Just Your Average Box Set (Just Your Average Princess, Just Your Average Geek, & Just Your Average Celebrity)

by Kristina Springer

We get our drinks and walk toward our seats. “You go ahead,” I tell him. “I want to run back for a heat sleeve. The cup’s burning my fingers.”

  Chris nods and keeps going. I return to the front of the line at the concession stand. Blech. Delaney’s standing there. Well, I don’t have to talk to her. Just need to reach by her really fast and grab a sleeve.

  I pluck one out of the box and turn to go when I hear Delaney mumble, “Quit.”

  I look up, startled. Is she talking to me? “Excuse me?” I say.

  But she doesn’t turn around. Just keeps staring straight ahead. I must be hearing things. I take a step away from the concession stand and this time she coughs and says louder, “Quit the club.”

  Okay, this time she’s definitely talking to me. “Delaney, do you have something you want to say?” I ask. But she still ignores me. “Whatever. I’m not quitting so just get over it.” I walk away before she can pretend to not say anything else to me. What a witch.

  Chapter 11: Truth or Dare

  I don’t hang around to find out if Chris is still going to his family dinner, a.k.a, date with Cassie. As soon as the game is over, I wave a quick goodbye and pile into Shannon’s car with her, Lizzie, and Emma. We make a pit stop at Emma’s to change from our uniforms into our party clothes: Lizzie dons a short brown, round neck baby doll dress with platform loafers; Shannon rocks a skin-tight red v-neck top, tight black jeans, and black high-heel boots; and Emma dresses in a sparkly silver top with matching handbag, short denim skirt and silver ballet flats. I put on a baggy black hoodie sweater, frayed jeans, and my favorite Skechers. Sure, I’m dressed down more than the other girls but what am I celebrating tonight?

  Lizzie’s plan is well underway. We’ve been at the party for maybe twenty minutes and two cookies and Shannon’s already got the whole room playing truth or dare. Lizzie keeps crossing and uncrossing her legs in anticipation for her turn.

  “Brooke’s turn,” Melanie, one of the oboe players, says. “Truth or dare?”

  I contemplate this for a minute. Well, the truth can’t be too hard. At least five people have already asked me, “Where’s Chris?” tonight so it isn’t likely they’ll ask me that one again. “Truth,” I say.

  “Where did you get your pink scarf?” Melanie asks, rubbing her hands together, eager for my answer.

  Shoot. I can’t tell them that. I unconsciously finger the pink scarf tied around my wrist, under my sweater sleeve. “What scarf?” I ask.

  “The one you’re touching right now,” Melanie replies, pointing.

  Rayne smirks from her spot, three seats away from me.

  “Um…dare,” I say.

  “Oh come on! Tell us already,” Natalie, a xylophone player, says.

  “Nope,” Lizzie interrupts, “Brooke chose dare. Give her a dare.”

  I send a silent thank you to her for the save.

  “Fine, fine. I’ll give her a dare,” Melanie says. She thinks for a moment and then shoots me an arched eyebrow stare. “Katie, can Brooke borrow your flute for a few minutes?”

  “Sure,” Katie says, leaving the room. A moment later she returns with it in hand, already assembled.

  “Okay, Brooke,” Melanie says, already giggling. “You have to go out on the front lawn and play the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’.”

  “No prob,” I say, standing up. We’ve all had that song memorized FOR-EVER.

  “Wait,” she says. “I didn’t finish. You have to play it in your bra.”

  Eh, still easy. I’m still in the black sports bra I was wearing under my band uniform. “Okay,” I say.

  Everyone scrambles to get up and watch me from the door and front windows. I whip off my sweater, take the flute from Katie, and step outside. Ohmigod it’s freaking cold out here! I begin to play the song and decide to march around the front lawn as well, both for everyone’s entertainment and to warm up a little. My performance is seemingly a hit from the sound of the cheers. Just as I’m about to do an improv one-woman kickline, a police cruiser slows down in front of the house and flashes his lights at us and bleeps. I run into the house and someone shuts the door behind me. And we wait. But nothing happens. The cruiser keeps going and we all crack up at the close call. I’m starting to have some fun.

  “Okay, okay, now I get to choose,” I say, slipping my sweater back over my head. “Um…Lizzie’s turn. Truth or Dare, Liz?”

  “I’ll go straight to the dare,” she replies, all innocent.

  “I dare you to give a really rockin’, awesomely long kiss to…” I pause and look around the room like I’m really trying to decide on someone, “Jacob.”

  Jacob blushes. And Lizzie does too, even though she developed this whole plan.

