The Queen Geek Social Club

by Laura Preble

  That’s how I feel the day after Becca stays over. That morning, we wake up pretty early, but Dad’s already out of the house and gone, so we act like mature teenagers and eat cookies for breakfast.

  “They’re oatmeal cookies,” I point out to Euphoria, who is clucking her disapproval at my substandard dietary habits. “I mean, if I made a bowl of oatmeal, I’d put butter and sugar and stuff on it, so what’s the difference?”

  Becca dunks her cookie in a big mug of milk, takes a huge chomp out of it, and then wipes the dribble of milk from her chin. “Do you drink coffee?”

  “Of course.” Dad didn’t even bother to make any before he left, which is typical. I don’t think I’ve seen him eat breakfast for several years, and I’m not sure he even knows how to turn on the coffeemaker, which is weird considering he’s like a mechanical genius. The only time he drinks coffee at all is when I make it.

  While the brew is brewing, we decide to do a crossword puzzle with all made-up words. It’s not as easy as it sounds, because you actually have to make something up that fits what the meaning really is in the crossword, and then make up other words that fit where that word is. Okay, well, it’s not as hard as actually doing the puzzle, but when you first wake up, it’s plenty challenging.

  “Okay, five-letter word for a river in France.” Becca has launched into her third cookie and is furiously erasing our previous answer to 6 down, a fourteen-letter word for an actor from Austria. “It can’t be the real answer,” Becca insists as she smudges out Schwarzenegger’s name. “It only works if we totally make it up, but still fits the definition in some way.”

  “How about Von Trappist? You know, for The Sound of Music? That was in Austria.”

  “Too short. But clever.”

  We go along like that for a while, but we get bored eventually. “Let’s go to the mall,” Becca suggests, and I get this weird cold shiver, like she’s some alien parading around in a cool person’s body and she’s just made a huge mistake. How can it be that someone I have begun to think of as my best friend wants to shop? I guess she can tell that I am creeped out by this suggestion, because she drops her cookie. “No—” she stammers. “I didn’t mean—I don’t want to shop, for God’s sake.” She looks insulted.

  “Nothing wrong with shopping,” I offer reasonably. Will she take the bait? Is she really an alien in disguise?

  “Oh, no. I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to make me say I like shopping, and I won’t do it. I like new clothes, but I detest stores. I buy most of my stuff at Goodwill. No,” she sighs heavily. “I only go to the mall for one thing, and one thing only: practical jokes.”

  “Practical jokes?” This is not where I thought the conversation was going.

  “Sure. We go to the mall, and of course that’s where everyone else hangs out, so we’ll run into people we know. Well, people you know. I haven’t been here long enough to know anybody except you. Anyway”—she speeds up in her enthusiasm—“anyway, we spot some likely victims, like cheerleaders, and we stalk them and play some really interesting, mind-bending practical joke on them.”

  “And you’ve done this?”

  She smiles deviously. “Oh yes. Many times.”

  Hmmm. Now, this to me is interesting. This is a true insight into what Becca is all about, really; depending on her definition of what a practical joke is, she could be a benign and clever prankster or a twisted-genius criminal mind, the Hannibal Lecter of my high school. Since I don’t know her well, it’s a bit of a risk to agree to anything, I think. However, since I need Silly String anyhow, I suppose a trip to the mall won’t hurt, and if she has anything criminal in mind, I can always fake a felony conviction or something.

  Dad is still not back by the time we get cleaned up and ready. Euphoria is not particularly pleased that we’re leaving unescorted, and I have to explain to her why it wouldn’t do to be seen in front of the other kids with my electronic nanny. Besides, I tell her, people might mistake her for a Bis-sell and try to get her to do a carpet-cleaning demonstration or something. That changes her mind. She hates caustic cleaning agents.

  Since I cannot drive (and I believe this is discriminatory), we have to take the bus to the mall. I hate taking buses anywhere, but the one that goes to the shopping center is particularly gross, especially on weekends. Today, the bus is stuffed like a pepper with the spicy smell of unwashed people mixed with old beer. Yuck.

