiastic park ranger wearing a green uniform and a brown flat-brimmed Smokey Bear hat with dents in the crown.
A hawk screeched from the treetop.
Carson’s dad had to warn Genevieve, in a whisper: “No barking, stop it, I mean it!” several times.
When a flock of crows flew overhead, Genevieve went on High Bird Alert, and they decided to excuse themselves completely.
The southern entrance to the park was within walking distance of Carson’s house and involved a large pond. Carson and his dad decided it would be wise to leave Genevieve at home to explore her new, spacious fenced backyard while they walked over to get acquainted with the ducks.
Five or six people sat in folding chairs staring at plastic fishing floats floating on the surface of the water. “Grandpa and Grandma would like to fish here, wouldn’t they, Dad?”
“Yup.”
“I’m really going to miss seeing them on my birthday.”
“I will, too. But we’ll see them soon afterward.”
That cheered Carson up.
They walked to the other side and cheerily fed the ducks Cheerios—just a few. It wasn’t exactly duck food, but judging by waddle speed and quack volume, they liked it a lot. So did the crows, who dipped down, landed, squawked, flapped their wings, marched around, stuck their tongues out at each other, and greedily gobbled up every O they could beat the ducks to.
Carson was quite the animal lover. But crows weren’t exactly at the top of his list.
He did like horses. And he wanted to learn to ride one. Beyond the pond, past the public tennis courts, there was a corral and a big barn with a sign that said RED BARN STABLES: TRAIL RIDES AND WESTERN RIDING LESSONS. WELCOME, Y’ALL!
