Isle Be Seeing You (2 page)

“Come on, Josh.” I decided it was time to get out of there before they embarrassed me any further. “Lets roll.”

“Don't wander off together and get lost on your way there,” Cassie said with a playful wink.

Josh looked confused. “Oh,” he added. “Er, by the way, you guys can come along with us and play too if you want.”

“No, thanks.” Chrissie grinned at me. “I dont think Dani would like that very much.”

“Have fun, you two!” Cassie trilled.

“Sorry about that,” I muttered as Josh and I hurried
down the beach. It was midmorning, and the tropical sun was beating down with its usual enthusiasm. The sand was practically sizzling beneath my bare feet, though I hardly noticed. That was just one more thing I was getting used to on the island.

Josh glanced over his shoulder, his dark eyes puzzled. “Okay, do I have a big green booger hanging out of my nose or something? Because the twins were acting really weird just now!”

I sighed, wishing I wasn't quite so honest. If I was sneaky and evil like Angela, I could just toss my hair and change the subject. Instead, I was going to have to tell him the embarrassing truth.

“They're, um, trying to set us up,” I explained, trying to sound casual and matter-of-fact. In other words,
not
as if this whole conversation was making me totally uncomfortable. “I guess they think, you know, we would make a good couple or something…. You know they're obsessed with that kind of stuff.”

“Oh.” Josh ducked his head a little so I couldn't see his expression. But even so, I could tell he was uncomfortable too. Weirdly enough, that made me feel a little
better about being so embarrassed myself.

“Anyway, don't worry” I added. “I didn't tell them anything.”

“Oh, okay'Josh sounded uncertain.

I held my breath. Maybe he was changing his mind about keeping our new relationship a secret. Maybe he'd realized it would be easier to go ahead and tell everyone. Sure, it would be a little embarrassing at first. But at least everything would be out in the open. The twins would be happy for me, Angela would be miserable—it would be great.

Then Josh shrugged. “Okay, good,” he said. “I was afraid maybe they'd figured it out or something.”

My shoulders slumped. “Nope.” I did my best to sound cheerful. “They're clueless. Totally”

We were nearing the far end of the beach by then so we stopped talking. Up ahead a hilly wash of boulders and scrubby trees took over from the smooth white sand, tumbling straight down from the steep side of the island's central mountain into the clear, aquamarine water of the lagoon. On the flat section of beach on the near side of the rocky slope, four people were waiting for us. Ryan Rodriguez was attempting to juggle three coconuts while
Brooke Hubbard looked on disapprovingly. Mr. T was twirling a chunk of his frizzed-out, overlong black hair around one finger and staring at the sky. Kenny was sitting on a boulder with his finger up his nose.

“She's in,” Josh called out, jogging forward. “Dani's going to play”

“I call captain!” Ryan shouted, leaping about four feet into the air and waving his hand around like he was trying to flag down the space shuttle. For him, it was a subdued reaction. Ryan is what some of the teachers at school call
spirited
. Others just come right out and call him what he is, which is a total spaz.

“Me too,” Brooke called out, raising her hand in a much more civilized manner. Everything Brooke does is civilized. As the only eighth grader on the trip, she considers herself much more mature than the rest of us sixth- and seventh-grade peons. She also considers herself a natural leader, probably because of her years of student council experience, so it was no surprise she'd called captain.

Josh shrugged. “Okay” he said. “Ry, go ahead, you get first pick since you called first.”

I was expecting Ryan to pick Josh, who was clearly the best basketball player on the beach. Since I'm the
obvious second-best choice, if I do say so myself, I was already stepping toward Brooke when Ryan stabbed a finger in my direction and grinned.

“McFeeney,” he announced, “you're with me.”

Brooke may be a little too civilized for her own good, but she's no dummy. “I pick Josh,” she called out quickly, as if afraid Ryan would realize his mistake and change his choice.

