by Beth Vrabel
“So what?” I said. I had wanted it to come out angry, but it ended up being mumbly.
“So what?” she repeated, again in too high a voice. I glanced around. Just like I had thought, dozens of people were no longer chewing or talking but were watching our table. “Seriously? Are you, like, five or something?”
A couple people laughed, and Kara dropped her arms. Her mean smile seemed more genuine now. In a sing-song voice she added, “Did you jump in the ball pit, Pipi? Did you play with all the other kindergarteners?”
“Lay off, Kara,” Ricky said. I looked over my shoulder at him. Just like Kara, his voice—casual and bored—didn’t match his demeanor, which was still and angry. His eyes were narrowed and his hand curled into a fist next to his lunch bag.
And me? For just a second, I felt pathetic. Like such a pathetic baby. Who did go to P. Art Tee’s anymore? But then I remembered Piper, how we had turned her party around. And we did have fun.
Kara watched me, her upper lip twitching and eyebrows raised, like she was waiting for me to bolt or cry or crumble.
Instead, I straightened my shoulders. I smiled over my shoulder at Ricky and then back at Kara. “Yeah, actually. It was awesome.”
She blinked a few times.
To Ricky, I continued, “I had no idea I was a Skee-Ball wizard.”
Ricky’s shoulders rolled back. “Whatever. I let you win.”
“Sure, you did.” I laughed. “Just like I let you win at Pac-Man.”
Ricky grinned. “You’ll see. Next time, you’re going down.”
Kara’s mouth hung open a little. “Next time? You’re both so boring.”
“Oh, Kara, don’t be sad,” I said. “I’m sure whatever you did over the weekend was super cool. What was it? Oh, yeah. Figuring out the laundry machine.” I laughed, then wiggled my fingers at her. “Now go on, run back to your table before you get The Touch.”
I turned my back to her. Tasha shot Kara a cold smile. “Go on, now,” she said waving her away with the back of her hand.
“Whatever,” Kara snapped, then strode out of the cafeteria. I watched her retreat, my face stretching into a smile that felt just as icy as Tasha’s.
When I turned back Tasha was gathering up her lunch.
“Where are you going?” I asked. “I barely got to talk with you.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be fine with Ricky,” she said, still not looking at me. She turned and walked out of the cafeteria.
“Tasha!” I said. I shrugged at Ricky, then followed Tasha. I grabbed her arm as she headed down the hall in long strides. “Please stop! Let me talk to you.”
Tasha whipped around. I sucked in my breath at the anger I saw in her eyes. She’s jealous, my brain finally provided. But Tasha being jealous of me was such a mind-blowing thing. A smaller, pettier part of my brain whispered, She’s jealous about Ricky—not you. Either way, I had somehow hurt my best friend.
“It wasn’t like that—me and Ricky hanging out, I mean. It just happened,” I said.
Tasha took a deep breath, and some of the anger evaporated.
“It was because one of the kindergarteners—Piper—didn’t have anyone at her birthday party. I called Ricky because he lives by there. Besides, with all of his brothers and sister, he could make it a real party for her.”
Tasha stilled for a minute. “It just doesn’t feel good, you know?” she said. “Being left out.”
This time I was the one to raise an eyebrow. “I’m familiar with the feeling.”
Tasha laughed. “Just don’t leave me out, okay?”
I looped my arm in hers as we headed back to the cafeteria. “Tasha, you were there for me when literally no one else would even touch me. No way would I leave you out.”
Tasha bent her head so it bumped mine. “You know what we haven’t done in a long, long time?”
“Yes!” I squealed.
Tasha and I used to get together on Friday nights and binge watch the greatest television show in history—Supernatural. We watched it while eating egg salad with potato chips and drinking Dr. Pepper, and eventually falling asleep—Tasha on the couch, me on the loveseat. Maybe egg salad and chips sounds gross, but that is only because you haven’t had Mr. Martins’s egg salad. Dr. Martins, Tasha’s mom, worked long hours, so Mr. Martins took care of all of the cooking in the house. That man was a genius in the kitchen, making his own mayonnaise and everything. There was a secret ingredient in the egg salad that I suspected was finely diced pickles. Technically speaking, I don’t think Dr. or Mr. Martins knew that we ate the egg salad with a whole bag of Utz potato chips instead of on bread or over the spinach he served with it, but he never asked too many questions.
