The Queen Geek Social Club

by Laura Preble

  “Is that it?” Napoli asks without batting an eye.

  “Uh, no.” Becca has found her voice at last. “It’s because we’re tired of girls always focusing so much on guys. It’s like we have no lives without them. Is that really fair? Shouldn’t we be finding out who we are first?”

  Nobody says anything, including me. Napoli shrugs, and says, “Good point. I guess if Juliet had thought about that, she’d still be with us today. Well, maybe not. It was the 1500s . . .”

  With that, we’re off on Shakespeare again, the Friday event forgotten for the moment. I sit through my classes for the rest of the morning thinking about what she said: Is ignoring boys really the way to go? Or are we just sort of masking the real problem?

  When I bring this up to Becca at lunch, she does her donkey honk and almost chokes on her sandwich. “Please! The real problem is that we don’t think of ourselves enough. This will give us a chance to focus on us for a change. Pass the nachos.”

  “So, what was the supply trip to L.A. like?” I munch on celery as Elisa and Amber trundle over from the food cart.

  “We got everything we need except the pirate ship, and that’s coming next week.”

  “Pirate ship?” Amber eases herself, cross-legged, onto the grass. “With or without pirates?”

  “I think we have to provide our own,” Becca says. “We had to really pull some strings to get that one. It’s not totally huge, just big enough to hold about ten people at a time. It’s a smaller version of one they used in a movie. And yes, Johnny Depp was in it.”

  Elisa chews dreamily on some disgusting mess from a plastic container. “When’s the dance?”

  “Two weeks.” I cringe at the thought of going to this stupid dance, dateless. But all in all, it will be better. I’ll get to dance with my friends, hang out, just be one of the girls—

  “Ben Lamb asked me.” Becca is picking through her lunch bag very thoroughly, as if she doesn’t want to meet any of our eyes. “I said yes.”

  “I’m going with Oscar Andrade.” Amber sweeps her long hair dramatically. “He’s a poet.”

  With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I look at Elisa, my last, best hope. She grins and says, “Jeff Hall.”

  “That dork?” Amber squeals. “I thought you said you’d never go out with him!”

  “He grew and his voice changed.” Elisa hums busily as she packs her gross container of bird intestines or whatever it is back in her bag. “He’s not that bad now.”

  “So I’m the only one without a date?” I look at each one accusingly. “This is unbelievable! What happened to Queen Geeks together forever? To ignoring boys?”

  “Just for one day,” Elisa says apologetically. “I mean, we don’t want to ignore them forever. They’re cute.”

  The bell rings, and Amber and Elisa scatter quickly, leaving me and Becca alone. “Listen, you can come with us,” she says. “It’s totally—”

  “Thanks. I can just wear my nun outfit and come as your chaperone.” I pick up my trash and throw it toward a can and miss. I don’t even pick it up. “Whatever. I hope you all have fun. I guess I’ll be there, making sure you do.”

  “Hey!” Becca calls after me as I run toward the girls’ bathroom. I fly into a stall, shut the door, lock it, and sit for a little bit. I’ll be late, but who cares? I’m a loser. Lateness is the least of my worries.

  Even as I sit there moping, I turn my head and there it is: one of those acid-green fliers inviting me to ignore boys on Friday. Well, for me, every day from now on is going to be Friday. But not by choice.

  The actual National Invisible Boy Day Friday finally arrives. Everywhere I walk, girls are wearing hot-pink stickers, and boys are standing around looking sad and lonely. It’s kind of satisfying in a way.

  Becca finds me in the commons before first period, and jumps up and down. “Can you believe how many people are doing it?” she hisses excitedly. “Look at all the pink stickers! Look at all the stupid boys looking like they have no clue what to do now!”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty inspiring,” I say, not sounding very inspired.

  “It is. And I think—oh. Oh, uh . . .” Before she can finish beginning the sentence, someone taps my arm. I turn, and it’s Fletcher. Great. At least I get to ignore him.

