Nova Weetman - It All Begins with Jelly Beans

It All Begins with Jelly Beans

Nova Weetman

MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text 2019 by Nova Weetman

Originally published in Australia in 2019 by University of Queensland Press as Sick Bay

Jacket illustration 2021 by Federica Frenna

Jacket design by Rebecca Syracuse 2021 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Interior design by Rebecca Syracuse

The illustrations for this book were rendered digitally.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Weetman, Nova, author.

Title: It all begins with jelly beans / Nova Weetman.

Description: First edition. | New York : Margaret K. McElderry Books, [2021] | Audience: Ages 812. | Audience: Grades 46. | Summary: When they are selected to read speeches at their elementary school graduation, an unlikely friendship develops between two sixth-graders, one popular and one a misfit, who are facing family problems and health issues.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021004592 (print) | LCCN 2021004593 (ebook) | ISBN 9781534494312 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781534494336 (ebook)

Subjects: CYAC: FriendshipFiction. | SchoolsFiction. | Mothers and daughtersFiction. | DiabetesFiction. | Panic attacksFiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.W429 It 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.W429 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021004592

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021004593

For Emily Gale, who always shares her jelly beans

MY CURRENT BEST FRIEND IS a brown paper bag that has a slight crease in the corner. I take it everywhere. This particular bag has been with me for about two months now, although its getting ratty along the edges, so it wont hold my air for much longer.

I stash my old bags in a drawer in my room because I cant bring myself to throw them out. After I hide the old one, I go hunting for a plain, recycled, thick paper bag that will withstand the force of my lungs blowing into it. Bags like that are harder to find than you might think. Mushroom bags are good, or bags that have held fancy loaves of bread. I tried naming my bags at the beginning, but it felt a bit sad, so now theyre just the Bag.

I didnt always have the Bag for a friend. I used to have a real best friend. Her name was Eleanora. I was so impressed that someone with such a sophisticated name was my friend, Id say her full name as often as I could. She had four syllables. I only have one. Meg. Actually, thats not true. Its Margaret, which I like even less than Meg. Its as dull as my mousy brown hair.

Eleanora isnt around anymore. That makes it sound like shes dead. Shes not. She just ditched me and made friends with other girls who dont carry paper bags in their pockets, leaving me here, in the nurses office, with mine.

The nurses office is a fluoro-lit room down the corridor from the principals office, where the Bag and I sometimes spend part of the school day. At first my teachers tried to coax me back to their classrooms, although now theyve accepted that I hang out here on occasion. Actually, if I were to fill in a questionnaire about how frequently I was in here, Id probably lean toward the Often category. I like those questionnaires. Ive filled in a few in the past year or so. Theres something reassuring about seeing parts of your life broken down into a series of black marks in little boxes. It makes life feel more manageable.

The office lady, Sarah, who starts the day with red lipstick on her lips and ends the day with it smeared on her teeth, even sneaks me some leftover snacks from the staff room. It might be a piece of banana bread or a couple of cookies. The food makes me feel like Im now one of the nurses offices permanent residents, as regular as Dash Jones, the kid with asthma.

The nurses office is about the size of a childs bedroom. Theres a single bed that nobody ever wants to lie on because its hard to imagine the sheets are changed very often, and what if the kid who used it before you had stomach issues and vomited on the pillows? And there are a pair of armchairs that are too brightly covered in red-and-yellow patterned vinyl like theyve been stolen from the childrens hospital, where the furniture is all primary colored to lift the mood of the patients. The only wall decoration is a poster of a Healthy Eating Pyramid that is torn in one corner, and theres a straw basket of picture books left there for kindergarteners to read when they are having a bad day. When they built Bayview East Elementary School, they should have consulted the students to see how many of us might need to frequently use the nurses office, because then they would have worked out that it needs to be much larger than it is. Although that is assuming, of course, that anyone cares about those of us spending time in here, and that is probably unlikely.

Theres nothing pleasant about the room, although I still spend a lot of my time here. Its tricky to explain why. My friend the Bag knows why, although nobody else really does. Except for Sarah in the office, because she knows everything about everyone in this school, but shes never actually said anything directly to me.

The reason I walked out of class today is because its Thursday, and on Thursdays we have an hour of PE and today were running four laps of the track and I happen to be wearing slippers, and if I go to PE then my teacher will do two things: first he will lecture me about wearing inappropriate footwear, and then he will make me run anyway in the inappropriate footwear.

Id like to think that if I were a teacher, Id guess that my wearing slippers to school wasnt through choice. And then maybe Id actually investigate what else might be going on. My PE teacher isnt really one to ask questions, though. Hes a whistle man. He enjoys creating sharp noises and making us sweat.

Unsurprisingly, Im really not up to PE today, so instead Im in here, in the nurses office, perched on my favorite of the chairs in the corner near the fridge. Usually I bring my book and reread the passages I love, but I forgot it this morning.

From this spot I can see the corridor through the open door, so I know when someones coming. Preparation is key to a quiet life, which is my daily ambition. I can also hear the hum of the fridge filling in time. For the past five minutes, Ive been looking through the glass door of the fridge, reading the labels of the medicines. Its really the schools fault, because if they dont want anyone knowing what medicines kids are taking, they should keep them somewhere a bit more discreet.