Authors: Rachel Vail
“Yeah. Anyway, good luck with the S.T. tomorrow.”
“I just meant I never had one with anybody, either,” I said, and hung up. “But,” I added, “I guess you probably figured that out.”
seven
A
t the bus stop the next morn
ing, while I was busy trying to give him the Silent Treatment, Jonas asked, “So what do you think about that thing Madame F said?”
I didn’t answer him. I looked away, up the street.
“Yesterday,” he said.
I felt ridiculous but I kept not answering. I never gave anyone a Silent Treatment before. It’s hard.
“In French class?” he added, as if I just needed clarification.
I couldn’t let him think I was a total idiot. “Which thing?” I asked casually, as if there were lots of things she said that I understood and had opinions about.
“You know, that she takes a quarter point off your final grade every time you miss a homework?”
I totally missed that. “Pretty harsh,” I said, then looked away again.
Stop talking to him
, I reminded myself.
Teach him a lesson, or whatever
.
“So, did you do the homework?” he asked.
I started whistling.
“That’s what I thought,” Jonas said. “Which ones do you need?”
“That’s OK,” I said, still looking away from him. The bus was late. So was Tommy. Jonas and I were alone. Who would know if I talked to him? But I wanted to be true to Morgan and Olivia and especially CJ.
“I don’t mind,” he assured me. He held out his neat paper. I think he copies over his work. What a dweeb. I looked at him. He has the happiest face, rosy cheeks and long eyelashes. He’d gotten a haircut since I saw him yesterday, and his curls were standing up a little in the back. He’s cute, too, I realized, but I don’t get a jiggly nervous feeling being with him. Just buddies, like I used to feel with Tommy.
“No,” I said.
He slipped his homework back into one of his new folders. We stood there not talking for a few minutes.
Tommy ran up and said, “Whoa, thought I was screwed.”
I peeked at him, then looked away quick.
“Something’s wrong with Zoe,” Jonas said.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Tommy asked me.
I burst out laughing. “Shut up,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“She says there’s nothing wrong,” Tommy told Jonas.
I was feeling pretty stupid. I kept squinting up the street.
“I don’t know,” Jonas said. “I guess she’s really interested in where the bus is.”
I cracked up again. “You guys.”
“What?”
I turned around and saw them both with these super-innocent looks on their faces. I dropped my books and shoved each of them with one hand. Tommy dropped his books, too, ready to really get into it. I held up my hand. I was wearing Anne Marie’s big yellow cotton top, and she’d kill me if I grass-stained it, wrestling him. And I don’t need him thinking I’m a guy. Where does that get me?
“It just would’ve been nice if you guys had offered us a ride to Olivia’s.”
“What?” asked Tommy.
The bus lurched into sight. “Yesterday,” I said.
“If you wanted a ride you should’ve asked,” Jonas said. “We were just going to the barber. Our mother wouldn’t care.”
He was right. Mrs. Levit is pretty good about giving people rides. She likes to have people to tell her private life to.
“Yeah, but . . .” I said. “And Tommy teased CJ about her bun?”
The doors creaked open. Jonas climbed in first, and Tommy followed me, poking my shoulder. “I didn’t tease her about it. I asked her about it.” He slid into a seat next to Lou Hochstetter.
I had no answer to that.
“Nice haircut,” I said. I sat across the aisle, next to Jonas.
“Nice knee,” Tommy answered.
“Thanks.” I smiled at him, trying to keep my gums hidden so I’d be cuter, and pushed my knee against the seat in front so nobody would see how wrecked it looked anymore. Maybe he meant it, that my knee looked nice, I tried telling myself. That’s unlikely, for sure, but I sort of meant it about his haircut, so maybe there was a chance. I glanced at him. He was drumming on his notebook, looking out the window. It was a nice haircut. Very nice. Youch.
eight
G
ood thing I wore shorts,
despite my scab—the second day of school was starting out even hotter than the first. I sweated silently the rest of the bus ride. When we finally pulled into the circle, CJ and Morgan were sitting on the wall together, waiting for the bell. The most popular seventh graders last year sat there every morning. I bolted toward them, glad to get away from the boys.
