I So Don't Do Spooky (4 page)

“Earth to Junie. It's me you're talking to.” I make hurry-up-and-spit-it-out circles with my hand. “Ixnay on the details.”

She frowns. “The Ruler was looking for some things. She couldn't find them. When I looked, there were a bunch of them. Right in view, on top of some other things.” She looks at me, her eyebrows raised. “That explanation work for you?”

“Absolutely. Nice and simple.”

Junie butts her special stripy notebook for her French notes up against the pen and highlighter on her desk. “Maybe the stuff with the pointer and the motion sensors is a sign that she's worried about having a stalker?”

“Nah,” I say. “She doesn't even know she has one. She's just mega overextended. What with teaching and my dad gone and robotics.” Hands above my
head, I squeeze my hair clip. “Like, she's normally so fanatical about housework with all-natural products and lots of cleaning and dusting and HEPA-filter vacuuming. But I've noticed our place doesn't smell too good lately. And, she lost her keys again this a.m.”

“Yeah, well, this
is
our busiest time in robotics.” Junie pulls a paperback French-English dictionary from her backpack. “We're almost at the end of the six weeks allotted to build our bot and test it out at the practice competition. The whole team is frazzled.”

Someone needs a major reality check. “Frazzled” and “robotics club” so don't go together.

At the front of the class, Madame Babblepants begins her daily nonsensical, uh, babble.

“Hmmm,” Junie mumbles at me, her eyes all focused on Madame, who's handing Nerdy Nick a stack of worksheets to pass out.

Flinging a couple on my desk, Nerdy Nick says, “Hey, Sherry, wanna save us all some time?” He picks up Junie's pen and marks a big F at the top of my first paper.

In a smooth move, Junie reaches out a hand for her pen and transforms the F into an A. “Be nice, Nick.”

Miracle of miracles, he actually goes red and mumbles, “Sorry, Sherry.”

Who knew Junie had such power?

In the meantime, Junie's hunched over her desk, diving into verb conjugations. Like they're peanut
butter and jelly, you cannot separate Junie from her 4.0.

We've been best friends for ages, ever since beginner swimming, even though we're pretty much polar opposites. Junie's brilliant and into school, like an engineer or something. I'm social and fashionable and into boys. With such different talents, we can really help each other out.

I watch her for a second while she messes with the verb
conduire
. From the cartoon picture of a car on the worksheet, I'm guessing it means “to drive.” I watch Junie's pen fly over the page, drawing lines to match up
je conduis
with “I drive” and
tu conduis
with “you drive.” When she hits
nous conduisons/we
drive, I figure out where I'm headed next, mysterywise.

A
fter last period, I trudge across campus to The Ruler's classroom.

Honor Roll Girl is standing next to The Ruler's desk. “I just want to be sure I understand how to get extra credit on the assignment, Ms. Paulson.”

After marrying my dad a couple of months ago, The Ruler didn't change her name at school. Phew for me. There's gotta be a couple of students hidden under a rock on campus who don't know The Ruler's my stepmom.

All serious and professional, The Ruler gives Honor Roll Girl a few pointers, then says, “Good enough, Meghan?”

“Well,” Honor Roll Girl says, getting ready to launch into more sucking-up mode.

“Why don't you start setting up for robotics in the shop room? You'll be taking on a leadership role today while I'm at the staff meeting.”

Honor Roll Girl literally puffs out her chest with pride and struts to the door. Yikes.

The Ruler opens the top desk drawer and pulls out my phone. She hands it to me.

One good thing about The Ruler is she doesn't nag. I broke the cell phone rule; she punished me; I got my cell back; end of story. No long, boring lecture.

I stick my phone in the side pocket of my backpack, waiting till the door closes behind Honor Roll Girl. Then I say, “Can you give me a ride to Donner? For the water polo game?” So much for my personal rule of not getting into The Ruler's hybrid on campus.

Her eyes widen. Just a teeny-tiny bit because she's pretty much always in control. But she's surprised 'cause I don't ask her for too many favors, especially at school. “Sure, Sherry. When?”

