Miss Taken

by Sue Seabury

  He came over and we snuggled up on the rec room couch. I had thought ahead and stashed Trey’s clothes back in the laundry room to make the place look a little tidier even if it made the couch much less comfortable. Also, the gentle lavender in the fabric softener does more than a person might think to help combat the stinkiness of an old couch.

  Mom came downstairs and gave us the eye, but not until after we had accomplished some very pleasant smooching. I should also note that she thoughtfully made a lot of noise at the top of the stairs before descending. By the time she arrived, we were sitting up with a chaste foot of cushion between us. Something was playing on the TV but if Mom had taken it into her mind to quiz us on the plot, we would have been in trouble.

  She said hello to Ned in a not-hostile fashion after surreptitiously checking us out for indications of clothing being replaced in a hurry.

  “Are you staying for dinner tonight?” she asked, none too amiable after noticing a certain dishevelment to our hair. But still, it was an improvement on her side.

  “No - thank you, Mrs. H-G. I have to be home for dinner tonight,” Ned answered.

  Mom doesn’t care for the way he shortens her name. But I give her a C- for the job she did hiding her pleasure that Ned would not be staying much longer.

  She took her sweet time in the laundry room too. After Mom finally went back upstairs, we got in a few good ones, but then Trey came tootling down, whistling loudly. We reseparated. I could not suppress a loudish sigh. Trey changed the channel to some game or other and then sat down as far away from us as possible. He said to the TV, “Mom told me to come watch the game down here.”

  That meddling killjoy! And, yes, I mean my mother. Ned and I had weeks of catch-up kissing to do and here she was, ruining all my fun. Since we couldn’t do anything constructive, I asked Ned if he would like to at least knock out the homework. He kind of snorted but in the end agreed when I pointed out that neither of us was interested in football.

  “Basketball.”

  Whatever.

  We went up and sat at the kitchen table. I caught my mother smirking smugly and I detested her even more, if that were possible.

  I said louder than necessary, “So about the homework...” and then ostentatiously and completely unnecessarily flung a few papers around.

  Ned swallowed a laugh - then he squeezed my knee under the table and left his hand there. I felt an extra thrill flaunting my mom’s attempt to keep two hormonal teenagers from touching each other right under her nose.

  It didn’t help my concentration, however. I was glad my dad wasn’t in the room to hear my confused explanation of inverted equations.

  I walked Ned out to his car and we did a furious amount of kissing in the space of five minutes. When I finally decided we were risking my mother coming outside, Ned groaned and said some very sexy things about kidnapping me and taking me to an exotic island where parents were forbidden entry.

  I floated back into the house on that dream and if I would have run into Kyle at that moment, I think I could have shot him a very friendly hello.

  This is neither strange nor scientific, but it is a fact: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

  Since I had all Sunday to myself, my anger had time to ramp back up again. I also wanted to make up with Diana, and warn her off her sonnet-reciting, two-timing jerk. I called her at noon, sharp. She almost hung up on me, but I groveled a little, and I could tell she liked it. She said she would meet me at the neutral zone of the rez in an hour. I had a vision of us dueling with stalks of dried weeds at twenty paces and had to stifle a snort of laughter.

  “Our native plants are in danger of being overrun by all these foreign invasives, Jane.”

  I swallowed another snort. “That wasn’t...never mind.”

  We met at the appointed location, Diana dressed as a lumberjack/fisherman, collecting sack hanging by her ample hip, me in practical stirrup pants and lace bolero jacket because it’s important not to sacrifice everything to comfort.

  “So,” said Diana sourly.

  I wasn’t even going to let her get started. “Oh, Diana,” I said taking her hand. “Listen, this is important. I’m back with Ned, so what I’m about to tell you is only for your own good and not because we’re in some sort of silly rivalry over some stupid boy.”

  Diana bridled at my use of the word ‘stupid’ to describe Kyle, but I cut her off again, promising to keep it brief.

