Sticks & Stones (16 page)

1. Figure out if the note writer really is Mr. Todd. If it is, I have to do something about these shenanigans. I can't let him run around pretending everything's totally fine when he owes me a major explanation about the breakup note. Well, about all the notes, but especially that one.

2. Be an awesome Explorer Leader. He chose me, even though it was only because I did all the things he (if he was the note writer) told me to do. And even if it doesn't make all the bad words go away, it still adds a ton of new good ones.

3. Keep doing things, because I'm more fun when I do and people like me better. They clap for me. They cheer. They laugh, and it's actually
with
me, because I'm laughing, too. Because that is what normal people do, and those are my people now. Hooray!

Okay, wish me luck out there. I hope I don't get eaten by a bear.

From,

February Elyse

*   *   *

People who can successfully close their suitcases after packing for school trips should get a prize. It felt like I had been smushing my stuff down for hours, but my bag was no closer to shutting than it had been when I started.

“I'm not going,” I called to Mom. “This is impossible!”

She rushed upstairs in two seconds flat.

“Mom, it's not really an emergency. I'm just telling you.”

“Here, let's try again. Or we could bring the bigger suitcase up from downstairs. Or go buy a new one. Or you could take two?”

“I don't know.” I looked at my small red bag. It was definitely a challenge, having so much stuff on the packing list but only being allowed a suitcase of a certain size. Plus, there was all the stuff on the packing list you created for yourself. I had packed two sweatshirts instead of the recommended one—but I had to, because I would probably spill something on one, and I needed a spare, just like I needed my fuzziest green knee-high socks, a Costco-size box of chocolate-chip granola bars, a few
Would You Rather…?
books, four rolls of toilet paper (the super-soft kind), and sixteen bottles of nail polish. Regular Elyse probably wouldn't have bothered with all that stuff, but Elyse the Explorer Leader was all about girly bonding and fun supplies for after lights-out.

“Do you really need all this stuff, sweetie?” Mom asked, taking three long-sleeved shirts out of the bag, unfolding them, refolding them in the exact same way I had already folded them, and carefully putting them back.

“Yeah. I really do,” I said.

A little later, I finally agreed to remove one roll of toilet paper, four nail polishes, and the fuzzy green knee-high socks. Excuuuuse me for wanting comfort in the frozen wilderness. I didn't think it was so outrageous.

Mom folded the socks and set them gently on my bed.

“I promise you'll have them if you need them.”

“
Mo-om.
I'll be gone for less than three days. By the time I get them in the mail, it'll be time to leave.”

“I'll find a way,” she said, a goofy smile spreading across her face.
BABY
sprang onto my lower leg and made itself right at home. Ugh. Maybe I was a baby, but if being a baby meant your mom would send you your fuzzy green knee-high socks if you wanted them, fine. I'd be a baby. Even though it was a pretty itchy thing to be.

An hour later, Mom pulled into the school parking lot and drove in circles forever until she found a spot she liked. Mr. Todd stood in front of the bus with a blue clipboard, looking very official and a little bit like a troublemaker. There had better not be any blue papers on that clipboard. I shot him my very best you-better-not-have-any-blue-papers-on-that-clipboard-and-I-mean-it look.

I'm on to you, dude.

“Hi, Rodney!” Mom smiled widely as we made our way from the car to the bus. I cringed. Your mom should not call your principal by his first name. Your mom shouldn't even know your principal's first name, if you can help it.

I glanced at my phone to read a text from Dad while Mom chatted away with Mr. Todd like they were BFFs.

Good luck. Enjoy. Wear a hat. Love you.

*   *   *

I was going away for three whole days, and that was all he had to say? He hadn't said much more in person before he left for work in the morning. I guess some people just weren't that chatty. Maybe it was time to accept that Dad might be one of them.

“It's been so wonderful seeing everyone!” said Ms. Sigafiss. “We need to get going now, so please give your children a final hug and kiss, then let them get on the bus.”

