Annie's Life in Lists Read online

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

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

  Text copyright © 2018 by Kristin Mahoney

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2018 by Rebecca Crane

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9781524765095 (trade) — ISBN 9781524765101 (lib. bdg.) — ebook ISBN 9781524765118

  The illustrations were created digitally.

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Introduction

  August

  September

  October

  November

  December

  January

  February

  March

  April

  May

  June

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  FOR MY THREE GREAT LOVES

  WHELAN

  LUCY

  ALICE

  Five things I hate about my real name, Andromeda

  1. Everyone says, “That’s a weird name.”

  2. No one knows how to spell it.

  3. No one knows how to pronounce it. (You pronounce it like this: “Ann-drama-duh.”)

  4. No one can remember it. (This one probably bothers me most, because I remember just about everything.)

  5. Even though most people call me Annie, my brother says my nickname should be Drama or Duh. (His name is Ted, after my great-grandfather. Apparently, Mom and Dad saved all their naming flair for me.)

  Three things I like about my name

  1. My mom says I was named after her favorite constellation.

  2. My dad says Andromeda was also a mythical princess.

  3. My nickname, Annie

  I am Annie. This is my life in lists.

  Nine things I see when I look in the mirror

  1. Freckles. Lots of them. Especially in summer, of course.

  2. Indescribable hair color. Not indescribable like “indescribably beautiful!” Just really hard to describe. Not blond. Not brown. My Grandma Elaine calls it “dirty blond,” but I don’t like the sound of that.

  3. Green eyes (my favorite part)

  4. A bump on the bridge of a long nose (This I get from my mom.)

  5. A little gap between my two front teeth

  6. Almost always: a T-shirt

  7. Almost always: leggings or jeans

  8. In summer: flip-flops

  9. In winter: sneakers or boots

  Three things I never see when I look in the mirror

  1. A dress

  2. Expensive sneakers (My mom doesn’t “believe” in them.)

  3. Smooth hair (It’s always kind of straggly, even five minutes after I’ve brushed it.)

  Three things you can’t tell just by looking at me

  1. I’m left-handed (although if you looked really closely, you might see that I always have pencil smudges on my left pinky from where my hand has dragged across my writing).

  2. I’m allergic to amoxicillin.

  3. I have an amazing memory.

  Five things about my memory

  1. I have a regular memory for things like spelling tests and phone numbers.

  2. I have a not-so-great memory for things like bringing permission slips back to school and putting my homework folder in my backpack.

  3. I definitely do not have a crime-solving photographic memory like Cam Jansen.

  4. I have a weirdly amazing memory for things about people. I remember their names, what they wore on different days, who their brothers and sisters are, what their houses look like, and what their pets are named.

  5. I remember things about people that they will never remember about me. In fact, there are kids at my school who don’t even know I exist, but I could tell you their names, their favorite sports, where they went on vacation, and what they ate for lunch.

  Four things other people say about my memory

  1. My mom says it runs in the family, and that some people just have amazing memories. (Hers is pretty good too. She remembers the names of all my grandparents’ cousins, even on my dad’s side. And her old friends tell her she’s like their “childhood Google,” because anytime they forget something from when they were kids—the name of a teacher, the secret nicknames they had for their crushes, the ending of a crazy story—they just ask her.)

  2. My dad says I should be proud of how much I remember.

  3. My best friend, Millie Lerner, thinks it’s cool because:

  a. I can tell her the names of all the fifth-grade boys she thinks are “interesting.”

  b. I remember all the teachers’ first names (from reading the PTA directory one day while I was bored).

  c. When someone annoys her, I make her feel better by reminding her of embarrassing things they did when they were younger. (For example, when Millie got glasses, Hannah Krenzler called her a four-eyed freak and I told Millie not to sweat what Hannah says, because she used to shove her teddy bear’s fur up her nose.)

  4. Ted says my memory is creepy and makes me seem like a stalker.

  I tell him you would not believe how much you would learn if you just paid attention. But Ted still has a habit of nudging me when he thinks I’m going to say too much. Especially when I’m remembering something about him and someone in his grade. Especially if it’s a girl. (Like when we saw Sophia Karlin in Key Food and I reminded him of how he once said she looked like Queen Amidala. He stepped on my toe for that one. Hard.)

