Life by Committee by Corey Ann Haydu

Author:Corey Ann Haydu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

I check behind me, squirrel my phone, and head away again. No rules. I like that. And I like Agnes. Her breathless bravery. She’s almost cool. Dark and angsty and weird but cool.

ZED: You ready for this? Here’s the Assignment: Make him jealous. Tell him there’s someone else. If you can, find someone else.

ELFBOY: Yes. This.

AGNES: I kind of hate that. But I’d do it. That’s the thing. Sometimes the assignments you hate are the ones that end up best.

BITTY: Yeah . . .

I don’t want someone else. I don’t want him to think there’s someone else. I only want him.

I want Star’s happy love story and shiny red shoes and freckled knees and crazy talk of forever-ness.

I keep thinking about this one part of The Secret Garden. The Red Pen Margin Note Taker made an asterisk, a huge one, next to this bit of dialogue. Mary and her new friend Dickon are discussing the flowers Mary has planted in her newfound secret garden. Mary and Dickon are pondering what the garden will look like. “‘Don’t let us make it tidy,’ said Mary anxiously. ‘It wouldn’t seem like a secret garden if it was tidy.’”

I don’t know that I’d ever noticed that moment of dialogue before seeing it through the Red Pen Margin Note Taker’s eyes. And I don’t know that it would have mattered much to me if I didn’t have LBC. But I get it now. It’s good for things to be messy. It’s not necessary to clean your life up all the time. You can let it grow wild.

“Tea Cozy?” Elise says, sneaking up behind me and grabbing my sides so that I drop my phone and have to scramble to pick it back up. “I could use some Elise-Tabby time.”

I swallow. I should not be saying no to the only person in school who doesn’t hate me. But my forehead is a Slip ’n Slide of sweat and I am in the midst of about a hundred life-changing epiphanies right now.

“How about tomorrow?” I say. “Bookstore and Cozy and catch-up?” I make it sound breezy.

“How about today?” Elise counters. She’s hopping from foot to foot. “You look like you need sugar. And a pep talk. And, like, I don’t even know. Ritalin? Where are you right now?” She taps my wrist with her thumb. I guess I’ve been twiddling my fingers and staring somewhere unfocused, not at her face. I shake my head awake.

“I think the word you are looking for is nap. I need a nap,” I say.

“You need to be taking better care of yourself,” Elise says. I know she’s not talking about Assignments or anything, but she’s right, of course she’s right. I need to be doing better. I need to be more.

“Totally,” I say, and take a huge breath.

I know I have to do the new Joe Assignment. Zed’s right. They’re all right. I’ve been living with all these rules and ideas of how to do things. I’ve been keeping my little garden tidy.

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