  “Hi, Shelby. Listen, I know you’re ignoring me, and that’s cool. I just wanted you to know that I still like you, even if you did act like a total jerk to me on the phone. I totally forgive you for that, by the way. I’m telling you this today because I know you won’t say anything back.” I won’t look at him, and instead I’m humming some ’80s tune (“Walking on Sunshine,” I think) and pretending that I’m incredibly fascinated by the birch tree I’m standing next to. “Okay, then. Just wanted to check in. Bye.” He kisses me on the cheek. The nerve! I am almost ready to pop him, but then I wouldn’t be ignoring him! What a jerk! What a sneaky jerk!

  “That was so . . . so . . .” Becca tries to be sympathetic, but she starts laughing. “That was really funny. And smart. I know you want to hate him, but you’ve got to admit, that was classic. Too bad he’s not a girl.”

  Becca has arranged for the Queen Geeks to have a table at lunch where we can give out tickets to girls with pink stickers. Right from the start, we get mobbed. “Isn’t this cool?” Elisa exclaims, jumping up and down as she gives out blue tickets.

  “Uh . . . yeah.” Becca is staring distractedly across the crowded commons. A huge gang of immature freshman boys (Dustin among them—big surprise!) surrounds a group of girls and keeps taunting them with low-level insults to try and get them to talk. “C’mon,” she says to me.

  “Hey, ladies,” she says to those girls, who are all wearing stickers. “Do you hear something? Sort of like an annoying buzz? Maybe it’s flies.”

  “No, I think it’s probably just static,” one blond girl says as she waves the air as if trying to clear it. “Interference.”

  “Nice,” one of the boys in the knot says. “Let’s go find some chicks who are worth looking at.”

  They walk away, and the girls sitting in the circle with their pink stickers wait until the boys are out of hearing range. Then the blonde says, “Guess that bothered them, huh?”

  “I sort of enjoyed it,” a pink-haired girl in a black sweatshirt says, grinning. “Hey, aren’t you guys in charge of this thing?” she asks us.

  “Yep,” Becca answers brightly. “Queen Geek Social Club, ladies. Feel free to come to our meetings anytime. Wednesdays at lunch, Room E7.”

  “How do we get our tickets for the date drawing?” the blonde asks. “I am so in love with Brandon Keller!”

  “I’ve got ’em right here.” Becca pulls a strand of blue carnival tickets from her pocket and gives them out. Each girl scrambles to get hers and to give Becca the stub, which she places in a big manila envelope. “The winner will be announced at the dance, so good luck!” she says as we walk away.

  “Look how many girls have pink stickers!” She opens the envelope, and I peer in. Hundreds of little blue ticket stubs are piled inside. “This thing is huge!”

  “Maybe it’s because they all think they’re getting a date with Brandon Keller.”

  “Maybe,” she says. “But either way, they did it. That’s what counts.”

  By the end of the day, Becca’s envelope is crammed full of blue ticket stubs.

  Elisa, Amber, Becca, and I go to Becca’s house after school on Friday to celebrate our amazing victory. Three of us cram into the back of her mom’s Jeep, squished so close that if we did get in an accident, we wouldn’t get hurt because we couldn’t move enough to hit anything. Thea has the top down too, so it’s sort of like riding in the bag of a vacuum cleaner. Not that I’ve ever done that, of course.

  “So it went well?” Thea yells over the Beatles CD that’s blaring from the stereo.

  “Yeah,” Becca screams. “It was awesome.”

  “Now what are you going to do?” Thea stops the Jeep at a light and turns down the stereo. Th
is would be okay except that Elisa keeps singing “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in my ear, and it’s not a pretty thing to hear. “I mean, you were successful, so now you have to outdo yourselves, don’t you?”

  The mood suddenly turns a little down. She’s kind of right. We now have set a standard for ourselves that we have to live up to, or we’ll disappoint people. Wow. It kind of makes you wish you were mediocre, really.

  However, Becca cannot be brought down. “Well, this dance thing is going to be the icing on the cake. It will permanently put the Queen Geeks on the map.” She turns to Thea, who has now gotten on the freeway and is dodging in and out of lanes like a NASCAR racer with failing eyesight. “Where are you storing all the supplies?”

  “Out by the pool.” She laughs. “Who knows what the neighbors think?”

