Best. Night. Ever.

by Rachele Alpine

  “This was supposed to be the best night ever. All my hard work would have paid off when I evened the score with Heart Grenade. But instead the whole thing is a bust,” she says. “You’re right, it was a despicable plan.”

  There’s soap all over the locker room floor. I’m afraid to move my foot even one inch for fear of slipping and falling on my head. Not to mention ruining my dress even more than it already is.

  My dress. My mom’s dress. What would she think of all this? I imagine her standing next to me, and what I see is . . . laughter. She’s laughing! In my mind she’s telling me that she’s proud of me. That I did the right thing. That the dress can be fixed. That maybe this night can be fixed.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “It was a good plan.”

  Her face brightens a little. “You think so?”

  “Yes, I do. Evil, but good. It was like something straight out of a thrilling novel.” I slide my feet across the soapy floor until I reach the bench and then sit down next to her. “And maybe you would have actually gotten away with it, if I weren’t in the right place at the right time.”

  “Yeah, how did you manage that, anyway?” she asks. “I did a complete scan of the locker room.”

  “I was in one of the bathroom stalls. When I heard you, I picked my feet up.”

  The girl grins. “Sneaky.”

  I shrug.

  “I’m Jade,” she says.

  I hold out my hand. “I’m Ellie.”

  We sit in silence for a minute, the girl twirling a ring on her finger. She checks her phone and glances at the door as if she’s planning her escape.

  “Can I ask you something?” I say.

  “Sure,” Jade answers.

  “Why did you want to sabotage the band?”

  She sighs. “To get justice.”

  “Justice?” I ask.

  “My band was up against Heart Grenade in the Battle of the Bands and lost. But it was totally rigged.” She shakes her head. “They had a relative and a family friend on the committee. Do you believe that?”

  I nod to show her I understand.

  “So I came up with this plan. But my lead singer didn’t want to help me because it was too extreme.” She shrugs. “She’s outside peacefully protesting the band while I’m in here trying to make things right.”

  So it was Jade’s friend who nearly knocked me over while I was outside waiting for Kevin. Maybe the girl isn’t as “peaceful” as Jade thinks.

  “What do you play?”

  “Huh?” Jade crinkles her nose.

  “In the band?”

  “Oh.” A big grin spreads across her face. “Guitar.”

  “That’s great,” I say. “And I can understand why you feel bad. I’m really sorry.”

  She laughs. “No, you’re not. I bet it was fun foiling my plan.”

  “Well—” I begin.

  But her phone beeps, cutting me off.

  “Ellie, I need to go take care of something,” she says, standing up. “Like, right now. But great chatting with you.”

  I shake my head. “Fine, but I’m coming with you.” When I stand up, Jade looks shocked. “What’d you expect, that I’d let you out with no supervision?” I give her my best Ashlyn smirk, and we make our way across the floor, tiptoeing through the soap-free spots.

  As we near the exit, the side door squeaks open and the locker room is filled with echoes of loud . . . quacking?

  And then they come into view.

  “Jade?” I stare at the ducks, then back at her, and then at the ducks again. “What have you done now?”

  She checks her phone again as a line of ducks parades right through the locker room, quacking and stomping their little webbed feet. They’re not slipping on the soap; in fact, they look perfectly at home.

  A boy with a camera strapped around his neck comes running around the corner. I recognize him as the yearbook photographer.

  Jade steps closer to him. “What did you do?” she asks.

  “You said ‘ducks in locker room,’ ” he answers, like it’s obvious.

  Ahh, this must be the accomplice!

  “I said STUCK in locker room!!” Jade does not look happy.

  Another duck comes waddling around the corner like he’s late for the party.

  “Oh, shoot. I messed up again, didn’t I?” The boy takes a deep breath and pulls out his phone. “Hey, wait, it wasn’t me. See?”

  Jade and I both lean in to read their text exchange, and he’s right, it says “ducks.”

  Oh, autocorrect.