“I have to leave after lunch Friday for a dentist appointment, and then Dad’s taking me to a matinee to see the new Marvel movie. Want to come over about seven? Maybe have a sleepover?” Tasha asked.
“Absolutely!” I said, squeezing her arm. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Friday morning, Mom woke me up seven minutes before my alarm clock would’ve blared.
Everyone knows those last minutes of sleep are the absolute best. No one’s bed is ever more comfortable than when there are just seven precious minutes left with it. Yet there was Mom, sitting on the edge of my bed.
“Pipi?” she whispered. “Are you awake?”
“No! No, I am not awake. You can clearly see that I am not awake. I’m in my bed, with my blankets up over my head, and there is drool trailing from my mouth across the pillow. Who could possibly think I was awake?” Of course, I didn’t actually say this. My mouth was still too asleep to actually say anything except, “Imschleep.”
Mom must’ve interpreted that as, Please, continue to speak to me.
“I feel like I’ve barely had the chance to talk with you these past few weeks. The gym business is growing so fast, and this baby news really threw me—and my stomach—for a loop. Eliza and Annie are going through some things.… Anyway, I just feel like you’ve been quite distant.”
I rolled onto my back and rubbed my eyes open. “Yeah,” I said. “This List thing. I’ve been busy.”
“Is that what it is?” Mom asked. Her eyes scanned my face the way she sometimes would for a fever. Her hand even hovered near my forehead for a moment.
I pushed up onto my elbows. “Yeah, what else would it be?”
“Well, there was the nose thing and then I noticed you were spending so much time out of the house. When you are home, you’re in here, making your birds.” She gestured to the corner, where a cardinal I had crafted on Thursday morning was drying. I had gone to school with a smudge of red paint on my thigh, which Frau had pointed out and rolled her eyes in front of the whole class. Cardinal red paint. Did she really think that could be mistaken for period blood? Plus, it had been by my knee. For real. I shuddered, thinking about her smug smile as she had handed me the tissue and asked if I needed to be excused.
“So,” Mom said, concluding what I guessed had been a rather lengthy talk that I had totally tuned out. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“Uh,” I said.
“That’s what I mean!” Mom said. “It’s like you barely even look at me or hear me. Are you feeling… left out?”
“You mean more than usual?” I joked.
Mom’s mouth tightened into a white line. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” I said. Or rather, yawned. “I’m just dealing with stuff the best I can.”
“It can’t be easy.” Mom’s hand stretched over her stomach. “I know how hard it was on you when Eliza was pregnant, all of the bullying you took at school. And now I’m pregnant again. I just don’t want—”
“Wait!” My hand flew up in a stop signal. “You think I was bullied because of Eliza?”
“Well…”
“Mom!” I yelped. “Me being picked on had nothing to do with her or Annie.”
“And now you’re so distant…” Mom continued as if
I hadn’t spoken.
“Seriously?” I slammed my hand down to my side. “You think I was picked on because of Eliza? And now you think I’m trying to avoid you?” I shook my head. “Why does everything I do have to have something to do with you?”
I wiggled out from under my covers. “I can’t believe this!” I said, still not entirely sure, to be honest, why I was so angry. I stood, shaking my head, trying to gather my cobwebby thoughts.
Mom stood, too, putting her hands on her hips. “I want to make sure you know this baby would never replace—”
“Mom!” I said. “Stop it. Do you really think I’m the kind of person who would resent a baby? A baby? Come on!”
“Well, no,” Mom protested, “but—”
“But?” I questioned.
“But…”
A soft giggle leaked out from under the doorframe. Mom and I paused in unison as both of our eyes narrowed at the same time. I practically leaped toward my door, yanking it open. Annie fell forward onto the carpet, her hands still covering her giggling mouth. “Butt,” Annie the Spy erupted.