“Uh, now?” Even though it's last minute, she'll do her best to help me out. I can always count on her that way.

The Ruler glances at the wall clock and nods. “I can just squeeze it in before the staff meeting.” She turns off her computer. “How will you get home?”

“Josh's mom. She's driving us to a restaurant first
for dinner. And I don't have to worry about homework 'cause it's Friday.”

“Sounds like you've got the evening organized. Good job.” The Ruler grabs a pile of papers off her desk and slides them into a file drawer. She throws her purse over her shoulder. “Let's go.”

We ride along mostly in silence. The Ruler's an incredibly cautious driver. Seat totally upright and shoulders stiff and tense like she's a statue in a wax museum, she concentrates on signaling and switching lanes.

Stopped at a red light, she says, “Do you know where you're going for dinner?”

“Just that it's a sit-down restaurant, not fast food.”

A smile tugs at her lips, but she doesn't say anything more until she's driving on a straight road with no other vehicles around. “I like the way Josh treats you, Sherry.”

“I know. He's so legit.” Once I start gushing about Josh, I could go on for miles. “And he even got me flowers for our anniversary today. With a cute, adorable mini card. Oh yeah, you saw the card in class. Anyway, total surprise. I tripped over them on the porch this morning. I left them there 'cause I was running late. Do you think they're okay? Not wilted or dead?”

“No, they're fine. I saw them and put them in a vase.” Her face flushes like it did at the beginning of class.

Why would me getting flowers turn her red? Adults can be so bizarro. I think kids growing up kinda freaks them out.

The Ruler eases into a visitor spot and nudges the car into park. “You know where you're going on campus?”

“No, I've never been here before. But it's a water polo game; I'll follow the whistles to the pool.” I unbuckle and push open the passenger door. “So, uh, you know, be careful.” I can't bring myself to say, “Hey, watch your back: you've got a stalker.” Because it sounds way, way out there.

“You too, Sherry.”

After The Ruler noses away, I stand on the sidewalk and listen for whistle blasts. Nada. The teams must still be warming up. I start along the main sidewalk leading onto campus.

It's quiet; I'm not passing any students or teachers. I meander along, one ear cocked for whistle blasts and one eye peeled for a restroom, because, now that I'm aware of my below-average-lips situation, I'm doing multiple major gloss touch-ups. To create an illusion of plumpness.

I'm so busy listening for whistles and watching for restrooms that I practically walk smack into a pole. A pole with a white poster on it. A white poster with a turquoise-ish arrow.

I'm at a fork in the path, and the arrow points to
the right. I look up and read the black-markered message on the poster:

Tongue-Stud Girl's words from this morning echo in my mind. About how Donner's out to get us 'cause we dominated them last year. Oh, puhleeze. No one in their right mind would be so into robotics that they'd stalk the teacher of a rival team. Why would you bother? What would be the point?

A whistle rips through the air. From the left path.

I stare at the poster. “Destroy” is a pretty strong word. Another whistle blast.

Water polo to the left. Robotics to the right. Isn't there a poem about this? Not about this exactly, but about having to choose a path. And Nerdy Nick thinks I never pay attention in class. Ha!

What if I went to the robotics meeting for five fleeting minutes? In five minutes, I could rule out the Donner Dynamos as an all-star team of stalkers. I could report to my mom that I already started investigating. I could nosh on some snacks. And then I could head poolside to see Josh. …

More whistles and a buzzer. My cute ballet slippers slapping the pavement, I jog off in the direction of the arrow. At the computer room door, there's a long-faced, short-haired stubby guy in an overly wrinkled button-down shirt. A flash drive dangles from a lanyard around his neck.

“You coming in here?” he says, his hand on the door handle.

I nod.

He releases the handle and steps toward me. “You'll be our tenth and final member.” He's swinging his flash drive like it's some kind of neck metronome. The faster he swings, the faster he talks. “We're gearing up for the practice competition. And then, like for all the teams, our bot is crated and sent to storage so that we only see it for competitions. Claire has a bunch of stuff she wants us to tackle today.”

