I told Gabi my plan.
“That’s not a good idea,” she said. “You know what happens when you use your powers. Everything always goes wrong.”
I knew this was way beyond my skill level, but I wanted to give it a try. “This is going to work. I can feel it,” I reassured both Gabi and myself. And, sure, my powers had messed up a lot, but I did have luck that first time I morphed my T-shirt. I was due for them to work again. The odds were in my favor. Kind of like flipping a coin. If you did it enough eventually you were bound to land on tails.
Gabi rubbed her temples. But I knew this was the answer. My emotions were primed for a Courtney payback. I closed my eyes and pictured Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer’s nose superimposed over Courtney’s. “Make it a huge zit,” I whispered over and over. I could see it, almost feel the massive pimple rising to the surface. When I was sure I must have succeeded, I turned to Gabi and gloated. “I think I got it this time. I just have this funny feeling. Wait until you see the zit. I bet it’s scary.”
“I know it is,” she said, reaching into her purse.
“How? Courtney’s nowhere around here.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She pulled out a compact mirror and held it up to my face.
I pinched myself just to see if I was asleep. It had to be a bad dream—it just had to be. Because right there on the tip of my nose was a pimple big enough to make the Guinness Book of World Records.
chapter 21
With my head down, I took a seat next to Gabi in detention. All morning I had been trying to get rid of the monster living on my face, but it wouldn’t go away. That zit had dug itself into my skin and wouldn’t budge. It not only made me look like a fool, but it royally messed up my plans to get back at Courtney.
It also meant that now more than ever there was no way I could go near Cole. He couldn’t see me looking this way. No one could.
“I’ll be in the teachers’ room,” Miss Simmons, the school’s new science teacher, said, when D.L., the last of the lunchroom riot detainees arrived. “I expect you all to behave.”
When she was gone, D.L. stood up. “Let’s get out of here. Do something fun until she gets back.”
“No way,” Gabi said. “I’m in enough trouble already.” I thought my mom was mad, but it was nothing compared to Gabi’s. Mrs. G was a major perfectionist and having her daughter involved in a school scandal did not sit well with her. Not only did Gabi get a mongo lecture last night and have to write a letter to the lunch aides apologizing for the mess she helped make, but all weekend, her mom was going to make her do every chore she could dream up. And knowing Mrs. G that would be a whole lot of work. All that in addition to the detentions. It stunk.
“Lame,” D.L. said.
“We’re not The Breakfast Club,” Gabi shot back.
“The what?” Courtney asked.
“Some eighties movie. A bunch of kids stuck in detention together. They don’t like each other but end up running around the school and sharing secrets. By the end, they’re all friends,” she explained.
That certainly wasn’t going to happen here. There wasn’t even a slight chance that Courtney and I would bond over getting in trouble.
“Whatever,” D.L. said and sat back down.
“No one’s stopping you from leaving,” I muttered, my face leaning down on my desk.
“Right. And have you run and tell Miss Simmons? No, thanks.”
“Seriously,” Courtney chimed in. “She would tell in a heartbeat. You can’t trust her at all. I actually tried to be friends with her once. But she totally betrayed me. Even ditched me at my own party.”
That wasn’t what happened. She made me choose between my best friend or being a part of her group. I chose Gabi. After that, there was no way I could stick around for the rest of Courtney’s party. I wasn’t welcome.
Her story was interrupted by the door swinging open. I did a double take and every bit of me froze. It was Cole. What did he want? Why was he in detention? I had to make sure to keep my nose covered.
“Perfect timing,” Courtney practically sang. “I was just telling D.L. how humiliating it was when Angel ditched me. One minute she acts like she’s your friend, and the next she’s ignoring you,” she said, trying to make me look like the bad guy in front of Cole. I was so upset, I could even feel the zit on my nose burning. “It’s just cruel. Right, Cole? I mean, she did that to you, too, right?”
How dare she? “It’s not like that,” I said, slapping my desk.