  “Listen, Kyle is double - he’s triple-timing you! We were involved in a love - I had to think about it - quadrangle! I went out to the mall with him two weeks ago on a Friday night, and he had made a date with Hannah right after me! I saw them together with my own eyes! Trust me, this Rhode Island Red is a turkey.”

  Diana didn’t even crack a smile at my comparison. Rather, she was looking a little pale. She also looked like she could use a chair. I found us a dry log to sit on.

  “What Friday was that?” she asked faintly.

  “Um, I don’t remember the date, was it the twenty-sixth?”

  “The twenty-fifth,” she replied, much too quickly.

  “Okay, then it was the twenty-fifth.”

  There was a pause. “What time did you meet him?”

  “Around seven-thirtyish.”

  Diana actually clutched at my arm. “He had a date with Hannah too, you say?” She was shaking. It wasn’t that cold out.

  “Yup. Not only that, he’s from Rhode Island! I don’t know if he fed you the line about being from some exciting foreign land, but Hannah filled me in. I’m still working on my plan, but I want to get him back good...Are you okay?”

  Diana looked like a Weeble who was about to wobble off the log. “He’s not from Bora Bora?” she whispered. Then she sat up straight and gripped her satchel. I was dying to know if the Wonder Woman suit was in that bag of hers. She turned to me with steel in her eyes. She barked at me like a seasoned drill sergeant or possibly even a petty officer of the navy, “What have you come up with?”

  And just like that, we were friends again, united against the common enemy of one ordinary boy from a completely ordinary city that looks out on some very murky, gray water.

  Strange but true scientific facts about stick insects: They are great at camouflage, and even use it to hide their eggs as seeds on the forest floor. They regurgitate a nasty substance as a defense mechanism and can reproduce parthenogenetically; that is, they do not need males.

  I went to school Monday morning with the intention of being cool, calm and composed, and then knocking Kyle’s sunglass-wearing, fake-gum-chewing, twinkling-earring, freckle-face all back to the smallest state in the nation by letting him have it with a smart (but figurative) slap.

  I just had to make it through math without Ned being overly affectionate. I was confident Diana would do her part well. Now if she had just worn something cool instead of that ridiculously ugly taupe pant suit that neither flatters her skin nor communicates any meaningful emotion like I had when I got dressed that morning. If Kyle knew anything about anything, he would have steered clear of the serpent in the green satin boat neck blouse and houndstooth flannel trousers today.

  But he didn’t notice a thing. There were no worries about Ned because he came in so late, he had to start scribbling right away. It would have taken a suspicious and extremely sharp-eyed person to discern the sly, sexy looks we were giving each other. Kyle was neither.

  Diana did a fantastic job of chatting up Kyle like he was still the most fascinating boy who ever came from Rhode Island.

  I went to talk to Mr. Hiro, ostensibly to ask him about an extra credit project I invented on the spot so Kyle would walk with Diana and be well on his way to biology as Ned took a full thirty seconds to smooch unobserved. I even managed a smile for Sophie. I figured I owed her that much, even though I still say it is creepy and more than a little rude that she was watching us like that.

  I raced down to bio and made it just as the bell rang. Garrulous Garrone announced we would be doi
ng a lab. Raj volunteered to work with Christie who was partnerless that day. How perfect. I wasn’t even offended at all that Raj would want to work with that airheaded twit rather than me. His thoughtfulness was going to give me the time to really sock it to Kyle.

  We gathered our microscopes and slides and settled back at our table. I gave Kyle an evil smile worthy of Hannah, but he didn’t catch on. We worked quietly on our slides, identifying and classifying and we finished quickly, as usual. Kyle started to write up his report. I nudged him.

  “So,” I whispered. “Why don’t you tell me more about your exciting upbringing on that exotic island of yours.”

  Kyle waggled his eyebrows at me with a smile in a way that was supposed to be mysterious and enticing, I’m sure. I gave him another evil smile and saw him swallow. There was panic in his eyes as he focused on his papers.

