Joey hit her hand to her head in exasperation. “One. I’m here. Two. Boy cooties!”
I was already waiting for him in the back-yard when Wire Rims showed up. With muffins. And a party bag of ice. He was wearing a faded T-shirt that said TRAILER PARK SANTAS.
Between bites of muffins, Wire Rims and I stood under an overcast sky, staring at the orange clown fish and pink starfish on the bottom of Joey’s old kiddie pool. The morning fog had never burned off, making the edges of things fuzzy. Kind of how I imagined it would be if you wore glasses but you were looking at the world without them.
Every time I glanced back at the house, I saw Mom looking out the kitchen window. At us. Embarrassing!
“Okay. Here’s the plan,” I said, trying not to think about Mom checking up on us. “When I throw in the last bucket of hot water, you get the camera ready to take a picture. Then I’ll quick grab the black towel and hold it up in the background, so our cloud will show up really good.”
Wire Rims raised his eyebrows at me over his glasses.
“Was I being too bossy?” I asked. “Sorry. I’m just saying.”
“Okay. On the count of three. Ready?” said Wire Rims. “One, two, three.” I leaned over and poured the bucket of hot water into the pool. Then I grabbed the towel and held it high. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Wire Rims snapped a bunch of pictures.
I let the towel drop. “Did you see what I saw? That was so not a cloud. That was barely a puff.”
“I just took five shots of a big fat nothing,” said Wire Rims. “I’ve had bigger clouds on my glasses when they steam up.”
“Okay, genius, what’d we do wrong?” I teased.
“I did this with some kids at my old school and it worked. Honest!”
Mom poked her head out the back door. “Stevie? Do you need more hot water? Or I can put the kettle on, if you think —”
“Just a second, Mom,” I called, hoping to brush her off. She went back into the house.
I flipped through my notebook, looking over my notes. “So. We know a cloud forms when rising air cools to the point where some of the molecules clump together.”
“We do?” he asked.
I couldn’t tell if he was teasing, but I thought so. “Yes. We do. But only if we were paying attention in class. C’mon, you know, like all that stuff about how warm air rises from the surface and meets colder air?”
“If you say so,” said Wire Rims, grinning at me.
“Get serious,” I said, reaching out to punch him on the arm. I took my hand back.
“Get cirrus?” Wire Rims joked.
“I get it. Cloud joke. Nice. Very funny.” I chewed on the end of my pencil. “So, if the water’s warm, and we poured in a bunch of ice, it should have worked, right?”
“Yeah. We poured in two buckets of hot water and one whole bag of ice,” said Wire Rims. “Party size.”
“Maybe the water has to be hotter,” I said. “We should boil water this time, before we throw it in.”
“And more ice,” said Wire Rims. “Do you have more ice? I think I remember last time we used way more ice to go for, you know, the contrast. It’s all about the contrast.”
“Very scientific.” I smiled at Wire Rims.
“You know what I mean,” he said, looking down and fiddling with the buttons on his camera.
“Sure,” I said, staring at a lone ice cube bobbing on the surface.
“How’s it going?” Mom asked, the back door slamming behind her. This time, she came out holding two different plates of strange-looking lumps.
“What are those?” I asked. “They look weird.”
“Cookies,” said Mom.
“I’ll try one,” said Wire Rims, picking up a lump from the red plate and taking a big bite.
“I’m experimenting with ways to use tofu in recipes for kids, but, you know, hide it so they don’t know they’re eating protein.”
Wire Rims was eating his cookie and smacking his lips like he had peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“So, what do you think?” Mom asked.
“Um, I’ll try one of these,” he said, brushing crumbs off his shirt and taking a cookie from the other plate.
“Mom, please? We have to get back to our experiment before the water gets too cooled off.”
“You won’t try one, Stevie? I’d love your opinion.”
“Mom. Can we do this later?”
“Okay, okay. But something’s missing. I have to figure out what.” Mom was shaking her head.
“Vanilla,” I said. “Now, we have to get back to our Science thing.” Mom carried the cookie plates back into the house. “You didn’t have to eat them, you know,” I told Wire Rims. “How bad was it?”
