by Janice Repka
It was 11:30 when a student asked about eating, and I realized that we had left our packed lunches on the bus.
“It won’t be back for hours,” said Roland. “We’re gonna starve to death.”
I thought about calling the school to see if someone could bring them over, but when I pictured Mr. Ripple hearing about my mistake, it made me cringe. I gathered my nerve. “Mr. Finch, I wonder if you could open your snack bar?”
“No problem,” he said. “Lunch is on the house.”
The snack bar special was nacho chips with cheese, chili, and peppers. I had a salad made from the lettuce used for the cheeseburgers.
“This is my idea of a field trip,” said Roland as he loaded peppers on his nachos. He and the other boys spun on the bar stools.
For dessert, Mr. Finch set the candy machine to dispense selections without money. The students lined up and worked it like an arcade slot machine. By afternoon, the class was not only good with pool sticks and protractors, but seemed to have made new friends. Snake showed Mindy how he could sink a shot using the folding baton she brought along, and Mindy showed Snake how he could twirl his pool stick like it was a baton.
Mr. Finch seemed sad to see us go.
“Take a souvenir,” he said, passing out tiny cubes of blue chalk. “Tell your friends and parents we run a friendly place here.”
“Can I see your tattoos?” LeeAnn asked. Mr. Finch raised his shirtsleeve to reveal a boat on his biceps. As he flexed his muscle, the boat traveled on a painted wave.
“Too cool,” said Hunter.
“Check out this one,” Mr. Finch said. He bent forward, showing off the four-leaf clover tattooed on the center of his bald head. “If you touch it, it’ll bring you good luck.”
On their way out, each student patted the top of his head. I was the last to go. “That was thoroughly enjoyable and educational,” I told Mr. Finch. I reached into my book bag. “Here are twenty thank-you tickets for you and your helpers.”
“You don’t have to give us nothing,” Mr. Finch protested.
“Please,” I said. “They’re for the Great Math Showdown. We’re the underdogs, and your support would mean a lot to us. Come if you can.”
Mr. Finch took the tickets. “Maybe we will.” He tilted his head forward. “Hey, you want to rub my tattoo?”
I blushed.
“Go ahead,” said Mr. Finch. “For luck, for your math contest. They’re a smart bunch of kids, but everybody can do with a bit o’ luck, right?”
I pictured Mr. Ripple again, this time crunching his potato chips as my team stood for the competition. In my imagination, the students from his gifted math class were equally smug and also crunching chips.
I reached for Mr. Finch’s tattoo. “One can never have too much luck.”
12
Mindy Takes Aphrodite Shopping
Veronica Breech had been my friend since second grade, but no matter what I did, she totally went out of her way to outdo me. Her parents divorced when she was a baby, and her mom and dad thought they could prove they loved her by giving her a stack of credit cards. So if I got a cell phone, Veronica got an iPhone. If I went to the arcade, Veronica got a trip to Disney World. Once I thought about jumping in the creek, just to see if she would jump in the river.
“Why do you hang out with that girl?” Mom asked. “If she’s a friend, I’m a moose.”
My mom was not a moose. The sad fact was that I hung out with Veronica because she was popular, and hanging out with popular people made me more popular.
Anyway, a few weeks after the pool hall trip, Veronica was waiting outside math class for me. I had bought these awesome sunglasses last time we went shopping—white Ray-Bans marked down to almost nothing on clearance because they had a scratch you could really barely see—and to one-up me, Veronica ordered these cool new “Color of the Week” contacts. The day she was waiting outside of math class for me, her eyes were violet to match her new blouse.
“Are you going to the spring dance?” Veronica asked.
“Have I ever missed a chance to wear three-inch heels?” I replied.
“Details! How many boys have asked you, and who’s Mr. Lucky?”
“Three have asked, but I’m not sure who to pick.”
“Me neither,” said Veronica. “Only, I got asked by four guys. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so popular—just kidding.”