“Well.” I turned toward Mom, my heart suddenly beating really fast. I rocked back and forth as
INSECURE
sprouted across my ankle. I felt the prick in my sock, then the familiar itchy jolt of the letters. I am
too
secure! So what if I'm a little nervous about how all this Explorer Leader business will go and how annoying Liam and Jeg will be and what it will be like being away from home for the first time ever? And how I don't know what the rooms will be like or if the beds will be comfy or if the food will be good? So what if I've been excited for this all week—all year, almost—and now I kinda just want to go home and snuggle between Mom and Dad on the couch and watch a movie? That doesn't mean I'm not confident as a person. That just means that at the moment I'm a teeny-tiny bit worried. Yeah. That's all it is.

But if that's all it was, why did I feel like I was going to burst into tears any second?

I expected Mom to pull me in for one of her squish-the-bejeebers-out-of-me hugs, but instead she said, “Be right back!” and jogged away before I could ask what was going on.

“All right, people, you heard Ms. Sigafiss!” Mr. Todd hollered. “Everyone on the bus!” He turned to me.

“How are you doing, Elyse? Ready for some Explorer Leader-ing? This is what it all comes down to. This is your moment! Remember, if you're ever feeling blue, you can always come talk to me. I won't have my couch with me this trip, though. It didn't quite fit in my suitcase.”

“Mm-kay.” I didn't smile.

Mom rushed to the bus, an oversize duffel bag in her hands.
Wait, why does Mom have a duffel?
I told her I wasn't allowed to have a second bag.

Then it hit me. The bag was not for me.

“Surprise!” Mom threw her free arm around my shoulders. “I'm coming with you!”

“You're … what?”

“Rodney—er, Mr. Todd—called me yesterday. Apparently there weren't enough chaperones signed up, and he thought I might be interested.”

I glared at Mr. Todd. What
was
this? It didn't make any sense that he'd do all that work with the notes to make me Explorer Leader and then go and invite my mom along on the trip. If he
had
written the notes, he must have changed his mind about me. Maybe he didn't really think I could do it on my own after all.

He was still standing in front of the bus, smiling away, checking names off the list on his clipboard like it was the most fun he'd ever had in his life. When he caught my eye, he smiled and waved like we were old pals.

“I thought it'd be a fun surprise … I thought you'd want me to come.” Mom sighed. “It's a scary new experience for you. I called Dr. Patel about it, and he agreed that it would be smart. Wouldn't it be nice to have me around, you know, just in case? I won't embarrass you.”

Usually when she said she wouldn't embarrass me, it was a sure sign that she was going to embarrass me. Like really bad. But I looked at her face; she was so hopeful, and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her feelings.

And there was the annoying fact that a teeny tiny, microscopic part of me might maybe want her around maybe for a little teeny tiny bit of time. Like an hour. Or two. Two and a half, tops. Just till the annoying lump in my throat went away.

“Fine.” I shrugged. “If that's what you want to do.”

Her face lit up. “It's going to be so fun, sweetie!”

Yeah, fun. Or something.

 

27

ROOMIES

“It appears that my mom is a last-minute chaperone,” I told Olivia after I slid into a seat next to her.

“Oh,” she said sympathetically. “Sorry.” I noticed she didn't pat my leg. That was nice. Then she changed the subject and started talking about a funny show she'd seen on TV last night. That was pretty nice, too.

It was hard not having Jeg as a best friend anymore, but I was beginning to think that maybe Olivia would be a good replacement, even if it wasn't quite the same.

We played MASH the rest of the way to Minnesota. (MASH stands for
mansion, apartment, shack, house
. When you play the game, you find out which one you're going to live in when you grow up, and you find out a lot of other important things, too.) By the end of the drive, we had discovered that when we grew up, Olivia was going to live in a mansion in Hawaii with her husband (Nice Andy—ha, ha!) and her seventeen kids and her pet llama named Ferdinand Wellington the Third. I was going to live in an apartment at the North Pole with my husband (Kevin—ew), our thirty-three kids, and two pet unicorns named Fifi and Gigi. The future was looking weird.

After several hours, the bus slowed down as it turned onto a dusty, gravelly path. Big brown snow-covered trees lined both sides of the road. The bus went slower and slower. Each time I thought it was going to pull over, it kept on going, like the little engine that could.

After what seemed like a billion years, the bus finally came to a stop in an empty parking lot.

“Everyone stay seated!” Mr. Todd instructed as he got off the bus, but no one did. We were way too antsy. The drive had been
six
hours, after all.

