‘There are many great voices in YA fiction, but Susin Nielsen manages to give us TWO in the same book. I defy you not to fall in love with this book’
Phil Earle
‘There’s so much to love about this story, but what grabbed me most is the humour. Who do I write to to join the Susin Nielsen fan club?’
Christopher Paul Curtis
‘Susin Nielsen is one of the best writers working today’
Susan Juby
‘This savvy, insightful take on the modern family makes for nearly nonstop laughs’
Kirkus, starred review
‘A book to fortify readers against bullies and homophobes’
Sunday Times
‘One to make you laugh, cry and read in one sitting’
The Bookseller
‘Snappy and witty. A really fine YA novel’
Telegraph
‘A sheer delight. That next life-affirming book’
Storytellers Inc
‘This is stellar, top-notch stuff’
Quill and Quire, starred review
‘No one – absolutely no one – captures the lovable flaws of the pubescent human creature like Susin Nielsen’
Globe and Mail
‘Ashley and Stewart are irresistible characters’
Lovereading
‘Nielsen excels at characterisation … richly developed, emotionally compelling and often very funny. Unputdownable’
INIS
Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Canadian Library Association’s Children’s Book of the Year
‘Both disarming and endearing. A realistic, poignant portrait of one teen who overcomes nearly unbearable feelings of grief and guilt’
Kirkus
‘A fantastic narrator, authentic and endearing … a memorable read for all the right reasons’
Booktrust
‘Nielsen writes about the heaviest subjects with the lightest of touches … a truly uplifting, even happy read’
Lovereading
‘Gloriously character-driven … poignant and witty’
Bookbag
‘Ambrose Bukowski is the titular nerd and it’s in his delightful, disarming voice that Word Nerd unfolds … a funny, wry tale’
Globe and Mail
‘Tender, often funny. It will appeal to word nerds, but even more to anyone who has ever longed for acceptance’
School Library Journal, starred review
‘Enlivened by the witty, articulate musings of a hyper-observant and eccentric protagonist, Word Nerd is also chock-full of valuable lessons about being yourself and giving second chances. A page-turner’
Quill & Quire
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Epub ISBN: 9781448188604
Version 1.0
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by
Andersen Press Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road
London SW1V 2SA
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication 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 written permission of the publisher.
The right of Susin Nielsen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Text copyright © Susin Nielsen, 2017
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.
Hardback ISBN 978 1 78344 507 3
Trade paperback ISBN 978 1 78344 558 5
To all the other crazy cat people.
You know who you are.
The first time I saw the Bionic Man I was covered in sparkles.
It was a typical Friday afternoon at Youth Art Therapy, YART for short. I was trying to help Ivan the Terrible with our latest, lamest project. As per usual, Ivan refused to focus. Instead he tipped a tube of rainbow glitter onto my head, all over my cat hat and all over me. Alonzo tutted sympathetically. Koula snorted with laughter. Another sunny day in paradise.
We were sitting in the common area of the counselling suite. It was always either Antarctica cold or Saudi Arabia hot. Even though it was early January, I’d stripped down to my tie-dyed tank top. Ivan started punching my bare arm with the very fingers that had, moments ago, been wedged up his nose. I reached into my tote bag for my bottle of hand sanitiser, just as one of the counsellors’ doors opened.
Ivan glanced up. ‘Petula, look,’ he said. ‘A giant.’
The Bionic Man was not a giant. But he was well over six feet. Everything about him was supersized. A bright orange parka was slung over one arm, which was major overkill for a Vancouver winter. He looked about my age, with a mass of curly brown hair and big brown eyes that were red from crying.
The Bionic Man had stepped out of Carol Polachuk’s office. I’d sat in that soulless space many times myself, forced to talk to she of the UP WITH LIFE! T-shirts, bulgy eyes, and condescending attitude. Carol was very good at one thing, and that was making you feel worse. So I wasn’t surprised that the Bionic Man looked disorientated. And angry. And deeply, terribly sad.
I recognised those looks. The Bionic Man hadn’t been in there for a chat about career options. You didn’t see Carol Polachuk for the small stuff. He was one of us.
For a brief moment, our eyes locked.
Then he made a beeline for the doors.
