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Not Not Normal, page 1
Praise for Not Not Normal
“Peter E. Fenton masterfully shows us through Jordan and his circle of friends the lessons you need to learn to get to self-acceptance.”
— Colin Mochrie, Canadian actor and
star of Whose Line Is It Anyway?
“With his anxiety, panic attacks, and first kisses Not Not Normal's Jordan is adorable, even when he stumbles on his journey to finding bravery and letting others in.”
— Nathan Burgoine, author of Stuck with You
“A heartwarming and positive tale about . . . two young men finding hope and romance amidst the disorder and disruption of a chaotic and sometimes hostile world.”
— Alison Lister, author of No Limit on Love
and Summer with Sunil
“Not Not Normal is a sweet, compassionate, and often very funny depiction of a sudden and empowering first love.”
— Lisa Lambert, Tony Award–winning songwriter
and lyricist of The Drowsy Chaperone
Not Not Normal
Peter E. Fenton
James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers
Toronto
Contents
Praise
Chapter 1: Today’s Insta Post
Chapter 2: The Boy in the Mirror
Chapter 3: A Monster Under the Bed
Chapter 4: New Year, New Beginnings
Chapter 5: The Great Upheaval
Chapter 6: The Same Old School Grind
Chapter 7: Welcome to Playter Frights
Chapter 8: Shakespeare Must Die
Chapter 9: Four Things He Could Smell
Chapter 10: Dr. Frankenstein
Chapter 11: X-Libris
Chapter 12: The Great Library Sit-In
Chapter 13: The Secret Room
Chapter 14: Everything About You Is Unexpected
Chapter 15: Four Things He Could Touch
Chapter 16: Not Not Normal
Chapter 17: An Umbrella-Sort-of-Day
Chapter 18: Running from Things
Chapter 19: An Apology and an Explanation
Chapter 20: The Bird and the Castle
Chapter 21: A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies
Chapter 22: Finding Sebastian
Chapter 23: In Search of a Hero
Chapter 24: Do You Trust Me?
Chapter 25: A Most Awesome Day
Chapter 26: Confessions
Chapter 27: The Swordsman’s Destiny
Chapter 28: What’s Normal?
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
For the real Mr. (David) Jenkins.
Chapter 1:
Today’s Insta Post
Jordan laid out two pads of paper, two pens, two pencils (sharpened), and one green and one blue highlighter. Glasses were set out for water on his desk — the meeting was going to be in Jordan’s bedroom, and he only allowed water in there. It was 8:30 in the morning and Emma was due at nine to have a planning session for tomorrow, the first day of Grade Eleven at Playter Heights Secondary School.
He looked at everything. Something wasn’t right. First, he straightened the pens. It still didn’t feel right, so he replaced the pencils with two that were the same length. Still not . . . It was the highlighters — “No! Stop it right now,” he whispered. Jordan quickly pushed everything out of order.
For a full minute, he stared at the visual chaos, then without thinking, straightened one pen, then another, then the pads of paper until everything was as tidy as before. He sighed. Was he ever going to be normal? That’s all he ever wanted, ever dreamed of — NOT to be a freak.
The phone rang with a double chirp indicating a call from the intercom at the front door. Mr. Swan, the daytime doorman, must have been away from his desk. He usually let Emma in without question. Jordan buzzed her in. He thought about when they had first met. He’d transferred to Playter Heights Secondary School in grade nine and had found himself being regularly bullied for being small, quiet, and the new kid in the school. Jordan remembered cowering as he was surrounded by a taunting mass of bigger kids, then the sound of a single, high-pitched yell followed by the screams of the boys in the crowd. Jordan had looked up when the yelling started and spotted a skinny girl with carrot-orange hair, grinning wildly. The braces on her teeth had gleamed in the sunlight as she’d cut through the crowd on her inline skates, weaving in and out and running into as many toes as she could. In that moment Jordan and Emma had become the closest of friends, and Emma had become his protector.
There was a knock on the apartment door, and Jordan heard Emma let herself in.
“Good morning, Mr. Shepherd,” she called out to Jordan’s dad.
“Hello, Emma,” his dad called back from the living room. Jordan knew he’d be on the sofa finishing the crossword in yesterday’s newspaper.
Jordan met Emma in the hallway that led to his bedroom. “Morning!” she said, giving him a hug.
She always hugged him, even though he shuddered when she did. He thought Emma did it on purpose. Jordan wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of person.
“Come on,” he said, prying himself away from her, then headed down the hall to his bedroom, a space where every wall was covered in neatly shelved books.
Emma stood at the door of the bedroom, pulled out her phone, and took a picture of the school supplies on Jordan’s bed.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Just a second,” she said. “There. Today’s Insta post. ‘Let the school games begin!’”
“Wait. You posted a picture of my bed?”
“Don’t worry,” she said, reaching over and rubbing his shoulder. “I didn’t say whose it was. Look, if I don’t post something every day, I’ll lose followers. You know how it is.”
Jordan had no idea how it was. He had Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok accounts — all set up for him by Emma — but he never posted on any of them. What would he say? Besides, Emma was his only follower and he could just tell her what he wanted her to know without going through the bother of posting it for the world to see.
