Beware! Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Science Project

  Chapter 2

  The Pinski Problem

  Chapter 3

  Project Peril

  Chapter 4

  Table for Two

  Chapter 5

  Avoiding Jenny

  Chapter 6

  Peer Pressure

  Chapter 7

  The Best Revenge

  Chapter 8

  Payback

  Chapter 9

  Jenny Knows Best

  Chapter 10

  A Better Way

  Chapter 11

  P.S.

  Cast of Characters

  CLAUDIA That’s me. I’m thirteen, and I’m in the seventh grade at Pine Tree Middle School. I live with my mom, my dad, and my brother, Jimmy. I have one cat, Ping-Ping. I like music, baseball, and hanging out with my friends.

  MONICA is my very best friend. We met when we were really little, and we’ve been best friends ever since. I don’t know what I’d do without her! Monica loves horses. In fact, when she grows up, she wants to be an Olympic rider!

  BECCA is one of my closest friends. She lives next door to Monica. Becca is really, really smart. She gets good grades. She’s also really good at art.

  ADAM and I met when we were in third grade. Now that we’re teenagers, we don’t spend as much time together as we did when we were kids, but he’s always there for me when I need him. (Plus, he’s the only person who wants to talk about baseball with me!)

  TOMMY’s our class clown. Sometimes he’s really funny, but sometimes he is just annoying. Becca has a crush on him . . . but I’d never tell.

  I think PETER is probably the smartest person I’ve ever met. Seriously. He’s even smarter than our teachers! He’s also one of my friends. Which is lucky, because sometimes he helps me with homework.

  Every school has a bully, and JENNY is ours. She’s the tallest person in our class, and the meanest, too. She always threatens to stomp people. No one’s ever seen her stomp anyone, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened!

  ANNA is the most popular girl at our school. Everyone wants to be friends with her. I think that’s weird, because Anna can be really, really mean. I mostly try to stay away from her.

  Cast of Characters

  CARLY is Anna’s best friend. She always tries to act exactly like Anna does. She even wears the exact same clothes. She’s never really been mean to me, but she’s never been nice to me either!

  NICK is my annoying seven–year–old neighbor. I get stuck babysitting him a lot. He likes to make me miserable. (Okay, he’s not that bad ALL of the time . . . just most of the time.)

  MR. MONROE is our science teacher. He’s also known as the detention king of Pine Tree Middle School! If he catches anyone doing something wrong, they get detention for sure.

  MOM is pretty good at helping me with my problems. I can always count on her.

  DAD can be kind of a grump, but he’s a really good dad. And sometimes he gives me the best advice!

  JIMMY is my big brother. I stay out of his way and he stays out of mine.

  CHAPTER 1

  SCIENCE PROJECT

  I was trying to get to my desk, but the classroom aisle was blocked by a pair of legs.

  Carly Madison was sitting on a desk. Her feet rested on the chair in the next row. She was talking to Anna Dunlap.

  Anna Dunlap was Carly’s best friend. She also reigned supreme over the seventh grade at Pine Tree Middle School.

  Q: Why?

  A. Anna is popular.

  Q. Why is Anna popular?

  A . I have no idea.

  Anna was bossy, selfish, and stuck up.

  But age 13 + popular = teen power.

  Most kids wouldn’t go against Anna. No way, no how. But my grandma always says there are exceptions to every rule.

  There were two exceptions to Anna Rules: me and Jenny Pinski.

  Jenny Pinski was our class bully. She STOMPED kids that make her mad. Or, at least, she said she was going to.

  I never stomped anyone. I just didn’t care if Anna thought I was a loser-nobody. I didn’t care if Anna liked me. My friends liked me, and they didn’t ignore me.

  “Excuse me, Carly,” I said.

  Carly didn’t look at me. She just kept talking to Anna. “Did you see that video game guy on Teen Trends last night?” Carly asked.

  “What a dork!” Anna said. She rolled her eyes. “Who cares if he’s the best-ever player of Wizard Ways? He wears a tie!”

  “My desk is in this row,” I said. “Can I get by?”