  We find a seat in back, me on the aisle, and Becca begins to outline her prank plan. “Okay. I tried this once, but it didn’t work really well—”

  “Okay. That inspires a lot of confidence.”

  “Just wait! So, we find a couple of girls who look really popular but not very smart. We pretend that we’re from England—can you do a British accent?”

  “Not very well. I sort of sound like Mary Poppins with a bad head cold.”

  “Okay. Well, maybe we can be French or something. Anyway, we pretend like we’re royalty, and we get these two girls to believe us. We have to follow them carefully, then sit down where they sit and then make sure they overhear our conversation.”

  “Won’t they recognize us? From school?”

  She snorts. “Are you kidding? We are barely a blip on their radar screen. If you act like what you’re saying is the truth, people believe it. So our conversation must be convincing.”

  “And it will be about?”

  “How we’re looking for American cheerleader girls to come with us to England to be part of the queen’s fiftieth birthday celebration!”

  “I think the queen is older than fifty.”

  “Exactly!” She beams. “Because they’re dumb, they won’t know that. And why would the queen of England want American cheerleaders?”

  “Fashion advice?”

  Becca laughs her donkey-honk laugh, and sits back to give me the details of this hideous plot to humiliate popular blond people. “Okay, so I’ll be the Duchess of . . . of . . . what’s an English-sounding place?”

  “England?”

  “No, no. Something fancier. What about Barrington?”

  “Duchess of Barrington,” I try it on my tongue. “Not bad.”

  The bus lurches around a corner, spilling a raggedy man in a trench coat into us, and then the vehicle readjusts itself, sending the man back to his spot like the stuff in one of those snow globes that gets shaken and then set down.

  “But what about me? My accent stinks.”

  “Hmmm.” Becca squints out the window, concentrating very hard on my possible role in the duping of the divas. “I know. You can be my American agent. Like, my companion or something, somebody who was hired to help me.”

  “No! Your bodyguard!”

  “Yes!” She squeals in delight, which causes half a dozen cranky people to turn around and frown, sneer, or spit in our general direction. “Now you’re thinking. A bodyguard. But why would you be so young?”

  “I have some weird growth-stunting disease?”

  “You don’t look ravaged by disease. Not at all.”

  I frown in thought, which is unfortunate because a really toxic-smelling guy in a Raiders shirt has loped onto the bus and is checking out the seats in front of us. He sees me and decides I’m trying to pick a fight with him. Maybe I do look like a bodyguard.

  “Hey, girl, you got a problem?” He lurches forward as the bus continues, and he nearly stumbles into my lap.

  “No. Not really.” I look down into my lap, the position I’ve adopted for any encounter with any threatening insane person. You meet a surprisingly large number of those in high school, actually, so I’ve used it a lot.

  “She does have a problem, sir,” Becca twangs next to me. “She lost her glasses, and she thought you were Brad Pitt, but I don’t think you are, because he doesn’t like football, and you’re wearing that Raiders thing. Otherwise, you do look a lot like him, so I can see how she’d be confused. Sorry ’bout that.”

  “Oh,” he says, sounding confused. I keep squinting, hoping to l
ook really blind to reinforce Becca’s story. “Brad Pitt?”

  “Yeah. You have the same—uh—cheekbones?” I squeak. “Were you married to Jennifer Aniston?”

  He frowns, but unsteadily takes a seat in front of us. Becca tries to contain a giggle that slips out and she passes it off as a violent cough. The Raider guy’s eyes appear, bulgy and bloodshot, over the top of the seat.

  “Tuberculosis,” Becca chokes. “But I think I’m okay. Did I get any on you?”

  “What the hell—?” Raider Man is flapping wildly at his greasy hair, trying to get rid of the imaginary TB germs, and then gets up and quickly moves to a seat farther up in front.

  I can’t help but laugh, so I slump way down in my seat and Becca does the same, so our faces aren’t visible. We shake and vibrate with contained laughter. “That was genius,” I whisper in an awed voice.

  “Yeah,” she hisses back. “But we should’ve gotten his autograph!” We both start laughing out loud, and when the Brad Pitt anti-clone turns around, we both start coughing instead, soul-racking coughs that cause him to pull the stop bell frantically until the driver lets him off.