“Whoa,” Courtney said, her laugh starting off small and erupting into a full-fledged cackle. “Are you hatching something on your face?”
I had been covering my nose with my hand but Courtney’s comment made me so angry I stopped without realizing it. My hand swung back up to my nose. But by that time it was too late. Everyone saw it. Everyone. Including Cole. That was not supposed to happen. Now he’d picture me like that forever, some Bozo the Clown reject. I considered taking a nosedive out the window. If nothing else, the zit might have burst from the impact.
“I want to disappear,” I said under my breath. I needed to disappear. And before I knew it, I did disappear.
chapter 22
It was the weirdest thing, watching my body fade in front of my own eyes. It became almost translucent until it wasn’t there at all. And yet, I was. I could see everything. Courtney jumping out of her seat. Cole grasping his neck and stuttering in confusion, D.L. staring at me, or at the chair I’d been sitting in, and Gabi stumbling around. She took her desk and flung it upside down. I had to give her credit, causing a distraction was quick thinking.
“Where’d she go?” Courtney asked, moving in my direction.
I ran past her to the closet, accidentally bumping into her as I went. She rubbed her shoulder. She had felt that. It was like I was still there—just not.
It wasn’t like I could float through air or anything. I was still me. Only no one could see. But unless I could make myself reappear soon—and not in front of them—I’d have some serious questions to answer. Quietly as I could, I opened the closet door and snuck inside. No one seemed to notice, all their eyes were on Gabi.
“She just vanished,” I heard Cole say.
“No, she didn’t,” Gabi replied.
“Then what happened to her?” he pressed on.
“She’s just, umm, just, she’s . . . uh, she ran out.”
I tuned out the conversation and Gabi’s attempts to explain my disappearance. I needed to focus on making myself visible again.
Body come back, I silently ordered. And without the zit. Nothing. I was still a ghost. If Gabi wasn’t struggling so much trying to cover up, I wouldn’t have minded staying that way for a bit. To think of all the amazing things I could have done. Spied on Cole. Hid all of Courtney’s clothes during gym—leaving her nothing but her gym outfit. Made D.L. look like—
“I’m sure Angel will be back any second,” Gabi yelled, interrupting my fantasy.
Focus Angel. Gabi needs you. “Body return. Body return. Body return,” I whispered.
Ever so slowly, it started happening. First, I was a faint outline, then it started to fill in, the color returning to my arms, legs, and clothes. I reached up and felt my nose. The pimple was still there, too. I contemplated staying hidden, but I knew I couldn’t.
“Hi,” I said, pushing the closet door open.
Everyone turned around to look at me.
“My God. I think your pimple grew in the last three minutes. What were you doing in there, anyway?” Courtney gestured at the closet. “Trying to run away from it?”
“Mouse,” I answered. “I saw one run across the floor, and I ran for the closet. They freak me out.”
“Yeah.” Gabi nodded. “That’s why I knocked over the desk. I saw it, too.”
“Eww,” Courtney groaned, stepping up on her chair and searching the ground beneath her.
“But you just vanished,” Cole insisted, his eyes right on me. “I didn’t see
you run anywhere.” He must have been really freaked out to forget that he wasn’t speaking to me.
I put my hand back over my nose. I didn’t like him looking at me with that thing there. “I’m fast.”
“Not that fast,” he said, running his fingers through his curls. “You just disappeared.”
“Don’t be a moron,” D.L. butted in. “How could she just disappear?”
“I don’t know,” Cole said, leaning against the doorframe, looking deep in thought.
“Everything happened really quickly,” Gabi said, trying to make him feel better. “I didn’t see her run off, either.”
“But—”
Gabi cut him off and tried to change the subject. “Are you stuck in detention, too?”
“No, I just needed to ask Courtney something.”
He walked over to her desk and whispered. Both Gabi and I strained to hear. “Did you start that huge science questionnaire?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Courtney said.