At Carnegie Middle School, the Spring Fling was the big event of the year. I had waited an entire week for Adam to ask me, dressing especially amazing each day and even curling my hair. No matter what I did, he wasn’t interested. Yesterday, I asked him if he wanted to walk me home again, but he said he had to get to basketball practice. The boys who asked me to the dance were okay, but Adam was the most sought-after boy in the eighth grade, and the girl on his arm would have the power to turn all the other girls at the dance instantly green. At least he hadn’t asked Veronica. That would have been a fate worse than Adamlessness.
“I totally know what you mean,” I told her. “I still have to go shopping. It’s not gonna be easy to find the perfect dress to complement my ringlets updo. That’s how Mom’s doing my hair.”
“Can she do mine?” Veronica asked.
“I guess. But you better get an appointment, because she always fills up when there’s a dance.”
“We should get a group together and all go to your mom’s beauty salon and get our hair and nails done before the dance.”
“Cool,” I said. “I’ll set it up.”
Professor Wigglesmith came to the door. “Time for class.”
“What about you?” I asked her. “Are you going?”
“Going where?”
“To the dance—you know, the Spring Fling.”
“I don’t suppose I’m allowed,” said Professor Wigglesmith, brushing her bangs away from her eyes. “I believe it’s for students.”
“Why don’t you go as a chaperone?” I suggested.
“I have no experience. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to wear.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “The dances here are awesome. You should totally go.”
Professor Wigglesmith blushed and turned back into her classroom. Then I noticed Veronica’s expression—a cross between shock and horror.
“Why would you encourage her to go to the dance?” asked Veronica.
From the look in her eyes, I realized my mistake. Inviting a teacher to an after-school event was way uncool. Between her coming to my house for tutoring and us goofing around together at the Carnegie Diner waiting for the rest of the math team to show, I had spent so much time with Professor Wigglesmith that sometimes I forgot we weren’t supposed to be friends. I had to think of something fast. “How else am I gonna get my math grade up? Tell me you don’t kiss up to teachers for extra points.”
“That’s all it is? Because Jordeen told me her cousin Sarah saw you and Professor Wigglesmith hanging out together at the Carnegie Diner.”
“It’s that stupid math team,” I said.
“So she’s not, like, your friend?”
“Think about it,” I said. “Aphrodite Wigglesmith, biggest geek ever, friends with me?” I put my outstretched thumb and index finger against my forehead in the form of an “L,” the universal sign for loser. “I think not.”
Veronica headed off to class looking satisfied, and I went into math class and took my seat. It was another one of those “Why Math Matters to Me” days, and Eugenia was passing out balls of black yarn and giant needles.
“Math matters to me because knitting is my favorite thing to do, and without math I couldn’t knit a thing,” Eugenia said. “Understanding patterns, maintaining symmetry, and calculating stitch ratios are all math concepts used in the textile arts.” Then she showed everyone how to use math to “cast on” the yarn with knitting needles.
Timothy raised his hand. “What do you call a clever sweater maker?” he asked. “A knit-wit. Get it?”
Half the class groaned.
&
nbsp; While I looped the yarn on my needle, I replayed in my mind what had just happened in the hallway when I accidentally invited Professor Wigglesmith to come to the school dance. It was strange. Even though she was my teacher, there were a lot of reasons I liked hanging out with her. She didn’t treat me like I was stupid all the time like my other “friends” did. Plus, when I was with girls like Veronica, Jordeen, and Summer, they always wanted to compete over who had the smoothest skin, or shiniest hair, or whitest teeth. With Professor Wigglesmith, I didn’t have to compete. I could just be myself. Still, I had to be careful, because she was a certified geek and I was popular. Hanging out with Professor Wigglesmith could ruin my reputation.
The next week, when Professor Wigglesmith asked if I would go with her to pick out a dress for the dance, I was careful to meet her at the South Hills Village Mall. We were less likely to be spotted there because it was farther from town. Right away, I knew I’d made the right decision. Professor Wigglesmith stared in clueless awe at everything from the food court to the mechanical dogs barking by the toy store.
“You’re acting like you’ve never been in a mall before,” I said. “Doesn’t your mom take you shopping?”
