Friends, Fugues, and Fortune Cookies

by Michelle Schusterman

  That was without a doubt the longest conversation I’d ever had with Aaron. I sank down in my chair right as the bell rang, twisting the turtle necklace Julia had given me around my fingers. Maybe I could get up the guts to ask him to the dance. I felt my face flush again as I remembered the way he’d smiled at me just now.

  Or maybe—just maybe—I wouldn’t have to ask him. Maybe he would ask me first.

  My good mood lasted all day, despite getting assigned a book report in English, not to mention Mrs. Driscoll springing a pop quiz on us in science. I stayed after school to practice, and I even managed to play the last few measures of the fugue pretty much perfectly five times in a row before walking over to Owen’s house.

  When I rang his doorbell, I was going over my conversation with Aaron in my head for about the millionth time.

  “Hi, Mrs. Grady!” I said cheerfully, holding out an empty Tupperware container. “Thanks again for the brownies last week.”

  “Anytime, Holly.” Mrs. Grady took the container and stepped back to let me in. “How’s everything?”

  “Great, thanks!” I knelt down to scratch Owen’s dog, Worf, behind the ears. “Did Owen tell you about the bake-sale competition we’re doing for band?”

  She nodded. “He said the brass section is meeting tomorrow morning to get organized.”

  “Yup.” I stood up, brushing stray bits of black and tan fur off my jeans. “Do you think maybe you could help us with the baking? I bet we could sell a ton of those brownies.”

  Mrs. Grady smiled. “I already promised Owen I’d help. He’s in the game room,” she added, heading into the kitchen.

  “Thank you!” I took the stairs two at a time. Worf raced past me, then stood at the top and watched as I hopped up the last two. “Show-off,” I said, and he licked my hand.

  “Check it out!”

  I’d barely taken two steps into the game room before a sketchbook was shoved inches from my face. It was open to a page with a bloodied Santa Claus ripping a tuba in half. Something pinkish was coming out of the bell of the tuba. I squinted . . . Yeah, it was a brain.

  Owen’s wide gray eyes peered at me over the top of the book. “What do you think?”

  “It’s disgusting,” I said, then added: “In a good way, I mean. What’s it for?”

  Owen grinned, leading the way over to the sofa. “The programs for the winter concert. I’ve been working on some drawings of Mr. Dante in different Santa outfits. That one’s zombie Santa, obviously. Here’s vampire Santa, and I started a Godzilla Santa, too.”

  I flipped to the next page, smiling. I’d convinced Mr. Dante to let me make the winter concert programs, since I’d done it last year for Mrs. Wendell. Owen had agreed to draw something for the cover.

  “These are stellar,” I said. “But the thing is, the winning section gets to pick the costume, and we won’t know which section won until right before the concert. We wouldn’t have enough time to get them printed.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Owen replied, picking up an orange pencil. “I was thinking we could just have a bunch of different weird Santas on the cover, or something like that.” He shrugged, adding flames to the Godzilla Santa’s mouth. “What did last year’s programs look like? I don’t remember.”

  “They had a big snowflake on the front that I got from clip art,” I admitted. Owen’s lips twitched. “Hey, I’m not an artist!” I said with a grin. “You’re right, a bunch of insane Santas crushing instruments would be a lot cooler. But maybe something with less . . . um . . . brains. I don’t think the band boosters would like that very much.”

  Owen studied the picture. “Good point.”

  “Maybe you could do Santa flying a UFO or something,” I suggested.

  His eyes lit up. “Good idea!” I watched him sit back down with his sketchbook, pencil flying over the paper. It was kind of crazy how fast he could sketch, and how realistic the pictures were.

  Well, as realistic as a giant lizard in a Santa hat playing the flute could look.

  “Hey, how did you do on that quiz today?” Owen asked. He was my lab partner in science, which was actually how I learned he could draw—he’d made this card game with pictures to help me study because I almost failed the class on my first progress report.

  “Aced it,” I replied. He smiled, not taking his eyes off the page.

  “Nice.”

