Free How to Survive Middle School by Donna Gephart Page B

fast?
    “What?” Ms. Meyers’s eyes are the size of matzo balls.
    She rushes to Sophie and flings her arms around her shoulders. “Oh, thank goodness I hadn’t left yet. What’s—” That’s when Ms. Meyers notices Hammy in Sophie’s hands and leaps backward.
    Sophie cracks up, holding Hammy way out in front of her.
    “What’s going on?” Dad asks, stepping into the room.
    “Yeah, what’s going on?” Lindsay asks, pushing past Dad.
    Sophie offers Hammy up like a gift. “He … he … peed on me.” She bursts out laughing again.
    Lindsay laughs, too, then me, then Dad. It’s contagious, but Ms. Meyers doesn’t catch it. She rummages through her purse with a vengeance and thrusts a container of antibacterial liquid at Sophie. “Here.”
    Sophie takes the bottle.
    I put Hammy back into his cage and lead Sophie to the bathroom to wash her hands. When we return, Dad is scrubbing the carpet with an old washcloth, and Sophie gives the antibacterial stuff back to her mom, who retrieves it with a tissue.
    “Sophie, are you ready to go?”
    “Mom,” she says, “I just got here.”
    “Well …” Ms. Meyers looks at Hammy.
    “She’s welcome to stay for dinner,” Dad says.
    “Yeah,” Lindsay says, secretly winking at me. “Bubbe cooks great dinners.”
    Ms. Meyers looks at each of us as though she’s deciding if we’re serial killers. Then she looks at Sophie, who is nodding like crazy. “I guess that’ll be okay. I do have to run a few errands. How about if I pick you up at”—she looks at her watch—“seven-thirty?”
    “Yes,” Sophie says.
    Her mother comes over and whispers something in her ear.
    “I won’t touch the hamster,” Sophie says.

After Ms. Meyers leaves, Sophie says, “She probably stayed all that time to make sure I was okay.” Sophie shakes her head. “Maybe she was afraid I’d be mauled to death by your hamster.”
    My treacherous hamster is buried under wood shavings, asleep. “Yeah,” I say, “Hammy’s pretty dangerous. He’s also sort of famous.”
    “What?”
    “He’s on YouTube. I’ll show you.”
    At the computer, I pull up our
Hammy Time
video on YouTube. “I made this one with my friend Elliott,” I say, that familiar ache in my stomach. “It was right after I got Hammy.”
    In the video, Hammy’s up on his hind legs, and Elliott and I edited it to make it look like he’s holding a microphone and singing while that old song “U Can’t Touch This” plays in the background. We dubbed in Elliott’s voice to make it say “Hammy time” instead of “Hammer time.”
    “Oh my gosh,” Sophie says, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “That’s so cute. Play it again.”
    Sophie watches the video six more times. “Why don’t you have more views and comments?” she asks. “This is too funny to have only four comments.”
    “We never told too many people.” I think of Tommy Murphy’s words. “Besides, our videos are kind of lame.”
    “Lame!” Sophie says. “You mean hilarious.” She leans next to me and takes over the keyboard.
    “What are you—”
    “I’m sending the link to my e-mail address. Did you make other ones?”
    I’m afraid she’ll think I’m a giant dork, but I hold my breath and show her the
TalkTime
video I made with Magazine Cover Jon Stewart.
    Sophie laughs in all the right places and sends that link to her e-mail address, too.
    “I love your Top Six and a Half list, David. Does your sister know about—”
    “No,” I say. “Or I don’t think I’d be here right now.”
    “Gotcha,” Sophie says. “I can’t believe you don’t have like a million views.”
    I feel heat creep up my neck.
    “I’m going to send the links to my homeschool network.”
    “Your what?”
    Sophie pushes hair out of her face. “You know, a network of other kids who are homeschooled.”
    “How many is that?”
    She leans back. “In the United States or internationally?”
    My eyes widen.
    “It’s pretty big.”
    My first