Barrier

  Text copyright © 2014 by Patrick Jones

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

  For updated reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

  Cover and interior photographs © Zsolt Farkas/Dreamstime.com (girl); © iStockphoto.com/joeygil (locker background).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.

  Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jones, Patrick, 1961–

  Barrier / by Patrick Jones.

  pages cm. — (The alternative)

  Summary: A new, alternative high school, psychotherapy, a romantic interest, and a manga club help tenth-grader Jessica cope with her social anxiety disorder.

  ISBN 978–1–4677–3899–6 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978–1–4677–4632–8 (eBook)

  [1. Social phobia—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Psychotherapy—Fiction. 6. Family problems—Fiction. 7. Racially-mixed people—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.J7242Bar 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013041389

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – BP – 7/15/14

  eISBN: 978-1-46774-632-8 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-46777-374-4 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-46777-375-1 (mobi)

  1

  JESSICA IS SHY

  “Jessica is just shy, that’s all,” Mom told the school counselor. It was what she’d told every counselor at every school, from my grade school in Stephenville, Texas, to tenth grade here at Harding High School in St. Paul. I wondered if the counselor noticed my mom nervously tapping her heel against the floor—what she did when she couldn’t smoke away the stress. Mom hated closed-door dialogues as much as I did.

  “Mrs. Johnson, I think it’s more than that,” Mrs. Something-or-Other retorted.

  “I remember my first few days at a new school,” Mom started, and she was off. The endless drama of Mary Johnson, the world’s blandest name for the highest-strung creature on earth.

  When Mom paused to take a breath, the school counselor jumped in. “On her first day, she skipped one class entirely and walked out of another in the middle of the period. Her second day was about the same, while yesterday was—” All eyes fell on my sweat-drenched, beet-red face.

  Yesterday was a disaster of epic failures, I finished silently. AKA a normal day in the life of Jessica Johnson, freak of nature. Half white, half black, and altogether crazy as a Minnesota loon.

  “I asked Jessica to do an online assessment,” the counselor told Mom. I’d done the thing just to shut her up and get her to leave me alone, but now this. “This isn’t official, but she tested very high, and given—”

  “That’s my girl—smart as her mom!” I glanced down at my manga.

  “Mrs. Johnson, it was an assessment for social anxiety disorder. A high score indicates that she likely struggles with it.” And then the school counselor was off and running. “People with social anxiety disorder generally experience extreme fear in social situations, which causes serious stress and impaired ability to function in daily life. Their fears can be triggered by perceived judgment, or real scrutiny, from others.”

  Hello, I want to shout, I’m sitting right here as you call me crazy. Which I am, thank you.

  Mom pursed her thin lips while the toe tapping kicked into overdrive.

  “I have some recommendations that I think might help your daughter succeed.”

  If you could smoke in school, Mom would have finished her third by now. Me, only one.

  “First, Jessica should see a licensed therapist specializing in social anxiety disorder. I’ve recommended other students to Nina Martin, who has helped them get their lives back on track.”

  Mom nodded. Sure, therapy for me, but not for her. She’s just fine … Please.

  “Second, there are online support groups for most illnesses and disorders. You should look into an online support community for social anxiety. She shouldn’t do this until after she’s made real progress in therapy, though.”

  I could ask Dad, I figured. He might even answer me for once. He’s online almost twenty-four seven.

  “Finally, I think maybe Harding might not be the best environment for Jessica. Rondo Alternative High School might be a better fit. It is much smaller—less than a hundred students. So the class sizes are small, and there’s a real sense of community that might be hard for a student like Jessica to find at Harding without participating in after-school activities.”

  Mom should’ve been used to me needing to switch schools, but that caught her off-guard. After she’d recovered, she started to ask questions. All practical stuff: location (not that far away), cost (none), and other students (collection of head cases like me, it seemed).

  “The downside of Rondo is that, while they have excellent staff and teachers, its small size means it has no library, no gym, few clubs, and no dedicated school counselors, so—”

  “I want to go!” I shouted. You had me at “no school counselors.” Plus, it sounded great to go where nobody knew I was crazy.

  “Are you sure?” Mom asked in that you’rewrong tone that she does so right. I nodded my nappy head at the idea of another fresh start. Another chance to succeed; another chance to fail.

  2

  WHERE TO SIT? WHAT TO EAT?

  “Welcome to tenth-grade language arts,” Mrs. Howard-Hernandez said to me with a big smile. I wanted to disappear. I also wished I was as pretty as she was, or could stand up in front of people and talk, or had a boyfriend, or had anything other than the fire-breathing dragon in my stomach as lunch approached. Not hunger—fear. Where to sit? What to eat? Could I even eat in front of others?

  “For our first assignment, we’ll be reading—” Loud groans from some kids interrupted her.

  “We’ll be reading a book called I Can’t Keep My Own Secrets: Six-Word Memoirs by Teens. Even if you don’t like to read, you should like this book.” I glance over her shoulder at the stuffed bookcase. The Harding counselor had lied: there is a school library, and it’s in this room.

  “What do you mean, ‘six-word memoirs’?” some kid hollered.