  While Owen finished adding a miniature student trying to beat Godzilla Santa away with a drumstick, I went and untangled the video-game controllers lying by the TV. Now that I was passing science, we spent a lot less time studying and a lot more time hijacking alien pods.

  “Prophets kind of counts as studying science,” I realized out loud, flopping back on the sofa. Owen’s pencil stopped moving.

  “Huh?”

  “Think about it—last week I drowned in that lake in level three because I didn’t know the aliens could breathe underwater. But they don’t have gills. So I bet they breathe through their capillaries, like bullfrogs can.”

  Owen blinked a few times. “Sometimes you’re really weird, Holly.” But I could see him smiling as he went back to his sketchbook.

  “Thank you.”

  I tried to get through level four for a few minutes while Owen finished his sketch, then we switched to two-player. Half an hour later, we were battling tree-dwelling aliens in the everglades of level five when Owen’s stepfather, Steve, came up the stairs. Owen fumbled with his controller, hastily closing his sketchbook and sliding it under a pile of comic books.

  “Dinner’s ready. Holly, you’re welcome to stay if you like.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Grady,” I replied, glancing curiously at Owen. “That sounds great.”

  Steve disappeared back downstairs, and Owen stood up. “What?” he said, and I realized I was staring.

  “Nothing.” I stood, too, and went to turn off the game console. “It just kind of looked like you were hiding your drawings.”

  Owen shrugged, not meeting my eyes. “Sort of, I guess.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Does Steve not like them or something?”

  “No, he’s never really looked at them,” Owen said. “Sometimes he gets kind of annoyed when I’m drawing . . . or on the computer, or playing games or whatever. He thinks it’s all a waste of time.”

  I gasped in mock outrage. “Prophet Wars is so not a waste of time!”

  Owen laughed. “Anyway, he’s always trying to get me to go do stuff outside. Last week he took me to a batting cage, where this machine shoots baseballs at you and you practice hitting.”

  I struggled to keep a straight face as I tried to picture Owen in a batting cage. “And . . . it wasn’t fun?”

  “It was the most boring and painful hour of my life,” Owen replied solemnly, and I snickered. “Hey, are you sure you want to stay for dinner? Mom’s been on a health kick lately. Last night we had this soup that was kind of weird. It tasted like grass and medicine.”

  Shrugging, I headed to the stairs, and he followed. “It’s probably better than Chinese takeout for the third time this week—which is what we’ve got at my house. Hey, Owen?”

  He glanced at me. “Yeah?”

  “You should show Steve some of your drawings sometime,” I told him. “I bet he’d change his mind about it being a waste of time if he saw how good you are.”

  Owen bent to scoop up Worf, but I saw him blink about a dozen times.

  “Yeah, maybe I will sometime.”

  Chapter Three

  Since school started in August, I’d seen some gross things. There was the sixth-grader who ate eleven pieces of pizza on a bet and then puked all over the cafeteria table next to mine. There was the time the B-hall toilets all overflowed and no one knew until the bell rang after second period, and we went out into the hall and started gagging from the smell. There was the time Gabby found ants in her saxop
hone during band, and there was the science lab where Owen and I dissected an owl “pellet” and found a whole rat skull.

  As disgusting as all that was, nothing could compare to the inside of my brother’s car.

  “I seriously don’t get it, Chad.” Wrinkling my nose, I brushed potato-chip crumbs off the passenger seat and sat down carefully. I was seriously regretting asking him to take me to the brass section’s bake-sale meeting Friday morning. “You’ve had this car for three weeks. How can it be this nasty already?”

  My brother rolled his eyes, knocking a few crumpled soda cans out of the way to buckle his seat belt. “Hey, I woke up half an hour early to help you out. Lay off.” His voice was thick and sleepy.

  “It’s just—oh my God.” I lifted my feet in the air and stared, horrified, at the giant, gooey brown lump on the carpet. “Do I even want to know what that is?”

  Chad squinted, leaning over. “No idea . . . oh man! I bet it’s that chocolate bar I bought yesterday. I was wondering what happened to that.”

  I eyed the brown lump, hugging my knees to my chest. “Are you sure that’s what it is?”