“No, um, they were, um, fine.”
“Seriously?”
“Okay, okay,” he said, glancing back at the house. “They taste like papier-mâché!” I threw back my head, cracking up.
“That was really nice of you not to spit them out. Trust me. She’s going to come back with more. Just tell her you’re full. You had a big lunch.”
“Full. Got it. Thanks.”
I sat down on the edge of the inflated pool. “So. Are you sure you didn’t get any pictures?” I asked Wire Rims.
He sat down next to me and started clicking through the pictures. “Black towel. Black towel. Black towel. Black towel. Your elbow,” he said.
“Aw, frog,” I said. “What if it doesn’t work and we can’t get a picture?”
“Frog, huh?”
“I guess my little sister, Joey, is starting to rub off on me. She’s way into frogs. She found one after that big storm we had, and she adopted it and named it Sir Croaks-a-Lot.”
“Sir Croaks-a-Lot, huh? That would make a cool name for a band.”
“Like Don’t Poke the Yeti?”
“D’you know them? They played at a coffeehouse and my older brother took me. It was slammin’.”
“Slammin’? We better start slammin’ on our Science project.”
Mom poked her head out the door. Again. “Kids? I’m walking down to the market to get some vanilla. Need anything?”
“No, thanks, Mom,” I said impatiently.
“Okay, I’ll be back in twenty minutes. If you need anything, ask Dad. He’s right next door at the Raven.”
“Bye, Mom,” I said. Wire Rims gave an awkward wave.
“Wait a second.” I grabbed his arm to get his attention. “Sorry. I was just thinking . . . If we can’t get this to work, my dad has a fog machine, right at the theater next door. Maybe we could use it to make a cloud.”
“Whoa, hold on there, Freaky Friday. What happened to Stevie? Because if your idea is to fake a cloud with the fogger? I think they call that cheating,” he teased.
“Well, I mean, that’s only if we’re, you know, super desperate. Like, we used all the hot water in the whole entire house and all the ice from the ice machine at the gas station down the street.”
“Or . . . I could just Photoshop a cloud into the picture on the computer.”
“Aha! So what you’re saying is, you’re a bigger cheater pants than me. At least with the fogger, we’re doing something to simulate a cloud.”
We both cracked up. I caught myself laughing and couldn’t help thinking how much fun I was having. But we still had to figure out the cloud thing. I looked up at a passing cloud in the sky. Big mistake.
That’s when it happened.
Before you could say cumulonimbus, everything started to spin. Wire Rims’s bug eyes were in my face, and his glasses poked me in the forehead. His marshmallow nose smushed up against mine.
And just like that, smack, he KISSED ME!
Instantly, I jerked my head back to get away from the kiss. My arms windmilled as I tried to get my balance.
But it was too late.
Ker-plunk! I toppled backward into the kiddie pool, making a whale of a splash. We’re talking a tidal wave. No, a tsunami!
Wire Rims jum
ped back. “Ahh!” I yelled as the icy water slid down my back. I felt strangely hot and cold at the same time.
When I sat up, I was dripping wet. My hoodie filled with water, a mop of hair hung down over my eyes, and bubbles burbled from the hole in my jeans.
“Omigod, Stevie, I’m so — I mean, I’m sorry — here — let me —” Wire Rims reached out a hand to help me up, but I didn’t take it.
“Leave me alone!” I practically shouted. Mortified, I hauled myself up out of the pool, yanked the towel from his hands, snapped it around my shoulders, and ran for the house.
I stayed in the shower for a way long time, letting the hot water stream down my face.
I felt like the rain.
I closed my eyes until there was nothing but me and the warm water. Not because I was cold, but because I had to be alone.
I wiped the steam from the window in our shower and stared out at the dark clouds over the mountains. Fifteen minutes ago there had actually been patches of blue sky. Puffy clouds like snowy cauliflower. Now low, dark, ragged clouds blocked out the sunlight, warning of more bad weather. How could clouds change shape that quickly?
A jet stream of emotions went through me — scared, angry, confused.
I closed my eyes. Om . . . One, two, three, four . . . Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall . . . Hail Mary Full of Grace . . .