And he immediately left my brainpan as I started slathering myself in hand sanitiser.
The end.
Except it wasn’t.
On Monday afternoon I saw him again.
I stood at the front of history class in my presentation outfit: plain white top with purple crocheted vest, my favourite peasant skirt, and purple rubber boots that hid my lucky striped socks. I was midway through my talk. The assignment: discuss a historical event that has ripple effects to this day.
I’d chosen September 11, 2001. Nine-eleven, the day two planes, hijacked by terrorists, flew into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. I meant to talk about the political aftermath, and the many ways it changed how we view personal safety.
But I never made it that far.
A lot of people on the floors below the point of impact were able to escape down stairwells before the towers fell. But the people above the impact must have understood that they were doomed, that no one was coming to rescue them because, well, how could they? Those towers practically rose into the stratosphere.
I thought about those people a lot. How their days started out so normal. How they were average, regular humans; just like me, just like Mom and Dad, just like anyone. I pictured a guy wondering if it was too early to dig into his lunch, because even though it was only just past nine, he was already hungry. I imagined a woman who couldn’t stop worrying about her son because he’d cried that morning when she dropped him off at day care.
They were expecting a day like any other.
That part of my presentation was supposed to be brief, just laying out the facts so I could get to the ripple effects.
But I could not shake the thought of all the innocent victims. Or the people they left behind, the children, spouses, parents, and friends whose loved ones were not coming home from work that day, or any day. Their lives from that moment forward would never be the same.
My heart started to race. My breath came in short bursts. I opened my mouth but no words came out. My classmates looked alarmed.
That’s when I spotted him, sitting at a desk in the back corner.
The last thought I had was Oh God I’m wearing my old granny pants oh God please don’t let my skirt ride up—
Then all five feet eleven inches of me crumpled to the floor.
An hour later I was sitting across from Mr Watley in my favourite chair, the one with the nubby multicoloured fabric. I’d sat in it so often in the past two years, its grooves had moulded perfectly to my bum.
It was my favourite because it was the farthest from his bookshelves, which were not secured to the wall in any way. Believe me, I’d checked. So if there was an earthquake – and in Vancouver they say it’s a matter of when, not if – I could be badly injured by falling hardcovers. (I tried not to think about the building itself, which would collapse like a pile of Jenga blocks in any quake over five point zero on the Richter scale. If I thought about that, I would have to leave school, and Vancouver, and live alone in a cave somewhere, which would crush my parents. Plus I would be a sitting duck for any psychopathic serial killer who happened past. And/or I would contract a respiratory illness because of the damp and die a slow, painful death. At least death by earthquake was more likely to be instantaneous.)
In spite of the bookshelves, I liked being in the principal’s office. It was a surprisingly warm and cosy space, lit by floor lamps instead of overhead fluorescents. And Mr Watley still had the mason jar snow globe that I’d made for him in the ninth grade on his desk. I picked it up and gave it a good shake, and snow cascaded down onto a little Lego building, which had PRINCESS MARGARET SECONDARY written on it.
Mr Watley gazed at me with his big, watery eyes. He looked a lot like a Saint Bernard. ‘Feeling better, Petula?’
‘Much. The school nurse gave me a good once-over. Deemed me fit for release.’
‘You’ve been making progress. I was hoping we’d moved past these episodes.’
‘Me too.’ My last full-blown panic attack had been at least three months earlier, in biology. The topic was infectious diseases. I’d talked about the Ebola virus, which is transmitted through bodily fluids and leads to a truly horrible death. I’d crumpled when I mentioned how easily it could become a worldwide plague.
‘At least they’re fewer and farther between,’ Mr Watley said. He smoothed his hair. I wished his wife would tell him that his comb-over fooled no one. Then again, I’d studied the family photo that sat beside my snow globe many times. It showed a grinning Mr and Mrs Watley and their pug. The dog was far and away the most attractive thing in the picture. My theory was that they had a reciprocal arrangement: Mrs Watley ignored Mr Watley’s comb-over, and he ignored the giant mole on her chin. ‘Nonetheless, Petula, we’ve talked about trying to stay away from trigger topics.’
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t need to talk about the victims at all.’
I glanced out his window at the rain coming down in sheets. ‘It was just a small part. If I’d been able to finish, I had some valid points.’
