Mackenzie Blue

by Tina Wells

  Of course, Zee had had such a busy morning upsetting people, she’d practically forgotten all about what she, Kathi, and Jen had done to Mr. P Friday night. Until the bell rang and he came in the room. Ugh!

  Mr. P tapped his baton on his desk. “Settle down, everyone!” he called over the murmurs and giggles that were still bouncing around the room. Gradually the noise died to a silence. “We’re going to try something different today.”

  Zee sat at attention. Something different was exactly what she needed.

  “One day each week,” Mr. P continued, “I’m going to select a different student to lead the class. Once you understand how we make music as a group, you’ll be stronger individual musicians.”

  Marcus raised his hand and asked, “Do we get to pick the music we play? Because I have a set that I think would sound great.”

  “No.” Mr. P laughed. “I’ll pick the music, and I’ll be right next to you to give you tips. But you’ll mark the beat and help me keep the group on track.”

  Kathi sighed so loudly, they must have heard it all the way in the main office. Then she leaned toward Jen. “I guess he knows his students are better teachers than he is,” she whispered so everyone could hear.

  Suddenly it was clear to Zee. Kathi hadn’t gone to Mr. P’s concert to hear his music. She’d gone to humiliate him—and she’d used Zee to help do it. She couldn’t believe she had actually fallen for the popular girl’s phony-friend act. Although she didn’t think it was possible, Zee felt even more awful. It was time for a new list. This one would have to be in her head.

  Ways My Life Could Get Worse

  1. Walk around with a booger hanging out of my nose.

  2. Body slam the head of school on my way to second period.

  3.

  “Our first student leader will be Mackenzie Carmichael.”

  Yes, that would definitely make my life worse. Wait! Zee hadn’t thought that! Someone had said it. She looked at Mr. P. Oh no. He was smiling right at her.

  “Mackenzie, come on up here,” Mr. P suggested, gesturing toward the front of the room.

  Before she got up, Zee gazed down at herself. In her worst dreams, she showed up at school wearing a bra on the outside of her blouse. Luckily she had on her shirt and vest, shortened skirt, monkey-head socks, and her new chocolate Converse All Star sneakers. What a relief!

  Zee rose up out of her seat and walked to the front of the silent room. Mr. P handed Zee his baton. Zee took it and turned to the class. Now what would she do? She was too embarrassed to look at her classmates.

  Evidently eye contact was an important requirement for leading a group of musicians. Mr. P’s experiment was a disaster. Landon’s drums were way out of sync. Chloe kept losing focus. Jasper didn’t know whether to follow Mr. P or Zee on his bass. Even perfect Kathi was off. As usual, Jen followed Kathi, and it sounded as though she was purposely hitting her wooden marimba bars off beat. Marcus followed Mr. P’s downbeat on his piano, but it wasn’t enough to save the group. They must have stopped and started again a hundred times, but each version was worse than the one before.

  “Great job, everyone!” Mr. P announced at the end of the period. Really? Zee thought. How is that even possible? As she handed the baton back to her teacher, it didn’t take long for her to figure out why Mr. P was so happy. Of course! He had chosen her to lead the group to punish her for Friday night. He was angry that she had humiliated him at the concert—especially after he had helped her out with her Teen Sing audition. And now he had gotten her back.

  Outside in the hallway, Jasper and Chloe were standing with their heads together. Zee couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but when Chloe saw her coming, she turned and went off toward English class without waiting for Zee.

  Zee pasted on a smile and walked up to Jasper. “So, are you going to help me crack ‘The Case of the Missing Diary’ during study hall?” she said, even though she really wanted to ask, Are you still my friend? Chloe must have told him what had happened.

  Jasper slapped himself on the forehead. “Oh, bother! I forgot. I’m really sorry, Zee,” he apologized. “Chloe and I need to work on our science project.”

  “Oh, okay,” Zee said, wondering if that was his polite British way of telling her he didn’t want to be friends anymore.

