Mia the Melodramatic (14 page)

“If the thong fits, wear it.”

Zoë pulled her fist back and Eric warned, “Cool it. There’s still
a bunch of kids watching us. What do you want to do, traumatize them for life when they see Playhouse Pal beat someone up?”

Zoë crossed her arms over her chest. “Then we’d better get out of here fast.”

Eric threw the truck into gear. “No punches are to be thrown while I’m driving. I’ve got to haul it if we’re going to make it to the next park in time.”

“Good,” said Zoë, “because the quicker you get out of here, the quicker I can kill Henry.”

“What are you going to do?” Henry replied coolly. “Sit on me and squish me to death?”

Eric looked in his rearview mirror. “Do you have a death wish or what?”

“Yeah, maybe I do.” Henry shrugged. “Mia’s not the only one who got dumped this weekend.”

“I didn’t get dumped,” I protested. “
I
dumped
him.
”

“Whatever! You’re the one who was bawling about it,” Henry said.

I scowled. “I was not bawling.”

Eric interrupted, “So, what happened, Henry?”

“Alana dropped me,” Henry said. “She thinks I set Stephanie up by telling her you liked her. How was I supposed to know you didn’t want to go out with her?”

“Maybe because I told you like a million times I think she’s rank?” Eric replied.

“Well, you didn’t have to be so convincing, pretending Mia was the love of your life. Don’t you know Stephanie hates Mia?”

Eric pulled into the center lane of the three-lane highway that cut across town. “How could anybody hate Mia?”

“You’d be surprised,” I muttered.

“Anyway,” Henry said, “thanks to your little charade, I’m out a girlfriend.”

“I hear Mia’s available,” Zoë offered.

“Very funny,” I mumbled as I laid my head back against the window.

“I thought so, too,” Zoë said with a chuckle, obviously forgiving Henry on account of his crushed love life.

“That’s funny,” I said, straining my neck to look in the rearview mirror.

“Yeah, I know,” Zoë replied. “We’ve already established that I’m funny.”

“No, not you,” I said. “Doesn’t that look like the Play Wagon coming up beside us?”

Zoë and Henry whipped their heads around and looked out the back window.

“What the hoo-hucking-hay?!” Eric yelled. “That
is
the Play Wagon! Mia, didn’t you check to make sure the trailer latch was hitched before we left?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” I said, watching the Play Wagon gaining on us as we headed downhill. “I must’ve forgotten.”

“You forgot?!” Eric pressed down on the accelerator, trying to keep in front of the Play Wagon. “How could you forget something like that?”

“I was upset, all right?” I screamed. “I broke up with my boyfriend, I screwed up the play, and Jimmy Bolton will probably need years of therapy because of me! Excuse me if I forgot a little thing like checking to see if the trailer was attached to the truck!”

“A little thing?” Zoë yelled. “If that wagon crashes, we’re dead.”

“I’ll call the police.” Henry whipped out his cell phone. “Oh, no! I’m out of minutes and my mom will kill me if I go over my limit.”

Zoë smacked him on the arm. “You idiot, if this thing crashes into us, we’ll be dead. Call the police now!”

While Henry dialed 9-1-1, I tried to figure a way out of this mess. My parents would never let me get a car of my own if I killed a bunch of people with a runaway trailer.

Suddenly, I had an idea. “Last year,” I said, “I almost crashed the
student store cart into the teacher’s parking lot.”

“This isn’t the time for confession, Princess,” said Zoë.

“No, hear me out. Right before the cart was about to smash into the principal’s SUV, it lost a wheel and stopped. So all we have to do is figure out a way to stop the trailer before it smashes into something.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Zoë said. “Oh, that’s right—because it’s freaking obvious. Of course we need to stop the trailer before it crashes into something!”

“Well, you don’t have to be snotty about it,” I huffed.

“A trailer’s careening 60 miles an hour down a highway and you’re upset because I hurt your feelings?”

“Cut it out, guys—Mia’s right. We have to stop that wagon,” Eric said. “Henry, hand me that rope in the back seat.” He was talking about the one we used to tie down the set.