He tented his fingers under his chin. ‘Like what?’
‘Like that nine-eleven was a game changer. Like we now live in a world where another terrorist attack is a constant threat.’
‘I thought we were trying to avoid that kind of negative thinking.’
‘Sir, this isn’t negative. It’s practical. My point was, nine-eleven taught us that we all need to be more vigilant. Forewarned is forearmed.’
‘I understand that the world doesn’t always feel safe. But we live in Vancouver. In Canada. It’s—’
‘Don’t say it, sir. Nowhere is safe.’
‘OK, even if we disagree on that point, we still need to keep living our lives, don’t we? We can’t live in constant fear. We can’t look up at every plane that passes, wondering if it’s been hijacked. We can’t look at every single person we pass in the street, wondering if they’re carrying a dirty bomb.’
I can, I thought. I can be on high alert for the rest of you ignoramuses. ‘No, but it doesn’t mean we should bury our heads in the sand. Metaphorically speaking, of course. If you actually buried your head in the sand you would suffocate.’
Mr Watley thought for a moment. Then he pointed at a mug on his desk. ‘Look at that and tell me what you see.’
‘A half-empty mug of coffee.’
‘I see a half-full mug of coffee.’ He smiled triumphantly, like he’d just said something profound.
‘And that’s why you’ll die before I do.’
He blinked a few times. ‘Well, I hope so. I’m fifty-two, after all, and you’re only fifteen—’
‘Sixteen as of last week. But age aside, studies show that in general, optimists die ten years earlier than pessimists.’
‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘Of course you do, you’re an optimist. You have a misguided belief that things will go your way. You don’t see the dangers till it’s too late. Pessimists are more realistic. They take more precautions.’
‘That seems like a sad way to govern your life.’
‘It’s a safe way to govern your life.’
Mr Watley exhaled. He rubbed his watery eyes.
‘That’s a sure-fire way to get pinkeye.’
He lowered his hand and gazed at me, his expression full of sympathy, which I half hated and half appreciated. ‘How’s YART going?’
‘You know how I feel about that.’
‘Yes, and I keep hoping you’ll change your mind.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘OK. Go back to class.’
With only ten minutes left till dismissal I had no intention of going back to class. ‘Sure thing.’ I stood up and gave a little bow in lieu of a germ-sharing handshake.
I walked out of Mr Watley’s office, turned left—
And ploughed right into the Bionic Man.
Textbooks and papers, mine and his, went flying. We both bent down to collect our scattered things and our foreheads connected with a crack.
I straightened, rubbing my temple. ‘Ow! Jerk!’
‘Um, you do know you ran into me, right?’
I looked up.
Emphasis on up.
See, when you are a young woman of almost Amazonian proportions, looking up at someone is a rare occurrence. But the Bionic Man had at least four inches on me.
I stared for a little too long at his face. His features were just a bit off. Like, if you moved his nose and his eyes a millimetre here and a millimetre there, he’d be almost handsome. Instead he looked like a Picasso, before Pablo went one hundred per cent abstract.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
I didn’t know whether he was referring to our accidental head-butt or to my fainting spell in history class, and I didn’t care. I slipped past him and headed to my locker. Post-Maxine, idle chitchat was difficult for me. Also, I had only five minutes left to clear out before the hall filled with students. Last year, when I was worse, I’d seriously considered wearing one of those masks to school, like the ones people wear in China when the pollution gets bad. Now I just did the common-sense basics, like not touching people or surfaces and washing my hands for the length of two rounds of ‘Happy Birthday’. And I didn’t linger in this hothouse of germs.
The Bionic Man followed me and stood there as I twirled my lock right, then left. ‘You shouldn’t follow people,’ I said. ‘Especially girls. It’s creepy.’ His off-white fisherman’s sweater reeked of mothballs.
‘Seriously. Are you OK? You dropped like a sack of potatoes.’
Like I needed to be reminded. When I’d come to, Ms Cassan’s cardigan was under my head and the Girl Formerly Known as My Best Friend was gazing down at me with concern. ‘Did anyone see my underwear?’ I blurted.
He looked confused. ‘No. Why? Did you want them to?’