  “They’re making a Wizard Ways movie,” Carly told Anna. She didn’t care if I had to wait. I gave up and turned to go around.

  Anna whispered to Carly, “Claudia is so RUDE.”

  Actually, Carly and Anna were being rude, but I never picked fights for stupid reasons. Sometimes it was wiser to just walk away.

  Especially in Mr. Monroe’s science class.

  He held the Pine Tree Middle School record for most detentions given in one day: 22. I didn’t want to risk starting a fight and landing in detention.

  I doubled back and walked up the next aisle to my desk next to Becca, one of my best friends.

  “Uh-oh,” Becca muttered. “This will be interesting.”

  “What?” I asked. I stopped and looked back.

  Jenny walked up the blocked aisle.

  Carly didn’t see Jenny. Not right away. She just kept talking.

  “Mom took me to the mall yesterday,” Carly said.

  “Did you get any new clothes?” Anna asked.

  “I found a pair of jeans I just love,” Carly said. “But I have to wait for my birthday.”

  Anna gasped. “That’s horrible!” she said. I rolled my eyes.

  “I know, but it’s only two more weeks,” Carly said. Then she noticed Jenny. “Oh, hey, Jenny,” she said nervously.

  “Get out of the way,” Jenny said.

  Carly gulped. Then she lowered her feet to let Jenny pass.

  “Carly is such a WIMP, isn’t she?” Becca whispered to me.

  “Well, gosh, Becca,” I whispered back. “Anna and Carly can’t get stomped. Their clothes might get dirty. And it would mess up their hair!”

  I was being sarcastic. Anna and Carly were snobs, but they were not fools. Only fools gave Jenny Pinski a hard time. Everybody knew that. You had to stay out of Jenny Pinski’s way.

  Or else.

  I’d known Jenny since kinderg
arten. She was a bully back then, too.

  Things Jenny Stomped On the First Day of Kindergarten

  Drinking cups

  Tinker-toys

  Cookies

  No one had ever seen Jenny stomp a person, but that didn’t mean it never happened. A stompee would never tell. It would be too embarrassing.

  I never talked to Jenny unless I absolutely had to. The strangest little things upset her.

  You never knew if something you said was going to make her mad. For instance:

  “Your shoe’s untied.”

  “I’ll trade my banana for your apple.”

  “Do we have math homework?”

  Like I said, everybody knew you had to stay out of Jenny Pinski’s way. Unless you wanted to get stomped.

  When class started, Mr. Monroe announced the big science project.

  He said that it was going to count for 25% of our semester grade.

  He split the class into teams of two.

  Monica & Becca

  Adam & Tommy

  Peter & Sylvia

  Anna & Carly

  Claudia & Jenny.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE PINSKI PROBLEM

  Someone had to be Jenny’s project partner.

  But why did it have to be me?

  Only one word described how I felt: Doomed!

  I tore out a piece of notebook paper and wrote a note to Becca.

  WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?

  I was going to pass the note to Becca, but Mr. Monroe has built-in bad behavior radar. He saw me fold the piece of paper. Then he raised his eyebrow and stared at me. He glanced at the pad of detention slips sitting on his desk.

  I gulped.

  Detention was a crime in my family. Jimmy got detention once in fifth grade and he was grounded for a week.

  If I got detention, my dad would:

  Ground me (Until I left home for college.)

  Take away TV (Until Musical Idol was over for the season.)

  Give me the silent treatment (Until I begged for forgiveness and promised to never, ever get detention again.)

  I used the note as a bookmark.

  I had history after science. Becca and Monica were in that class with me.

  “You guys have to come over after school,” I told them. “Meet me at the tree house. We’ve got to talk about my Jenny Pinski problem.”

  * * *

  After school, Monica and Becca came over to my house. We climbed up into the tree house for privacy.

  “Having Jenny Pinski for a project partner is the worst luck ever,” I said.

  “What’s wrong with Jenny pinhead?” a familiar voice asked. I looked over at the treehouse door. My seven-year-old neighbor, Nick, was sitting on the ladder. As usual, he wasn’t invited — he’d just snuck up to the tree house.

