From award-winning YA author Leah Johnson comes her middle grade debut: a laugh-until-you-cry, cry-until-you-laugh story about friendship, change, and the power we have to love ourselves.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Leah Johnson’s Ellie Engle Saves Herself, which is out now!
Ellie Engle doesn’t stand out. Not at home, where she’s alone with her pet fish since her dad moved away and her mom has to work around the clock. Not at the bakery, where she helps out old Mr. Walker on the weekends. And definitely not at school, where her best friend, Abby—the coolest, boldest, most talented girl in the world—drags Ellie along on her never-ending quest to “make her mark.” To someone else, a life in the shadows might seem boring, or lonely. But not to Ellie. As long as she has Abby by her side and a comic book in her hand, she’s quite content.
Too bad life didn’t bother checking in with Ellie. Because when a freak earthquake hits her small town, Ellie wakes up with the power to bring anything back to life with just her touch. And when a video of her using her powers suddenly goes viral, Ellie’s life goes somewhere she never imagined—or wanted: straight into the spotlight.
Surviving middle school is hard enough. Surviving middle school when paparazzi are camped out on your front lawn and an international pop star wants you to use your powers on live TV and you might be in love with your best friend but she doesn’t know it?
Absolutely impossible.
If you want to be a hero first you need a great origin story.
Wonder Woman is from an island of women warriors who rule with fairness and fierceness—and to top it all off, she’s the daughter of a Greek god. Green Lantern got his powers from an alien who saw that his heart was so pure that he’d never use them for evil instead of good. Black Panther inherited his abilities from a long line of supers, a family of rulers in the most technologically advanced country in the world. Whether you’re a hero at birth or become one later in life, one thing is for certain: You gotta be extraordinary.
But real life isn’t anything like comic books, because noth- ing in this town is extraordinary. Especially not me.
“New comic?” Abby hikes her duffel bag higher on her shoulder and falls into step next to me. I always meet her at her gym after Sunday-morning gymnastic practices. One, because I love hanging out with my best friend. But two, because it’s not like I have anything else to do.
My mom is working, like she does most weekends, and the house was too quiet and empty for me. So I grabbed a couple of my comic books and headed down to the Rising Phoenix Gymnastics Center to sit on the bench out front and wait for Abby to get done doing the impossible flips and tricks that sent her crashing into me in the first place.
We met in kindergarten, at recess. The Ortegas had just moved in next door, but we’d never spoken. And Abby and I weren’t in the same class, so I’d never seen her before. Then one day she was showing off on the playground, trying to remind everyone that she is the kind of nature-defying human that you can barely believe exists until you see her flying through the air. She overdid it on her back tuck, and I underdid it on my attempt to move out of the way. We’ve been stuck together ever since.
“Yeah, the new Nubia,” I say now, looking down at the cover with a smile. I love all comic books, but Nubia is special. There aren’t many heroes out there who look like me, and definitely not ones who have more strength than freaking Superman. I slip it into my backpack so I don’t mess it up with my sweaty fingers. “You want to go to the pool today? Last chance before you-know-what.”
“Ugh, I can’t. Mommy is taking me to get my nails done. You know how she is—wants to do some back-to-school bond- ing or whatever.” Abby’s wearing a pair of jean shorts over her leotard, which makes her brown legs look longer than they are. She starts fiddling with her slicked-back bun until her dark brown hair hangs around her shoulders. “Sleepover tonight, though?”
“Obviously.”
I try not to smile too hard at the thought of our annual back-to-school sleepover. I have some nervous flutters about starting at a new school tomorrow, for sure, but I can’t even focus on that right now. All I can focus on is knowing that I’ll get to stay up giggling and complaining and talking about schedules with Abby. We haven’t gotten to spend as much time together since her training schedule picked up this summer, and I miss it. I miss her.
“Obviously.” She does a bad imitation of my voice, and I laugh. “Well, okay, Captain Obvious. Oh my god, I almost for- got! You’ll never believe what Bethany Thomas did today.”
She goes on and on about her rival from her team landing a trick Abby can’t do yet, and I half pay attention to her, and half look at everybody around us.
We walk past the familiar strip of businesses on Main. I wave at Mr. Walker, who’s sweeping the sidewalk in front of his bakery, Patty’s Cakes, wearing winter gloves like he always does even though it’s summer. Miss French is trying (and fail- ing) to get her mean dog, Goon, to do a trick in the fenced-in dog park next door for the five hundredth time in as many days. Maisie and Marley Keilor are posing and taking pictures against the white brick wall beside the wedding-dress boutique to post on Instagram, part of their endless campaign to become twinfluencers.
We went to sleepaway camp with Maisie and Marley last year, and all four of us shared a bunk, so I know them. But they only say, “Hi, Abby!” in unison as we walk by, like I’m not even there. It used to bother me, people noticing Abby and not me, but not anymore. I like how calm it is in her shadow. There’s no pressure to be and do anything except what I want to be and do. This is just how it is.
When things are predictable, my mom says, “I could set my watch by it.” And I kind of do set my nonexistent watch by how reliable the people in this town and the things they do are. I like how much I can rely on this place to be overwhelmingly, exceedingly normal. It makes me feel less like a stranger in my own skin. Makes me feel less like there’s something wrong with the fact that I’m just . . . what I am.
Unlike Abby, I like my life the way it is. Most of the time. “I don’t understand why I can’t just, like, stop growing,” she groans. She runs her hands over her sides and sighs. “Coach Jillian says if I get much taller, I can pretty much kiss my dreams of vaulting in the Junior Nationals next year good-bye.” I want to tell her that she’s pretty much perfect as she is.
That she’s crazy-powerful at any height, and unfairly beautiful, whether she’s got crust in her eyes from just waking up or she’s flying through the air in a bedazzled swimsuit. Nothing could change that, not even the extra inch and a half of height she picked up over the summer. But I keep my mouth shut. Abby wants Big Things from her life. And what Abby wants, she gets. I really love that about her.
Instead, I say, “If anyone could tell their body to stop grow- ing, and their body actually listened, it would be you.”
“Love you forever, bestie,” she says, just like always.
I don’t even have to think about my answer before it’s com- ing out of my mouth, I’ve said it so many times. “Forever and two days.”
She wraps an arm around my shoulder and smiles her huge smile, the one I usually only see when she sticks the landing on a dismount in competition. When I said I’m not extraordinary before, I guess I lied a little bit. When my best friend looks at me like that—like she only looks when she’s doing the thing she loves most in the world—I can make myself believe I’m a little spectacular.
’Cause I’d have to be to earn that smile from Abby Ortega.