  The chirpy voice of one of the teachers comes over the loudspeaker in a chirpy voice. “Boys and girls, if you were caught outside the gym during the blackout, please make your way back in so we can make sure everyone is accounted for, just in case we have another issue. The power has obviously been restored, and as soon as everything is set, the band will be going on live.”

  I stare right at Jade as the ducks continue their quacking. “The clock is ticking, Evil Mastermind. You have to make a decision. You can end this now and get these ducks out of here, or you can release them into the gym so they’re a major distraction and nobody will care about the band. That was your endgame, right? The way you’d get your revenge?”

  She pauses and then nods.

  “Well?” I stand firm.

  “So, you’re actually going to let me walk out of here with these ducks and ruin it all for the band?” she asks.

  “If that’s what you really want.” I soften my voice. “But I don’t think it is.”

  “And how do you know what I want?” Jade glares at me. “We just met.”

  “True,” I say. “But I know that you’re interested in justice and doing what’s fair.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” Jade crosses her arms.

  “I also know one of the girls in the band. She’s the lead singer. She doesn’t deserve to have her big moment ruined.”

  Jade stays focused on me. “And why not?”

  “Because she was the only one who was nice to me tonight.” The ducks waddle across the locker room floor, oblivious to their importance in our conversation.

  “I don’t get it,” Jade says.

  I take a deep breath. “Tonight was absolutely the most humiliating night of my life. This boy who I’ve had a crush on for years actually asked me to the dance.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Jade raises her eyebrows. “Sounds pretty great to me.”

  “It’s a bad thing when he only did it as a joke. And the one person who didn’t know that was me.”

  “Ouch,” Jade says, her face looking like she just downed a gallon of sour milk.

  “Yeah. So when all the other kids were making a joke out of me, Genevieve was the only one who wasn’t laughing. She even asked if I was okay.”

  “Well, she’s still part of the cheating band.” Jade’s tone is a little bit softer now. It’s almost as if she’s trying to convince herself.

  “You don’t actually know that the band had anything to do with how the judges voted.”

  “I told you . . . ,” Jade starts, but I hold up my hand.

  “Think about it, Jade. Maybe the band members didn’t even know who would be judging. I’m just saying that things aren’t always what they seem to be.”

  Jade opens her mouth to say something, but I take this opportunity to keep talking. “Life isn’t always fair. Believe me, I know that more than anyone. But you keep going and hope for the best. So Heart Grenade won the contest—”

  “Battle of the Bands,” Jade says.

  “Fine. So they won the Battle of the Bands this time. Your band will win next time.”

  “And if we don’t?” Jade stares right at me.

  “Then you keep trying until you do. That’s life.”

  She pushes her lips together and her eyes turn into little slits as the ducks surround us and the accomplice stands there bobbing his head back and forth between us.

  “Can I ask you something?” she says.<
br />
  I nod.

  “Don’t you want to get revenge on this boy? I mean, it’s totally uncool what he did to you.”

  I pause for a few seconds, but that’s all it takes to know revenge wouldn’t make me feel any better.

  “No,” I answer. “Sometimes you just have to do your best to move forward.”

  “Move forward,” Jade repeats.

  “Yes.”

  I wait as we have a mini–staring contest, but her eyes don’t give anything away. Have I convinced her, or have I made her even more determined?

  “You’re tougher than I thought you were, Ellie,” she says. “And if you can handle what happened to you like a total champ, I guess I have no excuse.” Jade takes a deep breath, lets it out quickly, and turns to the accomplice. “Can you help us get these ducks out of here?”

  He shrugs. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  I bite my lip to hide my smile, and without a word, the three of us do our best to lead the ducks toward their carriers.

  But just as Jade reaches for the handle, the door swings open and knocks her right into me. I lose my balance on the slick floor, and before I can stop them, my feet slip out from under me. I fall to the floor, a scream escaping my lips as I do. As Jade slides over to try to help me, she slips too. She winds up next to me on her back, her feet straight up in the air. Jade turns around so that she’s on her hands and knees. She struggles to stand, but the soap suds make that impossible. Instead, she flops down on top of me, her elbow just missing my face by an inch. I try to roll away, but her hand is pinning me down by my hair.