  Shrugging, Chad checked the rearview mirror and started backing out of our driveway. “Pretty sure.”

  Ew ew ew. Trying not to breathe in too deeply, I kicked a few empty, grease-stained Chinese-food cartons on top of the brown goop so I wouldn’t have to look at it.

  Mom and Dad had agreed to get Chad a used car for his birthday last month, but only if he got an after-school job to help pay for half. His friend Toby’s uncle happened to be the manager of the Lotus Garden, so he’d hired Chad to do deliveries. At first all the free food had been a bonus, but lately I’d gotten tired of sesame chicken and sweet-and-sour shrimp.

  Not the fortune cookies, though. Who could ever get sick of fortune cookies?

  I spotted a few crammed into one of the cup holders under the stereo. Hesitating, I pinched the plastic wrapper of the one on top, held it up, and inspected it. It looked safe, but you could never be too careful. After all, the other cup holder was filled with about two inches of what I dearly hoped was Mountain Dew.

  “Good idea.” Chad grabbed another cookie, ripped off the plastic, and tossed the wrapper in the backseat. “I didn’t even have time to grab a cereal bar before we left, thanks to you.”

  I unwrapped my own cookie and tucked the plastic in my jeans pocket. “It’s not my fault. This was the only time everyone could make it.” Popping half of the cookie into my mouth, I eagerly unfolded the little slip of paper inside.

  BE A GOOD FRIEND AND A FAIR ENEMY

  Boring. I stuffed the paper into the front pocket of my backpack and crunched the other half of the cookie. On Tuesday, I’d opened one that said BIG CHANGES IN LOVE ARE AHEAD.

  Now that was a fortune.

  When Chad pulled up in the drop-off lane in front of the main entrance, I opened my door and two soda cans and a Lotus Garden carton fell out on the curb. I glanced around, but thankfully no one was hanging out in the entrance. Shoving the trash back into my brother’s mobile garbage can, I grabbed my backpack and hurried to the band hall.

  Natasha was there, just pulling open the double doors. “Nice boots,” she said with a grin, glancing down at the dark brown boots I was wearing (which happened to be hers).

  “Thanks!” I replied. “Nice skirt.”

  She brushed some imaginary dust off my denim skirt. “You think?”

  When Natasha moved here at the beginning of seventh grade, we didn’t get along very well at first. Actually, that’s putting it nicely. We kind of hated each other. We were always trying to one-up each other in band, and even worse, we were fighting over Julia and putting her in the middle of everything.

  It was a good thing we’d managed to get over all that, because Natasha and I had the same taste in clothes. Once we became friends, our wardrobes had doubled.

  Since we were a few minutes early for the meeting, there weren’t many other kids in the band hall yet. Liam Park was sprawled out over three chairs in the tuba section, one arm over his eyes and the other dangling to the floor. A few chairs down from him, Max Foster was reading a book. Victoria Rios waved at us as she walked out of the cubbies.

  Natasha and I joined her, pulling three chairs close together. Victoria yawned widely.

  “I can’t believe I’m here before eight,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes. “Hey, cool boots,” she added, pointing to my feet. “Thanks,” Natasha and I said simultaneously.

  More kids started to trickle in while we talked, and by eight o’clock, almost the whole brass section was there. I waved to Owen when he walked in with Trevor Wells. Victoria was in the middle of telling us about her track meet yesterday when Aaron came through the doors. I watched him grab a seat next to Liam and shake him awake just as Mr. Dante came out of his office.

  “Okay, let’s get started,” he said, turning one of the chairs in the clarinet section around so he could sit facing us. “I want each section to take care of its own planning, but I’ll help you get started. First off, we need a leader to keep track of everything—what you’re going to sell, how much you’ll charge, who’s baking what, all that stuff.” Mr. Dante held up a notebook and a pen. “Any volunteers?”

  My hands twitched, but I kept them in my lap. I desperately wanted to raise my hand, but the majority of the brass section was eighth-graders. The idea of bossing them all around was kind of intimidating.

  Finally, Aaron shrugged and raised his hand. “I’ll do it.” He took the notebook and pen from Mr. Dante.