As Henry threw the rope over the seat, he asked, “Why?”

“I think if I can loop a lasso over the hitch on the front of the trailer and the three of us pull really hard, we can drag the Play Wagon closer to us. Then, as we decrease our speed, we can move over to the side of the road and pull the Play Wagon with us. What do you think?”

“That sounds like a scheme from
Scooby Doo,”
Zoë snorted. “How about you be Fred, I’ll be Velma, Preppy can be Daphne, Henry can be Shaggy, and then someone can call us ‘meddling kids.’”

“How come I have to be Shaggy?” Henry asked.

“Quiet, you guys! I really think I can do this,” Eric said. “You know, I was crowned Rodeo King three years in a row when I was a kid.”

“That’s actually a title?” Henry asked.

“There’s just one problem with your plan,” I said. “How can you lasso the hitch if you’re driving the truck?”

“I won’t be driving the truck,” Eric said to me. “You will.”

“Me? I’ve never even backed a car out of the driveway before. I
can’t drive a truck while you hang out the window lassoing a runaway trailer! Have Zoë or Henry drive.”

“I need them to help me pull the Play Wagon off the road. They’re stronger than you,” Eric said, grabbing my hand and placing it on the steering wheel. “Now, on the count of three, I want you to switch places with me and then press down on the accelerator to keep us slightly ahead of the wagon. You got that?”

“Uh, sure. Except which one is the accelerator?”

“The pedal on the right. Here we go—one, two, three!” Eric lifted his body up and I slid underneath him.

As I grabbed the steering wheel, Eric said, “Now, I want you to put your foot on top of mine. Then, I’m going to slowly move my foot off the accelerator. You’re going to keep even pressure on the gas. And keep the steering wheel nice and straight or else we’ll fly off the road and die in a ditch. Do you understand?”

“Straight steering wheel or die in a ditch—got it.”

Eric slid his foot off and I pressed the accelerator to the ground. We shot forward, passing the Play Wagon, which had begun to slow down as we headed up a hill.

“Not that hard!” Eric yelled.

“Oops, sorry.” I lifted my foot and we slowed to a crawl.

“You’ll have to speed up if we’re ever going to catch the trailer,” Eric said.

I put a little more pressure on the pedal and Eric said, “Now, I want you to keep an even pace with the Play Wagon. Can you do that?”

“No.”

“Great! Here I go.” Eric swung his legs over the back seat, but I didn’t dare avert my eyes from the road to see what he was doing back there. I knew if I shifted my gaze for a second, we’d all be road kill.

“All right, Mia,” Eric shouted form the backseat. “I’m going to lean out the window now. Don’t make any sudden moves or I’ll fall
out.”

“Um, sure,” I said as my fingers gripped the steering wheel so hard I was sure there were going to be permanent indentations.

Breaking my concentration on the road for a nanosecond, I took a quick peek in my rearview mirror. There, I saw Eric leaning halfway out the window, flipping the rope over his head like a cowboy from an old Western movie. And for one short moment, I actually thought his plan was going to work. The Play Wagon had slowed considerably, and Eric’s lasso was aimed directly at the hitch. But just as his rope was about to encircle it, the road shifted to a sharp decline, the Play Wagon gained momentum, swerving precariously down the hill, and he missed.

“I’m going to try again,” Eric shouted. “I know I can lasso it if we get close enough.”

“No way,” I said, swerving my head to the backseat. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Mia, watch out!” Zoë screamed. “There’s a curve at the bottom of the hill!”

I whipped my head back just in time to jerk the steering wheel to the left. We took the curve going way too fast, and our tires squealed in protest. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Play Wagon fly past us as it hurtled off the road and into a farmer’s field. Just as it was about to plow through a crop of corn, it hit a rut and detoured, smashing into a hay roll, where it came to an abrupt stop.

“Mia,” Eric shouted, “pull over!”

“Are you kidding me? I’m having enough trouble keeping this truck
on
the road!”

“Just gently put your foot on the brake—the pedal on the left—and move the steering wheel slowly to the right.”

