"Can you believe Gordo?" Miranda asked Lizzie. They were now
searching for the school supply aisle in a store. Their moms had given them
each forty dollars, told them to meet them in the food court at three, then
headed into their favorite clothing store, leaving Miranda and Lizzie free
to shop for school supplies by themselves. Lizzie was relieved that her mom
hadn't insisted on helping them shop, because she probably would have
suggested the hot pink personalized pencils that Lizzie had spotted on her
way in (those went out of style two years ago, and never came back in), and
insisted on getting Lizzie a binder with a cartoon picture of a kitten on
it. It was cute, but she had had a binder like that in the third grade, and
she didn't think that it would exactly be considered cool in middle school.
"No, I honestly can't," Lizzie said. "I mean, I admire him for his laid-back, stress-free ways, but you got to admit, when he isn't worried about starting middle school, something is seriously wrong with him."
Animated Lizzie: Sometimes you think it's great to have a best friend who isn't worried about anything, and other times you think he's completely off his rocker. This is one of those times.
"My thoughts exactly," Miranda agreed. "Oh, here we go, school supplies!" she added, turning down an aisle lined with shelves full of binders, folders, papers, notebooks, pens, pencils, and other tools for school. Lizzie's heart skipped a beat familiarly, like it always did when she went shopping for school supplies. It was so much fun choosing new things to use in school.
"So, what do we need?" Lizzie asked.
"Hang on," Miranda said. She fished around in her zebra-striped purse until she found the school supply list. She handed it to Lizzie.
"Grade seven school supply list for Hillridge Junior High School," she read(even though it was called a junior high school, some people called it a middle school, too). She felt her heart sink all the way down to her feet when she remembered that they weren't shopping for just any school supplies, but grade seven school supplies. "One two inch binder, two one- and-a-half inch binders, pencils, and blue or black ink pens," she listed. "Because every teacher teaches a little differently, they will inform you what else you will need for their classes on the first day of school."
"There's another scary thought," Miranda said. "Now that we are in grade seven, every teacher will have different expectations, and we need to remember them all, as well as live up to them all!"
Animated Lizzie: Oh, great. Living up to and remembering every individual teacher's expectations. Another thing to stress about.
"Yeah. Gordo is lucky. He's so smart that he doesn't have to worry about living up to middle school teachers' expectations, because he's already exceeded all of the elementary school's!" Lizzie agreed.
"That's probably why he is so calm. Because he knows that he'll have no problem!" Miranda exclaimed.
"He better remember that even though he is considered smart in elementary school, he might not be considered smart in middle school. He has to work twice as hard to get the same grades that he got in elementary school," Lizzie reminded her friend.
"Yeah, or else he is going to become as...dull as Ethan Craft," agreed Miranda, taking a moment to search for the perfect word to describe Ethan's lack of genius without totally dissing their crush.
Animated Lizzie: Miranda made a tiny bit of an understatement there. Ethan Craft is a little more than dull. Let's just say that in a box of crayons, the brightest being the smartest, he would be grey.
"Let's just look for our school supplies," Lizzie said, not wanting to talk about Gordo's calmness or Ethan's dumbness anymore. It was starting to make her head spin.
Animated Lizzie: First Gordo doesn't freak out about middle school, then Miranda brings up how the guy that we have a huge crush on isn't exactly as smart as he is handsome...I'm becoming confused.
"This is neat," Miranda said, holding up a pink zipper binder with a rainbow on the front.
"Miranda, we can't get that!" Lizzie exclaimed.
"Why not? It's in our price range," Miranda asked.
"Because we're in middle school now! It would be like getting a binder with a purple unicorn on it!!" Lizzie explained. "Totally not cool!"
"I guess you're right," Miranda said after examining it for a second. "It's more for a fourth grader, huh?"
"Yeah," Lizzie agreed. "Cool, but not in a seventh grader way."
"There's another thing that I hate about middle school. The 'cool' and 'uncool' factors change drastically, leaving people like me clueless," Miranda said.
