memorable moments number eleven~ flipped

memorable moments:

flipped by wendelin van draanen

page 1:

"All I've ever wanted is for Juli Baker to leave me alone. For her to back off - you know, just give me some space."

It all started the summer before second grade when our moving van pulled into her neighborhood. And since we're now about done with eighth grade, that, my friend, makes more than half a decade of strategic avoidance and social discomfort.

She didn't just barge into my life. She barged and shoved and wedged her way into my life. Did we invite her to get into our moving van and start climbing all over boxes? No! But that's exactly what she did, taking over and showing off like only Juli Baker can.

xxx

page 2:

"This was the beginning of my soon-to-be-acute awareness that the girl cannot take a hint. Of any kind.

xxx

page 3:

"Finally I break free and do the only manly thing available when you're seven years old - I dive behind my mother.

xxx

page 4:

"My troubles were far from over, though. Every day she came back, over and over again. "Can Bryce play?" I could hear her asking from my hiding place behind the couch. "Is he ready yet?" One time she even cut across the yard and looked through my window. I spotter her in the nick of time and dove under my bed, but man, that right there tells you something about Juli Baker. She's got no concept of personal space. No respect for privacy. The world is her playground, and watch out below - Juli's on the slide!

xxx

page 5:

"Seriously. There's no wining arguments with your parents, so why get all pumped up over them? It is way better to dive down and get out of the way than it is to get clobbered by some parental tidal wave. 

The funny ting is, Lynetta's still clueless when it comes to dealing with Mom and Dad. She goes straight into thrash mode and is too busy drowning in the argument to take a deep breath and dive fore calmer water.

And she thinks I'm stupid."

xxx

page 6:

"My mom didn't understand why it was so awful that "that cute little girl" had held my hand. She thought I should make friends with her. "I thought you liked soccer, honey. Why don't you go out there and kick the ball around?"

Because I didn't want to be kicked around, that's why. And although I couldn't say it like that at the time, I still had enough sense at age seven and a half to know that Juli Baker was dangerous.

Unavoidably dangerous, as it turns out."

xxx

page 7:

"What better way to ward Juli off? What better way to say to her, "Juli you are not my type"?

And so, my friend, I hatched the plan.

I asked Shelly Stalls out.

To fully appreciate the brilliance of this, you have to understand that Julie hates Shelly Stalls. She always has, though it beats me why. Shelly's nice and she's friendly and she's got a lot of hair. What's not to like? But Julie hated her, and I was going to make this little gem of knowledge the solution to my problem.

xxx

page 8:

"Mr. Mertins has got some kind of doctorate in seating arrangements or something, because he analyzed and scrutinized and practically baptized the seats we had to sit in. And of course he decided to seat Juli next to me.

Juli Baker is the kind of annoying person who makes a point of letting you know she's smart."

xxx

page 9:

"I finally asked Mr. Mertins to move me, but he wouldn't do it. Something about not wanting to disturb the delicate balance of educational energy."

xxx

page 10:

"My heart stopped. It just stopped beating. And for the first time in my life, I had that feeling. You know, like the world is moving all around you, all beneath you, all inside you, and you're floating. Floating in midair. And the only thing keeping you from drifting away is the other person's eyes. They're connected to yours by some invisible physical force, and they hold you fast while the rest of the world swirls and twirls and falls completely away. 

xxx

page 17:

"No, this wasn't a job a boy could do gracefully. This was a job for a girl."

xxx

page 21:

"One day last year I'd finally had enough of her yakking about that stupid tree. I came right out and told her that it was not a magnificent sycamore, it was, in reality, the ugliest tree known to man. And you know what she said? She said I was visually challenged."

xxx

page 22:

"Mom and Juli's mom do talk some. I think my mom feels sorry for Mrs. Baker - she says she married a dreamer, and because of that, one of the two of them will always be unhappy."

xxx

page 23:

"There were about eight other kids altogether at our bus stop, which created a buffer zone, but it was no comfort zone. Juli always tried to stand beside me, or talk to me, or in some other way mortify me."

xxx

page 25:

"Stupid as it was, she loved that tree, and cutting it down would be like cutting out her heart."

xxx

page 28:

"He frowned some more before he looked back at me and said, "A girl like that doesn't live next door to everyone, you know."