  What I think of my memory

  1. I won’t admit this to Ted, but it can be a little embarrassing. Remembering so much about people can make you feel like no one else is as interested in you as you are in them. For example:

  a. Once, Millie and I knocked on her neighbor Sheila’s door to tell her we’d found her cat in the hallway. Sheila’s son Pete had been on Ted’s soccer team three years earlier, and all the boys called him Professor because he was always sharing weird soccer trivia that no one else knew. Of course I remembered this, so when Pete answered the door I automatically said, “Hey, Professor. We found Mittens.” He squinted at me for a second before saying, “Who are you?”

  So to recap, not only did I know his nickname and his cat’s name, but he had no idea who I was. Even though I had been at every one of his soccer games. And he had come to the team pizza party at our apartment. And I was his neighbor’s best friend. You’d think he might be embarrassed not to know me, but somehow I was the one who was blushing.

  b
. On the first day of school last year, when my teacher, Ms. Allen, wondered aloud how we would distinguish between the two Emmas in our class since both of their last names started with “S,” I said, “We could just call one Emma Marie and the other Emma Elizabeth.” Because I remembered both of their middle names. From when they had them written on their plastic Easter baskets at an egg hunt in the park. In kindergarten. Clearly neither Emma remembered this, though, because they both looked at me and said, “How do you know my middle name?” in stereo. Cue red face again.

  2. Lately, it’s a serious problem. Since my memory got me kicked out of school, Ted really doesn’t have to worry anymore about me saying too much. Now I keep all this information to myself.

  Four things I have pretended not to remember so people wouldn’t think I was weird

  1. The first, middle, and last name of a kid I met once at a birthday party when I was in kindergarten, five years ago (and the fact that he didn’t want ice cream, and that he completely missed the donkey in Pin the Tail on the Donkey)

  2. A conversation I had with Jesse Bruner in first grade where he told me he hadn’t washed his hair in two months

  3. The street my teacher lives on

  4. The names of people who don’t know me, when I see them in public, like when Aidan Little from my old kiddie music class was standing right in front of Mom and me in line at the movies. Or when Lola Moran, one of the leads in the school musical, put her blanket down beside ours at a summer concert in the park. (I didn’t just pretend not to know their names; I pretended not to notice they were there at all. It wasn’t that hard since they didn’t notice me, either. And I don’t think they were pretending.)

  Anyway, it’s not such a big deal for me to lie low like I did with Aidan and Lola, because I’m a pretty quiet kid anyway.

  Four examples of how quiet I can be

  1. On my third day of day camp last summer, the head counselor marked me absent because she didn’t notice I was there.

  2. Whenever it was time to line up in preschool, my teacher would say, “Let’s see who else can be as quiet as Annie.” (Mom put a stop to that one after I told her about it.)

  3. Our neighbor across the hall, Mrs. Hartzell, called me “Angie” for a year, and I never spoke up. (Ted finally corrected her when he heard her say it.)

  4. In second grade, Charlotte Devlin made me give her my peanut butter crackers every day at lunch. Peanut butter crackers are my favorite, but I never told anyone. Toward the end of the year, Millie noticed this was happening, and she told Charlotte to cut it out. That’s how Millie and I became friends.

  Four reasons I’m quiet

  1. I’m listening.

  2. I’m watching.

  3. I’m thinking.

  4. I don’t know what to say.

  The last one happens a lot. I see other people joke about things they’ve done together, but if I bring up something I remember about someone, I’m afraid she’ll think I’m weird for remembering it. Or, in the case of Charlotte and the peanut butter crackers, I’m afraid someone won’t like me. So instead I don’t say anything.

  One unique situation where I wind up talking too much

  1. When I’m nervous and the only other person in the room is an adult. Especially an adult with authority. I’m not sure why I do it. Maybe I think that if I talk enough, I’ll be able to keep whatever it is that I’m nervous about from happening.

  I know this doesn’t make me special. Lots of kids probably babble when they wind up one-on-one with a teacher or a coach. Or their school principal. But most kids don’t have the same memory I have. So their babbling isn’t such a big deal.

  One time my memory—and my babbling—turned out to be a very big deal

  1. When I told the principal, Mr. Lawrence, that his brother looked like a dry cleaner

  Nine reasons I was nervous in front of Mr. Lawrence

  1. I had never been to his office before. (Being a quiet, cooperative kid, I’m not the sort of person who finds herself getting sent to the principal very often. Or ever.)

