Too Cool for This School

by Kristen Tracy

  So we raced past the kitchen and straight to my room.

  “This is unbelievable,” Ava said.

  “It’s not ideal,” I agreed.

  Laughter floated down the hallway and into my room.

  “Everything she’s doing is calculated,” Ava said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe she’s just trying to make a bunch of friends.”

  “Ugh,” Ava said. “You don’t really believe that and neither do I. Let’s make our call.”

  Ava whipped out her cell phone and dialed Rachel and Lucia. Then she put her phone on speaker.

  AVA: Let’s not waste time. Okay. Everybody should know that Todd, Jagger, and Kimmie are in Lane’s kitchen with Mint. And that Mint set this up behind Lane’s back.

  LUCIA: Wow.

  AVA: It’s like she doesn’t understand how middle school even works. When you live in society, you still have to follow certain laws. Just because you might not have heard that killing a person is wrong doesn’t give you the right to go out and murder anybody you want.

  RACHEL: Wow. Murder is a powerful word.

  ME: It really is.

  AVA: If Mint and Jagger start going out, I’ll die.

  LUCIA: But she probably doesn’t like Jagger. Lane said that Mint liked somebody back in Alaska. Diego?

  RACHEL: Have you seen a picture of Diego?

  ME: Um. No.

  RACHEL: I wonder if Diego looks like Jagger.

  (A bunch of silence while we thought about whether or not fake Diego might have looked like Jagger.)

  RACHEL: Do you think Jagger likes Mint? I mean, likes likes Mint?

  AVA: No! (series of gagging sounds)

  LUCIA: Even if Jagger does like Mint and even if Mint does like Jagger, he lives in Santa Fe and she lives in Alaska.

  ME: Along with Diego.

  (I didn’t know what was wrong with me or why I kept bringing up fake Diego. But the more I did it the easier it got.)

  RACHEL: Sometimes long-distance relationships work. My aunt is dating a train conductor who lives in Wyoming. They’re online constantly.

  AVA: Don’t tell me that!

  RACHEL: Don’t yell at me.

  LUCIA: Yeah. Don’t yell at Rachel.

  AVA: Stop telling me what to do!

  ME: Let’s try to be more quiet.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  “We need to get some things,” Mint said as she entered my bedroom.

  “Look. It’s Mint Chocolate Chip,” Ava said in a voice filled with disgust.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Mint asked, glancing at our faces.

  “Yes,” I said. “A phone call.”

  “We’ll be quick,” Mint said.

  And then something happened that I never thought would happen in a million years. Kimmie entered my bedroom. Followed by Jagger. And Todd Romero.

  “What do you need exactly?” Ava asked.

  She tried to smooth her hair and smile a lot, because she looked most cute with flat hair and a happy face.

  “We need a notebook,” Jagger explained.

  “And a pair of socks,” added Kimmie.

  “Why do you need socks?” Rachel yelled through Ava’s phone.

  “Because we’re making seal fur mitts!” Kimmie yelled in the direction of Ava’s phone.

  “Hi, Mint!” Lucia’s voice said. “This is Lucia.”

  “Hey, Lucia, what’s going on?” Mint said coolly.

  Ava shot me a hostile look. Which bugged me a little bit. Because I wasn’t in charge of who Lucia said hey to when she was on speakerphone. Kimmie, Jagger, and Todd stood beside Mint as she pawed through her duffel bag.

  “Is that your notebook?” Jagger asked, pointing to Mint’s diary on the floor next to my bed.

  “No, my notebook with my game shortcuts is yellow and has a sticker of a mortally wounded dwarf on it,” Mint said. “That’s my journal.”

  Ava glanced at Mint’s journal on the floor and smiled at me.

  “Maybe I put the notebook in my drawer,” Mint said. “Can you look and see?”

  “Me?” I asked. Mint shouldn’t think she could boss me around in front of my friends.

  “Todd,” Mint clarified. “Could you look in my top drawer for me? And could you grab a pair of socks for Kimmie?”