  Landon zipped past Zee—without saying hello or good-bye. I guess he doesn’t want my help for Teen Sing now, she thought. And since Mr. P was obviously angry with her, Zee decided to go home right after school instead of practicing with him, too.

  In study hall, Zee sat at a desk in the corner, as far away from everyone else as was humanly possible. She pulled out a piece of paper and began writing.

  Hi, Diary,

  Jasper’s choosing Chloe over me. Who can blame him? I wasn’t a very good friend to Chloe. I mean

  “Hi, Zee,” Kathi interrupted her. Zee slipped the sheet of paper into her binder as Kathi and Jen sat down next to her.

  “Hi.” Zee wanted to tell Kathi that she didn’t appreciate being tricked into going to see The Crew. But at that moment, she didn’t feel like having another embarrassing confrontation.

  Kathi had something else on her mind anyway. She stuck her lip out to make a major pouty face. “Couldn’t you just die? That note on the board was the worst.”

  “Yeah,” Zee said weakly, not wanting to talk about it.

  Jen looked over at Jasper and Chloe, who were sitting in front of a computer. Jasper was typing on the keyboard while Chloe pointed to something on the screen. “Boy, they got chummy really fast,” Jen said.

  Zee pretended not to care. “They have to work on their science project together.”

  “What is it about anyway?” Kathi asked.

  “I don’t know. They want to keep it a secret.”

  “A secret?” Kathi looked stunned. “From their best friend?”

  Zee shrugged. “That’s okay.” No matter what she said to Kathi, though, she couldn’t hide her fears from herself. Maybe they never really were friends. What if Jasper never cared about Zee and was just waiting for someone better to come along?

  Then Zee realized that talking to Kathi had actually helped. “The science project!” Zee said out loud, remembering something important. She had left Jasper alone with her bag the day he came over to borrow the book. The day the diary was stolen.

  “What about it?” Jen asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” Zee said. But she knew it was much more than nothing. It was huge! If Jasper wasn’t the friend she thought he was, maybe he was the kind of person who would steal her diary.

  13

  Detective Disaster

  By the time Zee had walked into her house that afternoon, she was greeted by a miracle—and her mother.

  “Hi, honey,” Mrs. Carmichael said. “I thought you were staying after school to work on your Teen Sing song.”

  Zee opened the snack cabinet and peered inside for the perfect I-had-a-bad-day treat. “Uhhh, change of plans. I’m taking the day off.”

  “Well, I’m going over to help Jasper’s mother. She’s starting her party-planning business, and I promised to give her the lowdown on Brookdale since she doesn’t know the area very well yet. You know, the best caterers, halls, and florists. Want to come?”

  Does a dog bark?

  Zee had watched and studied Jasper until the end of study hall. After what had happened with Chloe, she knew she had to be careful about investigating him. She overheard the two of them talking about putting the final touches on their science project model—at Chloe’s house.

  Zee’s mother had no idea Jasper wouldn’t be home. It was the perfect opportunity.

  “Sure,” Zee told her mother, grabbing a bag of cheddar cheese popcorn from the shelf.

  “I’m sorry, Mackenzie,” Mrs. Chapman said in a British accent. She was a tall woman who always wore her long brown hair twisted up on the back of her head. She was really nice, but she always seemed a little nervous. “Jasper’s not here.”


  Zee made her most convincing disappointed face. “Darn!” she said. “Jasper borrowed a book from me a few weeks ago. Do you think it would be okay if I look for it?”

  “Why don’t you ring him up and see if he knows where it is?” Jasper’s mom said.

  “No!” Zee practically shouted. Mrs. Chapman flinched at the outburst. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to bother him.”

  Luckily that was all Jasper’s mother had to hear. She nodded and said, “It’s likely on his bookcase or right on top of his desk anyway.” She turned to Mrs. Carmichael and laughed. “He’s more organized than I am.”

  Taking the steps two at a time, Zee hurried into Jasper’s bedroom. Everything was in place. It was immaculate! She checked the most obvious places—the bookcase, the desk, the nightstand. But she knew Jasper was way too smart to leave her diary out in the open.