  The teacher paused with dramatic flair. “Teacher, Mother, Wife, I, love, life.” People giggled.

  “That’s my life in six words. Let’s get the books.” She looked out at where she’d put me, in back on the left, toward the exit door. She must have been warned. “Jessica?”

  The dragon roared as eyes descended on me. My owl-like hearing seized every whisper and verdict: “Is she white? Black? What’s with her hair? Who dressed her, a blind man?” At least, that’s what I think I heard.

  “Jessica, would you and—” Her eyes searched the room. “And Dylan distribute the books to the class?” Dylan, a lanky black dude, sprang up from his chair, but I stayed planted.

  “Jessica, please?” she repeated, still friendly but a little firmer. Not helping was causing more attention than helping would’ve. Once again, I’d made the wrong decision. That was twenty times already that day, if anyone was counting. Wait. Someone was. Me.

  With my hideous plain black T-shirt and jeans that were too big for my skinny butt, I navigated my way toward
the front of the room. I felt my heart beat in double-time.

  As I handed out the books, a couple guys made eyes at me, sizing me up. As if. A couple of girls said thank you, and that’s what I needed. Somebody so polite that she wouldn’t push me away. My method was to find a girl who seemed gracious and attach myself to her like a barnacle to the hull of a ship. I didn’t make friends so much as I donned human shields.

  My black T showed pit sweat; it was a stupid choice I’d spent two hours making. I sat back down in my chair, exhausted in less than five minutes. And lunch hadn’t even started yet. I’d need a place to collapse, not eat.

  “As you probably guessed, your assignment will be for each of you to write six-word memoirs about yourself.” Mrs. Howard-Hernandez was still all smiles. If I looked like her and didn’t have these braces, I might smile more. “Then you’ll present the best one to the class.”

  More groans and remarks from others, but I couldn’t get out a single noise as panic rose up in me.

  “Do we have to speak in front of class?” asked one of the “thank you” girls. Her hair, her top, and her jeans with a hole in them all indicated “loud,” but she’d asked the right question. My ship had come in.

  “Yes, Tonisha, you do. I know it’s not something most of you enjoy, but the ability to present information is a key twenty-first century skill. I used to coach debate, so I’m happy to help anyone who’d like pointers for speaking in public. The presentation will be part of your grade for the project.”

  “How much a part?” Tonisha asked, with tons of attitude jammed into just four words.

  “You can’t get an A without doing it. Probably at best a C.”

  “Messed up, seriously messed up.”

  “Alright, let’s get started. Open up to page one, and let’s have Dylan start reading. Dylan?”

  Dylan spoke first, but soon it would be my turn. That wasn’t happening. Soon I was out the door. The pretty blond teacher called my name, but I didn’t look back. Getting a C would be just fine.

  3

  EVERYBODY ELSE GOT THE HOW-TO MANUAL

  “Darryl, why are you parking here?” Mom asked in that you’re-so-stupid tone.

  “It’s a good spot,” Dad answered. It was a great spot, right in front of the grocery store.

  “But look at the ice machine.” Mom pointed to the large machine against the wall of the store, at least ten feet away from the car. “What if something happens and it falls on the car?”

  Dad didn’t say a word, per usual. He grunted once and moved the car, adding more time to our shopping task. A task that probably took a normal family a half hour, but we’d be there twice that time, easy. We were running late because Mom decided to do laundry after I got home from school, and we couldn’t leave the house with a machine running. She was too afraid the dryer would short out and catch fire or the washing machine would flood.

  Inside the store, I avoided people staring at me by never looking up. My eyes didn’t linger over the rows of fresh vegetables, the bogo sales, or the new and improved items—none of which Mom will buy (“You know those vegetables all have bugs on them,” and, “If they’re giving it away there must be something wrong with it,” and “I liked the original version better”). Instead my eyes stayed focused on my phone like every other teenager’s.

  Except for one thing: other people’s phones have numbers for friends stored in them, and mine didn’t. Their phones buzzed and dinged with incoming texts; mine did not. Their phones enlarged their world; mine narrowed it further.

  Dad pushed the cart, fiddled with his phone, and waited impatiently as Mom struggled to decide which salad dressing to purchase. Per usual, she picked one, put it in the cart, and just as Dad was about to move on, she changed her mind, removed it, put in another one, and off we went.

  “I’m going to get dog food,” I said after only two aisles of torture. As I walked away, deep into an online game, I accidently knocked over a display of cans. The eyes of every man, woman, and child turned toward my family: a six-foot-two, three-hundred-pound black man; his five-foot-one, whiter-than-white wife; and me, their skinny, mute, mutant offspring.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I heard a voice say over the techno music my headphones pumped into my ears. I turned around. It was a boy, an older teen, dressed in a crisp, clean store uniform. He smiled at me, and my face went from blushing to way beyond red.

  “You go to Rondo?” He was super cute, with thick black hair and a thin growth of facial hair.

  I nodded.

  “Me too. I’m a junior. My name’s Juan. You’re new, right? What grade are you in?”