"Ditto here," seconded Lizzie. "Just try to think cool."
"What kind of cool?" Miranda asked.
"Seventh grader cool," Lizzie replied.
"Like this?" asked Miranda, picking up a green camouflage-print zipper binder.
"Exactly," answered Lizzie. "Does this say 'I'm a seventh grader' to you?" she questioned, showing her best friend a clear frosted binder with a purple edge.
"Definitely," Miranda answered. Lizzie grabbed a teal one of the same sort, and chose a black zipper binder with pink fuzzy pom-poms also. Miranda chose two other binders, a plain blue one and a plain flamingo pink one, and after they had grabbed a package of pencils, a package of pens, and a pack of paper each, and paid for their stuff, they headed to the food court to meet their moms.
At the food court, Miranda and Lizzie showed their mothers their school stuff.
"Oh, it's all so cool!" Lizzie's mom exclaimed.
"You girls have such style," agreed Miranda's mom.
"Lizzie, didn't you get any of those cute personalized pencils this year?" her mom asked.
Animated Lizzie: Here we go again with the personalized pencils.
"No, mom. They were sold out of my name," Lizzie told her mother. This wasn't a total lie. She hadn't stop to look for her name, so she didn't know for sure if they were actually out of her name or not. Even if they were in style, she wouldn't have gotten any. All of them had Elizabeth on it, not Lizzie, and she hated having pencils that had her formal full name on them. It would have just reminded her of how mature she was supposed to be.
"Really? That's funny. They were sold out of your name last year, too. I guess Elizabeth is becoming quite a popular name," commented Mrs. McGuire.
"Yeah, I guess it is," Lizzie agreed. She shot a look of relief at Miranda, who returned it.
"I can't believe that you girls are going into grade seven," Mrs. Sanchez mused. "It's seems like just yesterday you two were all excited about going into grade one."
"Yeah, our little girls are really growing up," agreed Lizzie's mom. Miranda and Lizzie exchanged worried and exasperated looks. Their moms just had to remind them of how much they were stressed about starting middle school.
Animated Lizzie: This is only, like, the one billionth time they've commented on how fast we're growing up!
"Now you're all excited about starting seventh grade," Miranda's mom said. "You're going to have lots of fun, too. I remember when I was in middle school..."
Animated Lizzie: And here comes the incredibly long, incredibly boring stories of our moms' adolesence. Again. They would be a whole lot more interesting to me if I hadn't heard them so many times before.
Back at the McGuire house a few hours later, Lizzie's whole family was seated around the dining room table, eating dinner.
"So, Lizzie, I heard you and mom went shopping for school supplies with Miranda and her mom today," Mr. McGuire said.
"Yeah," Lizzie replied. "Miranda and I found everything that we needed. Oh, by the way, mom, it only said on the list to get three binders, pencils, paper, and pens because the teachers will tell us what else we need to bring on the first day, so I may need another ride to the mall in a week."
"Oh, that's right. You're going into seventh grade, so every teacher is a little different, so they want students to have different supplies for different classes, and they tell you what they would like you to have besides the basics on the first day," Lizzie's dad explained.
"Our little Elizabeth is growing up so fast," Matt said in a taunting voice, patting Lizzie on her head. Lizzie just scowled at him and pushed his arm away from her.
Animated Lizzie: Great, even Matt's saying it now!
"You know, Matt, you're growing up fast, too. You're going into grade five this year, buddy," Mrs. McGuire reminded him.
"Did you have to say the 'f' word, mom?" Matt asked, wincing.
"What 'f' word?" Lizzie's mom asked, confused.
"Five," Matt said in barely a whisper.
"Matt, do you have a problem with going into grade five?" Lizzie's mom asked him. Matt grimaced at the mention of the "'f' word".
"A problem? Mom, saying I have a problem with it is an understatement! I am completely dreading the end of the summer!" he exclaimed.