  Zee sat in Jasper’s desk chair and pulled open the center drawer. Wow! Pencils were neatly lined up in a long plastic box. Pens were in another. Other little boxes held paper clips, erasers, and thumbtacks. Zee’s desk drawer was reserved for all the stuff she could never throw out but would never—ever—use again. When she needed a pencil, she just yelled, “Mom, where’s a pencil?”

  At least Jasper’s system made it easy to see that there was no diary. Zee bent over and pulled open the other drawers. File folders with labels TESTS, EXTRA PAPER, and REPORT CARDS hung side by side. Zee placed her hand near the back of the drawer, looking for a tab that said, ZEE’S DIARY. But there was no folder with that label and no diary in the others.

  Zee looked around the room. The closet! She opened the doors and looked inside. She knew she had to work quickly and put the neatly stacked containers back exactly the way she’d found them. She’d clean up the mess she made on the desk afterward. On her hands and knees, she removed the lid to a photo box. Mostly there were baby photos of Jasper. Playing in the sand. Smearing spaghetti in his hair. Riding his tricycle. She pulled the stack out to get to the bottom. That’s when she saw it—a picture of Jasper and her at the pool. Posed with their arms around each other, they were licking mint chocolate chip ice cream, their favorite flavor. She and Jasper may have been different in a lot of ways, but they had the most important thing in common—they were great friends. Zee’s suspicions melted away like those ice cream cones had on that hot day. A familiar, unpleasant feeling—guilt—replaced them.

  Before Zee could put the lid on the box and shut the closet door, she heard a sound in the hall. When she turned around, the two mothers were staring at her—Mrs. Chapman looked confused and Mrs. Carmichael looked angry. They had caught Zee red-handed!

  The keys clattered as Mrs. Carmichael tossed them on the black granite kitchen counter. But the noise couldn’t cover her words. “What were you thinking? Thanks to the fact that you were rummaging through Jasper’s room, I didn’t even get to help Lucy with her business.”

  Mrs. Carmichael hardly ever got this upset, and Zee knew what she had done was wrong. Really wrong. But she had to admit that her mother’s lecture was a hundred times better than Mrs. Chapman’s hurt silence.

  Zee thought—and silently pleaded—that her mother might stop when Adam arrived after tennis practice. No such luck.

  Adam pulled up a chair as if he were watching his favorite TV show. “I wonder how you would feel if Jasper went through your most personal belongings,” Mrs. Carmichael continued.

  “But I thought he had read my most personal thoughts,” Zee defended herself. “I thought he took my diary.”

  “Did he?”

  “Well…no.”

  Mrs. Carmichael planted her hand on her hip, waiting for Zee to say more.

  “May I go to my room?” Zee asked.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” her mother told her. When Zee got upstairs, she threw herself facedown on her bed and buried her head in a pillow. She knew Jasper would be upset when Mrs. Chapman told him what she had done.

  Knock. Knock. “Can I come in?” Adam had followed her upstairs.

  “Yes.” At least someone still wanted to talk to her.

  “Hi,” Adam said, trying to be both serious and cheerful. “I heard about what was on the music room board today.” He sat on the edge of the bed next to her.

  “Excellent,” Zee sighed. “Now the whole school knows what I wrote in my diary.”

  “Did you really think Jasper could do that to you?”

  Zee hung her head. “I guess not,” she said quietly. “But I need to stop whoever took my diary.”

  “Maybe you need to get a grip.”

  Oh, great, Zee thought. Now my brother gets to lecture me.

  “I’ve never read your diary,” Adam continued, “but I know you have a crush on Landon.”

  “You do?”

  “You go all mushy and googly eyed every time someone mentions his name.”

  “But those were the exact words in my diary. My most private thoughts.” The sick feeling returned to Zee’s stomach.