I shook out my foot a little bit. It still felt itchy from
INSECURE
. After Mr. Todd had invited Mom,
UNABLE
was there, too. He didn't truly believe I could do it on my own. Neither did Mom.

So maybe they were right, and I couldn't.

I guess I'd find out soon enough.

Kevin stood and ran up and down the bus's aisle. Mike stuck out his hand for a high five as Kevin passed, and soon everyone else did, too. I stretched my arms in both directions, careful not to accidentally smack anyone in the face. I was a very polite stretcher. You could not say the same for most people. Like Liam. Liam, I noticed, was kind of an inconsiderate stretcher. He was doing, like, some kind of yoga thing (show-off) with one leg going sideways and one arm poised behind his head with the elbow sticking out, practically jabbing Olivia in the ear.

“Okay,” said Mr. Todd, as he climbed back on the bus. “I appreciate your patience. Let's everyone get ready to head to our cabins. There will be two people to a room and eight to a cabin, plus a chaperone. Jeg and Elyse, cabin one, room one. Hannah and Hannah, cabin one, room two…”

His mouth kept moving, but I couldn't hear anything after he said my name. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping no one would see the tears that had welled up way too fast. I thought being Explorer Leader guaranteed me my own room. Sure, no one had ever told me
officially
, but it just seemed like a natural perk of the job. Kings and queens of school dances got crowns. Captains of sports teams got special sweatshirts. And Explorer Leaders of wilderness adventures should get their own rooms. It was simple as that.

And of all the roommates in the entire world I could get—Jeg? It would be so awkward. We had hardly said a word to each other since her party. Being trapped in a room together for three days would be torture. And that meant I'd have to change in front of her, too. She hadn't seen my words since last year, when she was nice. Now she was the kind of person who might make fun of them, threaten to tell other people, and try to make them worse. On purpose.

I felt Mom's eyes on me from the way front of the bus. She didn't know everything, but she had definitely noticed Jeg and I weren't hanging out much—or at all—anymore. Mom pushed her way back to my seat and slid in next to me, forcing Olivia to scoot all the way over to the window.

“
Mom!
What are you doing?” Practically everyone was looking at us as they lined up to get off the bus. Mom stood out like a fuzzy orange sock in a basket of green ones.

“I'm just checking on you, sweetie,” she whispered. “I know the roommate announcement caught you off guard. Do you want me to talk to Mr. Todd about it and see if we can figure something out?”

I sniffled. I
did
, but wouldn't that prove exactly what both of them thought, that I couldn't do anything for myself? Even though I was the Explorer Leader?

Yes,
I said in my brain. “No,” I whispered back, and sniffled again.

Mom looked at me for a long time, but finally got up and went back to her real spot on the bus.

Olivia turned to me as soon as Mom went away. “Are you okay? I know you and Jeg aren't BFFs anymore, but it's only for a few days. And we'll be outside most of the time anyway!”

It was easy for her to say. As nice as Olivia was, she still didn't know the truth about me. She didn't get why this was such a huge problem. And I was still too scared to tell her.

I tried to smile. “Yeah, you're right. I know.”

When everyone was off the bus, Snotty Ami dragged Jeg up to Mr. Todd. I didn't realize that other people would be as upset about the roommate assignment as I was. Snotty Ami didn't know she was doing me a favor, but that's exactly what was happening. I felt a very small twinge of appreciation for her.

“There has been a mistake,” she insisted, with Jeg nodding in agreement and me watching from not too far away. I had never seen Snotty Ami look so upset. Her face was bright red and I could practically see steam coming out of her snotty ears. “I'm not supposed to be with some random person I barely know. Jeggie was supposed to be my roomie, not that loser's.” She muttered those last three words under her breath and glanced in my direction. I looked down, not wanting anyone to see me scowl as
LOSER
formed sharply on my thigh. Ouch. There wasn't enough anti-itch cream in the universe for that one.
Of course
Snotty Ami couldn't just do me a favor she didn't know she was doing and be nice about it. She had to be the only person in the world who didn't care that I was the Explorer Leader and
it was basically the rule that you were supposed to be nice to the Explorer Leader
.