“Any way you want to lend it to me?” he asked giving her one of his cute, lopsided grins. “I haven’t even started and there’s no way I’ll get it all done by Monday. Not without staying in the entire weekend.”
D.L. didn’t seem to like what Cole was saying at all, which surprised me, because I totally pictured him as a cheater. “Do it yourself,” he snapped. But maybe he was just jealous that someone as cute as Cole was asking his girlfriend for a favor.
“Angel can help you,” Gabi offered. I looked over at her to make sure I hadn’t accidentally erased her mind again. This was definitely not Gabi. First, she hated copying. She thought it was dishonest. Second, I was supposed to be avoiding Cole, not figuring out ways to talk to him. And third, I barely had any of the homework done, either.
“That’s okay,” Cole told her.
Still, the idea that he’d rather flunk than deal with me was disheartening. Was it because he couldn’t stand the idea of being around me? Or was he embarrassed at the thought of hanging out with the walking zit?
“Yeah,” Courtney said. “Besides, there are tons of people who would help him. I bet Jaydin or Brooke would be happy to.”
I didn’t want that. And while I knew better, I opened my mouth to speak. “No, it’s no problem. Gabi and I are meeting on Sunday at Goode’s Greatest Pizza to go over it. You should join us.”
“Okay,” he said, half-heartedly.
“What is going on in here?” Miss Simmons demanded when she walked into the room and saw Gabi’s toppled desk. “I should be able to leave a group of eighth-graders alone without chaos breaking loose.”
“I should go,” Cole said slinking toward the door.
“Five o’clock,” Gabi called after him.
That Gabi is some operator. In the midst of getting reamed by Miss Simmons, she still managed to nail down plans with Cole.
“Out,” Miss Simmons said to Cole. Then she looked back at us. “Since you can’t behave, during your next detention I’ll find a project to keep you all busy. How does that sound?”
“Just perfect,” D.L. muttered. “We can thank Garret for getting us into even more trouble.”
Courtney rolled her eyes at me.
“It wasn’t me. It wasn’t anybody,” I tried to explain to Miss Simmons. “A mouse ran right over my feet. That’s what caused all the problems.”
Miss Simmons scowled. “I’ll have the office call an exterminator. This day just keeps getting worse.”
Maybe for Miss Simmons it was getting worse, but for me it was getting a million times better. Cole was still willing to hang out with me. Maybe he didn’t hate me after all. Or maybe he was just desperate for help with his homework, but still, it was something. And while I was probably going to be stuck collating science packets or whatever odd job Miss Simmons came up with for the next two weeks, at least she made everyone forget about my disappearing. The day was definitely getting better.
chapter 23
The excitement over getting to hang out with Cole disappeared as Gabi and I headed home. “How am I supposed to help him with his homework when I’m supposed to be staying away from him? I can’t do both at the same time. You never should have volunteered me.”
Gabi stopped dead in her tracks. “It makes no sense for you to still be ignoring Cole.”
“Of course it does,” I told her. What was wrong with her today? “You know why I’m doing it.”
“Yeah, why?”
I rolled my eyes. “Because my powers tend to go off around him.”
“They’ve been doing that, anyway,” Gabi reminded me. “He was there when you erased everyone’s memories and disappeared into thin air. It can’t get much worse than that. And you’re just adding to it by pretending he doesn’t exist.”
“But what if something else happens? Like a repeat of the fireworks or our initials in a tree. Something specifically having to do with him. He’ll think I’m a freak.”
“He already does,” she said under her breath.
“What?”
She shrugged her shoulder. “You’ve been acting crazy around him, and he’s definitely noticed. So you might as well talk to him. Maybe it will actually make things better.”
I chewed on my nails as I contemplated what she said. My plan had definitely been backfiring. The whole point of keeping away from him was to protect him from my deranged powers. But he was still affected by them. And he still saw every single embarrassing situation that I accidentally conjured up.