  “It’s Pinski, not pinhead,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Your mom told me to play outside,” Nick said.

  If Nick’s mom was busy, my mom babysat Nick. If my mom was busy, she made me watch him. I didn’t think that was fair, but at least sometimes she paid me two dollars an hour.

  “Go away, Nick,” I said. “We’re busy.”

  Nick didn’t answer, and he didn’t move. I acted like Carly and ignored him. Then I realized that Nick Wright and Jenny Pinski are a lot alike.

  She’s the biggest bully at Pine Tree Middle School.

  He’s the biggest brat in my neighborhood.

  They both like to get even.

  “Maybe working with Jenny won’t be so bad,” Becca said.

  I could usually find a bright side. No matter how bad my problems seemed. Not this time.

  “It’ll be horrible,” I said. “I want a good grade.”

  “Everybody wants a good grade,” Monica said.

  “What if Jenny doesn’t?” I asked. “What if she hates my ideas? What if she wants to do something with plants?”

  Becca gasped. “I hope she doesn’t!” she said.

  “Yeah,” Monica agreed. “We’re doing a plant project.”

  “I want to do something nobody’s done before,” I said. “Like train a mouse to spin a wheel to power a light bulb.”

  “That sounds cool!” Nick exclaimed.

  “It’s been done,” Monica said.

  “The mouse-bulb got an A+ last year,” Becca explained.

  “Choosing a project isn’t your biggest problem,” Monica pointed out.

  “It isn’t?” I asked nervously.

  “Nope,” Monica said. She shook her head. “Working with Jenny for two weeks is the problem.”

  Becca nodded. “You’re definitely going to say or do something that makes Jenny mad,” she said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

  They were probably right. I sighed. “Jenny is going to stomp me for sure,” I said sadly.

  “Stomp her first,” Nick said. “Then she won’t stomp you.”

  “That won’t work with Jenny,” Becca said.

  “She’s too MEAN,” Monica added.

  Nick shrugged. “It worked with Caroline O’Brien,” he said.

  “Who’s Caroline O’Brien?” I asked.

  “She’s in my class,” Nick said. “I used to pull her hair and call her Turpentine.”

  “That’s not nice,” Monica said.

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t do it anymore.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Caroline shoved me,” Nick explained. “I fell in a PUDDLE, and everybody laughed. It was awful!”

  Bravo for Caroline! She had fought back, and Nick had backed down.

  But beating Jenny to the punch wouldn’t help me. It would just get me in trouble and make Jenny madder.

  CHAPTER 3

  PROJECT PERIL

  My dad says dreaming is like cleaning out a closet. We throw away things we don’t need. We tuck away fond memories for safekeeping. And we try to hide the bad stuff.

  The bad stuff creeps back in our NIGHTMARES.

  My mom had tropical fish when she was my age. She loved them, but fish don’t live very long. She hated finding dead ones floating in the aquarium. So she gave her fish tank to a friend.

  Mom’s Forgotten Fish Dream

  Mom finds fish tanks behind walls.

  They’ve been there for years.

  The plants grew into underwater jungles.

  All the fish are fine.

  Fish tank dream = guilt for giving away fish

  My older brother liked his computer more than anything. He played complicated online games.

  Computers crash a lot, so he had backup drives and anti-virus programs. But Jimmy still worried about losing his data,
even when he was asleep.

  Jimmy’s Techno Night Terrors

  A monster virus swallows his computer whole.

  A clown virus trashes all his files and laughs.

  A big-tooth virus eats his flash drive.

  Bad computer dreams = something could go wrong

  I have nightmares about Jenny Pinski. It started in kindergarten. I took a toy out of Jenny’s cubby. She wasn’t there, but I was sure she had seen me.

  My 1st Pinski Nightmare

  Jenny stomps all my toys and breaks them.

  I hide under the covers so she doesn’t stomp me.

  She rips off my blanket.

  I wake up screaming!

  In fourth grade, I hit Jenny with a dodge ball when she wasn’t looking. She had to leave the game.

  My 2nd Pinski Nightmare

  I’m a dodge ball.

  Jenny throws me against the wall over and over again.