  The ducks are now going crazy, feathers flying and beaks quacking. Their little webbed feet are scattering in all directions, and instead of helping, Jade’s accomplice is taking pictures.

  “What the . . .” Ashlyn tears through the door, her hair a tangled mess and her clothes soaking wet. She takes one look at Jade and me, and her face hardens. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY SISTER?!”

  I look around to see who Ashlyn’s talking about. Is it possible that the sister she’s talking about is me?

  Ashlyn grabs Jade’s arm, but Jade tears it away. “Let go of me!”

  “Let go of her!” Ashlyn screeches. I’ve never seen her looking so scary.

  “Would you let me explain?” Jade pulls herself up, her feet sliding every which way beneath her. “The door knocked into me, and I knocked into Ellie.”

  “Is this true?” Ashlyn asks me, her voice hard and on edge.

  “Yes,” I say. “It was an accident.”

  A duck waddles between Ashlyn’s feet, and she shrieks. “What is going on—”

  Just then, the locker room door bursts open again. This time, a bunch of girls rush in. The soapy floor causes them to crash into one another, but they wind up in a huddle and stay on their feet. My stomach sinks when I see their faces; they’re the same girls who teased me about Kevin—and they’re Ashlyn’s friends.

  Shanti takes one look at me, the ducks, and the soapy floor and bursts out laughing.

  “Omigod, Ashlyn. What’s going on?” Ilana’s hand flies up to her mouth. “Does this have something to do with the lights going out?”

  “What?” Ashlyn smooths her shirt.

  “After the lights went out, everyone started saying it was part of some big prank. And now this!” She does a sweeping gesture with her arm—toward us, the soap, and the ducks. “Ashlyn, did you totally stop them?!”

  “Yeah, well . . .” Ashlyn flips her hair.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” Ilana glares at me. “Did you do this to get back at everyone because of the Kevin thing?”

  “What? No—”

  But Abby interrupts me like I’m not even there and beams at Ashlyn. “You’re, like, a hero.”

  “It must have been some fight,” Shanti says to Ashlyn. “Look at you!”

  Ashlyn glances down at her clothes, and then back up at the girls. But she doesn’t say a word.

  I swallow the lump in my throat. For a second there, it seemed like Ashlyn actually cared about me. She even called me her sister. I never thought she’d view me that way, and for a minute, it felt really nice. I sigh. It seems disappointment is the theme of the evening.

  JADE { 10:13 P.M. }

  “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” I ask, because there is no way these girls are for real. “Ellie, are you seriously going to stand there and—”

  “Forget it,” she says before I can even finish. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters.” I throw my arms up, ready to say more, but Ellie gives me a pitiful, pleading look, and I bite my tongue. There’s clearly more to this story.

  The gaggle of girls slides over to the one they’re calling Ashlyn, and they wrap their arms around her. The ducks are surprisingly quiet during all of this, like they’re watching a soap opera (pun intended).

  I give Ellie a sideways glance and then turn to Ashlyn. “Well, since you’ve foiled my plan, can you at least help us get these ducks out of here?”

  And before Ashlyn can tell me there’s no way on earth she’d ever touch a farm animal (because I’m 100 percent sure that’s what a girl like her would say), another girl steps closer to one of the ducks.

  “What’s on their feathers?” she asks. “1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 5 . . . 6 . . . 7.”

  I exchange looks with my accomplice and lift my chin slightly toward the girls. I’m pretty sure he catches on to my telepathic message—Let’s encourage the ducks to teach these girls a lesson.

  He nods and pulls a handful of seeds out of his pocket. “I’ll get the ducks outside,” he says, walking toward the door. He goes to throw the seeds, but trips, and the seeds go flying—right by Ashlyn’s and one of her minions’ feet. The ducks instantly beeline for the food.

  “Eww! Get them away!” Ashlyn shouts, waving her hands out in front of her.