Mom wagged her finger at Annie. “What did we tell you about spying?”
“That I’m awesome at it,” Annie said.
“No,” Mom said. “That you should not spy on family members.”
Annie shrugged. “I have to practice while I can.”
“While you can?” I repeated.
Annie slowly put her finger up to her mouth. “Spies don’t tell secrets.”
I crossed my arms. “Isn’t that exactly what spies do?”
Annie’s forehead crinkled.
All three of us jumped as the alarm clock peeled. “Okay, okay!” Mom shooed Annie out of my room. “Time to scoot. All of us have to get ready for the day.” Annie and I stuck out our tongues at the same time.
As she closed the door, Mom said, “I know you have your basketball game after school tonight, but maybe we could hang out afterward? Get some pizza, watch bad eighties movies?”
“Sounds great, Mom,” I said. Man, I had totally forgotten about the basketball team and my role as manager. That explained the nagging forgetting-something feeling creeping under my skin. Ugh, I remembered. Jackson Thorpe wants feedback on his poetry. Ugh.
A few minutes later, I was brushing my hair in front of the bathroom mirror. Since we only had one bathroom for me, Annie, and Eliza to share, it got pretty hectic on days when we all had to be out the door at the same time.
Soon Eliza was in the doorway, wearing a bathrobe and yawning like she was woken up way too early, too. “Hey,” she said. She must’ve been super drowsy because Eliza never voluntarily talked to me.
“Hey,” I said back. “I’ll be done in a sec.”
Eliza shrugged. Also weird? She just stayed there, watching me. Not with a scowl or anything, simply like she didn’t mind my presence.
Ever try to force the wrong sides of two magnets together? You might be able to get them to bump into each other, but the second you stop forcing them, they push off in different directions. That was me and Eliza. We weren’t always like that, though. Before Eliza changed, we sort of got along. We snipped at and rolled our eyes at each other on the regular, but we also stayed up all night watching all of the Lord of the Rings movies, and sometimes when she had a nightmare, I’d wake up and she’d be curled on the floor beside my bed.
Then she found out that Annie was coming and she was angry all the time. And that was during my fourth grade (on The List—PeePee-ing My Pants). The nurse had this big meeting with Mom and Dad and told them she thought I was regressing for attention. That between the fact that Eliza was having a baby and Mom and Dad were divorcing, I was peeing my pants. Like on purpose or something. I had to go to therapy and everything. No one believed me that it was a stuck zipper! Just a stuck zipper! Eliza was super mad that I was the one going to therapy. I remember her screaming at Mom, “Nothing is even happening to her and she still manages to make it all about herself!”
I put the hairbrush back in the drawer. Across the counter were dozens of makeup brushes and products—lipsticks, eyelash curlers, mascara, blush, eyeshadow. It was like Eliza used the entire shop before going to work. I got it—she had to showcase some of the products. But Eliza standing right there without a speck of makeup on was still stop-in-the-street-to-stare beautiful.
She saw me eyeing the products. “Annie told me something about your nose. About you not liking it?” Eliza picked up a pot of brownish makeup and swiped the brush through it. “I could contour it a little.”
“Really?” I asked.
Eliza smiled. She swiped the brownish stuff down the sides of my cheeks and in two straight lines down the sides of my nose. In quick, swirling moves, she blended in the lines. Then she looked at me with narrowed eyes. “A little highlighter, I think.” She lifted a light pink tube and twisted it, then smeared some along the tops of my cheekbones. “Just where the light will hit it,” she said softly. Looking at my cheeks and not my eyes, Eliza said, “Annie said she had a great time at the party with you.”
I swallowed. “Yeah, she didn’t play with the girl from school. But I introduced her to a kindergartener. They really hit it off.”
Eliza nodded. “Annie came home with her phone number. We’re going to meet in the park next week. Do you think… do you think Piper’s family is going to be weird about it? About me? A lot of moms are.”
