California Dreaming I'd never visited California before we moved here but I'd heard about it in songs. Mom even made a playlist and she and Dad sang along the whole drive over from Wisconsin but even after three days straight of Katy Perry the Beach Boys the Mamas & the Papas I still didn't believe it. Why would people here be different than anywhere else? But now that I'm here on the first day of sixth grade at my new school the hallway is full of kids tapping on cell phones that probably cost more than an entire month's rent in our new house. Plus everyone looks like they just jumped off the cover of a magazine. Hipster glasses jeans where the only holes were put there on purpose and everyone pulling out a reusable container full of weird grains that must be their lunch. I tug down my Packers hoodie because it's colder here than the Beach Boys promised and this way no one can see that I look nothing like the cover of a magazine. I wish San Francisco would go back to just being a song. Pretending As I walk down the hallway I head-hum my favorite walking song. Beethoven's Minuet in G. dum dee dum dee dum dee dum dee dum I move andante matching my steps to the beat left, and right, and left, and right, and left so I can pretend I'm not at all sore from climbing up the hill in front of the school. left, and right, and left, and right, and left I can pretend I've been hiking it my whole life. left, and right, and left, and right, and left I can pretend I don't smell like Wisconsin and that I wore the right clothes to school today and that I'm going to make tons of friends and have an amazing year left, and right, and left, and right, and left just like everyone else. Locker Number 538 Finally I reach my locker 12 clockwise 32 counterclockwise 8 clockwise Stuck. Attempted Duet No. 1 "Hi, I'm new here. My name is-" "That's my locker." Excerpted from Emmy in the Key of Code by Aimee Lucido All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