Thump. Thump. I could hear my own heart pounding. No, somebody was pounding on the bathroom door. “Somebody’s in here,” I yelled over the beat of the water.
“Stevie? Are you okay? You’ve been in there forever.” Joey.
I turned off the water and hugged myself into a thick, cozy towel, wrapping it around me. The mirror was so steamy I couldn’t see myself. Oh, so now a cloud forms, I couldn’t help thinking.
I cut a swath through the steam on the mirror with the side of my fist, not sure who I’d find looking back at me.
“Stevie?” Joey again.
It was me. Still Stevie.
I peered at my reflection. I guess I’d been worried I might not recognize myself, but the face in the mirror looked like the same me.
Finally, I cracked open the door, stuck my head out.
“Joey. Is anybody here?”
“Just me. The boy left. Alex is next door at the theater with Dad.”
“Go get Alex. Tell her we have to have an emergency Sisters Club meeting.”
“Now?” Joey asked.
“Don’t let her say no.”
I huddled in the corner of my bed against the wall, wrapped in my fuzzy mint-green robe, hugging a pillow to me and waiting for my sisters. What was taking them so long? I pulled out my Science notebook and started scribbling, trying to make sense of my confusion.
Ask a question: Why did Wire Rims try to kiss me?
Form a hypothesis (Your best guess): Because I asked him over? Because I grabbed his arm? Because he likes me likes me?
Gather materials: No kiddie pools!
Conduct experiment: Once was more than enough!
Observations: To avoid boy cooties, keep your eyes on your science experiment. Boys and kiddie pools do not play well together. Boys who eat papier-mâché cookies to be nice are not to be trusted. Kisses can throw you off balance.
Interpret data: He wanted to see me fall in the pool and get soaking wet? Scuba equipment necessary when conducting science experiments. Tofu cookies make you psycho!
Draw conclusions: I thought we were friends. I even wondered if I just-maybe-might like him. But I am so not ready for this!
“What’s the big emergency?” Alex said in an irritated voice, standing in the doorway and crossing her arms in front of her. “What happened to your friend? And what are you doing up here in your bathrobe in the middle of the day? Why are you all wet?”
“Please don’t get all crossy-armsy on me. I had to call an emergency sisters meeting because I really needed to talk.”
She softened a little, uncrossing her arms and coming into the room. Joey sat cross-legged on the floor, staring up at me.
At first, my tongue felt about as thick as a dictionary. I couldn’t find words. Maybe I was afraid that once I started talking, I’d tell too much.
“Stevie? What is it?” Alex sat down on the bed next to me. “You have three minutes. Dad’s waiting for me to test the balcony. Can’t you talk to Mom or something?”
“No!” I said a little too forcefully. Then the words started gushing out of me. “It was terrible. Horrible. So totally embarrassing! One minute we were just joking around and everything was perfectly normal, and then I fell in a pool of ice water like a dripping-wet octopus . . . my arms everywhere . . . and so freezing and all of a sudden . . . I got kissed! At least I think I did.”
Joey gaped at me like I was speaking Alien. Even her stuffed chipmunk wouldn’t stop giving me a glassy-eyed stare. “Oh, no, not you, too. I can’t take all this boy stuff!” Joey moaned.
“What!” Alex said, enunciating the T like she was spitting at me. She jumped to her feet like she’d been stung. “You fell in the pool and you were sopping wet and that boy kissed you? I can’t believe it.”
“What? That a boy kissed me?”
“No. That my little sister got her first kiss before me! This is great. Just great. Welcome to my Ugly Betty life.” She crossed her arms again.
“I can’t believe you’re mad. This isn’t about you. It’s, like, the worst thing ever, and it happened to me. Me,” I said, stabbing myself in the chest with my finger.
“So? I’m the one who wanted a first kiss. You could care less. And I’m, like, the star of Never Been Kissed.”
“I can’t believe a boy kissed you. Ew!” Joey shuddered like she had creepy crawlies on her. “I’d rather touch a big fat banana slug. No, I’d rather eat a worm!”