  “You’re using your own socks, right?” Ava asked. “Because I’m pretty sure that turning them into seal fur mitts will ruin them. And you’ve already destroyed enough of Lane’s clothes.” She shot me another angry look. I know she wanted me to do more to confront my cousin, but I just didn’t feel comfortable doing that in front of Todd. As much as I was on board to destroy my cousin’s life, I guess I was hoping we could do it in a polite way.

  “Of course they’re mine,” Mint said.

  “Oops,” Todd said.

  Oops? I looked over at Todd. No way! I couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t opened Mint’s drawer. He’d opened my drawer, and it was the one that had my underwear in it. Jagger glanced over and looked very uncomfortable. Todd was holding a pair of my polka-dot panties. What was he doing? I mean, there was no way you could confuse them with socks. I felt like I could die. Until Mint showed up, I never had to worry about a guy I liked suddenly dropping by and popping into my room and grabbing my panties by mistake. It was humiliating. I mean, that pair was super old.

  “Those aren’t socks,” Kimmie said. “You should shut that.”

  Todd, now bright red, dropped my underwear and slammed the drawer shut.

  “Sorry,” Todd stammered.

  “Oh, I think I told you the wrong drawer. Sorry, Lane!”

  I was going to die.

  “I found the notebook in my duffel bag after all,” Mint said. “Back to practice.”

  My face felt so red and hot I almost couldn’t breathe. As soon as they all filed out, instead of giving me a reassuring hug, Ava jabbed a finger at me.

  “What just happened?” Lucia asked.

  “Todd just dug through Lane’s underwear drawer,” Ava said.

  “Shhh,” I said. Hearing this news spoken out loud during our three-way call made it feel more embarrassing and terrible.

  “Wow,” Rachel said. “That’s weird.”

  And hearing those words made me feel like crying. Because it was weird. And it never would have happened without the existence of Angelina Mint Taravel.

  “Was it a cute pair?” Lucia asked. “Or did it say something crazy on them?”

  “We are not having this conversation,” I said.

  “Why did you even give them permission to open your drawers?” Ava asked. “They were your property.”

  “Mint made me feel like I had to give her a couple of my drawers,” I explained. “She asked me in front of my parents and I had to say okay.”

  “You should never feel that way about your underwear drawer,” Rachel said.

  “Stop. Stop,” I said. I needed to process what was happening. I felt very stunned and unhappy.

  “I can’t believe this,” Ava said. “Mint is controlling your brain. Just like she’s controlling Jagger’s.”

  “I feel like I missed a lot of what just took place,” Rachel said.

  “That doesn’t matter now,” Ava said. “We need to rethink our strategy, because we’re handling her all wrong.”

  I hoped Ava didn’t want to do anything too violent.

  “She’s very savvy,” Ava said.

  None of us said anything for a whole minute. I think we were debating in our heads whether or not Mint was savvy.

  “There is only one way to solve this!” Ava said.

  “Stop screaming into the phone,” Rachel said. “I need to turn down my phone volume.”

  “We need to let her seek her ultimate geek level,” Ava said.

  “Isn’t she already there?” I asked. She had just left my room wearing socks on her hands, and ten minutes earlier, she’d helped Kimmie make no-bake paste.

  “You’re right. We need to set her up just like she
set Lane up,” Ava said. “We’re playing way too nice.”

  “That sounds mean,” Rachel said.

  “Exactly,” Ava said.

  “I’m not sure about this,” Lucia said.

  But Lucia’s waffling didn’t slow Ava down. “We need to take her to a public place. And humiliate her.”

  “More public than school?” I asked.

  “Yes!” Ava tapped her head while she thought.

  “I know,” Ava said. “The mall!” Then she released a crazy laugh that made my skin goose pimple.

  “Really?” Lucia asked. “I hate the mall.”

  “And when I’m through with her, so will Mint,” Ava said.

  15

  Ava said that plotting the perfect revenge could take a few days, which seemed reasonable. Plus, her teacher was insisting that she hold her cello bow with a looser thumb and she was having a tough time with that. Unfortunately, her callus had gotten so big that if you were looking really closely, you could see it from across the room. But it wasn’t a crisis, because Mint was still going to be around for a bit. Sigh.