"Matt, if this is about not having as much freedom during school as during the summer, remember that you'll still have weekends," Mr. McGuire reminded his son. Lizzie shook her head. Her dad just didn't get it sometimes, and this was one of those times. He couldn't even see that Matt was afraid of starting the fifth grade.
"It's not just that," Matt said.
"Well, then, honey, what is it?" Mrs. McGuire asked.
"Fifth grade is going to be a whole new world! There's going to be stricter teachers, which means more homework, which means less fun!" Matt wailed. Lizzie sighed. She was hoping that her little brother would have said that he was afraid of everything in grade five that she was afraid of in grade seven, and that her parents would give him reassurance and advice right then and there, and Lizzie could just modify the things that they told him to fit her, so that she could stop worrying.
Animated Lizzie: Matt isn't worried about getting detention or forgetting the combo to the lock on his locker, he's worried about getting more spelling homework and not being able to spend as much time zapping his brain by playing stupid video games!
"Don't worry, son, you finish your homework very quickly. I'm sure that you'll have plenty of time left over for fun afterwards," Lizzie's dad reassured him. Matt turned to his mom to see that what his father was saying was correct. Lizzie didn't blame him. Sometimes their dad could get stuff mixed up. Their mother nodded in agreement.
"Matt, stop fretting and finish your broccoli," Mrs. McGuire said.
Animated Lizzie: One of her favorite lines.
"Lizzie, are you okay?" she asked her daughter. Lizzie had her elbows on the table, and was holding her head in her hands.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I just have a headache," she replied.
"Hmm, that's unusual, you don't get headaches often," Mr. McGuire observed.
"It's probably just because of a change in the weather. You know, air pressure changes and everything," Lizzie said quickly.
Animated Lizzie: I don't have a headache from the weather. I have a headache from all of this stress!
"Well, after you finish your dinner, why don't you go lie down?" her mom suggested. Lizzie nodded in agreement. She wished that she could tell her mom that the reason she had a headache was because of all of the worrying that she was doing about junior high, but if she told her that, then all she would get out of it was a lecture about being stressed out about things that she doesn't need to be stressed out about, and one of her mom's endless stories about what it was like when she was in grade seven. It just wasn't worth it.
Animated Lizzie: I would tell her, but I'm just not up for a trip down memory lane right now.
"No, I honestly can't," Lizzie said. "I mean, I admire him for his laid-back, stress-free ways, but you got to admit, when he isn't worried about starting middle school, something is seriously wrong with him."
Animated Lizzie: Sometimes you think it's great to have a best friend who isn't worried about anything, and other times you think he's completely off his rocker. This is one of those times.
"My thoughts exactly," Miranda agreed. "Oh, here we go, school supplies!" she added, turning down an aisle lined with shelves full of binders, folders, papers, notebooks, pens, pencils, and other tools for school. Lizzie's heart skipped a beat familiarly, like it always did when she went shopping for school supplies. It was so much fun choosing new things to use in school.
"So, what do we need?" Lizzie asked.
"Hang on," Miranda said. She fished around in her zebra-striped purse until she found the school supply list. She handed it to Lizzie.
"Grade seven school supply list for Hillridge Junior High School," she read(even though it was called a junior high school, some people called it a middle school, too). She felt her heart sink all the way down to her feet when she remembered that they weren't shopping for just any school supplies, but grade seven school supplies. "One two inch binder, two one- and-a-half inch binders, pencils, and blue or black ink pens," she listed. "Because every teacher teaches a little differently, they will inform you what else you will need for their classes on the first day of school."
"There's another scary thought," Miranda said. "Now that we are in grade seven, every teacher will have different expectations, and we need to remember them all, as well as live up to them all!"
Animated Lizzie: Oh, great. Living up to and remembering every individual teacher's expectations. Another thing to stress about.
"Yeah. Gordo is lucky. He's so smart that he doesn't have to worry about living up to middle school teachers' expectations, because he's already exceeded all of the elementary school's!" Lizzie agreed.