  Finally, we arrive at the mall: a huge concrete monument to stupidity, in my opinion. I mean, it’s like a church, sort of; people go there because they have some need they want filled, but the more stuff they buy to fill the need, the more room there is to fill, so it becomes something designed to comfort them and make them feel less alone, like a religion. A religion with corn dogs.

  As usual for a weekend, the mall is crammed full of teenagers, everybody from the spike-haired punks to the popular kids to the goths to the druggies. They tend to hang in clumps, and it’s pretty much predictable where they’ll orbit: punks outside Metal Mayhem or Tower Records, goths outside the Crypt, druggies near the food court. Popular kids, at least the girls, tend to go to the clothing stores. Not the regular ones, like Penney’s or Sears, but the cool ones, like Wet Seal or Lady Slipper or Slutwear Unlimited. Okay, I made that last one up. But some of the clothes they buy really look like they belong on a downtown hooker rather than on a kid barely into puberty, in my opinion.

  Becca moves slowly to a neutral position: left of the food court carousel, where most of the small kids and their parents tend to go. From this vantage point, we can see the herds of cheerleaders grazing on hot pretzels and smoothies. In her best Crocodile Hunter Australian accent, Becca says, “See how they stick together. We’ve tracked them all the way to this watering hole, and we’re hoping to snare one of them right quick. Crikey.”

  Two girls, both blondes, separate from the group and choose a seat in the food court with their jumbo-size drinks. “It’s time,” Becca whispers, whipping out a pair of sunglasses from her bag. “I know you’re new at this, so just follow me.”

  She ambles over to a table near the girls, and sits, regally, crossing her long legs, peering over the tops of her shades. “I tell you, Sybil, it’s simply exhausting trying to accomplish this in one weekend.” Her British accent is flawless.

  I am sort of confused as to what my role here is, except that I’m Sybil. I figure just nodding can’t get me in trouble, so I do that. I nod. Vigorously.

  Becca goes on. “Regardless, it simply won’t do for us to come back empty-handed, Sybil. We absolutely must find someone. The queen won’t tolerate failure.”

  I nod again.

  By this time, Becca has been speaking loudly enough for the two blondes to overhear us. I can sense that they are now listening to us because their conversation has stopped in between sips of Razzleberry Blasts. “All in all, my dear, it’s simply too difficult to find two cheerleaders who are willing to travel. We were really counting on you, Sybil, to help us find some, since you are so familiar with the high school milieu.”

  I see one of the girls mouthing the word mil-yew with a questioning look on her face. The other girl shrugs.

  Becca is arching her eyebrows at me. I do not know what this means. She does it some more, and I begin to wonder if it’s some latent form of a nervous tic that only comes out when she’s lying. But then I figure it out: She wants me to talk too.

  “Ummm. Well—Duchess—I think that if we were to approach some young ladies and propose the . . . proposal . . .> that perhaps we could find what we’re looking for.”

  “Absolutely!” Becca, aka the Duchess of England or whatever, practically screeches. I cannot believe the girls are buying this, but they seem to be. They are now staring at us without even trying to hide it.

  Becca acts as if she has just noticed them. “Now, Sybil, just look at these two young ladies. Perhaps fate is on our side after all. You, girl.” She crooks a finger at Blonde #1. “What is your name?”

  “Brittney.” She smiles with perfect white teeth offset by her equally perfect tan. “So are you from England or something?”

  “Brittney, how delightful!” Becca sweeps over to their table and scoots up a chair. I follow, feeling absolutely amateur. I figure I’ll watch the Master (or, more technically, the Mistress). Clearly, Becca had had a lot of time on her hands when she lived in Los Angeles. “That is an absolutely exquisite name. And your friend?”

  “Ashley.” Ashley’s dark blue eyes are half-closed with cool boredom. “Brit, let’s go. This is lame.”

  “Wait,” Brittney hisses loudly under her breath, as if Becca’s accent would also impair her ability to hear. She turns to us. “What were you talking about cheerleaders for? We’re cheerleaders, you know.”