“You’re right.” Trying to ignore Cole didn’t do anything but make him think I was crazy and rude.
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I told him you’d help him. You’ll get a chance to make things right. And I’ll be there, to keep you from doing anything too stupid.”
“Yeah, because that’s been working out really well.” She hadn’t been able to stop my T-shirt from disappearing, the zit from popping up, or me disappearing into thin air.
She shrugged a shoulder. “At least I’ve helped you make up harebrained excuses.”
That was true. She really was an amazing friend. “You don’t think it’s too late? That I blew it with him completely?”
“No way,” Gabi assured me. “He liked you before, he’ll like you again. You haven’t been ignoring him that long. Just make sure you’re extra nice to him from now on.”
That was exactly what I was going to do. From there on out, I was going to put on the charm, and finally make my dream come true—Cole and Angel together forever.
But first I had to get rid of the baseball perched on top of my nose.
chapter 24
It took six hours, more concentration than I knew was possible, and a series of blunders like making my whole face break out into polka dots (I looked like a bag of wonder bread), but I finally managed to get rid of the mongo zit that inhabited my face. And it was a good thing, too. Because there was no way I was meeting Cole looking like that.
“I can’t believe I’m actually going to hang out with him again,” I said to Gabi as we rode our bikes to Goode’s Greatest Pizza on Sunday. “Thank you so much. This would not be happening without you.”
“I know,” she said and laughed. “It even made you do your homework.”
“Seriously.” But my sunny mood soon clouded over.
“Look who it is!” Courtney headed straight toward us. “Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dumb.”
“What do you want?” I asked. I wished Gabi hadn’t said what time we were meeting Cole in front of Courtney. I should have known she’d show up.
“Oh, Double-A, your memory must be as small as your chest. I warned you. You messed with the wrong girl. I’m here to remind Cole what a disappointing embarrassment you are.”
“Whatever,” I said, and walked passed her with Gabi following close by.
“Oh, you might want to hurry. Jaydin is already in there helping him with the homework.”
I stopped short. “What?”
“That’s right,” she said. “Col
e doesn’t need your help anymore. He found someone way better.” With that she turned on her heels and walked inside.
“I have to get in there,” I said, taking a step forward, but Gabi grabbed onto me.
“Whoa,” she said. “You need to calm down first. If you go in there like this, who knows what will happen.”
She made perfect sense, but I didn’t care. Cole was supposed to be studying over pizza with me, not Jaydin. I had to separate them pronto. If I didn’t, any chance of me having a relationship with Cole was done for. There was no way freak show, Double-A Garrett could compete with beautiful, I-can-have-any-guy-I-want Jaydin. “My God, they’re probably in love already. Just sitting there having some spectacular old time.” I tried to relax, but I couldn’t. I was feeling too sorry for myself. “It’s not fair. I should be the one having an out of this world evening—not her.”
“You still can,” Gabi said. “Cole made plans with you. He won’t ditch you.”
I hoped she was right, but I wasn’t so sure. I tried to control my emotions, but my insides were swirling. I closed my eyes and took some cleansing breaths. It wasn’t working.
“What is that?!” Gabi exclaimed.
I opened one eye to peek. Then the other to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. A small tornado was barreling right toward us. I grabbed Gabi by the wrist and ran. She staggered an arm’s length behind me.
“Go,” Gabi said, gasping for breath. “Get away from it. I can’t run in these shoes.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
We darted for a nearby tree and ducked down, our hands over our heads. The funnel engulfed us, making everything go silent. Then we began to tumble. I lost track of Gabi in the haze. I called out to her but heard nothing, not even the sound of my own voice.
Seconds later, the tornado was gone. But I was no longer huddled beneath a tree. I was way above it. Way, way above it. I was in outer space.
I maintained my own calm for a whole eighth of a second, and then I let out a massive scream that echoed all around me and reverberated inside of the astronaut helmet I was now wearing, making it hard to concentrate. I was in outer space!!!
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Dress Page 7