"That's probably why he is so calm. Because he knows that he'll have no problem!" Miranda exclaimed.
"He better remember that even though he is considered smart in elementary school, he might not be considered smart in middle school. He has to work twice as hard to get the same grades that he got in elementary school," Lizzie reminded her friend.
"Yeah, or else he is going to become as...dull as Ethan Craft," agreed Miranda, taking a moment to search for the perfect word to describe Ethan's lack of genius without totally dissing their crush.
Animated Lizzie: Miranda made a tiny bit of an understatement there. Ethan Craft is a little more than dull. Let's just say that in a box of crayons, the brightest being the smartest, he would be grey.
"Let's just look for our school supplies," Lizzie said, not wanting to talk about Gordo's calmness or Ethan's dumbness anymore. It was starting to make her head spin.
Animated Lizzie: First Gordo doesn't freak out about middle school, then Miranda brings up how the guy that we have a huge crush on isn't exactly as smart as he is handsome...I'm becoming confused.
"This is neat," Miranda said, holding up a pink zipper binder with a rainbow on the front.
"Miranda, we can't get that!" Lizzie exclaimed.
"Why not? It's in our price range," Miranda asked.
"Because we're in middle school now! It would be like getting a binder with a purple unicorn on it!!" Lizzie explained. "Totally not cool!"
"I guess you're right," Miranda said after examining it for a second. "It's more for a fourth grader, huh?"
"Yeah," Lizzie agreed. "Cool, but not in a seventh grader way."
"There's another thing that I hate about middle school. The 'cool' and 'uncool' factors change drastically, leaving people like me clueless," Miranda said.
"Ditto here," seconded Lizzie. "Just try to think cool."
"What kind of cool?" Miranda asked.
"Seventh grader cool," Lizzie replied.
"Like this?" asked Miranda, picking up a green camouflage-print zipper binder.
"Exactly," answered Lizzie. "Does this say 'I'm a seventh grader' to you?" she questioned, showing her best friend a clear frosted binder with a purple edge.
"Definitely," Miranda answered. Lizzie grabbed a teal one of the same sort, and chose a black zipper binder with pink fuzzy pom-poms also. Miranda chose two other binders, a plain blue one and a plain flamingo pink one, and after they had grabbed a package of pencils, a package of pens, and a pack of paper each, and paid for their stuff, they headed to the food court to meet their moms.
At the food court, Miranda and Lizzie showed their mothers their school stuff.
"Oh, it's all so cool!" Lizzie's mom exclaimed.
"You girls have such style," agreed Miranda's mom.
"Lizzie, didn't you get any of those cute personalized pencils this year?" her mom asked.
Animated Lizzie: Here we go again with the personalized pencils.
"No, mom. They were sold out of my name," Lizzie told her mother. This wasn't a total lie. She hadn't stop to look for her name, so she didn't know for sure if they were actually out of her name or not. Even if they were in style, she wouldn't have gotten any. All of them had Elizabeth on it, not Lizzie, and she hated having pencils that had her formal full name on them. It would have just reminded her of how mature she was supposed to be.
"Really? That's funny. They were sold out of your name last year, too. I guess Elizabeth is becoming quite a popular name," commented Mrs. McGuire.
"Yeah, I guess it is," Lizzie agreed. She shot a look of relief at Miranda, who returned it.
"I can't believe that you girls are going into grade seven," Mrs. Sanchez mused. "It's seems like just yesterday you two were all excited about going into grade one."
"Yeah, our little girls are really growing up," agreed Lizzie's mom. Miranda and Lizzie exchanged worried and exasperated looks. Their moms just had to remind them of how much they were stressed about starting middle school.
Animated Lizzie: This is only, like, the one billionth time they've commented on how fast we're growing up!
"Now you're all excited about starting seventh grade," Miranda's mom said. "You're going to have lots of fun, too. I remember when I was in middle school..."