  We get to Becca’s house without an accident (amazing) and crash in her game room (equally amazing, as I’ve said before). Amber sets up the billiard table, racking the multicolored balls in their little triangle like a pool shark. “Meredith, Pepsis for all!” Becca calls into the intercom. “And any chocolate you can find handy!”

  “It must be cool to have a servant,” Elisa says wistfully as she sinks into the tan suede sofa.

  “Meredith isn’t a servant.” Becca frowns at her as if she’s said something tasteless, which I guess she has. “She’s . . . like part of the family, except that her job is to get stuff for everybody else. But she has her own room and everything, and it’s not like she’s chained in the basement after hours.”

  Amber chalks a cue stick, blows the blue dust off the end, and eyes the balls. “Guess it all depends on your point of view, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess.” Becca checks the hall to see if Meredith is coming with the drinks yet. “But she can leave if she wants. She’s not a slave. She gets paid very well too.”

  “So should we talk about the dance?” I try brightly to change the subject, which is interrupted by Amber’s spectacular break on the pool table that sends several balls flying in various directions.

  “Fire in the hole!” Elisa shouts as she dodges a purple projectile. “Amber, you should not be shooting pool without a license.”

  “Hey, I’m just an amateur.” She lays the cue stick cautiously on the edge of the table. “Looks a lot easier on Celebrity Billiards.”

  Meredith brings the tray of sodas and a big bowl of M&Ms in weird pastel colors: gray, pink, pale turquoise. “What’s with the gray candy?” Amber asks as she grimaces at the bowl.

  “Mom did a party a couple of weeks ago, and the people color-coordinated the candy to the décor. She got the extras.” She grabs a handful of candy, pops it into her mouth, and chews noisily. “Tastes the same.”

  Elisa helps herself, picking out only the pink ones. “So, as for the dance, are you seriously going to give somebody a date with Brandon Keller?”

  “Mom called him when we were in L.A. last weekend,” Becca says, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. “He said he’d do it.”

  A stunned silence falls on the gray M&Ms. “He said he’d do it?” Amber says slowly, as if she must have misunderstood.

  Becca starts talking before she’s finished chewing up the weird-colored candy, which grosses me out. “Mom was his godmother. It’s no big thing. They’re just people too, you know.”

  “But they’re people who are cuter and richer than us!” Elisa exclaims.

  “Speak for yourself.” Becca swigs her glass of soda. “Once this dance happens, people will be asking Brandon Keller if he knows us.”

  14

  THE BIG DANCE (or Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Humble)

  To say that the next two weeks of preparation for the dance were time-consuming is like saying the Titanic had a little water retention problem. Even though we were approaching the end of the school year, the planning and sheer physical labor involved in making a haunted tropical island in a high school gym absorbed any time I might have had to do schoolwork, eat, sleep, or think about boys.

  Which was just as well, really. I mean, I would’ve been thinking about either Fletcher or the long-lost Anders, whom I suddenly seem to see everywhere I go on campus. He usually just waves to me, and if he’s with Ilsa, he sort of looks the other way. Fletcher, on the other hand, has no problem being seen or communicating. He leaves notes for me all the time, he sends me text messages, he knows my schedule and follows me around.

  On Monday the week of the dance, Samantha Singer calls an emergency meeting of the dance committee. Fletcher plops down next to me, and I look the other way. He pretends we’re speaking to each other.

  “So,” he whispers excitedly. “Ready to put that island together?”

  Becca leans across me. “Could you please just leave her alone? Isn’t it clear that she doesn’t want to talk to you?”

  This is the first time Fletcher seems at all dented by my absolute indifference. He looks startled; he sits back against the folding chair, crosses his arms, and doesn’t say anything else. Why do I feel slightly disappointed?

  Samantha clears her throat politely. “Okay, so, we’re all meeting Wednesday after school to start putting the island together. Fletcher? Want to give us more details?”

  He looks at her, then looks at me, then looks at the floor—as if gum-spattered vinyl is going to give him the right answer! “Uh . . . this was really Becca and Shelby’s idea. They should tell you about it.”

