Girls Acting Catty (3 page)

“I'll take you shopping for a dress, but we can talk about that later,” my mom said. “I won't force you into doing anything you don't want to do.”

“Like how you didn't force me into moving here,” I mumbled.

She ignored that last comment. “Ted is out running, but I was thinking, when he gets back, maybe we can all do something fun.”

It seemed like Ted was always out for a run. He's in training for the LA Marathon, which means he'll have to run 26.2 miles, all at once, this spring. I'm still not sure why.

“But I'm sleeping over at Yumi's tonight. I can still go, right?”

“Of course you can, but we have all day.”

I put away my candy. Most went into the pantry, but I kept some in the pillowcase, so I could take it to Yumi's later. Rachel, Claire, and Emma were sleeping over there too, and we planned to trade whatever we didn't want.

“Today's not so great, actually. I have a lot to do. Homework and stuff.” I hurried out of the kitchen.

My mom called for me, but I was already halfway up the stairs and pretended like I didn't hear her. She knocked on my door a few minutes later to see if I wanted to talk, but I was afraid that if I tried, I'd start crying, so I said no and hid in my room all day.

I didn't go downstairs until four o'clock, when Rachel came over. Mom drove us both to Yumi's, and luckily she didn't bring up the wedding again.

By the time we arrived, Claire and Emma were already there so we got down to candy-swapping right away.

I'd brought all my chewy stuff, which I don't like because it sticks to my molars, and leaves a bad aftertaste. Luckily, SweeTarts are too sour for Claire, so she took all my licorice instead. And Rachel is allergic to coconut so we traded my caramels for her Almond Joys.

By the time we finished, our pizza had arrived. After dinner, we played Monopoly but as usual, the game got boring after about an hour (that's why they're called
board
games, I think) so we switched to Dance Dance Revolution.

When that got old, Yumi said, “Can you believe how awful Terrible T looked last night?”

“Terrible T?” I asked.

“That's what we call Taylor Stansfield,” Rachel told me. “She's Terrible T and her friends are the Three Terrors.”

“We used to call them Triplicate Terrors,” Emma explained. “But it's too much of a tongue twister.”

“They were like zombie clones, but with too much makeup,” said Rachel. “Which makes sense, since they act like clones.”

“Or sheep,” said Emma. “They should've dressed up as Dolly. It would've been more accurate.”

“Huh?” I asked.

“Dolly, the sheep. She was the first animal ever to be cloned. It happened in Scotland in 1996,” Emma explained. “She only lived for six years, though.”

“Our costumes were way better,” said Yumi. “No question.”

“They weren't even dressed up, really,” said Claire. “I mean other than the body glitter, they'd all wear those outfits to school.”

“Yeah, I'm sure Taylor thinks she's too cool to wear a real costume,” said Rachel. She flopped back into the couch like she was so annoyed she couldn't even sit up straight. “She and her friends all think they're so fabulous, but I don't know why they're so popular. She's not even that pretty, you know?”

Rachel looked at me but I had nothing to add. I'd spent so much time this fall dealing with all the troublesome boys, I'd never even given much thought to the other girls at Birchwood. I hadn't needed to, since I was lucky enough to move into the house across the street from Rachel. We met before school started, and she introduced me to Claire, Emma, and Yumi, and we've all been hanging out ever since. It's like I just fit in perfectly from day one.

“Wait, you don't actually
like
Taylor and her friends, do you?” Rachel asked me.

“I don't know them,” I said, not quite answering her question, and hoping she wouldn't press the issue. Because the truth was, until I saw how mean Taylor was to Rachel last night, I'd thought she was cool. And not just her—I had a couple of classes with Hannah too. The three of us sat together in chorus. Sometimes we talked before and after class, and we always smiled when we passed one another in the halls. We weren't friends, exactly, but we weren't not friends, either. And we definitely weren't enemies.

“Trust me. If you did know them, you wouldn't like them,” said Rachel. She had this funny expression on her face, like she'd eaten too many Sour Patch Kids. Which was entirely possible, but I don't think that was it. I hadn't seen Rachel so angry before—not even at Jackson.

“Hey, let's watch the movie now,” I said, anxious to change the subject.

Yumi had rented
High School Musical III
. Since it was pretty late, we set up our sleeping bags in front of the TV before we watched. Apparently, only Yumi and Claire made it through to the end of the movie. Or so they said. When we woke up the next morning, the TV was still on, so I had my doubts.

Back home, I found my mom and Dweeble planting tulips in the yard.

Dweeble is what I sometimes call Ted, my mom's boyfriend—I mean, fiancé. I know I shouldn't, but sometimes he makes it hard not to, like this morning. He had on a gigantic floppy sun hat. Okay yes, Dweeble is over six feet tall and bald, so he probably has to be extra-careful about sunburn, since his bare head is closer to the sun than most people's. But still . . . Hasn't he ever heard of a baseball cap?

As much as I wanted to sneak upstairs, I knew I couldn't hide out forever. My mom would wonder where I was, and when she found out I was alone in my room, again, she'd probably want to talk about my feelings, and I wasn't in the mood. So I walked outside.

Pepper bounded toward me, planting his dirty paws on my legs. “Hey, guy.” I scratched him behind his ears. His black-and-white shaggy fur was caked in dirt, but I didn't care. “Miss me?” I bent down so he could lick my face.

Not even his bad breath bothered me. That's how much I loved my dog.

Mom stood up, shaded her eyes from the sun, and squinted. “Hi, Annabelle. How was Yumi's?”

“It was fun.”

“Do you like the new flowers?” She gestured toward two rows of red and yellow tulips.