I shook my head, then remembered that she was swiping my face with makeup. “No,” I said, thinking about how joyful Piper’s mom was to see her daughter and Annie play. “I’m sure they won’t be.”
“I owe you,” Eliza said. She leaned back and studied my face, then filled in my eyebrows with a little pot of dark gel stuff. She smiled at me. “You’ve got great skin, Pipi. Stop by the shop sometime, and I’ll give you a few freebies.”
I turned toward the mirror, barely recognizing my own face. I mean, of course it was me. But I looked… pretty. I looked a little like my big sister. “Thanks,” I whispered, but Eliza already had left the room.
Since it was Friday, Tasha was having lunch with the cross-country team; they usually met at the track and ate on the bleachers. Out of habit, I peeked into the cafeteria at our usual table as I walked by. Ricky was there, holding the book and looking toward the other entrance. I ducked my head and kept going. He was waiting for Tasha, not me.
I found my shadowy corner of the courtyard and sat down with a sigh to read Jackson’s poetry. And then everything went fuzzy.
“Penelope? Are you awake?”
What was with people and that question today? I looked up and saw Ricky, nudging me with his foot. “I thought I saw you walk by the cafeteria earlier. Why didn’t you come in to lunch?”
“Oh,” I said, rubbing at my eyes. “Tasha has lunch with the cross-country team on Fridays.”
“I know,” Ricky said. “But you still eat lunch, don’t you?” He gestured to my open lunch bag next to me.
I sat up—I had been curled on my side under the hedge. I gathered the plastic container with my half-eaten turkey sandwich inside and swiped crumbs from my lap. Ricky sat next to me. I took a deep breath. Better get this over with. “Ricky, I know you like Tasha.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Don’t you, too?”
“She’s my best friend.” I took a deep breath. “And it’s really nice of you to sit with me, but you don’t have to, okay? You don’t have to sit with me because you feel bad for me.”
Ricky didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he said, “Don’t be daft.”
“What?”
“Don’t be daft.” He grinned. “I know all of this British slang I can’t use now that Mr. Harper is on sabbatical. It’s addictive.” Ricky shrugged and sat cross-legged next to me in the shade. “So, what were you doing before you fell asleep?”
“Uh…” I looked down at my phone chock-full of Jackson poetry. “Oh, you know,” I said. “Thinking about The List.”
“The List? You’re
still doing that?”
“Yes!” I said, and it sounded prim even to my ears. “I finished kindergarten.”
Ricky’s laughter burst out of him.
“Okay, so maybe Piper went in an unexpected direction after my kindergarten interference, but I did give her the option of a life of popularity,” I said, trying hard to keep my face smooth. “So that’s off The List.”
“Okay, fine,” Ricky said after chuckling way too long. “What else?”
I rubbed my nose. “Well, it’s not official yet, but on my birthday, I can get my nose pierced.” I side-eyed Ricky. “Kind of take back what bothered me. You know, first grade. The nose picking.”
Ricky nodded. “Are you going to do it? Get pierced, I mean.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It’s off The List. So now I need to think about second grade. The vomit-a-thon. Trigger of the Pipi Touch. I don’t think I’m ever going to kick that.”
Ricky put his chin on his knee, looking off like he was thinking. “And third grade was…”
“Basketball,” I said.
Ricky crossed his arms. “You’re the team manager, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And I’m one of the trainers for the girls’ team. So as soon as this season goes off flawlessly, bam. Off The List. No one can say I’m still a dolt about sports”—Ricky grinned at the slang; he was right, it was addictive—“if my mom owns the gym, I lead the training, and I’m the team manager.”
“Do you like basketball, though? I mean, usually managers really like the sport.”
“Basketball?” I said. “I hate it.”
“But you’re spending all this time—”
“Eyes on the prize, Ricky,” I said. “Or at least, on The List.” I looked down at my hands. How am I going to lose The Touch?
Ricky poked my side, his finger hitting a rib.
“Hey!” I said and threw a handful of grass at him.