  An audible gasp is heard. Okay, maybe I’m making that up . . . but in my mind, there was definitely an audible gasp. Becca’s wide eyes show her astonishment too, and when Fletcher sits down, still not looking at us, she stands up. “Well, yeah. I have all the stuff in my backyard, except for the pirate ship, which should be here tomorrow, early evening. We’ll be here to get it set up, and then Wednesday, if you’re all here to help, we can get the rest of it put together over a couple of days.”

  There is more chatter about decorations, dress code, and signing up people to work the door and such, but I can’t focus on anything but Fletcher. After all his attempted glory stealing, for him to simply back off and admit to the group that it was our idea took some nerve. Why did he do it, I wonder? And of course, the answer echoes back from the teeny-tiny dark corner booth of my mind: Because he likes you, dork.

  After school, what I’ve come to think of as the primary four Queen Geeks go to my house for our last afternoon of relative freedom. Even though Elisa and Amber aren’t on the committee, we’ve recruited them to help structure the epic entertainment event that will be the spring dance, so whether they like it or not, they’re part of the action. They have mixed feelings.

  “I’m not sure I want to work. I sort of wanted to get to know Jeff Hall,” Elisa says glumly as we trudge through an unseasonably hot afternoon full of haze and pollen. She sneezes for about the twentieth time since we started walking, and blows her nose in such a way that wild geese from Canada answer her. “But with allergy season coming up, I suppose it’s just as well I can’t spend a lot of time with him. Nobody likes to kiss someone with chronic postnasal drip.”

  Amber, on the other hand, has blossomed into something of a flirt since she got involved in the dance thing, and with poet Oscar Andrade as her escort, she’s really excited about it. “He’s really cool,” she croons in a very un-Amber-like, positive way. “He’s got a dirt bike.”

  “A dirt bike? That’s not very artistic,” Becca points out as she kicks an empty paper cup out of her way. A little dust devil blows across the sidewalk. “Of course, I guess here, it’s more practical than a sculpture garden.”

  “It’s a good thing it’s so hot, really,” I remind them. “A sprinkler system is much more fun when it’s hot and dry.”

  “Santa Ana winds,” Elisa says, shaking her head and sneezing again. “Every year, they bring evil and allergens.”

  “You’re so dramatic,” Becca says. “Let’s talk about something more interesting. How about Shelby’s love life?”

  �
�No, please,” I groan.

  Amber jumps right on it. “Yeah. I heard Fletcher sort of offered you his soul in exchange for a date, huh?”

  “Uh, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. It was only his mortal soul, not his eternal soul. Actually, we made a bet. I guess I’m going to lose it, but so is he.” I try to change the topic of conversation, which I figure will be unsuccessful, but when you’re about to be subjected to uncomfortable friendly advice, you’ve got to at least try. “So does everybody have their outfits for the dance, or should we go thrift shopping?”

  No one has to answer, because Becca’s cell phone chimes out. “Hello?” She stops walking abruptly, and Elisa, in mid-sneeze, runs smack into her backpack. Becca waves her away. “Really? When? No way. That is too awesome. Hang on, Mom.” She covers the phone with one hand and says “Brandon Keller is coming here on Friday. He’s staying over at our house!”

  Amber shrugs her shoulders, Elisa starts coughing and turns kind of blue, and I smile broadly. If I can swing an invitation to stay over at Becca’s while the TV stud is there, that will absolutely flip Fletcher’s wig.

  “Mom? We’re gonna need to haul all that stuff from the backyard to school on Wednesday afternoon, okay? Can you get some guys to help you? Great. I’m going to Shelby’s right now, but can you come get me at about seven? Cool. Love you too.”

  Elisa has overcome her respiratory distress. “Brandon Keller is going to be at your house?” She grabs Becca’s arm so hard she squirms to get away. “I have to meet him. It’s a lifelong dream.”

  “You’re only fifteen. How can you have a lifelong dream?” Becca shrugs her off. “Listen, you guys, he’s just a person. I grew up around him. I told you, he won’t want to be treated like he’s a freak or something. If you all come over and drool over him, he’ll feel weird, so maybe you shouldn’t come over.”

  We all holler at that, and promise to be good if we’re allowed in his presence.