"Lucky them1""

xxx

page 31:

"After all, the last thing I needed was for Juli Baker to think I missed her."

xxx

page 32:

"I love to watch my father paint. Or really, I love to hear him talk while he paints. The words always come out soft and somehow heavy when he's brushing on the layers of a landscape. Not sad. Weary, maybe, but peaceful."

xxx

page 34:

"Mostly the things he talked about floated around me, but once in a while something would happen and I would understand exactly what he had meant. "A painting is more than the sum of its parts," he would tell me, and then go on to explain how the cow by itself is just a cow, and the meadow by itself is just grass and flowers, and the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light, but put them all together and you've got magic."

xxx

page 35:

"Kites can be lucky or they can be ornery. I've had both kinds, and a lucky kite is definitely worth chasing after."

xxx

page 35:

"That's when the fear of being up so high began to lift, and in its place came the most amazing feeling that I was flying. Just soaring above the earth, sailing among the clouds.

Then I began to notice how wonderful the breeze smelled. It smelled like . . . sunshine and wild grass and pomegranates and rain!"

xxx

page 37:

"It wasn't long before I wasn't afraid of being up so high and found the spot that became my spot. I could sit up there for hours, just looking out at the world. Sunsets were amazing. Some days they'd be purple and pink, some days they'd be a blazing orange, setting fire to the clouds across the horizon. 

It was on a day like that when my father's notion of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts moved from my head to my heart. The view from my sycamore was more than rooftops and clouds and wind and colors combined.

It was magic.

And I started marveling at how I was feeling both humble and majestic. How was that possible? How could I be so full of wonder? How could this simple tree make me feel so complex? So alive."

xxx

page 43:

""Oh, Dad, it's okay. I'll get over it."

I started crying. "It was just a tree . . ."

"I never want you to convince yourself of that. You and I both know it isn't true."

"But Dad . . ."

"Bear with me a minute, would you?" He took a deep breath. "I want the spirit of that tree to be with you always. I want you to remember how you felt when you were up there."

xxx

page 62:

"Was I really afraid of hurting her feelings?

Or was a afraid of her?"

xxx

page 85:

"He pulled my curtain aside and looked across the street. "One's character is set at an early age, son. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life." He was quiet fro a minute, then dropped the curtain and said, "I hate to see you swim out so far you can't swim back."

"Yes, sir."

He frowned and said, "Don't yes-sir me, Bryce." Then he stood and added, "Just think about what I've said, and the next time you're faced with a choice, do the right thing. It hurts everyone less in the long run."

xxx

page 89:

"I could not see Juli coated in powder. Okay, maybe gunpowder, but the white perfumy stuff? Forget it."

xxx

page 95:

"Very quietly my granddad said, "You can't dwell on what might have been, Bryce." Then, like he could read my mind, he added, "And it's not fair to condemn him for something he hasn't done."

and

"He stood up and said, "Say, I'm in the mood for a walk. Want to join me?"

Go for a walk? What I wanted to do was go to my room, lock the door, and be left alone.

"I find it really helps clear the mind," he said, and that's when I realized this wasn't just a walk - this was an invitation to do something together."

xxx

page 96:

""The tree's gone, but she's till got the spark it gave her. Know what I mean?"

Luckily I didn't have to answer."

xxx

page 98:

"They were, I don't know, deep. Sitting in that tree was seriously philosophical to her.

And the odd thing is, it all made sense to me. She talked about what it felt like to be up in that tree, and how it, like, transcended dimensional space. "To be held above the earth and brushed by the wind," she said, "it's like your heart has been kissed by beauty." Who in junior high do you know that would put together a sentence like that?

xxx

page 105:

"I felt sorry for my father. I felt sorry for my mother. But most of all I felt lucky for me that they were mine."

xxx

page 106:

"But if chaos is a necessary step in the organization of one's universe, then I was well on my way."

xxx

page 110:
""There's nothing like a headstrong woman to make you happy to be alive."


and


"He wanted to know about the sycamore tree and seemed to understand exactly what I meant when I told about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. "It's the way with people, too," he said, "only with people, it's sometimes that the whole is less than the sum of the parts."
I thought that was pretty interesting. And the next day during school I looked around at the people I'd known wince elementary school, trying to figure out if they were more or less than the sum of their parts. Chet was right. A lot of them were less."

xxx

page 112:
""It's easy to look back and see it, and it's easy to give the advice, but the sad fact is most people don't look beneath the surface until it's too late.""

