Maybe I should have been relieved that her suspicion hadn’t fallen on me, but really? How does a girl who climbed the stairs to my best friend’s (okay, former best friend’s) bed get to call some other girl out as a skank? It wasn’t fair. In the interest of self-preservation, I tried to rein in any anger I felt and stick to the facts.
“Back to Rhino,” I said. “He’s … he’s not what you think he is. Or I guess I should say that he is who you think he isn’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Remember that disclaimer page we found that first day on the wiki?”
“The one you found?”
“Right,” I said. “I hadn’t been checking it.”
Elle shook her head. “Me neither. I totally forgot about it with all the homecoming drama.”
“I checked it last night.” I took a breath. “Something I saw there—it sort of leads to only one person.”
“You found the mastermind?” She gave me a smile. “It’s Aiden, isn’t it?”
“No. I thought it was him at first, but it isn’t.”
“Then who?” Her brow crinkled. “It can’t be Jason. He’s not smart enough. If someone gave that kid a penny for his thoughts, he’d have to give them change back.” She looked at me like she expected me to laugh. When I didn’t, she said, “It’s not Gavin, is it? I mean, it doesn’t seem like something he’d do, but come on—” She waved the phone around again. “That’s his jersey in that photo. Apparently his standards aren’t as high as they once were.”
“What?”
“Any slut in a storm,” she said. “I guess boys will be boys after all.”
That did it.
“It’s Rhino,” I said, the words coming out like a slap.
“Camy, girl. You need to get some sleep or something. You know Rhino doesn’t have a football jersey. And he certainly wouldn’t be screwing around with some little—”
“He’s the mastermind.”
“You’re lying,” she said. “You’re mad at him because we have this … connection.” A flicker of doubt lit her face for a moment. “And … and you’re just trying to get back at both of us.” She squeezed the pencil in her hand so hard that I thought it might break.
“No. Elle. I’m—”
She held up a hand, but I didn’t stop.
“I’m not lying. Don’t you think I wish I was? He was my best friend.” I let out a breath. “I found a picture on the disclaimer page. It was a picture that I saw Rhino take. It’s him, Elle. Your boyfriend. He’s the one.”
She pushed herself off the desk and walked to the door. She yanked it open by the knob. “Get out,” she said. “Get. Out.”
So I did.
Hav u seen elle?
The text from Mercedes surprised me. I hadn’t known she had my phone number.
Try the language hall, I responded.
I might have been angry with Elle, but there was no sense taking it out on anyone else.
K thnx
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d worked all these weeks to find the mastermind of the wiki but, without Elle, I wasn’t sure what to do with the information now that I had it.
I turned toward the football field. Maybe walking the fifty-yard line would jump start my brain. I’d only made it as far as the gate when my phone buzzed again.
Halp! it said, again from Mercedes.
Huh? I answered back.
We need u n the langauge hall, STAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I assumed the “langauge” hall was the language hall, and the “we”? Clearly Mercedes was included; she was the one who’d sent the text. Like I’d told Rhino earlier, I’d do just about anything to help that girl, but if Elle was also involved? Eh, whatever.
My phone was insistent.
Ssly the next message said. Its teh end of the world as we no it.
Despite my misgivings, I headed back toward the school. Mercedes met me at the entrance to the language hall.
“This is serious,” she said. “I’ve never seen her like this.”
We walked back to the classroom. The TESTING sign was still posted. I cracked the door to peek inside. The lights were off. The shades were pulled.
A voice from inside said, “Can’t you read, moron? The sign says: Do. Not. Enter.”
That couldn’t be Elle. She wasn’t the kind of girl to toss out random insults. Specific insults, occasionally, but never random ones.
I flipped on the lights.
She was sitting cross-legged on top of the teacher’s desk. Her eyes were red. Dark streaks of mascara ran down both cheeks. Half her hair had escaped its blue and white clasp. And it looked as though she might have used the hem of her OHS Trojan Pride t-shirt to wipe her runny nose.