  Adam shook his head. “You’re not getting it. The point isn’t that someone took your diary or that you have a crush on Landon. From what I hear, so do half of the seventh-grade girls.”

  Zee sat up. “So what is the point?” She definitely wasn’t getting it.

  “You don’t have as many secrets as you think. Nobody does. We’re all open books in a lot of ways.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. You can tell a lot about people just by looking at them. Like the way we know when Dad has landed an exclusive celebrity interview that he can’t talk about.”

  “He whistles.”

  “Exactly!” Adam said.

  “And the way girls make Jasper so nervous.” Zee laughed. “It’s written all over his face.”

  Adam stood up and looked at Zee. “Someone is being mean, but you don’t have to let them get to you.”

  “I don’t know…” Zee said, still unsure.

  “Just have confidence and don’t apologize for who you are. Because you may not be perfect, but you are a pretty awesome sister.”

  “You think so?”

  Adam nodded and turned to go. “But don’t spread that around.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me!” Zee called as he walked out.

  Adam had definitely made Zee feel better, but—unless you counted Kathi and Jen—she still didn’t have any friends. Except Ally.

  E-ZEE: R u still talking 2 me.

  SPARKLEGRRL: Of course! Y?

  Zee filled her best friend in on everything that had happened that day.

  SPARKLEGRRL: It’s a good thing u want 2 b a singer and not a detective.

  E-ZEE: LOL!

  SPARKLEGRRL: Don’t worry, Z. U will find a way 2 fix this.

  E-ZEE: How was the party?

  SPARKLEGRRL: AWFUL! I wore the high heels—and fell on my butt. Down the stairs.

  E-ZEE: Oh no!

  SPARKLEGRRL: My dress got caught on the railing, and every 1 could c the RIDICULOUS bra my mother made me wear!

  E-ZEE: U need a bra?

  SPARKLEGRRL: NO! She’s just being weird.

  E-ZEE: Yeah—I understand.

  Zee felt incredibly bad for Ally, but after all that had happened that day, it was great to have a friend whom Zee trusted so much—and who trusted her.

  SPARKLEGRRL: What’s up w Teen Sing?

  E-ZEE: Now that Mr. P is mad @ me, I don’t know if I’ll b ready. There’s a rehearsal this week.

  SPARKLEGRRL: You’d better get used 2 every 1 knowing ur secrets. That’s what it will b like when ur a famous pop star. Zee on the cover of Star mag!

  But Zee didn’t bother to play along. Her dreams of becoming a star seemed as far away as her best friend.

  14

  The Diary Thief

  How to Make Sure You Have No Friends

  1. Accuse them of stealing your diary. That should do it. It worked for me.

  Jasper and Chloe presented their science project that Wednesday.

  “It took a lot o
f people and money to turn Brookdale Academy into a green school,” Jasper began.

  “But there are lots of environmentally friendly things students and staff can do to help the Earth,” Chloe continued.

  Jasper and Chloe revealed their secret plan how Brookdale Academy could do more to become even greener. They showed how easy it would be for students and teachers to begin composting paper, leaves, and cafeteria scraps.

  “The compost can go into garden beds around campus, and students can tend the gardens,” Jasper said. He pointed to a miniature model of Brookdale Academy. Tiny gardens dotted the lawn. “One day, we might grow the vegetables that end up on the lunch tray.”

  Jen actually got excited about the idea. “From the cafeteria to the garden and back to the cafeteria,” she summarized.

  “Precisely,” Jasper said, pleased that other students were interested. “It’s a brilliant plan, really!” Then he blushed and said, “I mean, it would be a good idea.”

  Chloe talked about how important animals were to growing plants. “Putting worms in compost bins really speeds up the process, and manure is full of nutrients for the soil,” she explained.

  Jen’s enthusiasm disappeared. “Nasty!” she protested. “I think I’ll just get my food from the grocery store.”

  Jasper and Chloe’s Power-Point presentation included charts and drawings. When an illustration of hungry worms wearing school uniforms and munching on leaves appeared on the screen, the whole class laughed.