‘No.’ I yanked my locker door open and grabbed my pea coat; I was so close to freedom I could almost taste it. But when I tried to step around the Bionic Man, he held out his right hand. ‘I should introduce myself. I’m Jacob Cohen.’
I couldn’t help it. I gaped.
Because his hand wasn’t real. It was sleek, black, and definitely man-made.
He saw me staring at it. ‘Pretty cool, huh? Like something out of I, Robot.’
‘Or The Iron Giant.’
‘Ha! Yes. Great movie.’
‘Better book.’ It was one of my childhood favourites.
‘It was a book?’
I let that pass. His robot hand still hovered in front of me. ‘Go on, shake it,’ he said. ‘It has twelve different grip patterns.’
I was caught. If I told him the truth – that I never shook hands – he would think his robot limb freaked me out. Which it did. But while my social skills these days were ‘subpar’, as I’d overheard some girls say in gym class, I wasn’t cruel.
So I stuck out my hand. I heard a mechanical whirring sound, and the fingers of his gleaming black fake hand closed over mine. After what felt like an eternity, I heard more whirring and my hand was released.
The bell rang. Anxiety started to rise up in my throat. ‘I’ve really got to go.’ I shoved my schoolwork into my tote bag.
‘I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere else. Like, before today. But I only moved here a week ago.’
I clicked my lock into place and slipped past him, down the hall. I wasn’t about to tell him where he’d seen me, for his sake and for mine. What happens in counselling services stays in counselling services.
I pushed open the front doors with my elbows and stepped outside. I breathed in, enjoying a moment of temporary relief. I’d survived another school day.
Now I had to survive the journey home.
The walk took fifteen minutes. That was a full eight minutes longer than usual because a building between the school and our apartment had been torn down in December, and now a construction site filled almost an entire city block. I had to take a detour to avoid it.
Up ahead, I watched as the Girl Formerly Known as My Best Friend and her posse walked right past the site. I almost shouted out a warning. But I knew she would give me an exasperated, pitying look, so I said nothing. I turned left instead of going straight and ran through my mental checklist.
Cross only at designated crosswalks and intersections, check.
Step into the road only after all vehicular traffic has come to a full stop, check.
Scan pavement for suspicious objects, bags, or parcels, check.
Give wide berth to irresponsible dog owners who don’t have said pet on leash even though it’s the law, check. Don’t become an animal’s chew toy, check.
Look over shoulder occasionally to make sure you are not being followed, check.
Rape whistle around neck, check. Keys secured between your knuckles, check.
My knot of anxiety loosened when I arrived on our street, a quiet one-way in Vancouver’s West End.
It is a nice street. Chestnut trees line both sides of the road, and the buildings are all low-rise. Ours stands right in the middle of the block, four storeys with a yellow brick exterior, the word ARCADIA over its front door. We’re on the top floor, or, as Dad liked to joke, the penthouse.
Our street and our building were not without danger. But I had safe zones, and this was one of them. For one thing, I’d done due diligence when we first moved in over a year ago. I’d anonymously called in all sorts of building inspectors. Thanks to me the wiring is now to code and every apartment has a new sprinkler system. You’d think the absentee landlord would have been pleased, but instead he sent all the tenants a letter, threatening to ‘uncover the rat.’
He never did.
He did get one response to his letter, though. A postcard with no return address and a simple message on the back: Whatever! And you’re welcome!
First thing I did when I entered our apartment was the smell check. On a scale of one to ten, today was a three. Changing the litter in the boxes could wait another day.
Mom’s red rubber boots were in the foyer. I put my purple ones beside hers and wriggled out of my pea coat. Anne of Green Gables, Stuart Little, Moominmamma, and Ferdinand crowded around me. ‘I’m home,’ I called out.
‘Hi, Tula. I’m in the bedroom.’
The cats meowed and rubbed against my legs. ‘All right, all right, give me a minute,’ I said as sternly as I could, which was next to impossible thanks to their dangerous levels of cuteness. I couldn’t even get very mad when I dropped my tote bag in the living room and saw that one of them – I’d bet good money it was Anne of Green Gables – had left a shockingly large turd in the middle of the carpet. How could something so big come out of something so small? I wondered, not for the first time.