  2. He was the principal. (See above: adults in authority make me nervous.)

  3. I was delivering a note from my teacher, Mrs. Simmons.

  4. I had no idea what the note was about.

  5. My imagination was starting to run a little wild as I wondered what the note might say.

  6. I wondered if it had something to do with The Pinballs, a book I’d borrowed from Mrs. Simmons’s classroom library and never returned because I lost it.

  7. I wondered if the note was Mrs. Simmons asking Mr. Lawrence what my punishment should be.

  8. Then I wondered if the note was something good, like a request for a class party. Or a field trip. Or an award for the most cooperative student.

  9. Wait…maybe that last one wasn’t actually good. An award for cooperation would just be embarrassing, really.

  Anyway, you see where my nerves were coming from. So while I waited for Mr. Lawrence to read the letter, I began to babble.

  What I babbled about in Mr. Lawrence’s office

  1. His pictures. Really just one picture. Specifically, a framed photo of him and another man that I spied on his cabinet.

  2. I said, “Excuse me, Mr. Lawrence, but who is the man in that picture?” He told me it was his brother, and I said, “He looks just like the dry cleaner on my block.”

  3. Mr. Lawrence said, “Are you sure?” And I answered, “Yes. He has a cat named Oliver who always sits on the counter. We went there once a long time ago to get my dad’s jacket cleaned, but when the jacket came back my dad’s eyes got all watery, and Mom said she thought there was cat hair on it, and my dad is allergic. So we go to a different dry cleaner now.”

  Six reasons that was a bad idea

  1. Mr. Lawrence said, “My brother is a dry cleaner, and he has a cat named Oliver. But his store isn’t in this neighborhood.”

  2. I didn’t live in that neighborhood either.

  3. Mr. Lawrence asked, “You say my brother’s dry-cleaning shop is on the block you live on now?”

  4. I tried to say yes, but no sound came out.

  What Mr. Lawrence didn’t know was that my family had moved years ago when I was in preschool because the rent went up on our old apartment. According to the city’s rules, Ted would have been allowed to stay in that school, but I wouldn’t have been guaranteed a spot there when I started kindergarten, especially because the space was really limited. Since my parents wanted me to be able to go to the same school as Ted, they didn’t tell anyone about our move. The new tenants in the apartment put any mail addressed to us—including letters from the school—on a table in the entryway, and we stopped by every once in a while to pick it up.

  Mom and Dad kept saying we’d move back to the old neighborhood eventually, once we could afford it again. And they told Ted and me not to say anything about it at school. They said it didn’t matter since we would move back soon, but the Department of Education might not understand that.

  But Dad never got the raise he was hoping for at work, and he and Mom seemed more worried about money than ever, so we stayed put.

  5. Where we used to live in Brooklyn, school zoning is a pretty big deal. Suddenly my face felt very warm, and my stomach felt like a squirrel was trapped inside it. I knew I had blown our cover.

  6. The cat was out of the bag. (And sitting right on the dry cleaner’s counter.)

  I never did find out what was in the note Mrs. Simmons sent to Mr. Lawrence.

  Five things that happened after the dry cleaner incident

  1. Mr. Lawrence called my parents and asked if we had moved.

  2. Mom and Dad fessed up.

  3. Mr. Lawrence said I could finish the school year there, but that I would have to
switch schools in the fall.

  4. Mom and Dad started having lots of quiet talks in their room with the door closed. (Once, I overheard Dad saying, “How does she even remember that dry cleaner? We haven’t used them in years!” And Mom said, “We can’t let her think this is her fault.”)

  5. On the last day of school, they hit Ted and me with big news: Dad had gotten a new job working as an engineer on a big highway project, and that summer we were going to move to Clover Gap, a teeny town about seven hours away from the city.

  Three ways my family reacted to the news about the move

  1. Ted started spending every free minute at his friend Joe’s house. And when he was home, he was usually in his room with the door closed and music blaring.

  2. Mom cleaned out every closet and drawer and gave away anything we hadn’t used in the past six months. I had to keep a close watch on her to make sure she didn’t toss anything important.

  3. Dad stayed home from work a lot more than usual. During the day he helped Mom with cleaning, and at night he was always online, researching things he was going to have to know for his new job. He seemed a little nervous about it. I guess building a new highway in the country is a lot different from the kinds of projects he did in the city. But he also talked constantly about how awesome life in Clover Gap was going to be, and all the cool things we would do there. (Hike in the woods! Canoe in the lake! Roast marshmallows in our own backyard!)