Professor Wigglesmith stopped in front of a bank of gum machines. “While I was at Harvard I was always too busy with my schoolwork to go shopping, so I got in the habit of buying my clothes from a mail-order catalog. Why would anyone choose to eat something called a bloody eyeball?”
“It’s gum,” I said. “It’s got a cherry liquid center, so it squirts when you bite into it. Totally gross.”
While she gawked at the gumball machine, I backed up and practiced figure eights. I brought my baton most everywhere I went so I could get in as much practice as possible before the Twirlcrazy Grand Championship. Miss Brenda had decided I was ready to try a two-baton routine, and had taught me some off-the-chart, totally trophy-worthy tricks. I meant to perfect them. I couldn’t stop the Baton Barn from closing, but I could take home first place at my last competition.
“Follow me,” I told Professor Wigglesmith, taking her in the direction of Hip Dip, a teen chain that follows the trends. “I know a store you’ll love.”
We went over to the dress section, where all the dresses were arranged by color. Professor Wigglesmith went straight for the plain, dark dresses. “Something appropriate for a chaperone,” she said. But the whole time she was eyeing a section of pink dresses.
I convinced her that she should let me pick some dresses for her to try on since, between the two of us, I was the fashion expert. “Trust me,” I said. “I know a lot about making smart clothes choices, because on my crummy allowance I can’t afford to buy something that just sits in the closet.” I loaded up her arms with a rainbow of dresses, then grabbed a half-dozen of the hottest new styles for myself.
In the dressing room, I slipped on a sunflower yellow silky dress in a size five. The decorative zipper running down the front took forever to zip up, but it was worth it. The color, style, fabric—it all worked.
The fitting room attendant checked out my profile in the three-sided mirror. “You look fabulous,” she said.
“I do.” Ignore me now, Adam, I thought as I smoothed the fabric.
“You’ve got to see this one,” I yelled to Professor Wigglesmith through her dressing room door. “What’s taking you so long?” When she didn’t answer, I tapped on her door. When it flew open, there she was in a strapless lilac dress, with a T-shirt showing underneath. “What a mess,” I laughed. “You can’t try on a dress with your T-shirt on.”
“But it’s half naked up top,” she said.
“And those thin straps you have your arms in are actually the loops that are used to hold the dress on the hanger. You need to get your arms out of them and tuck them inside the dress.”
“But without the straps, how will I hold it up?”
I nudged her back into the dressing room. “Grandma Lucy always says if you can get a dress tight enough, nature will hold it up for you.” But even without the T-shirt, the dress was a mess. She could have used the top for a sock drawer and still not have filled it up. “Turn for me.” Professor Wigglesmith clomped around in a circle, holding up the top of the dress to keep it from slipping. “Try the one with the tan halter neck,” I suggested. But her shoulders were too narrow to pull that look off, and the halter dress had a strange belt thing that we didn’t know what to do with.
The next dress was sky blue on top, ocean blue on bottom, and at least a foot longer than she was; there with so much extra fabric she was drowning in it. The long-sleeved gray one with the mock turtleneck that she tried on next made her look like she was going to a funeral. That was followed by a dress that was the same shade as the Pink Panther cartoon character. As soon as I saw her in it, I started singing the punch line from the lame joke Timothy once told me about the Pink Panther stepping on a bug: dead-ant, dead-ant . . . dead-ant, dead-ant, dead-ant.
I went out and got some more dresses for her to try on. Professor Wigglesmith pushed her bangs away from her eyes and sighed. “Maybe this was a bad idea,” she said.
I got a bobby pin out of my purse and pushed her bangs out of her eyes with it. Then I told her to try the next dress on wearing the cool three-inch sandals I’d found in the shoe department.
Meanwhile, I was having the opposite problem. Each of the dresses I had tried on fit perfectly and looked great, even the pink one that Professor Wigglesmith had picked for me to try on. So I chose the way I always had to on my stupid budget, checking price tags and keeping the one that cost the least. It was the sunflower yellow silky dress that I had tried on first. I held the dress against me and smiled. “Don’t let it bother you,” I yelled over the dressing room wall to Professor Wigglesmith. “Lots of girls have trouble finding clothes.”
