Be That Way excerpt

Margaret Ferguson Books

HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Ofﬁ ce. Printed and bound in June 2023 at Leo Paper, Heshan, China.

The art and lettering in this book were created using an iPad Pro, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator. www.holidayhouse.com

First Edition

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Larson, Hope, author.

Title: Be that way / by Hope Larson.

Description: First edition. | New York : Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House, [2023] | Audience: Ages 12 and up. | Audience: Grades 10–12.

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Christine keeps a journal of an eventful year of her life in mid-90s Asheville, North Carolina, which she records through prose and illustration.

Identiﬁ ers: LCCN 2022027040 | ISBN 9780823447619 (hardcover)

Subjects: CYAC: Graphic novels. | Diaries—Fiction.

LCGFT: Diary ﬁction. | Graphic novels.

Classiﬁ cation: LCC PZ7.7.L37 Be 2023 | DDC 741.5/973—dc23/eng/20220903

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022027040

ISBN: 978-0-8234-4761-9 (hardcover)

The excerpt that appears on pg. 164 is from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.

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is is SO not a true story (but it could be).

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Dear Diary,

Heo. My name is Christine. I’m fourt n years old, I’m in ninth grade, and my teachers a think I’m me ed up in the head. at’s why I’m starting this journal.

What ha ened was, last month in art cla I did this drawing of a girl with scars a over her arms. It wasn’t even su osed to be me; I’d just read an article in Sevent n about girls who cut themselves, and I was trying to be edgy, or d p, or something. But my art teacher mentioned it to my English teacher, who was “concerned” because I’d wri en a “morbid” story for her cla –which I thought she’d like since she a igns stuff like that old “Owl Cr k Bridge” story where the protagonist gets murdered–and a of a sudden, there I was in the principal’s office for an “emergency m ting” about my “cry for help.” It was ho ible: they caed Mom at work, and she came in, and we both cried. No one should have to s their mom cry in the principal’s office.

I was able to convince everyone that, yeah, my dad died, and yeah, I’m sad about it, but I’m not about to oﬀ myself. e guidance counselor–she was there, t –thought an extracu icular would help me get out of my head, and she suggested the Cougar Chronicle because they’re always l king for writers. I was, like, fine, I’ write for the paper. I’ do an hing to get you a oﬀ my back.

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But it turns out I love writing for the Chronicle. I can go to the oﬀice whenever I have a fr period, and there’s always someone in there, hanging out. e first i ue I worked on just came out, and it was c l to s my article in there. Mom was psyched, t . I’m also learning to fly under the radar in my cla es. Like, now I s that when they te us to “be creative,” they actuay mean, “Make some bland, nonthreatening crap I can put on the buetin board in the ha.” Write an e ay about the time your dog ate the anksgiving turkey. Draw Marvin the Martian, or leaping dolphins in front of a sunset, or Sinead O’Co or from the cover of Roing Stone. Whatever–just be normal, like everyone else. e fu y thing is, trying so hard to be normal is starting to make me f l crazy. Like, if I don’t empty out a the murky g p swishing around in my brain, my head wi eventuay explode. But I’m not about to upset Mom again, or get sent back to the principal, so I’ put it a here–every strange, secret part of myself that no one can ever know.