Mrs. Pogostin dropped off Olivia and Dex. We waved to Olivia, who sprinted over. Dex joined a game of keep-away with a bunch of other eighth-grade guys. Part of me thought I’d like to play, too—I’m pretty good at keep-away because I’m tall, but I wasn’t going to be the only girl. I’m learning. Olivia couldn’t make it up the wall, so I jumped down to give her a boost, then climbed back up myself. When Mr. Luse dropped Roxanne off, she ran over, too, pressing her glasses to the bridge of her nose.
The first bell rang and the kids who get free lunch rushed inside because before school they get a muffin or something from the cafeteria. None of us did. We could take our time.
“Did you do the French?” Roxanne asked me.
“No,” I admitted. “Did you?”
She nodded. “She scared me. You want it?” She almost dropped her books, trying to yank her blotchy paper out of her loose-leaf.
“Thanks.” I quick started copying her work, feeling really happy I hadn’t betrayed my girlfriends by talking to Jonas. While I wrote, I shook my head and said, “A quarter point for each homework?”
“I know it,” said Roxanne. “Oops.” Her loose-leaf got away from her and exploded when it hit the ground. She jumped down and chased after the blowing papers. CJ jumped down, too, and helped her. I would’ve but I had to hurry.
“I hope you remember French from last year,” I yelled down to her. “I want to get a good mark. I take a lot of pride in my work.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Roxanne, stomping on the last couple of loose pages. “Me, too. A lot of pride.” She plopped down on the ground to rest. “Too bad Miss Marcus is gone.”
“I loved her,” I agreed. Miss Marcus was our French teacher last year. She was twenty-three and couldn’t control us at all. “We didn’t learn anything.” I closed my notebook.
“Zoe?” Morgan whispered to me. “How was it?”
“How was what?” I grabbed CJ’s hand to help her back up.
On the other side of me, Morgan whispered, “This morning?”
“No problem,” I lied. The warning bell rang so I tossed my lunch and backpack down from the wall. CJ’s quilted bag landed at the same time I did.
“Thanks,” I said to Roxanne, handing her back her homework.
She shoved it into her notebook and, heading into school, said, “No biggie.” Some people say Roxanne is a mess, but I think she’s fun.
Morgan threw down her bag, and she and CJ jumped together, kicking their legs out. Olivia turned backward and slid carefully down the wall. I had started toward the entrance when CJ said, “Zoe?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you grab my lunch for me? I forgot it.” Her hair wasn’t in a bun for the first time ever at school. It was puffy and soft like the night I had slept over. She kept smooshing it down.
“Mine, too?” asked Morgan.
I looked up at the two slightly crumpled brown bags slumping on top of the wall.
“Can you reach?” CJ asked. “I’m too short.”
“Me, too,” said Morgan.
I hesitated. Did they leave their lunches up there on purpose to make a point? That they are best friends, or that they are little and I am a big clod like Roxanne? Morgan isn’t that much shorter than I am, now that she grew over the summer. What right did she have to call me tall?
“Sure,” I said and grabbed their lunches, telling myself to quit being a paranoid nut.
“Thanks,” they said together.
How cute of them
, I thought nastily. We went to our lockers to throw in our lunches.
“OK,” I said to everybody, slamming mine shut. “See you second.”
“See ya,” said Morgan.
“See ya,” said CJ. She smooshed her hair again. I almost told her don’t worry, it looks fine, but I didn’t feel like it. Let Morgan tell her.
We split up to go to homeroom. Olivia and I both have Ms. Masters, the nurse, for homeroom, so we walked together. I didn’t chat on the way like I normally would.
“Can you keep a secret?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, not even psyched.
“I’m getting braces.”
“Really?” I wasn’t quite listening. I was too busy calling myself tall:
You are so TALL, you big TALL, would you get our lunches, you horrifyingly TALL?
I don’t think I was very sympathetic to poor Olivia.
As I sat down at my spot at Ms. Masters’s table, it occurred to me that this was the closest I’d ever come to crying in school and that maybe Devin wasn’t crazy. Maybe my hormones were kicking in. I ran my hand over my face to check for a sudden outbreak of pimples.
After the Pledge was done, the bell rang.
“Don’t tell anybody,” Olivia said as she left for Spanish.
“I won’t.”