“You guys, I’m telling you — I’ve never been so embarrassed in my whole life! I mean, how would you feel if you acted like a total idiot, fell backward into your Science experiment, turned into a human Popsicle, then said something mean and ran away?”
“This is bad,” said Joey. “Bad.” She was shaking her head.
“Thanks a lot, Joey,” I said.
“Are you sure he kissed you?” Alex asked. “How exactly did you fall into the pool? Walk us through it,” she said, rolling her hand in circles to get me to tell the story.
“Hold on,” said Joey. She ran into Alex’s room and came back with Sock Monkey. “Here. Sock Monkey can be Wire Rims.” She grabbed a pair of wire-rimmed glasses off of her doll with the long braids and put them on Sock Monkey.
“Hey, he actually looks cute with glasses!” said Alex. I scowled at her. “Okay, that is so not the point.” She handed him to me.
I told the whole story, in all its horribleness, complete with putting Sock Monkey in my face to demonstrate the glasses hitting me in the head. Then I showed them how I pulled away, leaning backward, flailing my arms and losing my balance.
“Only pretend the bed is the pool of water and pretend I’m soaking wet. Watch. I’ll show you.” I demonstrated falling back on the bed dramatically and almost hit my head on the wall.
Both of my sisters started laughing like idiots.
“I hate you guys. This is so not funny!”
“You know you can’t sleep in our room tonight,” said Joey. “You have major boy cooties.”
“Stevie, so what if you got wet? You still got your first kiss! You are so lucky. I hate my life!”
“Why can’t everything go back to the way it was?” Joey asked sulkily.
“So, then what happened?” Alex pressed.
“I ran.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He was . . . stuttering. I don’t know.”
“Did you say anything?”
“I don’t think so. I might have yelled at him.”
“Oh, man, that is, like, the worst first kiss ever!” said Alex.
I clobbered Alex with the pillow I was holding. “It’s all your fault, Alex.”
&
nbsp; “Me? What’d I do?”
“You made us throw stuff in the fire that night. You made us wish stuff. I tossed in my troll doll and wished for something new and exciting to happen to me. Instead, I got first-kissed by a troll in a Santa shirt.”
“At least your hair didn’t turn green,” said Alex.
“That would be cooler,” said Joey.
“I want the spell off me,” I said with a shiver. “Is there, like, a double-reverse, anti–first kiss spell or something?”
“Yeah, right,” said Alex. “Uh! My baby sister got kissed first.”
“Gross me out,” said Joey.
“I just can’t believe this happened to me,” said Alex.
“To you? You guys! How about . . . I can never show my face at school again. At least not in Earth Science or in the halls or at lunch. And I’ll just have to flunk my Science lab. Forget it. I’m never leaving this house again.” I leaned back and put the pillow over my head. “That’s it. From now on, I’m going to wear this pillow case over my head when I go to school.”
“Can I take your picture?” Joey asked.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE . . . TYBALT
Starring Alex
Me: Sock Monkey! You’re never going to believe what I just heard.
Sock Monkey: Don’t you mean overheard?
Me: Busted. I admit it. I was listening in on play practice again. I can’t help it — I miss being part of the play.
Sock Monkey: So, tell me!
Me: Okay, so Tybalt, a.k.a. some kid named Conrad Icches, just threw in the towel. As in quit the play. As in walked out the door!
Sock Monkey: Who’s Tybalt?
Me: Tybalt is Juliet’s cousin, and a Capulet. He hates all Montagues, especially Romeo. He’s the one, at the ball, who realizes it’s Romeo in disguise and wants to kill him on the spot. Except he can’t because Lord Capulet would get super mad. So later, he sends a letter to Romeo and challenges him to a big duel, where they’ll fight to the death. So cool! I was made for this part.
Sock Monkey: What? I thought you were made for the part of Juliet. Besides, you quit, remember?
Me: I know, but I made a mistake, okay? I never really wanted to quit. I think I just freaked when I couldn’t be Juliet. But every day when I hear them practice — I don’t know, it’s like I’m missing out. Like something’s wrong. A piece of me is missing when I’m not acting in a play.
The Cloudy with a Chance of Boys Page 9