I take a step back. I don't want the swinging flash drive to connect with my skull. Plus, the guy's standing just a little too close. In fact, he's just a little too friendly. And a little too enthusiastic. I mean, we're
talking robotics here. Not something truly exciting like clothes or makeup or teen magazines.

Flash Drive Guy finally stops for a breath, and I break in. “So Claire's the teacher-mentor for your club?”

“No. No. No. Claire's an eighth grader. Our president. She's brilliant.”
Swing. Swing. Swing
. “Although she does put the ‘boss' in ‘bossy.' But she grows on you.”
Swing. Swing. Swing
. “How can you not know any of this? What planet are you from?”

“The Planet of Homeschooling.” Talk about your very brilliant response. Because how suspicious would that look if I didn't have a single class with a single person in the club?

“I'm Austin.” He whips open the door. “Come in and meet the gang.” He slides in ahead of me and announces, “New person. She's homeschooled.”

Eight people sit or kneel on a big blue tarp. They're surrounded by springs and wheels and loads of other brain-puzzle bits and pieces. A girl's plugging in a drill. Several toolboxes lean against the wall behind the students.

Austin yanks open a toolbox drawer and tosses me and everybody else a pair of safety glasses. They do not match my outfit. Actually, oversized plastic safety glasses don't match anybody's outfit.

A girl with dyed midnight black hair, chin length on
one side, shoulder length on the other, stares at me. Practically stares through me. Her lips are perfectly plump and shimmer with peach gloss that complements her baby-doll top.

When you're a detective, you notice details. When you're a fashion queen, like myself, you notice even more.

“Claire?” I ask.

She pulls herself slowly to a stand, swaying like a cobra. “Yeah. And you are?”

“I'm, uh, uh, homeschooled.” Yikes. My mind blanked. I can't believe I forgot to think of a fake name.

“She means, what's your name?” Austin says.

Thank you, Austin, who I'm sure has many friends, given his helpful personality. I tap my thinnish bottom lip. Sherry. Sherry. Rhymes with … “Mary.”

“We don't usually let homeschooled kids join our team.” Claire hooks hair from the longer side behind her ear.

“You have to let me. It's the law.” Here is an advantage of living with The Ruler, who has mentioned at the dinner table how public schools must allow homeschooled kids to join extracurricular clubs. I know for sure we have a couple in the band at Saguaro.

Claire hooks hair from the shorter side behind her ear. “Mary, got any experience with robots?”

“Some.” If you count babysitting a younger brother who plays with Transformers. “I know about motion sensors.” If you count having a best friend who plays with them.

Like they're waking up from a deep sleep, the other students start adding to the conversation. They obviously all bow to Queen Claire, though. A girl in cool boots says, “We could use some extra help.” A guy with a mohawk says, “The practice competition is just around the corner.”

“Come on, Bryce,” Austin says to a redheaded guy who's kneeling and sorting miniature thingies into piles by shape. Very
Sesame Street
.

They go into a small room at the back and return with a piece of plywood on wheels. In the middle of this homemade dolly sits a big lump hidden under a thick blanket. They wheel the dolly onto the tarp.

Then, pulling on a corner of the blanket, Claire begins to slowly unveil the lump. With a final yank, it's revealed.

Squatting on the plywood is a gray metal platform about the size of a kitchen tray. Attached to it are smaller gray metal rectangular pieces, a few gray metal stick arms, rubber wheels and many, many unsightly wires. It's about knee high.

Sometimes, a thought from my brain will gallop out of my mouth before I can lasso it. I say, “That's your robot? Could it be more boring?”

Shocked silence in the Donner computer lab.

Another thought gallops out. “You need to seriously bling out this robot. So it looks totally different from every other robot at the competitions.” I walk over to the dolly and examine the robot from all angles. “Are your school colors white, black and turquoise?”