Animated Lizzie: And here comes the incredibly long, incredibly boring stories of our moms' adolesence. Again. They would be a whole lot more interesting to me if I hadn't heard them so many times before.
Back at the McGuire house a few hours later, Lizzie's whole family was seated around the dining room table, eating dinner.
"So, Lizzie, I heard you and mom went shopping for school supplies with Miranda and her mom today," Mr. McGuire said.
"Yeah," Lizzie replied. "Miranda and I found everything that we needed. Oh, by the way, mom, it only said on the list to get three binders, pencils, paper, and pens because the teachers will tell us what else we need to bring on the first day, so I may need another ride to the mall in a week."
"Oh, that's right. You're going into seventh grade, so every teacher is a little different, so they want students to have different supplies for different classes, and they tell you what they would like you to have besides the basics on the first day," Lizzie's dad explained.
"Our little Elizabeth is growing up so fast," Matt said in a taunting voice, patting Lizzie on her head. Lizzie just scowled at him and pushed his arm away from her.
Animated Lizzie: Great, even Matt's saying it now!
"You know, Matt, you're growing up fast, too. You're going into grade five this year, buddy," Mrs. McGuire reminded him.
"Did you have to say the 'f' word, mom?" Matt asked, wincing.
"What 'f' word?" Lizzie's mom asked, confused.
"Five," Matt said in barely a whisper.
"Matt, do you have a problem with going into grade five?" Lizzie's mom asked him. Matt grimaced at the mention of the "'f' word".
"A problem? Mom, saying I have a problem with it is an understatement! I am completely dreading the end of the summer!" he exclaimed.
"Matt, if this is about not having as much freedom during school as during the summer, remember that you'll still have weekends," Mr. McGuire reminded his son. Lizzie shook her head. Her dad just didn't get it sometimes, and this was one of those times. He couldn't even see that Matt was afraid of starting the fifth grade.
"It's not just that," Matt said.
"Well, then, honey, what is it?" Mrs. McGuire asked.
"Fifth grade is going to be a whole new world! There's going to be stricter teachers, which means more homework, which means less fun!" Matt wailed. Lizzie sighed. She was hoping that her little brother would have said that he was afraid of everything in grade five that she was afraid of in grade seven, and that her parents would give him reassurance and advice right then and there, and Lizzie could just modify the things that they told him to fit her, so that she could stop worrying.
Animated Lizzie: Matt isn't worried about getting detention or forgetting the combo to the lock on his locker, he's worried about getting more spelling homework and not being able to spend as much time zapping his brain by playing stupid video games!
"Don't worry, son, you finish your homework very quickly. I'm sure that you'll have plenty of time left over for fun afterwards," Lizzie's dad reassured him. Matt turned to his mom to see that what his father was saying was correct. Lizzie didn't blame him. Sometimes their dad could get stuff mixed up. Their mother nodded in agreement.
"Matt, stop fretting and finish your broccoli," Mrs. McGuire said.
Animated Lizzie: One of her favorite lines.
"Lizzie, are you okay?" she asked her daughter. Lizzie had her elbows on the table, and was holding her head in her hands.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I just have a headache," she replied.
"Hmm, that's unusual, you don't get headaches often," Mr. McGuire observed.
"It's probably just because of a change in the weather. You know, air pressure changes and everything," Lizzie said quickly.
Animated Lizzie: I don't have a headache from the weather. I have a headache from all of this stress!
"Well, after you finish your dinner, why don't you go lie down?" her mom suggested. Lizzie nodded in agreement. She wished that she could tell her mom that the reason she had a headache was because of all of the worrying that she was doing about junior high, but if she told her that, then all she would get out of it was a lecture about being stressed out about things that she doesn't need to be stressed out about, and one of her mom's endless stories about what it was like when she was in grade seven. It just wasn't worth it.
Animated Lizzie: I would tell her, but I'm just not up for a trip down memory lane right now.