  I tried to pay as little attention to Mint as possible and to focus on homework and my friends and my class-captain duties. In fact, attending my first official class-captain meeting put me in a perfectly good mood. It was as if Mint didn’t exist. Until the meeting started …

  “Where is Ms. Knapp?” I asked. There were two big pizzas on the table, but our faculty mentor wasn’t around. Had she dropped us?

  “She doesn’t have time to attend the meeting,” Leslie said, grabbing a big cheesy slice of pizza.

  “But she’s agreed to sign off on all our paperwork,” Robin said. “So we’re set.”

  “I am so excited to start planning our disco year!” Fiona, the fifth grader, said. “I even watched Saturday Night Fever with my mom.”

  Even though Fiona’s comment seemed a little annoying, it also made me feel a tiny bit self-conscious. Because I hadn’t been researching disco at all.

  “Before we start, I have a question for Lane,” Leslie said, aiming the point of her pizza slice at me. “And it’s serious.”

  Oh, great. I felt totally unprepared to answer anything serious.

  “What’s going on with Jagger and your cousin?” Leslie asked.

  Robin nodded like she wanted to know the inside scoop as well.

  “He’s my next-door neighbor and I’ve seen her over there six times,” Leslie said.

  It surprised me that Leslie was keeping track. But I figured I’d try to answer as honestly as possible. “They’re working on a group project.”

  “Really? For school? Because kids from Red Rock Middle School are hanging out with them,” Leslie said.

  It was like Mint had this whole other life she was living outside of my house that I didn’t even know about.

  “That’s news to me,” I said, and bit into my slice.

  “Maybe you could find out what’s going on,” Fiona said.

  I wasn’t about to take orders from a fifth grader. “Why?” I asked, trying to sound neutral.

  Robin glanced at Leslie. They both looked upset. “I have a cousin that goes to Red Rock Middle School and they’ve heard about our disco theme. Did you tell them?” Robin asked.

  “No!” I said. I couldn’t believe I was being accused of being a squealer at the first official class-captain meeting.

  “Well,” Leslie continued, “your cousin told my cousin that you told her.”

  My mouth dropped open. I was stunned. This level of dishonesty and betrayal was totally intolerable cousin behavior. “I never said a word,” I insisted. “I swear.”

  “It’s not like I want to accuse you of lying or anything,” Robin said. Though that was basically what she was doing.

  “Well, that’s good. Because I’m not lying,” I said. “I have no idea how the Red Rock kids know.”

  “She sounds really sincere,” Fiona said.

  “That’s because I’m telling the truth,” I said. “You should not judge upperclassmen.” I pointed right at Fiona. I couldn’t believe a fifth grader was talking to me like that.

  “I really want to believe you,” Leslie said.

  “Me too,” Robin said.

  “But why would your cousin lie?” Leslie asked. “You know, I used to like her. But now I think I was wrong.”

  I really felt like I needed to throw Mint under the bus.

  “You know,” Derek said. “Jagger lives near me too. I’ll drop by and get to the bottom of it.”

  He was so kind.

  “That would be great,” Robin said. “Because if they’re going to start blabbing about our disco theme to everybody, we need to change it now.”

  “Got it,” Derek said. “I’ll check it out this weekend.”

  Robin smiled. “Let’s move on to something awesome. Leslie and I have made a major decision about our disco theme.”

  I was so excited that we were finally getting to the party planning. That was ninety percent of the reason I wanted to be a class captain.

  “Part of what sucked about the luau was that people wore togas and weird non-luau costumes,” Leslie said with a frown.

  “Yeah,” Robin said. “People dressed against theme. And I don’t think it was totally deliberate. I think our student body needed more guidance.”

  They made a good point. In addition to the toga costumes, I remembered at least three sixth graders who came to the luau dressed as grapes.

  “So this year we’re going to give them that guidance,” Leslie said.

  Fiona squealed with excitement. “Are we going to travel from class to class and offer disco demonstrations while wearing funky costumes from the seventies?”