  “Are you? I’d never have guessed,” Becca gushes. The girls look confused, trying to decide if they’d been insulted or complimented. “Well, you see, I was sent on a little excursion to find two young ladies to assist us in England at the queen’s fiftieth birthday. We’ve simply been scouring the Victoria’s Secret stores all over town and haven’t found a single cheerleader! Sybil here suggested we look in the Barnes & Noble bookstore, but I told her, no, dear, cheerleaders are much too busy to read.”

  I feel that if I don’t actually laugh out loud my head will explode. “Excuse me, Duchess?” I cough to cover it. “I believe I’m having a bit of that tuberculosis we contracted on the . . . uh . . . jet. Will you pardon me?”

  Becca squints at me over her sunglasses. “Well, Sybil, certainly. We do have a pressing schedule”—she says it shehjool —“anyway. Dears, it’s been lovely speaking with you. Do give my regards to the rodeo riders and the gunslingers when next you go to Dodge. Long live America! God Save the Queen!”

  Becca grabs my arm a little bit too hard and escorts me off away from the food court, leaving Brittney and Ashley to mumble between themselves about whether we’re legitimate English people looking for cheerleaders or simply tinfoil-wearing crazy people who left their Reynolds Wrap at home.

  As soon as we’re far enough away from the food court, we duck into a phone alcove and laugh so hard we slump against the tile wall. “That was so good!” I manage to squeak. “Where did you ever think that up?”

  “Oh,” Becca giggles, wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. “I used to do that at the Galleria all the time, only I mostly did it by myself. It’s so much more fun with somebody else. But you have got to work on your poker face!”

  We spend the rest of the afternoon at the mall and the highlights go like this: We convince a punk kid with magenta spikes in his hair that the clerk at the medical supply store is a talent scout looking for the next Insane Clown Posse; we do a conga line up the down escalator; and we pose with half-naked mannequins in a casual-wear display at the main door of Macy’s. That is the hardest, because we can’t laugh and we have to stand still for so long. Some lady who works at the store finally comes up and tells us to leave.

  “All this pranking has made me hungry,” I say. I have to walk fast to keep up with Becca’s long strides. “Wanna stop for some food?”

  “What I’d really like is to eat for free.” She stops and I almost run into her.

  “Yeah. And I’d like to quit school and magically becom
e independently wealthy.”

  She turns to me and puts her hands on my shoulders. “Shelby, if you never ask, you never receive.”

  “And if you never commit a crime you don’t go to jail. What’s your point?”

  “I’m not talking about stealing food, for God’s sake!” She looks offended, and her green eyes are blazing. “Do you think I’d do that?”

  “Well, I don’t think so, but—”

  Becca puts a hand up to silence me, and I get the sense that we’ve reached our destination. We’ve made our way to the food court again, and it’s busier than ever now that it’s lunchtime. It’s crawling with kids, like a bunch of ants, wearing the uniform of brand names and perfect orthodontia, perfect all-the-same hairstyles, perfect hang-out attitudes. And they all eat the same stuff: fast-food crap.

  “To be honest, I don’t eat this stuff.” I look with what must be disdain at a couple of boys wolfing down nasty drippy hamburgers and a tub of French fries that could grease all the cars in Paris.

  “I know. Vegetarian.” She turns to me and frowns quizzically. “Is that, like, a moral thing? Like you don’t eat anything with a face?”

  “No, not really. I just think meat is gross.”

  “Did you ever eat it?” She has started to scout out possible targets for our free-food scam, gazing across the horizon like a bird of prey.

  “Yeah. Mom used to—we used to eat it a lot. Especially chicken. But now—I don’t know, I guess it just seems too mean to eat something that’s been part of a family. That sounds totally stupid.”

  “No. Be kind to your web-footed friends / For a duck may be somebody’s mother . . .” she sings under her breath to the tune of “Stars and Stripes Forever.” If you’ve never heard that (and I have because my dad is old) it’s that song they play every Fourth of July for the fireworks: Duh-duh duh-da-da duh-da-da. I didn’t think anybody else knew it but me and my weird family. Of course, if anyone else would know it, I guess it would be Becca.