Susin Nielsen - Tremendous Things

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright 2021 by Susin Nielsen

Cover art used under license from Shutterstock.com

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Nielsen-Fernlund, author.

Title: Tremendous things / Susin Nielsen.

Description: [New York] : Wendy Lamb Books, [2021] | Audience: Ages 12 and up. | Audience: Grades 79. | Summary: Branded by a middle school humiliation, fourteen-year-old Wilbur needs help from friends Alex, Fabrizio, and elderly neighbor Sal to impress Charlie, a French girl whose school band is doing an exchange with his.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020020739 (print) | LCCN 2020020740 (ebook) |

ISBN 978-1-5247-6838-6 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-5247-6839-3 (library binding) |

ISBN 978-1-5247-6841-6 (trade paperback) | ISBN 978-1-5247-6840-9 (ebook)

Subjects: CYAC: PopularityFiction. | High schoolsFiction. | SchoolsFiction. | Foreign studyFiction. | Bands (Music)Fiction. | Lesbian mothersFiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.N565 Tre 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.N565 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]dc23

Ebook ISBN9781524768409

Random House Childrens Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

Penguin Random House LLC supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to publish books for every reader.

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To every one of you who march to your own beat: you are terrific. Radiant. Some human being!

The Mumps believe that we all have a handful of Defining Moments in our lives.

Their Number One Defining Moment was the night they met each other, sixteen years ago, at a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Vancouver. Dr. Frank-N-Furter had just declared, A toast! Mum threw her piece of toast at the screen and hit Mup in the back of the head. The rest, as they say, is history. Theyve been madly in love ever since. It has a happy ending, which I think we can all agree is the best kind of story.

My Number One Defining Moment doesnt have a happy ending.

In fact, it hasnt even ended.

The moment in question happened two and a half years ago, on my first day of seventh grade. Wed recently moved to Toronto, so it was also a brand-new school.

Oh, and it was also my first school ever.

Aside from a disastrous few weeks in kindergarten, Id been homeschooled my whole life. But when we moved from Vancouver to Toronto, we made a family decision: it was time for me to get educated, and socialized, in an actual brick-and-mortar building filled with actual flesh-and-blood kids.

Mum and Mupcollectively known as the Mumpswalked me to Pierre Elliott Trudeau Junior School that first morning in September. They hugged and kissed me and cried a little right out front as all the other kids streamed past, which now that I think about it probably wasnt the best optics.

What I remember most about entering that massive old redbrick building for the first time was the noise. Id been around other kids before, obviously; Id had frequent outings and get-togethers with other homeschooled kids. But were talking ten to fifteen kids at a time, tops. The halls of PET Junior School were packed, with hundreds of kids shouting, laughing, banging locker doors, running even though there were signs telling them to walk. My first instinct was to turn around and march right back out. But I thought of what Mup had said the night before, when I couldnt sleep: Remember, Wil: new beginnings bring new experiences.

So I kept moving.

My pits were dripping with fear-sweat by the time I found my classroom. Our teacher, Mr. Markowitz, stood by his desk. I can still picture him in his brown suit, the shoulders dusted with dandruff. He gave us an assignment. Write a letter to yourself. Describe who you are today. Then write a list of goals you hope to achieve by the time you graduate high school. Place your letter in the envelope provided, write your name on the front, and seal it. The letters will be locked into the schools time capsule. And remember, he continued, you can be completely honest. These letters are for your eyes only. They will be returned to you, still sealed, six years from now, on graduation day.

I was determined to do exactly as I was told.

So I was completely honest.

After school, Mr. Markowitz carried the sealed letters from our classroom to the time capsule, which wasnt really a time capsule at all but the safe in the principals office. It was a short walk from our homeroom, down a flight of stairs and to the left.

But at the top of the staircase, according to a reliable eyewitness, Mr. Markowitz stopped to scratch his balls.

This had a ring of truth to it, because as we learned that year, Mr. Markowitz scratched his balls a lot. He did it so much, a rumor spread that he had pubic lice.

While he scratched, one letter fluttered, unseen, to the ground.

Mine.