“Um, sure.” I shrugged.

“We're putting these in now so we can see how they'll look for the wedding. We're not sure if we should go with tulips or roses or African violets. Oh, and we finally picked a date.” Mom wiped some sweat off her brow, leaving behind a muddy streak. “December fifteenth.”

I slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand. “But that's when I plan on rearranging my sock drawer!”

“Cute,” Mom replied, although she didn't seem to think it was.

“I wanted to wait until June so we'd have more time to plan,” Dweeble said. “But your mother insisted, and she's the boss.”

“So that's how it's going to be?” My mom giggled and swatted Dweeble's knee with one of her gardening gloves.

Ugh. There's nothing worse than witnessing my mom flirt with Dweeble. Luckily, she snapped out of it pretty quickly and turned to me. “My thinking is, why wait? There's not much to plan. The point is to be married, not to have a wedding, which is why we're going to have a low-key ceremony in the backyard.”

“Also your mom's idea. And guess what?” Dweeble asked, and then answered before I even had a chance to guess. “You'll finally get to meet Jason. He has a long winter break, so he'll be here for Thanksgiving and the whole month of December, practically.”

“And he's staying here?” I asked.

“Of course.”

Jason is Dweeble's son from his first marriage. He's really old—twenty, I think—and he's going to college in Switzerland this year. I wondered if he was dweeby too. Probably, since he had the same last name, and half the same genes. I decided to call him mini-Dweeb, but not out loud, of course.

“Oh, and you can invite one friend to the wedding,” said my mom.

“Just one?” I asked.

“Yes, because we're trying to keep it small.”

“Okay, cool,” I said. And then, since I didn't want them to try and rope me into helping out with the planting, I headed inside and up to my room.

Dweeble grilled steaks for dinner that night to celebrate the engagement. I thought that's what the wedding was for, but whatever. I wasn't going to complain because they were really good. He also made his famous mashed potatoes. His words—I still don't know why they're famous, but they're so tasty, I'm not going to ask.

They asked me more about Halloween and school and the sleepover, but mostly they talked about the wedding. Boring stuff, like how they had to choose a caterer, and figure out what kind of music they wanted, and then there was the guest list.

Yawn! It was hard to stay awake— and not just because I'd gotten less than four hours of sleep at Yumi's last night. In fact, I must've drifted off at the table, because suddenly I heard my mom yelling, “Pepper, what did you do?”

My eyes snapped open just in time to see my dog dragging a huge clump of yellow tulips into the dining room, and trailing lots of mud in the process. He looked so proud of himself that I had to smile.

No one else thought he was so cute, though. My mom jumped up from the table and headed outside while Dweeble and I followed.

Yellow and red petals littered the lawn. Pepper had torn out half the new flowers.

“All that hard work!” said my mom. “What a waste!”

“I guess we'll have to put up fencing next time,” said Dweeble.

“But that won't look nice. Someone needs to train him not to dig.” My mom looked at me, which
so
wasn't fair.

Sure, technically Pepper's my dog. But I'm not the one who needed a fancy backyard for a wedding.

Maybe Pepper wasn't so psyched about the marriage, either, and this was his way of protesting. If so, I had to give him credit for taking action.

All I'd done was sulk about it.

chapter three
terrible t

W
hen I got to PE on Monday, I sat down on the blacktop for roll call, as usual. We always line up in alphabetical order, which means that I sit right behind Taylor, because my last name is Stevens and hers is Stansfield. Usually I smile at her and she smiles back.

But ever since Halloween, I didn't know how to act. I wasn't going to
not
be nice to Taylor, just because Rachel and my other friends didn't like her. That wouldn't be fair. Sure, Taylor had been pretty mean to Rachel, but Rachel had been mean right back. I didn't know who started the whole thing, and I didn't want to get stuck in the middle or take sides.

Plus, Rachel was wrong. Taylor isn't ugly. She's actually really pretty, with shiny dark hair and wide-set green eyes. Also, she's super outgoing. In chorus, she's always the first one to volunteer to do solos. She wants to be a pop star when she grows up, and she talks about it all the time. Rachel thinks this makes her obnoxious and snobby, but I think it's okay to have something you really, really want to do.

Rachel should agree. She's the one who wants to be a drummer in a rock band. So how is that any different? I'd asked her about it on Saturday night, but she didn't explain and I didn't push it.

To smile or not to smile— that was the question. Before I could decide, Taylor turned around and looked at me with a blank expression on her face, like she was just noticing I existed for the first time. That seemed a little weird, but then she did something really crazy. She panned my whole body, looking me up and down like I was a secondhand bike she was thinking about buying. When she finally finished she looked disappointed, and frowned like she thought I was used and damaged goods.

“What?” I shouldn't have asked, but the question came out before I could stop myself.

She scrunched her eyebrows together, as if she were thinking pretty hard, which got me all panicky. Like, maybe she found so many things wrong, she didn't even know where to begin.

When her gaze finally met mine she asked, “Your mom won't let you shave your legs yet, huh?”

I looked down at my legs, and she did too. I didn't know what to tell her, or even if I was supposed to give her an answer.

True, my legs are a little furry, but my hair is so pale you can hardly see it. There's no point in shaving. But what if every other sixth-grade girl at Birchwood already does? Maybe I'm the only holdout.

I'm not sure if Rachel or my other new friends shaved. We'd never talked about it before. Maybe they all did and thought I was weird and babyish for not doing it. Although they were my friends, and too nice to think of me that way. So maybe they didn't bring up shaving on purpose because they didn't want me to feel bad, which was worse.

I sat there dumbly, looking at my legs. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Each agonizing second felt more like an hour.