As they sat down on the bed, the carefully laid-out meeting supplies shifted. The pens and pencils rolled out of place. Jordan immediately reorganized them, but they rolled away again. As he reached for them Emma touched his hand. “Maybe we should sit on the floor.”
“Right.”
They moved off of the bed and Jordan got the pencils and pens safely lined up, just the way he liked them.
“First off, this year we have to change the name of the group,” Jordan said.
“And that’s important, why?” Emma asked.
“No one is going to sign up for a book club called Bookwormers. It sounds like a parasitic infection.”
“It’s a high school. No one is going to sign up for it no matter what it’s called.”
“The book club has members,” Jordan protested.
“Four of us. It’s not so much a club as a . . . casual gathering.”
“And it won’t grow if we don’t have an exciting name.”
“What would make a book club exciting?” Emma asked.
“Latin,” he said, with confidence.
Emma thought for a minute. “You mean like Erick Brian Colón?”
“Who?”
“That hot Latino singer from CNCO . . .”
Jordan just stared at her.
“It’s a boy band . . .” She reached for her phone. “I could play you something of theirs.”
Jordan crossed his arms. “I said Latin, like the language. Not Latino, like your singer.”
Emma frowned. “Well, you’re never gonna find a date if you think Latin is sexy.”
“I said exciting, not . . . sexy, and that’s why I propose we ask the school to rename the book club . . . X-Libris.” He held up a sign that he’d run off on his printer.
Emma said nothing.
“It would be like a play on ‘Ex Libris’ . . . You know, like on book plates.”
Emma looked lost.
Jordan grabbed one of his mother’s books off of the shelf and opened it to the inside cover. He showed her a printed sticker that read Ex Libris Janice Franco. “It means ‘From the library of Janice Franco’. That was my mother’s name before she got married. I was thinking of changing the name of the club to X-Libris, like — from the library. Like a book’s been liberated from one person’s private collection. We’ll be setting the words free and into the world!” Jordan was excited.
Emma continued to just stare at him.
“What? It’s pretty . . . dope!” he said.
“When you say that, it doesn’t sound right.”
“Okay. Cool, then.”
“You, my adorably nerdy friend, have no idea what cool is, do you?”
“Well, X-Libris is better than Bookwormers! We might even get picked on less. And we may be able to expand our membership.”
“From four.”
“Who knows — by the end of the year we could have . . . five!”
“Well, I think you should make your case to the school librarian first thing tomorrow morning. Tell him just what you told me. I think you can convince him.”
“Maybe you could ask him?” Jordan said hopefully.
Emma shook her head. “No! Now, let’s get out of here. I’m taking you out for coffee. It’s our last day of freedom before school starts.”
Jordan hesi
“You’ll be fine,” Emma said. “And you’ll be fine tomorrow. Now come on, let’s go.”
Chapter 2:
The Boy in the Mirror
At the front door to the apartment, Jordan put his shoes on, double-tying his laces. As he waited for Emma, who had gone to say goodbye to his father, Jordan looked at himself in the mirror. A thin boy with light brown hair and hazel-coloured eyes stared back. Jordan raised his eyebrows to greet him. The boy in the mirror greeted him back. The boy wasn’t that bad-looking. He’d grown taller over the summer. He’d reached almost 180 centimetres, and he’d gained some muscle on his lean frame. Jordan wondered if the mirror boy was called “freak” as often as Jordan was. Maybe the mirror was a nicer place to live in.
“Ready?” Emma said. Jordan was startled to see her standing beside him. She reached over and fixed his hair, then pulled him out the door.
As they walked the ten minutes to Playter Perk, the most popular coffee shop in the neighbourhood, Emma said, “Your dad seems a lot better.”
“I guess,” Jordan replied. “I wish he’d talk more about Mom.”
“I think some people react differently than others. I’m sure he misses her as much as you do.” She squeezed his hand and then said, “Come on. Let’s get you something to drink.”
In spite of Emma’s insistence that he should try coffee for a change, Jordan ordered his usual: a tea. Still, to please Emma he ordered Earl Grey. He thought it would be more celebratory given this was the last day of vacation. Emma had a vanilla sweet cream cold brew with a caramel shot. She sat across from him sipping her drink.
“So . . . I’ve been thinking . . .” she started.
“No,” Jordan said, shaking his head.
“But you don’t know what I’m going to say.”
Jordan took a sip of his tea and gave her a hard stare, meaning Don’t. At the same time, he reached over and straightened her spoon.
She gently touched his hand. “I think it would be good for you to . . . work at getting past some of your habits. It’s time to gain some confidence. Maybe even find someone to go on a date with. You’re sort of cute. Heck, I’d even consider dating you if I wasn’t your friend, and you didn’t prefer boys.”
“We agreed not to talk about that unless I brought it up first.”
“But you do like guys.”
“I know I do,” Jordan said in a hushed tone, “but now’s not the time for me to think about it. I’ve got enough challenges to deal with, without adding dating someone to the list.”
Emma leaned closer to him. “What is it that’s really bothering you?”