When I came out of my dressing room, I heard the clerk say, “Wow. That dress was made for you.” But she stared right past me. I turned and saw Professor Wigglesmith in a sleek black dress with pastel pink trim that I had picked for her. It had a wide square neck, short sleeves that fell just off the shoulders, and a huge pink bow in the back with long ribbons. The black fabric complemented her pale skin by making it look creamy soft, the pink trim gave it just the right contrast, and the shoes gave the dress the exact height it needed for the ribbons to brush the floor.
“Do you like it?” Professor Wigglesmith asked me.
I was startled at how good she looked. “I guess it’s okay,” I said.
“It’s more than okay,” said the attendant. “Honey, I have seen dozens of girls try that dress on, and none made it look that good.”
Professor Wigglesmith spun and smiled. “Really?” she asked.
I looked over at the reject rack where I had just hung the same dress. That’s so wrong, I thought. I could see getting one-upped in the dressing room by Veronica or Summer or even Jordeen, but Professor Wigglesmith? Wasn’t it enough that she was so much smarter than me?
“Should I buy it?” she asked.
“Whatever,” I said. “I’m going to look in the shoe section.”
After a dozen pairs, I forgot I was mad at Professor Wigglesmith. The rest of the time we looked for jewelry for her and a new athletic bag that I could use for the Twirlcrazy Grand Championship.
“I’ve been working on a new two-baton routine,” I said. “Miss Brenda says with my flow and glow I have a real shot at first place.”
“Your what and who?”
“Flow and glow. It means, you know, my good rhythm and winning smile. Usually I just try my best and don’t worry about where I place, but with the Baton Barn closing and this being my last chance I really want to win.”
“How about this one?” asked Professor Wigglesmith, holding up a plum purple bag.
I slid my baton into the long compartment at the bottom; it was a perfect fit. A huge brand name was written across the bag. “This would be great,” I said, “if it didn’t cost a fortune.”
“Let me buy it
for you,” she offered, “as a good luck present.”
“Can I ask a question? I mean, why would you do that?”
“Because we’re friends,” she said.
I wanted to be straight with her and explain that we weren’t officially friends. I wanted to tell her how social standing works in middle school and how guilt by association keeps popular girls like me from openly being close with nerdy girls like her. But the truth was, I wanted the bag more. “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind? I could pay you back, Professor Wigglesmith.”
“I’ll tell you how you could pay me back.” She scooped it up and took it to the cashier. “When we’re not in school, you can stop calling me Professor Wigglesmith. Call me Aphrodite, or, better yet, by the nickname Hermy uses—Dytee.”
I thought that was pretty cool. Professor Wigglesmith—I mean Dytee—acted like she actually cared. I couldn’t remember any of my so-called friends ever offering to buy me anything. My school friends never even came to my competitions. They pretended they had other things to do, and I pretended not to care. Sometimes it felt like they actually wanted me to fail so it would make them look better. But Dytee wasn’t like that. She had my back. Even though we couldn’t be real friends because of my reputation, there was no harm in us being secret after-school-only friends.
“Thanks,” I said.
We were supposed to meet her mom at the star court at 9:00 p.m. It was an open area showing off the mall’s soaring ceiling. We were a little early, so I practiced my fujimi rolls, using my elbows to roll the baton from front to back.
“Look. There’s one of those photo booths,” Dytee said, pointing to a Picture Perfect Photo Booth.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a photo booth?”
“Of course I’ve seen one. I’ve just never actually gone inside one.”
“Come on,” I said, pulling my last three dollars from my jeans. “I’ll show you how it works. My treat.” We ducked into the booth and squeezed next to each other in the hard seat. “Do this,” I said, putting my arms over my head and forming my fingers into a halo. She got her arms halfway up when the flash went off. We both burst out laughing, and the camera caught it all.