I was slumped behind my desk, concentrating on trying to feel my hormones, when Madame F said something final-sounding. I looked around to see what everybody else would do in response. I guess she’d said, Roxanne and Bernadette, please come up to the front and hand out these big ugly textbooks, because that’s what happened. While they were passing out the books and I was feeling lucky that she hadn’t asked me to, I heard the one word I’d been dreading most.
“Zoe?”
I looked up. I couldn’t remember a single word in French. Like the word for “here” or “what” or “yes” or anything. I tried to look at her with an encouraging expression, like, yes, go on, I’m listening.
“(Something in French)?” Madame F asked. Sweat attack. I tried desperately to remember a word, any word, and just say it in hopes it would answer what she asked.
“No.” I tried to say it in a French-y way.
“Non?”
she asked, in her perfect French accent. She looked puzzled. So obviously
no
wasn’t working for her. I glanced over at Jonas. He was pointing to his paper. I looked back at Madame F. She was staring at me. I couldn’t take a chance. Just then Roxanne dropped a textbook.
I love her
, I decided, big clod or not. When Madame F flicked her eyes to the back of the room to look, I quickly focused on Jonas’s paper. It said 12.
“Twelve,” I said quickly. Then I thought,
Oh, I guess she asked how old I am
. “No” would be a pretty ridiculous answer to that. I started to smile.
“En français,”
said Madame F.
“Um,” I said and then something popped into my head. “Dues,” I said hopefully.
“J’ai douze ans, madame,”
she said. Everything she says sounds like delicious food. I tried to repeat her words. I guess I came close enough because she moved on to torture Lou Hochstetter. I was impressed with myself that I came up with anything at all.
I smiled at Jonas and he smiled back. He has very red lips. My stomach rumbled.
Go light
, I told myself.
You’re not even supposed to be feeling friendly toward him
.
nine
I
looked down at my palm to
read my combination, which I had written there in Bic. “It takes my brain a while to get back into gear after the summer,” I explained. “Seven-fourteen-two.”
“That’s easy,” Olivia said. “Just remember seven goes into fourteen twice.”
“Announce it, why don’t you,” said CJ.
“Nobody heard,” Olivia argued.
I shrugged. “Not that I have anything valuable.”
CJ smooshed her hair down again and tucked it behind her ears.
I looked at Morgan, but Morgan didn’t reassure her, so I told CJ, “Don’t worry. It looks fine.”
“Really?” CJ smiled. “I can’t believe I wore it down. It feels so . . . large.”
I laughed. “I like large hair.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.” CJ wrote something on her assignment pad, tore off the paper, folded it, and handed to me. “Here’s my combination,” she explained. “In case I’m sick or something, so you can get my stuff for me.”
“OK.” I pushed the note into my pocket. “And I guess you all have mine, now.” Morgan and Olivia nodded but kept looking deep into their lockers. CJ hadn’t given her combination to either of them.
Morgan slammed her locker and said, “Well, my dad is at it again.”
“Oh, no,” CJ said. She shook her head sadly.
“What?” I asked. I hate not knowing.
“You wouldn’t understand, Zoe,” Morgan said. “You have the perfect family.” She wrote down her combination and held it out to Olivia. “Here’s mine,” she said.
“Thanks,” said Olivia. She looked surprised.
CJ slammed her locker shut and fiddled with the combination.
I told Morgan, “My family is so far from perfect.”
“Excuse me?” Morgan leaned against Olivia’s locker. “The Grandons? You’re all so happy and friendly and cute, we could throw up.”
“Mm-hmm,” CJ agreed, without looking up. “Everybody thinks so.” They both nodded, in unison, then smiled at each other. I put my hand in my pocket to feel CJ’s combination. She gave it to
me
.
“My family?” I asked. “Please.” I never thought of us as cute, except maybe Devin. I wondered if they included me in that.
Morgan blew her long brown bangs out of her eyes. “You have no problems, Zoe, face it.”
“Sure,” I said. “So, what did your dad do?”
“Oh, he called last night with a whole thing why there won’t be a check again this month. My mother went nuts. And she says I have a nasty mouth.”
We headed down the hall toward the cafeteria. CJ reached her arm up around Morgan.
“My family isn’t so perfect, either, you know,” I said. We crossed to a table near the back of the cafeteria.