“Elle?”
“Go away.”
“Come on. It’s not that bad.”
“You don’t understand!” she wailed through a fresh batch of tears.
Twenty minutes later, Elle was still crying. When I looked into her eyes it seemed like she was lost. No, I thought; worse than lost. Elle looked broken. I’d wondered what happened when someone got knocked off destiny’s path. Now I knew. And I’d been the one to give the final shove.
Mercedes and I tried everything: talking, patting her back, promising her a Diet Coke. Still, over and over, she howled, “You don’t understand.”
“If we can’t get her to calm down, then we need to get her out of here,” Mercedes said.
I knew what she meant.
A grainy cell phone photo of Elle going native by the Grecian sea might not be enough to topple the goddess of Olympia High from her mighty perch, but if Aiden, Clarissa, or any of the rest of the piranhas on the student council caught her in this shape, I was sure they’d leave behind nothing but bones.
We needed more help to get Elle out of the school unseen, but who? I’d always counted on Rhino to come to my rescue. That wasn’t happening. Not today, and maybe not ever again. I blew out a breath and blinked back a few tears of my own.
Once more, I relied on my tutoring experience. Who knew about both boys and sneaking out of school? Almost immediately, a name popped into my head. I chided myself for thinking it, but I knew I had my answer.
“Sophie,” I said out loud. “If only I had her phone number.”
“I do,” Mercedes said. Under any other circumstances I would have wondered at the strangeness of a contact list that connected the school’s most spirited with the school’s most … misunderstood. But there wasn’t time for that. Instead, I tapped in the number as Mercedes read it off and touched Call.
A little girl answered. She sounded all of six.
“Is Sophie there?” I asked. I heard the phone thunk and the patter of tiny footsteps. Then I heard something more ominous. The clip-clop of Ms. Pendergast’s high heels. The corridor was clear, but I ran to the end of the hall and ducked into the stairway.
“Yeah?” Sophie said a few moments later. The sound of her voice in my ear made me jump.
“Hey, it’s Camy.”
“Oh ... hi.”
“Um, we have kind of a problem,” I said. “A boy problem.” I figured it was best to get it all out there.
“Ooh.” Sophie’s voice perked up. “It’s Gavin, isn’t it?”
I gave her the SparkNotes version of events, talking around what I thought might have happened between Elle and Rhino the night before. At the end of it, I said, “We need to get her out of here and we don’t know how.”
Sophie arrived in less than ten minutes. She took one look at Elle, blew out a breath and said, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do …”
If I thought Rhino was an evil genius, he was nothing compared to Sophie. Her plan was amazing, and simple too. All we had to do was wait until the coast was clear, then walk out the door one at a time.
“The most important thing I’ve learned about getting out of school without being seen is to look like everything is completely normal. You know, like you’re doing what
you’re supposed to be doing.”
We spent a few minutes cleaning Elle up, then Sophie threatened to kill her if she cried again before we got out the door. Mercedes acted as lookout. As soon as she gave the signal we stepped out the classroom door. Sophie walked on one side of Elle. I took the other. When we got close to the office, Mercedes motioned for us to wait.
“Hi, Clarissa!” she gushed in a loud voice.
I couldn’t hear the response, but the conversation between them seemed to take forever. When it finally ended and Mercedes signaled to us again, it looked like Clarissa had drained most of the perkiness right out of her. I fought the urge to chew my fingernails.
“I’ll go first,” Sophie said. “Wait two minutes, then send Elle out with Mercedes. You come two minutes after that. We’ll meet up by the gates to the football field.”
I nodded.
“And whatever happens, don’t stop walking once you start.”
I watched Sophie stroll right out the front doors like subterfuge was an everyday occurrence for her. I started counting backward from one hundred twenty. When I got to one, I gave Elle a push. “Go.”
