1 Chapter BRAND NEW BAND GEEK Extreme That’s me Mainly because of slopestyle snowboarding That’s my sport No it’s my life But there’s something else extreme in my life My grandparents No joke I never know what they’ll do next And when I got home from school they struck again Tally check out your grandparents my friend Yulia Glatt said Yulia goes to the same school as me Benton Bluff Junior High And her house is across the street from mine We moved here five years ago when I was in second grade So Yulia is pretty much used to my grandparents by now Or as used to them as anyone could get anyhow My grandparents emigrated from Vietnam a long time ago right after they got married But they 4
still want to try everything this country has to offer And I mean everything Today it was ballroom dancing They twirled in front of our huge family room picture window totally visible from the street Grammy wore a fluffy red feather boa Pop’s fancy rhinestone shirt sparkled in the setting sun as he spun her around I gotta go Yulia I said Time to close the blinds before the entire block sees them I think they’re cute Yulia smiled
Cute That’s because you don’t live with them True she said Have fun Wanna help I’ll probably need backup Sorry Yulia held up her clarinet case Mr Byrd gave us new music to play at the Snow Ball How could I forget It was our first week back to school after winter break And the annual winter dance was coming up soon I’m guessing we couldn’t get a real band this year So we’re stuck with the Band O Geeks instead The Band O Geeks is what I call our school band Playing clarinet in the band is Yulia’s life just like snowboarding is mine But I don’t get band I mean sitting around blowing hot air into an instrument Snooze fest We are a real band And we’re playing a love song Yulia wiggled her eyebrows up and down And hey she laughed watch it with that geek stuff 6
Sorry I laughed too But you know I’m not talking about you Yulia You’re a cool geek I meant the rest of the Band O Geeks Yulia shook her head At least we’re not a bunch of park rats She teases me about snowboarding as much as I tease her about band Whatever band girl Go practice your new song And you go practice uh whatever park rats practice Later I said jumping up and grabbing a pretend snowboard Yulia laughed as she left When I opened the front door it sounded like a live band was playing inside I plugged my ears all the way to the family room where my grandparents were still dancing The entire neighborhood can see you you know I shouted above the music Let them see I don’t care Pop twirled Grammy around a few times before dipping her 7
