Flipped

BRYCE:
All I ever wanted

was for Juli Baker to leave me alone.

It all began in the summer of 1957,

before the start of second grade.

STEVEN:
Here we are.

PATSY:
Ha, ha.

- What do you guys think?

LYNETTA:
I like this place.

BRYCE:
It's cool.

LYNETTA:
Uh, what color is my room?

Just you wait.

BRYCE:
Let's see what's inside.

STEVEN:
Hey, come on, buddy Bryce.

Why don't, uh, you and I

go help unload the van...

...and the womenfolk here

can get in the kitchen and start setting up.

Okay, Dad.

BRYCE:
For me, it was the beginning

of what would be...

...more than half a decade of

strategic avoidance and social discomfort.

- Hi, I'm Juli Baker.

- Hey, hey, what are you doing?

Don't you want some help?

No. There's some

valuable things in there.

- How about this one?

- No, no, no.

Run home. Your mother's

probably wondering where you are.

Oh, no, my mom knows where I am.

She said it's fine.

BRYCE:
It didn't take long to realize

this girl could not take a hint.

- It's crowded in here with three people.

- I don't mind.

BRYCE:
Of any kind.

- You wanna push this one together?

Bryce, isn't it time for you

to go help your mother?

Huh?

Oh, yeah.

BRYCE:

I mean, nothing would stop her.

I was about to tell her to get lost

when the weirdest thing happened.

I couldn't believe it.

There I was holding hands

with this strange girl.

- How did I get into this mess?

PATSY:
Well, hello.

- I see you've met my son.

- Uh-huh.

BRYCE:
Finally, I did the only manly

thing available when you're 7 years old.

[BELL RINGING]

However, my troubles were far from over.

The minute I walked

into Miss Yelson's classroom...

Bryce? You're here.

BRYCE:

...it was clear:

School would not be a sanctuary.

[CHILDREN LAUGHING]

Hey, Bryce, where's your girlfriend?

BRYCE:

I was branded for life.

Hey, Bryce,

why don't you ask her to marry you?

GIRLS [SINGING]:

Bryce and Juli sitting in a tree

K-l-S-S-l-N-G

BRYCE:

My first year in town was a disaster.

GIRL:

Look at them.

BRYCE:

And the next three weren't much better.

But finally, in the sixth grade,

I took action.

I hatched the plan.

Sherry.

Sherry, wait up.

Hi, Bryce. Heh.

BRYCE:

I asked out Sherry Stalls.

I was wondering if you wanted to go...

BRYCE:
To full appreciate

the brilliance of this plan...

...you have to understand

that Juli hated Sherry Stalls...

...though I never understood why.

Sherry was nice, friendly

and she had a lot of hair.

At first, my mother wouldn't let me

get my ears pierced, but I begged...

BRYCE:
The idea was that Sherry

would eat with me...

...maybe we'd walk around together,

and hopefully Juli would lose interest.

But I still can't get the hoops till I'm 16.

Oh, that's a shame.

So Melanie wanted to get her ears pierced,

but of course her mother said no.

So she threw a fit and smashed

her Johnny Mathis Greatest Hits album...

[LAUGHS]

...and she got grounded, so now she can't

come to my pajama sleepover party.

BRYCE:

Things were unfolding quite nicely.

What are you doing

for your science project?

BRYCE:
That is, until my supposed

best friend, Garrett Einbinder...

...took an interest in Sherry himself.

I was thinking of showing how split ends

react with different hair conditioners.

That's fascinating.

BRYCE:
Loyalty gave way to desire

and Garrett, the turncoat...

...told Sherry what I was up to.

SHERRY:

Jerk.

BRYCE:

She didn't take it well.

Word got back to Juli, and pretty soon

she started up with the goo-goo eyes again.

Only this time it was worse.

She started sniffing me.

That's right, sniffing me.

What was that all about?

My only consolation

was that next year would be different.

Junior high, bigger school.

Maybe we'd be in different classes

and it would finally, finally be over.

JULl:

The first day I met Bryce Loski, I flipped.

It was those eyes,

something in those dazzling eyes.

You wanna push this one together?

JULl:
His family had just moved

into the neighborhood...

...and I'd gone over to help them.

I'd been in the van all of two minutes

when his dad sent him off to help his mom.

I could see he didn't wanna go.

So I chased after him to see if we could

play a little before he got trapped inside.

The next thing I know,

he's holding my hand...

...and looking right into my eyes.

My heart stopped.

Was this it?

Would this be my first kiss?

- But then his mother came out.

- Well, hello.

JULl:
And he was so embarrassed,

his cheeks turned completely red.

I went to bed that night thinking

of the kiss that might have been.

I mean, it was clear he had feelings for me,

but he was just too shy to show them.

My mother said boys were like that.

- So I decided to help him out.

- Bryce? You're here.

[CHILDREN GIGGLING]

JULl:
I would give him plenty

of opportunity to get over his shyness.

By the sixth grade,

I'd learned to control myself.

Then Sherry Stalls entered the picture.

Sherry Stalls was nothing but a whiny,

gossipy, backstabbing flirt.

All hair and no substance.

And there she was...

...holding hands with Bryce. My Bryce.

The one who was walking around

with my first kiss.

My solution was to ignore her.

I knew a boy of Bryce's caliber...

...would eventually see through

a shallow conniver like Sherry Stalls.

It took all of a week.

They broke up at recess.

She didn't take it well.

Now that Bryce was out of Sherry's

evil clutches, he started being nicer to me.

- Hi, Juli.

- Hi, Bryce.

JULl:

He was so shy and so cute...

...and his hair,

it smelled like watermelon.

I couldn't get enough of it.

I spent the whole year

secretly sniffing watermelon...

...and wondering

if I was ever going to get my kiss.

BRYCE:

Seventh grade brought changes, all right.

But the biggest one

didn't happen at school.

It happened at home.

My grandfather came to live with us.

Mom said he stared like that

because he missed Grandma.

That was not something Grandpa

would ever talk about with me.

As a matter of fact, he never talked

about much of anything with me.

That is, until Juli appeared

in the local newspaper.

- Oh, Bryce. May I speak with you?

- What?

Have a seat, son.

Tell me about your friend Juli Baker.

Juli. She's not exactly my friend.

Oh. Why's that?

Why do you wanna know?

BRYCE:
Now, Juli Baker did not

wind up in The Mayfield Times...

...for being an eighth-grade Einstein.

No, she got front-page coverage because

she refused to climb out of a sycamore tree.

Juli Baker and that stupid sycamore tree.

She always thought it was God's gift

to our little corner of the universe.

Hey, Bryce. Wanna come climb the tree

with me and my brothers?

No, thanks.

Bryce. Come up here. It's fun.

- You can see everything.

BRYCE:
I can't.

My dad needs me to help him fix...

...a thing.

BRYCE:

That's all I needed.

Climb up a tree with Juli Baker.

I'd be dragged right back

into the second grade.

Bryce and Juli sitting in a tree.

Why don't you just make me eat lima beans

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