That left Kenny and Mr. Truskey. “Who should I pick?” Ryan asked me in a whisper.

I shrugged. Under the circumstances I didn't see much of a difference. It wasn't as if either of them was going to be much use on the court. Mr. Truskey seemed a little saner than usual at the moment—at least he was standing upright and focusing both his eyes on the same place—but choo-choo craziness aside, there was a reason he was a science teacher and not a gym teacher. He could hardly keep himself from tripping over his own Birkenstocks even at the best of times. Then again, Kenny was at least a foot shorter than anyone else, plus he was likely to get distracted at any moment and go chasing off after a choo-choo bug or something.

“I don't know. Mr. T, I guess.”

Just then Kenny finally dragged his attention out of his own nostril and back to what was going on. “Hey,” he said. “Pick me, Ryan. Pick me!”

Ryan shot him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, little dude. I'm going to have to go with Mr. T.”

Mr. Truskey blinked and looked up from his own hair. “What did I win?” he asked happily.

“Looks like you're with us, Ken,” Brooke said, sounding resigned. “Come on over”

Kenny stuck out his tongue at me as he skipped over to join his new teammates. “'S okay. I didn't want to be on
Danielle's
team anyway”

I rolled my eyes. Most people never call me by my full name, Danielle, because they know I hate it. Which is exactly why Kenny uses it as often as he can. “Come on, people,” I said briskly, clapping my hands. “Let's get started!”

“Whoo-hoo!” Ryan shouted. “Come on, Mr. T. Let's huddle.”

Mr. Truskey gazed at him. “What's that, Friedrich?”

Ever since eating that choo-choo bug, Mr. Truskey can't quite seem to keep our names straight. We were all getting used to answering to just about anything. I could
only hope his choo-choo-addled mind still retained the rules of basketball.

“Just come on over here, Mr. T.” I waved him over. “We'll explain everything.”

Ryan insisted that I play center, which meant I found myself facing off against Josh. Mr. Truskey was assigned to guard Kenny, while Ryan raced over and positioned himself near Brooke, leaping and waggling his arms while she watched him with annoyance.

The game started. It was a little weird playing with a coconut instead of a real balL as I discovered when I automatically tried to dribble around Josh as he came in for a steal. Feinting to the left, I pushed down on the “ball,” already leaping forward to meet it on the bounce. The coconut plopped onto the sand and lay there inertly, and I felt my bare toe connect with it as I lurched forward.

“Oops.” I felt my face go red as I windmilled my arms to stay upright.

Behind me I heard Brooke laugh. “Good one, Dani,” she called sarcastically.

Josh grinned at me, but not in a mean way. “It's okay,” he murmured. “I almost did that myself a second ago.”

I smiled back. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

I guess both of us sort of forgot what we were doing for a second. We just stood there grinning goofily at each other. I couldn't help noticing how cute he looked with a little bead of sweat dripping down his chin….

“Yo! What are you guys doing?”

I snapped out of it and saw Ryan jogging toward us, looking perplexed—and maybe a little suspicious? Or was that just my guilty conscience imagining things?

Brooke narrowed her eyes. No question about it, she
definitely
looked suspicious. “Yeah, what's up, you two?” she asked. “Since when did this game turn into a staring contest?”

Oops. I winced, waiting for Kenny to start singing, “Dani and Josh, sittin' in a tree.” But when I glanced his way, he was just standing there, not even paying attention to what was going on.

That wasn't like him. When it came to noticing embarrassing stuff about me, he was like a bloodhound on a scent. Humiliating me was the only thing he liked even better than collecting creepy crawly creatures and watching TV.

“You okay, twerp?” I demanded, a little worried about him for a second.

He just blinked and stared at me. I wasn't sure he'd even heard me.

“Is the game over?” Mr. Truskey wandered up to us. “Did I win?”

“Were still playing, Mr. T.' Ryan stared from me to Josh and back again. “At least I thought we were….”