I moved my foot off the gas and stepped on the brake. As we fishtailed, Eric said, “Gently!”

“How am I supposed to know what ‘gently’ means?” I shouted, decreasing the pressure on the brake. Then, ever so slowly, I inched
the steering wheel to the right and hit the brake until we were on the shoulder of the road—kind of.

Eric jumped out of the backseat and opened my door. “Move over. I can hear the cops coming, and we’re in enough trouble without explaining why you were driving without a license.”

When I pried my fingers off the steering wheel, my arms began shaking so hard I looked like a conductor leading an orchestra.

“Are you OK?” Eric asked.

“I just drove a two-ton truck while you hung out the window lassoing a wagon that could kill,” I yelled, “and you ask if I’m OK? Of course I’m not OK—I’m a nervous wreck!”

“There’s no time for whining, Princess. The fuzz are here,” Zoë hissed as she dragged me from my seat and onto the side of the road.

A police car pulled up behind us with its lights flashing and two policemen emerged from the car. One of the cops took a look at Zoë in her Playhouse Pal costume and said to his partner, “Well, I was right.”

“Yeah?” his partner replied. “About what?”

“When the crazy calls started coming in about some kids racing a trailer down the road, didn’t I say it had to be some kind of a clown?”

That night, my parents flipped off the TV after watching the news segment chronicling our Play Wagon fiasco.

“What were you thinking, Mia?” asked Mom, who ran her shaking fingers through her hair.

“Mia
and
thinking
—wow, those are two words you don’t hear together very often,” Chris said, sitting down in front of the computer.

Mom said, “Why didn’t Eric just pull over immediately when the Play Wagon became unhitched?”

“We thought it would be better if we tried to stop it before it crashed into someone,” I said.

“It’s amazing none of you were hurt,” Dad said, shaking his head. “And it’s a miracle Eric was able to steer the Play Wagon off the road so it landed safely in a hay roll.”

“Yeah, it was pretty amazing,” I replied, crossing my fingers behind my back to counter my lies.

In giving the police our statement, we’d stuck to the story that Eric was driving the truck the whole time, and we adamantly denied all statements, made by the drivers of passing cars, that someone had been trying to lasso the trailer out the back window.

“Has Nancy had a chance yet to survey the damage to the Play Wagon?” Mom asked.

“There was only a little scratched paint,” I said. “Nancy’s making us repaint it this weekend for no pay.”

“You’re lucky she didn’t fire all of you.”

“Where else is she going to find four teenagers willing to work as hard as we do for minimum wage?”

“When I was a kid,” Dad said, “I would have been thrilled to make the kind of money you’re making. In fact, when I was a kid, I was happy if I got a dollar for mowing the neighbor’s lawn.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said. “And when you were a kid, you had to walk barefoot to school in a blizzard.”

“And it was uphill both ways,” Dad added as the doorbell rang.

I rolled my eyes and ran to the door to open it.

Eric, Henry, and Zoë were standing on my front porch.

“What are you guys doing here?” I looked at Eric and lowered my voice. “Did your mom find out the truth and kick you out of the house?”

“Nah,” Eric whispered. “Our secret is safe. We’re just heading to Nick’s and wondered if you wanted to come with us.”

“Sure, let me ask my parents first,” I said, holding the door open so they could come inside.

As we walked into the living room, Chris’s eyes lit up at the sight of Zoë, and he quipped, “Just couldn’t stay away from me, huh?”

Completely ignoring him, I asked my parents, “Would it be all right if I went to Nick’s for a little while?”

“But we already ate dinner,” Mom replied.

“Yes, and did I tell you how delicious your tuna noodle casserole was?” I said as sweetly as I could, though just mentioning that dish sent shivers down my spine. “I’m not going to eat anything. I’m just going so we can, um... the four of us need to—”

“The four of us need to discuss a big work project we have coming up,” Zoë replied. “We really need Mia’s input. She is such an asset to our stage crew.”

“She’s an asset, all right,” Chris murmured. “A big, fat as—”