  One of the girls looks right at the accomplice. “Hey, aren’t you that yearbook photographer?”

  “Oh, right,” he says, “Good idea. This has to be in the yearbook. You’re Shanti, right?” He grabs the camera that’s strapped around his neck and snaps pictures of the girls’ horrified faces. I have to say, despite his mishaps, he’s growing on me.

  Shanti takes a few steps backward as one of the ducks follows her and nips at her shoes. His beak opens and then snaps shut on the end of a thin, sky-blue ribbon tied into a bow on her dress. As the duck pulls, the ribbon slips out of the loops one by one until it’s not even attached anymore.

  “He’s ruining my dress!” Shanti shouts.

  My accomplice pushes his lips together, but his smile can’t be stopped. Ellie throws a hand over her mouth in what looks like an attempt to hide her own smile.

  Not that she’d ever admit it, but I’m pretty sure she’s at least a little bit happy to see some karma in action tonight.

  And I couldn’t agree more.

  And then, as if that duck were at the starting line of an Olympic sprint race, he takes off running, and all his ducky friends follow behind him.

  “OH, NO!” I shout, slapping my hands to my face. “Your dress is a disaster. We have to get that duck!” The duck has already disappeared behind the lockers, but the girls just stand there with wide eyes like they have no idea what to do. “I think it was number four. Go get it!” I’m in full drama mode, and I’m pretty sure Ellie is on to me and knows I’m messing with these girls now. But she just smiles, apparently choosing not to deny me a little bit of fun.

  “Find number four and get my ribbon back!” Shanti leads the charge, and the others follow, ironically, just like a line of ducks.

  And at that moment, as the girls start running around the locker room on their mission, Ellie looks at me with an expression of Jade, you little devil, you.

  She leans over toward me and whispers, “I’m guessing there isn’t a number four?”

  And I wait for her to get mad. To tell those girls they’re on a wild-goose-slash-duck chase. But when I fist-bump her and say, “That
one was for you,” the biggest smile I’ve seen tonight spreads across her face.

  ASHLYN { 10:15 P.M. }

  POSSIBLE SIGNS A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE is upon us:

  1. I am in public—at a school dance—looking like I went dumpster diving after swimming the English Channel.

  2. I called Ellie my sister.

  3. I CALLED ELLIE MY SISTER!

  4. It felt kind of okay.

  There are also ducks flapping and quacking everywhere. I shriek and leap onto a bench to avoid both them and my friends giving chase. I’m not sure where ducks figure into a zombie apocalypse; I just know I’m not going to get even grosser slipping around in soap and duck poop to find out.

  And as for the sister thing . . .

  Okay, so I have no clue where that word came from; I just know that I saw Ellie on the floor with some strange girl holding her down and it was like I snapped. I think maybe in a past life I must have been a member of the Royal Guard or something, because my protective instincts are clearly very heightened and I never ever knew it. (FYI, I’m pretty sure I was also Cleopatra in a past life, and I don’t know why no one believes me when I say that, even though my obsession with cats and arm bangles makes it sooo obvious.)

  “Now one is nibbling on my shoe strap!” Shanti says, from the next aisle over.

  Maybe Ellie didn’t hear me call her my sister. That’s possible, right? She’s definitely avoiding eye contact now. She and that attacker girl are too busy giggling over something like they’re besties. Are they besties? I really don’t know that much about who Ellie hangs with, I guess.

  “I’m gonna go . . . get Ms. Huff and . . . tell her what happened,” Abby says, reappearing in my row of lockers and stopping. She puts her hands on her knees. While she tries to catch her breath, she says, “Ashlyn, you . . . should . . . stay here. I’ll bet she’ll want to . . . thank you or . . . give you an award or . . . something.”

  She holds up a finger and takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly before adding, “Maybe they’ll present you with the key to the city or the mayor will declare this date Ashlyn Day. How cool would that be?”

  So cool. Obviously, I am fully in favor of Ashlyn Day being a thing. Preferably, it would include a parade. And confetti cannons.