Josh shot me a slightly panicky look, then opened his mouth. “Uh—I—we just…,” he began.

I stared at him, my stomach flip-flopping nervously, suddenly sure that this was it. He was going to blurt out the truth. It was about time—

“Hi, everyone!”

That voice. That prissy, sugary, totally irritating voice. I recognized it instantly.

Angela.

Just like that the tense, interesting moment was lost, scattered like sand in a hurricane by Evil Angela's untimely appearance. She strolled onto the court, ignoring my glare as she walked straight up to Josh, tossed back her shoulder-length blond hair, and smiled at him. Nobody believes me when I say she has evil powers, but
it's true. How else could she spend so much time shipwrecked on a deserted island and still look like she'd just stepped out of an air-conditioned mall after having her hair done and buying all new clothes?

“I heard you guys were playing basketball,” she said. “So I thought I'd come: down and cheer you on.”

Josh shot me a nervous look and took a half step away. “Oh,” he said. “Um, okay. Come on, you guys. What are we waiting for?”

Ryan clapped his hands. “Right!” he shouted. “Let's play balL people!”

“Fine. Guys, I think I'll play center for a while,” Brooke said to her team. “Josh, you guard Ryan instead.”

I bent down and grabbed the coconut from the sand, resisting the urge to fling it straight at Angela's head. Why did she always have to show up at the worst possible moment?

We started playing again. But it wasn't much fun anymore. I managed to keep from trying to dribble the coconut again, but I couldn't keep from noticing Angela capering around on the sidelines. She hadn't been kidding when she'd announced she was going to be a cheerleader—she'd even picked up a couple of palm
fronds to use as pom-poms. The thing was, she seemed to be focusing all of her cheers on one person.

“One, two, three, four; come on, Josh, its time to score!” Angela cheered loudly, waving the palm fronds over her head and doing a little kick. “Five, six, seven, eight; keep it up, you're doing great! Goooo, Josh!”

I gritted my teeth, tempted to march right over to her and tell her the truth. Josh didn't like her, he liked me. He'd told me so in the middle of that hurricane … right before he almost kissed me. (Angela interrupted that, too … grr!) I could almost picture the delicious, delightful look of horror on her face when she realized the truth.

Like I said, I was tempted. But I bit my tongue and kept quiet. Josh didnt want me to tell anyone, and so I was just going to have to keep quiet until he changed his mind.

What else could I do?

“Good game, everyone. Good game.”
Ryan leaped around from one of us to the other, grabbing our hands, whether we offered them or not, and shaking them enthusiastically. Mr. Truskey laughed and shook back heartily, and Kenny added a high five when Ryan got to him. Brooke and I rolled our eyes, but then Josh started shaking hands with everyone too, so we went along with it.

When Josh got to me, he stuck out his hand. “Good game, Dani,” he said loudly. As I took his hand he leaned
toward me a little. “Want to meet up in like fifteen minutes?” he whispered. “Butterfly spot?”

Angela was already making a beeline in our direction, so I just nodded. A shivery little thrill ran through me, as if someone had just injected carbonated soda into my veins. Maybe this secret-romance thing was sort of fun after all!

“Catch you guys later” I said to the group at large. Without waiting for an answer, I turned and loped off toward camp, doing my best not to wonder if the Evil One was already clinging to Josh's arm and batting her eyelashes in his general direction. What difference did it make?
She
wasn't the one he wanted to meet up with in fifteen minutes!

When I reached the camp area, Ned Campbell and Macy Walden were huddled together over the makeshift wooden table in the food-prep area, probably pulling together something for lunch. Macy was dressed in one of her usual
Little-House-on-the-Prairie
dresses, though the small palm frond she'd tied around her head as a visor added a touch of little-hut-on-the-island. Ned's fifth-degree sunburn was finally starting to morph into a tan, making his straight, bowl-cut blond hair look even paler
than usual. They didn't look up as I zipped past, and nobody else was in sight.