She wasn’t as convincing as Sophie, but somehow she managed to meet up with Mercedes and scoot out the door. That left just me. I rubbed my sweaty palms on my jeans and tried to calm my heartbeat. I took a quick drink at the fountain, then started toward the door. I had my hand on it when I heard that ominous clip-clop and someone saying, “Camy? Camy Cavanaugh?”
I had twelve years of goody-two-shoes experience behind me. I couldn’t help it. I stopped and turned around—and found Ms. Pendergast standing there.
“What are you doing here on a Saturday?” she said. “Not tutoring, I hope.” She rolled her eyes.
Like I said before, I don’t like to lie. And I’m usually not very good at it. But all the secret double agent wiki stuff I’d been involved in over the past few weeks had improved my skills.
“I just stopped by to see if the student council needed any help,” I said.
Ms. P reached up to pat her hair. “That’s wonderful, Camy. I’m so glad you took my advice and started interacting with your fellow students more. That Elle.” She smiled. “She sure is a good influence on—”
Whatever she said next was lost in the sound of my internal barfing. The next thing I heard was, “Speaking of Elle, have you seen her?”
“N-no,” I stuttered. I felt the start of a twitch forming beneath my left eye.
A look of distrust washed across Ms. Pendergast’s face, but she dismissed it quickly enough. “Well, if you see her, tell her I’m looking for her, would you? And, Camy, I have a little project I was hoping you might help me with. It’s kind of a puzzle and—”
“Sure! Great!” I said, but that wasn’t what I was thinking. And then I wasn’t thinking at all. I pushed open the school door, walked calmly until I was out of sight of Ms. Pendergast, then I ran like hell for the football field.
We ended up at my house. Mercedes wasn’t sure if her mom would be home, Elle didn’t offer, and Sophie said my place was closer, but I got the idea she didn’t want us to see where she lived. Besides, my dad had circled an ad in the newspaper for a tech swap that day. I hoped there would be enough widgets and what’s-its there to keep him occupied until we got Elle straightened out. And if there weren’t? Well, freaky hermit girl inviting actual friends to her house? He’d probably hug himself and buy us pizza.
Once we got inside, I grabbed bottles of water for everyone out of the fridge. We sat down in the living room.
“All right, then,” Sophie started. “Who wants to tell me what’s going on?”
Elle looked down at her water bottle and concentrated on peeling off the label. Mercedes was busy hyperventilating. I guessed I would have to be the one to explain.
Sophie interrupted when I’d gotten most of the way to the end.
“Is that all this is about?” she said. “Jeez, Camy, I told you there was no such thing as Prince Charming. And you.” She zeroed in on Elle. “You should already know better. You’ve had boyfriends before. You know how guys are.”
Elle stuck her water bottle between her knees and started sobbing again.
“Quit being a baby,” Sophie said. But that just made things worse.
I jumped up to find some tissues. Remember what I said about Dad and shopping? Right. I couldn’t find a box of Puffs anywhere, so I went into the bathroom and brought out a roll of toilet paper.
I don’t know what kind of magic Sophie worked while I was gone, but things were a lot calmer, and less damp, when I returned.
“So I just don’t get what the point is,” Elle was saying. “You practically kill yourself trying to be perfect, trying to do everything right. Grades, looks, cheerleading, student council, your parents … boys.” She sighed. “You wait and wait for the right one to come around, the perfect guy, and then—”
“Hold on a second. You’re kidding me, right?” Sophie said. “Are you trying to tell me that Elle Emerson, the Elle Emerson, has never done anything with a guy before?”
Sophie’s eyes were huge.
So were Mercedes’.
Mine were too.
“No!” Elle said. “That’s not what I’m trying to tell you. Of course I’ve done things.”
We all let out a breath at the same time.
“I just never did it. I figure the other stuff doesn’t count.”
I shouldn’t have been shocked that she felt that way. Not really. The rules for girls like Elle Emerson had always been different than they were for the rest of us. Apparently, that included sex too. She had this idea that her first time should be something epic.