I donned rubber gloves and cleaned up the mess, and checked the phone for messages, hoping I’d beat Mom to it. Sure enough, there was one from the school nurse. I deleted it. Then I got a bag of cat treats from the kitchen and gave the cats two each. ‘That’ll tide you over till dinner.’
I headed to my parents’ bedroom, carrying Ferdinand, the oldest of our cats, in my arms like a furry orange toddler. Mom was at her computer, tapping out an email, still in her work clothes. Her wavy chestnut hair was pulled into a bun. Maxine had had the same light curl to her hair and I’d always felt a bit envious. My hair is boring and straight. I’d cut it short a month earlier, trying to go for the Lena Dunham look. I got Beaker from the Muppets instead.
‘Hey, Mom. How was your day?’
‘Oh, fine. I sold more books than candles, and that’s always a plus.’ Mom works for a chain bookstore at a mall in Burnaby, and the managers love her because unlike some of their employees, my mom actually reads.
She sent the email and swivelled in her chair.
My face fell. ‘You didn’t.’ Curled up in her lap were two jet-black cats.
She gave me a look that managed to be sheepish and unapologetic at the same time. ‘I did.’
‘You promised.’
‘I know, I know, but what could I do? Angie called me in a pinch.’ Angie runs the Vancouver Feline Rescue Association, where Mom volunteers. ‘They found these two abandoned and half-starved under a porch. All the other foster homes are full. Angie dropped them off an hour ago. It’s just until we can find them “for ever homes”.’
‘That’s what you said about Anne of Green Gables, Stuart Little, and Moominmamma.’
‘It’s harder to find homes for the older ones. These two are still young, so it shouldn’t be too bad.’ Mom held one of the black cats out to me. Ferdinand hissed. ‘I’m calling this one Stanley, from Stanley’s Party. And this one is Alice, from Alice, I Think.’
I am a sucker for a feline face. I scratched Stanley’s ears and he purred and purred; he seemed good-natured and docile. But it didn’t take away from certain cold, hard facts, like the fact that we could barely afford the four cats we already had. ‘Dad’s going to kill you.’
‘I’ll deal with Dad,’ she said breezily. Like it was going to be the easiest thing on earth.
Mom whipped us up a tofu stir-fry for dinner. I made us a salad from a head of lettuce, peeling off the outer leaves and discarding them, then washing the remaining leaves with a little dish soap. Mom swore she could taste it, but I reminded her that a hint of Joy was better than getting infected with E. coli. After we’d served ourselves, I dished out a plate for Dad, pushing his food into a smiley face before covering it with plastic wrap and putting it in the fridge.
We watched cat videos on Mom’s laptop while we ate. All six cats hung out in the living room with us. Ferdinand let Stanley and Alice know who was boss. At one point, Alice pawed tentatively at my skirt, then curled up in my lap and fell asleep. Mom smiled. ‘You have to admit, it’s nice having some new babies.’
Yes, my mom calls the cats her babies. And yes, it’s pretty easy to find deeper meaning behind it. But the cats – especially Ferdinand – helped drag her out of her pit of despair after Maxine died, which was something no one else – not me, not my dad, not her therapist – had been able to do.
On the screen, Maru the Japanese cat was trying to fit into boxes that got progressively smaller. I’d seen the video before, but it made me laugh every time.
‘Remember when your grandparents sent Maxine that toy stove?’ Mom said. ‘And she was so much more interested in the box?’
‘I helped her make a playhouse out of it.’
‘She loved that box.’ Mom brought up memories of my baby sister like this all the time. Sometimes I didn’t mind; sometimes I wished she would just shut up.
Tonight I wished she would just shut up.
After I’d loaded the dishwasher and scrubbed the counters with antibacterial cleanser, I took a shower, making sure the rubber mat was secure. The statistics on injuries and deaths due to bathtub falls are eye-popping.
When I was done, I was grateful that the mirror was fogged up so I didn’t have to see my tall, scrawny bod naked. ‘You have supermodel height without supermodel looks,’ a boy named Carl had explained matter-of-factly to me in sixth grade, when I’d had my first of many growth spurts and loomed over the other kids. ‘Well, except for your boobs. They’re supermodel boobs. Itsy-bitsy.’ I was not sad when Carl and his family moved to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.