xxx

page 116:
"The rest of the evening I bounced back and forth between upset and uneasy. The worst part being, I couldn't really put my finger on what exactly I was upset or uneasy about. Of course it was Bryce, but why wasn't I just mad? He'd been such a . . . scoundrel. Or happy? What wasn't I just happy? He'd come over to our house. He'd stood on our driveway. He'd said nice things. We'd laughed.
But I wasn't mad or happy. And as I lay in bed trying to read, I realized that upset had been overshadowed by uneasy. I felt as though someone was watching me. I got so spooked I even got up and checked out the window an din the closet and under the bed, but still the feeling didn't go away. 
It took me until nearly midnight to understand what it was.
It was me. Watching me."

xxx

page 131:
"It was like the silence connected us in a way that explanations never could."

xxx

page 157:
"Then she was gone. Out the door and into the night, part of a chorus of happy good-byes."

xxx

page 158:
"And now I was seeing that there was something really cool about that family. All of them. They were just . . . real. And who were we? There was something spinning wickedly out of control inside this house. It was like seeing inside the Bakers' world had opened up windows into our own, and the view was not a pretty one.
Where had all this stuff come from?
And why hadn't I ever seen it before.

xxx

page 163:
"Well! Surely he was not interested in perpetual motion. I barely was myself! So, I reasoned, continuing our discussion would drive him away. I dove back in, and when the conversation started to peter out, I came up with my own ideas on perpetual-motion machines. I was like a perpetual-idea machine, spinning ridiculous suggestions right out of the air."

xxx

page 166:
"As I looked around, it struck me that we were having dinner with a group of strangers. We'd lived across the street for years, but I didn't know these people at all."

xxx

page 167:
""You boys showed a lot of restraint tonight. I don't know if I could've kept my cool that way."
"Aw, he's just, you know . . . entrenched," Matt said. "Gotta adjust to the perspective and deal from there." Then he added, "Not that I'd want him as my dad . . ."
Mike practically sprayed his milk. "Dude! Can you imagine?" Then Matt gave my dad a slap on the back and said, "No way/ I'm sticking with my main man here." My mom grinned from across the table and said, "Me too."

xxx

page 169:
"It felt good to take charge of my own destiny! I felt strong and right and certain.
Little did I know how a few days back at school would change all of that."

xxx

page 180:
"My heart lurched. What was she laughing about? What were they talking about? How could she sit there and look so . . . beautiful?"

xxx

page 185:
"Juli was different, but after all these years that didn't bother me anymore.
I liked it.
I liked her.
And every time I saw her, she seemed more beautiful. She just seemed to glow. I'm not talking like a hundred-watt bulb; she just had this warmth to her. Maybe it came from climbing that tree. Maybe it came from singing to chickens. Maybe it came from whacking at two-by-fours and dreaming of perpetual motion. I don't know. All I know is that compared to her, Shelly and Miranda seemed so ... ordinary."

xxx

page 187:
""It started with that stupid newspaper article. And I don't know . . . I've been weirded out ever since. She doesn't look the same, she doesn't sound the same, she doesn't even seem like the same person to me!" I stared our the window at the Bakers'. "She's . . . she's just different."
My grandfather stood beside me and looked across the street, too. "No, Bryce," he said softly. "She's the same as she's always been; you're the one who's changed." He clapped his hand on my shoulder and whispered, "And son, from here on out, you'll never be the same again."

xxx

page 194:
""I ran in the house, calling, "Mom! Mom, there's grass!"
"Really?" She emerged from the bathroom with her cleaning gloves and a pail. "I was wondering if it was ever going to spring up."
"Well, it has! Come! Come and see!"
She wasn't too impressed at first. But after I made her get down on her hands and knees and really look, she smiled and said, "They're so delicate . . . ."
"They look like they're yawning, don't they?"
She cocked her head a bit and looked a little closer. "Yawning?"
"Well, more stretching, I guess. Like they're sitting up in their little bed of dirt with they're arms stretched way up high, saying, Good morning, world!"
She laughed and said, "Yes, they do!"
I got up and uncoiled the hose. "I think they need a wake-up shower, don't you?"
My mom agreed and left me to my singing and sprinkling."

xxx

page 211:
"Already I can tell - it's going to be an amazing, magnificent tree.
And I can't help wondering, a hundred years from now will a kid climb it the way I climbed the one up on Collier Street? Will she see the things I did? Will she feel the way I did?
Will it change her life the way it changed mine?"

xxx

page 212:
"So maybe I should go over there and thank him for the tree. Maybe we could sit on the porch and talk. It just occurred to me that in all the years we've known each other, we've never done that. Never really talked.
Maybe my mother's right. Maybe there is more to Bryce Loski than I know. 
Maybe it's time to meet him in the proper light."