And she’d almost had it, too. I thought about last night in Rhino’s garage. How they’d danced. How, when they kissed, it really had seemed like something from a movie.
Elle looked at me then. “One thing. You’ve got to be totally honest. I promise not to freak, but I’ve got to know if he was lying or not. Was it really his first time too?”
“He said it was?” I formed the words with my mouth, I know I did, but they felt weird and foreign. “I wish I could tell you,” I said. Because in that moment, I had no idea. The old Rhino, the one I knew better than anyone else, had ceased to exist.
Sophie kicked my ankle. “The answer is yes,” she said. “God, Camy, you really do suck at this.”
“Why do you think I called you?”
The three of them stayed the night. Just as I’d predicted, Dad ordered pizza when he got home from the tech swap. We watched Pride and Prejudice together downstairs. Then we went up to my room. Sophie gave me tips on how to control my crazy hair. Mercedes treated us all to mayonnaise facials, and Elle flipped through the clothes in my closet. She held up my Star Wars Come to the Dark Side shirt.
“Never. Wear. This. Again,” she said, and turned to Sophie. “You weren’t at the party,” she said in her debater’s voice. Even with a broken heart, Elle Emerson could still go a few rounds.
Sophie raised an eyebrow. Actually, I did too. I mean, Elle had hardly been at the party.
“I had to work the late shift.” Sophie shook her head, a momentary flush covering her cheeks. “Denny’s never closes.”
“And that Kevin guy? You didn’t…?” Elle asked.
Now Sophie really blushed. And then her face turned to glass again, all sharp and fragile.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” she said. “Kevin’s not on your anti-hit list, but if you really need to know, he came to work with me. He stayed for like half my shift, and ended up drinking two pots of coffee.”
“Is he still awake?” Mercedes asked.
Sophie grinned. “I switched him to decaf after the first pot. He never noticed.”
“And that was it?” Elle almost looked like her old self, but it was more like a gauzy, watercolor version of herself, one that could wash away at any moment.
“Well, no.” Sophie stared at the ceiling. “He kissed me.” She tou
ched her cheek. “Right here.”
“I should’ve stopped there,” Elle mused.
“And Dalton should have started there,” Mercedes said. “The boy is sweet, but I’m ready to get on with the making out already!”
We talked and laughed until the sun came up.
Overnight, the temperature dropped from chilly to frigid. The first true frost of the season was glistening in the morning light. Sophie’s car refused to start, so Dad offered to drive to her house so she could pick up the battery charger she stored there. We stopped at Elle’s for the bags I’d left there on Friday. Then we dropped Mercedes off near her car at school.
I don’t know why Sophie was so embarrassed about her house. Sure, it was a trailer, but it was really nice. A deck ran across the front of it, with a big pot of mums sitting on it. And her sisters were playing in the leaves that her mom was raking in the yard.
When we got home, I wasted two hours trying to hack back into the wiki. It proved impossible. I took a nap, then dug out all my folders and homework. Everything was still a mess after being knocked over in the locker room on Friday. I found my calculus. I found my earth science. I found my French. The only things missing were the spreadsheets I’d made for the wiki and the ones Gavin had given to me.
I dumped everything on the floor and sorted it. While I was super organized after that, I still didn’t have either of the spreadsheets. My locker, I thought. They must be in my locker.
And if they weren’t?
I didn’t want to think about that.
Chapter 21
MONDAY MORNING WAS one of those days that make you glad you live in Minnesota. The sky was blue. The air was crisp. The leaves on the trees were dressed in gorgeous colors. Despite everything that had happened, I was … happy. Hopeful, even. It felt like the first day of school all over again, like anything was possible.
Okay, so Gavin had turned out to be a jerk. But I’d spent the last three years not talking to him and it hadn’t killed me yet. And, yeah, my best friend since preschool had ended up being more Prince of Darkness than Prince Charming. That still hurt. A lot. But at least I had Elle, Mercedes, and Sophie to take his place. Sort of.
Dating on the Dork Side Page 23