  My stomach automatically fluttered at the sound of Aaron’s voice, but I couldn’t help thinking about all the loose papers and books I’d seen falling out of his locker. He might not be too good at the whole organization thing.

  Maybe I could offer to help.

  Flushed at the thought, I tried to pay attention to Mr. Dante.

  “Basically, you can split the responsibilities up any way you like,” he was saying. “If someone doesn’t want to do the actual baking, they can contribute some other way—wrapping the food and boxing it to take to the games, for example. Or collecting the money to hand in to the band boosters after every game and keeping track of how much you earn. The important thing is that everyone pitches in. If someone isn’t pulling their weight, let me know.”

  Aaron nodded, jotting down notes.

  Mr. Dante gave us the dates of the three volleyball tournaments, then got up to head back to his office. “If you have any questions, just ask.”

  Once his office door was closed, everyone looked at Aaron.

  “Okay,” he said. “So, um . . . who really doesn’t want to bake?”

  Victoria’s hand shot into the air. Max and Gabe Fernandez raised theirs, too, and after a second, so did Trevor.

  Aaron wrote their names down. “Cool. Gabe, how about you take care of collecting all the money and recording how much we make. And the three of you can do the wrapping and boxing. That okay?”

  They nodded. After adding that to the notebook, Aaron tapped the pen against his leg. “Okay. So . . . how should we split up the baking?”

  “I thought we’d all just make something at home and bring it to the games,” said Liam, who still looked half asleep.

  “It’d be better to work in groups,” said Brooke Dennis. She was third-chair French horn and sat next to me during rehearsals. “That form Mr. Dante gave us on Monday said we had to have a parent there to supervise with whatever we bake, and my mom works nights. I think the booster parents sent out an e-mail asking for volunteers.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.” Aaron thought for a minute. “Okay, does anyone know if their parents are planning on volunteering?”

  Several students raised their hands, including Owen and Natasha. Aaron jotted their names down. “I’ll just split us into groups, and each group can pick whatever day they c
an meet to bake. Okay?”

  While he drew up the group lists, everyone started chatting. “The woodwinds met yesterday after school,” Natasha told me and Victoria, picking at a nail. “I think they’re working in groups, too.”

  “Yup—and Julia’s dad volunteered,” I said. “He’s going to help them make those s’mores cupcakes Julia brought to your birthday party.”

  Natasha groaned. “Those are so good. We’re doomed.” I nodded glumly in agreement. Mr. Gordon had never made anything that wasn’t ridiculously delicious.

  “Not to worry, girls,” Victoria said with a grin. “Know who else’s mom volunteered for the woodwinds?”

  I thought for a second, then grinned. “Gabby’s?”

  Victoria nodded emphatically. “She said her mom’s making some sort of fake cheesecake with tofu or something. Gabby was talking about hiding it under the bleachers.”

  Natasha and I laughed. Gabby’s mom was kind of crazy when it came to eating healthy, which was why Gabby was constantly snacking on Red Hots and M&M’s during class. She had to make up for all the wheatgrass juice and beet casserole.

  Mr. Dante came out of his office and started rummaging through the folder on his podium. “Don’t mind me,” he said mildly. Liam spoke up, looking slightly more alert now.

  “Mr. Dante, when you said the winning section could pick our shirt designs, did you mean we could actually design them ourselves?”

  Straightening up, Mr. Dante frowned thoughtfully. “Well, the company I’ve chosen has hundreds of designs—I was thinking you’d just choose from those. But they can do custom designs, so maybe . . .” He stopped, raising an eyebrow. “Can any of you draw?”

  “Owen!” It burst out before I could stop myself. “He’s really, really good, you guys. I swear.”

  “It’s true, he’s an awesome artist,” Natasha chimed in, right at the same time that Trevor said, “Definitely.”

  Owen looked half pleased, half like he wanted to crawl under his chair and die. I smiled at him encouragingly.

  “Well, I think it would be pretty cool to have custom-designed shirts.” Mr. Dante closed his folder, sheet music in hand. “Of course, you have to win first,” he added with a grin.