  Wow. That did not seem like a fun thing to do. I looked up and caught Derek staring at me. I think he agreed with me, because he was shaking his head.

  “Better!” Leslie chirped. “We’re going to tell people to come to the party dressed up as moods.”

  “This makes loads of sense,” Robin explained, “because during the seventies people were obsessed with mood rings.”

  “Totally. People were really plugged in to their emotions,” Leslie added.

  I had never heard of mood rings before. Maybe my mom knew what they were.

  “So Robin is going to be fierce. And I am going to be fun.” Leslie jerked one of her thumbs at Robin and the other one at herself.

  “Will we assign moods to every student?” Fiona asked. “Do that many moods exist?”

  Leslie shook her head. “Great question. We’re going to have a master mood list. And people can design their costumes using that.”

  “There’s so many moods,” Robin gushed. “Trippy, theatrical, urgent, groggy, rebellious. I could go on for an hour.”

  “But she won’t,” Leslie said. “Okay. So we have assigned moods for the class captains, because that seemed important.” She turned to Derek. “You’re going to be dreamy.”

  Derek cocked his head in confusion. “What costume works for that?”

  “You don’t have to do much,” Leslie said. And then she blushed.

  “And, Fiona,” Robin said. “You’re going to be sweet.”

  Fiona beamed at this announcement. “I love that!”

  “And, Lane,” Robin said. “We were totally divided between two moods for you. So we’re going to let you choose which one you want.”

  Leslie interrupted. “You’re a complex person. It’s a total compliment that we couldn’t decide.”

  “Okay,” I said. I’d never thought of myself as having one defining mood, let alone two.

  “We were torn between cerebral and organic,” Robin said.

  I blinked. How did either of those moods fit me? “Really?” I asked. Maybe they were just joking.

  “We thought cerebral because you’re smart and deep,” Leslie explained. “And organic because you have an earthy style.”

  “Plus, your vegan cookies really spoke to an earthy mood,” Robin said.

&
nbsp; “But I was assigned vegan cookies,” I said as a way of mild protest.

  “Yeah. And you totally nailed it,” Robin said.

  Then the door creaked open and interrupted this rotten news. I was totally surprised to see Ava.

  “Just getting my cello,” she said. “I have to leave early for practice.”

  “Cool,” Leslie said.

  “Hey!” Ava said in a sharp way. “Did one of you guys move my bag? It’s totally upside down!”

  I glanced around to see people’s reactions. Everybody looked confused.

  “Is that a problem?” Fiona asked.

  “If it’s damaged it sure is,” Ava snapped as she picked up her big canvas cello bag and tried to right it.

  “Do you need any help?” Derek asked, standing up.

  Robin shot him an angry glance.

  “I don’t want anybody touching my cello,” Ava said. “I can’t believe this.”

  “We can’t believe this,” Leslie responded. “We’re having an important meeting.”

  Ava looked at our pizza and rolled her eyes. “I need to inspect it and see if it’s been damaged.”

  Ava was really holding things up. Couldn’t she do that in the hallway? I needed to object to my assigned moods before it looked like I’d agreed to one of them.

  “How do you inspect a cello?” Robin asked.

  Ava unzipped the bag and carefully removed the large wooden instrument. It was glossy, and the scroll at the top looked like a curling wave. I didn’t think it looked damaged.

  “Give me a second,” Ava said, taking her bow out of its protective case. “I need to rosin the hairs of my bow and play it a little to make sure it’s okay.” Then she rubbed the bow against a cake of rosin.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s okay,” Leslie said.

  Ava frowned and touched the tuning pegs on her cello, then positioned the end pin on the floor and placed the instrument between her legs. “Let me play the beginning of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. And then I’m out of here. By the way, it’s a waltz.”

  I thought Ava was acting like a spoiled person. She did not need to play the cello in the middle of our class-captain meeting. But she did it anyway. She laid her bow across the strings and lightly pressed her curled hand against the fingerboard. She released one continuous deep sound. Then she repositioned the bow at a sharper angle and the sound changed. After a few times drawing her bow across the strings, she lowered it and plucked the strings with her thumb. “It’s okay,” she said.