  For a second, I forgot how to talk to people. It’s like everybody but me got the manual titled How to Be a Normal Social Person. “I’m in tenth grade.”

  “Nice.” A smile and that was it. He focused on picking up my mess, and I ran away like a mouse.

  I found the dog food that Maurice, my eight-year-old pug/beagle mix, liked. But I didn’t pick it up. I just stood there and wished someone—Juan, Tonisha, anyone else—would come over and we’d talk and laugh, just like normal people did.

  Before I pulled up new music, I flipped through pictures of Maurice. Maurice was my grandpa’s dog. When Grandpa died, the dog came to live with us, a result of the only fight I’d ever won against my mom. I’d resorted to the “I’ll throw myself down the stairs” ploy for the first time. It hasn’t worked since, but Maurice was worth it. Dogs don’t care what anyone thinks of them. They’re very Zen animals. I’d rather be a dog than human any day.

  With my parents across the store and nothing to distract me, I began to catalog everything stupid thing I’d said and done at school. I hadn’t spoken, so that helped. I figured I’d talk later that week, but not at school. Dad was taking me to my first therapist appointment. I felt sorry for the good doctor in advance. I didn’t need a therapist; I needed a miracle—except that I believe in Zen dogs, not gods.

  4

  ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK

  “Thanks,” I mumbled to Skylar, who sold cigarettes dirt cheap. I didn’t ask where he got them. I was just happy I didn’t have to steal more from Mom.

  “Any time,” he said. He stuffed my money in his pocket. “What’s your name?”

  I stood there, unable to answer the obvious.

  “My pal Juan there thinks you’re cute.” Skylar pointed at Juan Fernandez, the guy from the grocery store. I focused on the pack of More Menthols that rested in my sweaty left hand.

  “You don’t talk much, do you?” Skylar asked, but he smiled when he said it. Skylar had a hard shell, probably toughened by hard times, but it seemed like deep down there was a sweet kid trying to escape.

  “If you wanna hang with us, he’d like that.” And then he was gone, headed back into school with his friends for lunch. They’d eat, laugh, and talk about weekend plans. I stood outside in the brisk fall air alone, away from even the other smokers. The second day of school, I’d tried to mix with them, but they were so loud, it just made my silence somehow stand out more.

  If you’re going to stand alone, then have a cigarette so you don’t look like a loser. That was the best advice I ever got in my failed ninth-grade year at Verdant Hill. It was the wisdom of Tim Watts, my only friend and my crush until he broke my heart. Like every other school, Rondo was full of cliques, so once again, Tim’s advice applied. As I inhaled, I thought, Here’s to you, Tim.

  “Tonisha Hyun,” Mrs. Howard-Hernandez said, although I barely heard her words as my eyelids closed. I hadn’t slept again last night.

  Tonisha stayed in her seat and made the teacher call her again. What was going on?

  “I’m reading it from my seat,” Tonisha said. She narrowed her heavily made-up eyes.

  Mrs. Howard-Hernandez frowned, a rare sight on her face. “The assignment was—”

  “To write ten six-word memoirs and read one aloud to the class.” Tonisha clutched the paper with the assignment in her left hand. “It didn’t
say nothin’ bout standing up.”

  “Everyone else has—”

  “I ain’t everyone else,” Tonisha said. “So here goes. Sweet not sour, manga not gangsta.”

  A couple of people applauded—maybe not so much for the memoir as for the attitude. I tried not to stare, still figuring her out. She hung with a group of smart black girls, but I’d also seen her talking with the Asian gangsta boys.

  Tonisha passed her paper to the student in front of her. Eventually it made it to the front. Mrs. Howard-Hernandez reacted simply by writing a grade on it and calling the next name.

  I covered my metal-and-rubber-band-filled mouth to stifle another yawn. I’d stood in front of the mirror until three in the morning practicing. It was only six words. I could do this.

  She was going in alphabetical order, not by the seating chart. As a J, I was right in the middle.

  Some of the memoirs were funny, and some were sad, but all were revealing. Mine, like me, said nothing.

  “Rashad Jefferson,” Mrs. Howard-Hernandez called out. Rashad walked to the front of the room, all six feet three inches of him, so confident like he owned the place. He read his memoir to lots of applause. It was almost my turn. My ears ached as the dragon roared from within.

  “Leigh Jones.” Another name, another six words.

  “Jessica Johnson.” I stood and took one step toward the front of room. I clutched the paper like it was a life raft, but it couldn’t save me. One step forward, two steps back. Then out the door.

  5

  NO DRAMA, NO TRAUMA, JUST NO FRIENDS

  Therapist Nina Martin’s office didn’t reek of tears like I’d expected. There were lots of earth tones, a bookcase with paperbacks on top and toys on the bottom, and plenty of framed diplomas filling the wall of the small space. After an awkward greeting—I didn’t know any other kind—she showed me a clipboard with a paper attached to it. “It’s not a pop quiz,” she said, and laughed.

  There was something about her manner that put me at ease, almost. She looked older than Mom, maybe in her forties, and she wore a sharp blue suit. The yellow flowers in the room complemented her blond hair. Perfect makeup too.