Jordan squirmed. “It’s not that I’m totally against it. I’d like a boyfriend but . . . what if I fall for a guy and he’s not into me? Or worse, I fall for someone who’s not gay or even bi and I tell them how I feel. I could get beaten up. And what if I find someone I like and I have one of my attacks in front of them? The whole thing just scares me.”
“Dating is scary, but it’s the start of a new year and anything is possible. Even for you.”
“And why is the beginning of the year different than any other time?”
“Because people have had a whole summer to forget the old you —”
Jordan looked up then and saw a tall muscular boy looming above him. “Freak!” the boy said and flicked the top of Jordan’s head before ambling away.
“They never forget,” Jordan muttered, rubbing his head.
“Ignore him,” Emma said. “Brody was in math class with me last year. If it’s not sports, he doesn’t believe in it.” She pulled out her phone. “Look over here. Now lean in,” she said, spinning around and taking a picture of the two of them. “This selfie marks the official beginning of Jordan’s year of change.” She showed him the photo. Emma was smiling her huge smile. Jordan’s face had his usual bewildered look, and Brody was standing behind them, his middle finger raised.
“Change makes me nervous. Isn’t it enough that we’re heading into a different grade?” Jordan asked.
Emma said nothing. She just shifted the camera the other way so that it was only the two of them in the frame and snapped another picture. She posted it and then said, “Trust me, change can be a good thing. I just have a feeling that this is going to be your year.”
Chapter 3:
A Monster Under the Bed
Jordan closed the book he was reading and tried to sleep. It was late and he couldn’t stop thinking about what Emma had said that morning about it being his year — about things changing. The last time that things had changed it had involved, well, just about everything. Jordan thought back to the ‘before times’ in the nice house on the peaceful street near High Park. He was an only child, which had suited him just fine. He hadn’t had many friends so he’d spent hours reading books and writing fantasy stories in his room. The Swordsman’s Destiny was his favourite. It was a tale of a man who found true love by overcoming a series of challenges. It was the last story he had written before . . .
Jordan loved stories. His mother had made a ritual of reading to Jordan every day. Her love of reading had poured off of her and onto him like rain. And, like rain on his clothes, it had soaked in. When he was really young she had read to him just before nap time and again before bed. He later found out that those daytime naps were as much for her as for him. She had needed the rest.
Two years ago, when Jordan had just turned fourteen, his mother passed away after losing her war with cancer. Jordan had felt numbed by the loss. He remembered crying a lot and clutching the last book she had read to him, Isaac Asimov’s Pebble in the Sky. He had carried it everywhere he went. Even to her funeral.
Jordan also remembered how things with his father had changed. His father used to be more confident but now he seemed . . . uncertain. Jordan’s mom had been the organized one, making sure that meals were prepared and keeping track of the family’s finances. Since she’d been gone Jordan and his dad had been muddling through, but there was an awkwardness to it all.
Aunt Judith, his father’s sister, had told Jordan to just give him time. “He’s not used to doing the job of two parents. He’s just trying his best to figure it all out.” She had come to stay with them for a while, primarily to make sure the two men of the house ate something.
Jordan recalled overhearing a conversation between his father and aunt. In the end, the two decided that Jordan’s dad would sell the house and start fresh. His dad seemed committed to the idea. When he’d told Jordan the plan, saying it would be best for everyone, Jordan had yelled “By everyone, you mean YOU, don’t you?” Jordan didn’t want to leave the place where he had made so many memories with his mother.
The fights that ensued did nothing to change the plan, and in six months they had moved into the apartment. Jordan might not have gotten his way, but he was determined to save his mother’s books.
“But, Jordan — we have no room for all of them,” his father had protested.
“They can stay with me in my room,” Jordan had said, like they were puppies that he’d found on the doorstep. Jordan saved the memory of his mother, in the form of her collection of books, and moved into the largest of the apartment’s two bedrooms which now resembled a library with a small bed in the corner.
It was around that time that he’d first noticed himself changing. His habits had gotten worse. He needed to have more control over his world, which had shifted so much. He needed everything to be organized. When things were organized, they could be relied on. They were . . . safer.
His doctor had prescribed him a pill that was supposed to help him to not “lose it” — Jordan’s words for what the doctor called a panic attack. The word panic didn’t even come close to what he felt.
It started with a gnawing feeling in his stomach . . . that feeling you have when you think there’s a monster under your bed, but you’re too afraid to check. And then his heart would start to pound and he couldn’t breathe, like the invisible monster was standing on his chest. Logically he knew there was no monster, but somewhere inside his mind, there was a short circuit that put him in a state of terror.
Having an attack at home was bad enough, but at school . . . well, it wasn’t something you ever lived down. Jordan thought about the morning he’d realized that he couldn’t remember the sound of his mother’s voice. It was like she’d died all over again. All of a sudden, the air had been sucked out of the school. He hadn’t been able to breathe. Jordan had run through the halls. He knew he had to get outside. He was crying so hard he couldn’t see where he was going and ran right into another student. The guy had looked at him and started to laugh. A few others had joined in. The words “Freak!” and “Baby” still rang through his head. Jordan couldn’t allow that to ever happen again.