  A few minutes went by. Kyle worked intently on his report and I sat there, drumming the table top with my pencil. “So?”

  “Just trying to finish this up,” he said brightly.

  When he could no longer pretend he was filling out his report, he started to make busy work with the equipment. As he polished the microscope to a state it hadn’t seen since it was first purchased in 1665, I poked him again. “Well? I’m waiting.”

  Kyle pretended he didn’t know what I was talking about. “Huh?” he said, not meeting my eye.

  “I wanted to hear more thrilling tales of your life on the island.”

  “Oh,” he replied with a wave of his hand. “It wasn’t that interesting, really.”

  “Oh, I beg to differ,” I said with formal solemnity. “Rhode Island is one of those places that most people only dream of visiting.”

  Kyle stopped polishing the microscope. He bit his lip. “Who told you I was from Rhode Island?” His voice was real squeaky.

  “A little birdie,” I answered, my magic laser lenses boring holes in his face.

  “Well, I am from an island,” he insisted. “There are islands off the coast, you know.”

  “Oh yeah? You crawled out from under one of those rocks in the harbor?”

  He tensed and then shrugged. “Okay, so what’s the big deal? So I’m not from Fiji. My mom’s from New Zealand. Sorry if I tried to make myself appear a little more interesting than I am.”

  He tugged at my heart strings a little with that one, but when I reminded myself that he had triple-timed me and Diana with Hannah, my heart hardened right back up again. I nodded.

  “I can understand that, I really can. But going out with three girls in the same night? That was a bit much, and really, really stupid.”

  The arrow hit its mark. Kyle’s eyes went wide. “How did you find out?” he murmured. I don’t think he knew he was speaking out loud.

  “A little birdie.” Hannah comes up with some good lines sometimes. “Oh, and, FYI, we’re best friends.” A bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.

  “So to conclude, consider yourself dumped, by all of us.” With that, I seized the microscope that he had so carefully polished and smudged it up again.

  To finish him off, Hannah got chosen captain of the dodge ball team. Sometimes it pays to know the person who has the teacher in her back pocket. Scratch that. It is awesome to be friends with the person who has every male on the planet in her back pocket.

  She chose Diana and me and I guess I’m sorry to say that we childishly pummeled Kyle, after making sure he was picked last by Greg’s team.

  When gum-twirling Meliss helped a dazed and perhaps slightly bruised but still fake-gum-clacking Kyle to his feet and their fake green eyes met, I thought to myself, now why did I never put those two together before?

  Okay, so it was not perhaps Robin Jane’s finest moment.

  But it felt really good.

  One moment that was great and altruistic was when I walked by the teacher’s lounge and saw M. Waddell and Mrs. Rochel sitting together and chatting in a most animated fashion. I saw a plate of sorry-looking health loaf on the table between them and telltale crumbs on M. Waddell’s shirt. I wondered how long it would take him to figure out that Mrs. Rochel had nothing to do with the confectionary delights I had used to get those two together.

  Then again, maybe he wouldn’t figure it out. People can be pretty blind when it comes to love.

  So Diana has sworn off men for a while. We’ll see how long this lasts.

  Hannah of course never needed to. She is currently dating at least three, none of them in high school.

  Ned and I have been out on more dates in the past two weeks than the previous five months combined. When we got our report cards, I was astonished to see a solid B-/C+ average. Ned said he really buckled down in February just to prove to me he could do it on his own, with only a little bit of help from Sophie.

  “She helped you with English?”

  “She’s really smart.”

  I am confident that my smile never wavered. Okay, maybe it wavered a little bit but I’m sure he couldn’t tell.

  And Kyle? He should consider himself lucky that we have moved on from power tools to varnish.

  ####

  About the author:

  Sue Seabury would like to state for the record that she never behaved like this as a teenager, primarily due to the fact that she couldn’t get a date.

  If you enjoyed this book, please tell your friends.

  In case you missed the blurb at the beginning of the book, Miss Calculation chronicles Jane’s first foray mixing love and math. http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/264460

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