Wendelin Van Draanen - Flipped

“Mom, it’s not funny!”

She tried to straighten up. “I know, sweetheart, I know.”

“I don’t want to wind up like Mrs. Loski!”

“You don’t have to marry the boy, Julianna. Why don’t you just listen to what he has to say? He sounded desperate to talk to you.”

“What could he possibly have to say? He’s already tried to blame Garrett for what he said about Uncle David, and I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it. He’s lied to me, he hasn’t stood up for me… he’s… he’s nobody that I want to like. I just need some time to get over all those years of having liked him.”

Mom sat there for the longest time, biting her cheek. Then she said, “People do change, you know. Maybe he’s had some revelations lately, too. And frankly, any boy who tries to kiss a girl in front of a room full of other kids does not sound like a coward to me.” She stroked my hair and whispered, “Maybe there’s more to Bryce Loski than you know.”

Then she left me alone with my thoughts.

My mother knew I needed time to think, but Bryce wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept calling on the phone and knocking on the door. He even snuck around the house and tapped on my window! Every time I turned around, there he was, pestering me.

I wanted to be able to water the yard in peace. I wanted not to have to avoid him at school or have Darla run block for me. Why didn’t he understand that I wasn’t interested in what he had to say? What could he possibly have to say?

Was it so much to ask just to be left alone?

Then this afternoon I was reading a book in the front room with the curtains drawn, hiding from him as I had all week, when I heard a noise in the yard. I peeked outside and there was Bryce, walking across my grass. Stomping all over my grass! And he was carrying a spade! What was he planning to do with that?

I flew off the couch and yanked open the door and ran right into my father. “Stop him!” I cried.

“Calm down, Julianna,” he said, and eased me back inside. “I gave him permission.”

“Permission! Permission to do what?” I flew back to the window. “He’s digging a hole .”

“That’s right. I told him he could.”

“But why?”

“I think the boy has a very good idea, that’s why.”

“But—”

“It’s not going to kill your grass, Julianna. Just let him do what he’s come to do.”

“But what is it? What’s he doing ?”

“Watch. You’ll figure it out.”

It was torture seeing him dig up my grass. The hole he was making was enormous! How could my father let him do this to my yard?

Bryce knew I was there, too, because he looked at me once and nodded. No smile, no wave, just a nod.

He dragged over some potting soil, pierced the bag with the spade, and shoveled dirt into the hole. Then he disappeared. And when he came back, he wrestled a big burlapped root ball across the lawn, the branches of a plant rustling back and forth as he moved.

My dad joined me on the couch and peeked out the window, too.

“A tree?” I whispered. “He’s planting a tree?”

“I’d help him, but he says he has to do this himself.”

“Is it a… ” The words stuck in my throat.

I didn’t really need to ask, though, and he knew he didn’t need to answer. I could tell from the shape of the leaves, from the texture of the trunk. This was a sycamore tree.

I flipped around on the couch and just sat.

A sycamore tree.

Bryce finished planting the tree, watered it, cleaned everything up, and then went home. And I just sat there, not knowing what to do.

I’ve been sitting here for hours now, just staring out the window at the tree. It may be little now, but it’ll grow, day by day. And a hundred years from now it’ll reach clear over the rooftops. It’ll be miles in the air! Already I can tell—it’s going to be an amazing, magnificent tree.

And I can’t help wondering, a hundred years from now will a kid climb it the way I climbed the one up on Collier Street? Will she see the things I did? Will she feel the way I did?

Will it change her life the way it changed mine?

I also can’t stop wondering about Bryce. What has he been trying to tell me? What’s he thinking about?

I know he’s home because he looks out his window from time to time. A little while ago he put his hand up and waved. And I couldn’t help it—I gave a little wave back.

So maybe I should go over there and thank him for the tree. Maybe we could sit on the porch and talk. It just occurred to me that in all the years we’ve known each other, we’ve never done that. Never really talked.

Maybe my mother’s right. Maybe there is more to Bryce Loski than I know.

Maybe it’s time to meet him in the proper light.

Q:Can you talk about your inspirations for writing Flipped ? Did you have some unrequited crushes of your own? Or have annoying people crushing on you?

A:I was like young Juli, with a massive crush on the neighbor boy, and like young Juli, I’m sure I was incredibly annoying. But being a high school teacher was the real inspiration for writing Flipped. I’d see students with mondo crushes and want to say to the girls, “Oh, honey, he is so not worth it,” or to the guys, “She may be hot, but that’s all she’s got,” but of course I’m their teacher and there’s no way they can imagine that I know how they feel. So I wrote Flipped as a way of talking to teens about seeing others for who they are instead of what they look like. I wish I’d found a book like it when I was growing up. It would have helped me a lot.

Q:It’s great to hear the story from both Bryce’s and Juli’s point of view—was it your plan from the beginning to tell this in alternating chapters?

A:My plan was two viewpoints, but originally I envisioned the book to be one that had two sides—Bryce’s side and Juli’s side—where you would have to flip the book over to read the other point of view and the sections would meet in the middle. I love the symbolism of this, but when it came down to it, the storytelling was better served by having alternating chapters.

Q:Have you ever raised chicks? Are you a climber of trees? Do you play in a band with a continually changing name?! All the details in the book are so vivid—are they drawn from your own life?

A:No, yes, and, uh… yeah. Although the band has never had a name that had anything to do with leg lifting. Writing is a combination of experiences and research, and the whole chick thing took a lot of research. Climbing the tree? That was very natural to write about. Skyler’s garage? Piece of cake.

Q:Do you have any plans to write a sequel to Flipped ?

A:I’ve had a lot of requests for a sequel, but I think it’s the wrong thing to do. My purpose for this book is to get the reader to think about what they would want for themselves in a relationship. If I write a sequel and show what happens to Bryce and Juli, then that’s answering the question for them. What I tell fans is to put themselves into Bryce’s or Juli’s shoes and live their life in a way that would make for the future they would want.

Q:I know fans have written to you complaining that Juli and Bryce don’t kiss at the end of the book. Why did you make that choice?