  “Um…sure.” She stands up, crosses the room to where Jacob is sitting and squats down in front of him. His nose twitches and his fingers fidget. With a determined look, Lizzie leans in and plants a nice long kiss on his puckered lips. Long enough that everyone hoots and hollers. When Lizzie and Jacob finally pull apart, they both look a little breathless.

  Happy with the completion of phase one of Lizzie’s plan, I head for the kitchen in search of a bottle of water. I hear someone follow me in and turn around. It’s Rayne.

  “Hey, Brooke,” she says, reaching past me to grab her own drink from the cooler on the floor.

  I grunt hello.

  “I’ll never be able to play the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ again without thinking of you,” she says.

  “Rayne,” I say slowly, putting my thoughts together. “Don’t you have a brother who is a senior? On the wrestling team?”

  “Yeah. Dirk.”

  “Oh. Huh.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh nothing. Just…is he friends with Carter Jones?” I finally ask.

  Rayne widens her eyes.

  Why is she looking at me like that?

  “Yeah,” she says, “Dirk and Carter are good friends. Carter comes over to the house a lot and they hang out sometimes on the weekends.”

  I nod. I’m trying to think of what other information I can get from Rayne without being too obvious. “Carter seems nice, huh?” I say.

  “Very nice,” she agrees, as the corner of her lips start to turn up.

  “What? What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” she says with a shrug. “You rock. I hope you get him.”

  “You hope I get who? Carter?” How does she know what I’m up to?

  “Listen,” she says in a lower voice, looking around to see if anyone can hear us. “I know all about the BSC and Cassie dating everyone’s boyfriends. Believe me. I know.” She rolls her eyes toward the ceiling.

  “Are you…?” I scan her outfit for any sign of a pink scarf.

  “No, no, not me,” she says shaking her head. “But I’ve heard all about it from my older sister Marissa. She graduated last year but she was in the Boy Swap Club when she was a senior. She complained about Cassie constantly.”

  “Really?” My attention is completely captured.

  “Yup. As soon as I saw your scarf last week, I knew they got you too.”

  “Yeah,” I admit, fully knowing that I technically shouldn’t be talking to Rayne about the BSC like this.

  “I think it’s hysterical that you’re going after Carter. Cassie so deserves it. I’ll tell you whatever I know about him. If I can help in any way, just let me know.”

  “Thanks.” I never thought I’d feel a connection develop with Rayne, but now I’m actually kind of liking her.

  Rayne gives me a bunch of information about Carter and I write it down on a notepad next to the Hodges’s phone. It includes things like his favorite pizza (pineapple and pepperoni from Lou’s Pizzeria), his truck (a 2002 red Ford Bronco), and his e-mail address (tinman99@funmail.com). Who knew the band party would turn out to be so informative? I rip the paper off the notepad, fold it, and stick it in my back pocket for some follow-up research this weekend.

  Chapter 12: I Heart Google

  I spent the first part
of my Saturday accomplishing STEP 1 of my plan. It started with a bus trip to the Promenade, where I got a new haircut and highlights (which the stylist swore made my face look thinner) and an eyebrow waxing at the Mario Tricoci Salon. The waxing included a fifteen minute neck massage that was absolutely fabulous. I didn’t realize how stressed I’d become with all of this Cassie and Chris stuff. Next, I stopped at Neiman Marcus where I bought the Turbolifter 3000 in black lace. It is guaranteed to increase your bust by at least two cup sizes or your money back. And with all of this new found cleavage, I had to buy a sexy low-cut black wrap top to show off the girls. My last purchase was the BUTTZ—the most amazing invention on earth. My butt and thighs look so good in them that I could totally go out in a pair of skinny jeans and actually look, well, skinny. I blew through all of my babysitting savings but it was worth it. I look hot. My plan is to have Carter Jones drooling like a one-year old cutting teeth by the end of next week.

  I have a date with Chris (who will NOT be privy to the Turbolifter 3000 or BUTTZ) tonight. Luckily it’s a group thing with a bunch of people from band. I even heard Lizzie invite Jacob last night after they sucked face for half the party. Our group date isn’t for another three hours, though, so I have plenty of time to get a start on Step 2 of my plan: researching Carter Jones.

  I take a seat at my computer in my room and launch a Web browser. I bring up Google and start entering search phrases.

  “Carter Jones”

  Ick. It gives me about a gazillion hits. Apparently Carter Jones isn’t such a unique name. Let’s narrow it down a bit.

  “Carter Jones” Rosehill, Illinois

  I get two pages of hits. I browse through the various links but they all seem to contain the same information. Wrestling stats. Yawn. This isn’t going to help me very much. Although, I should know something about his wrestling matches. Just in case it comes up in conversation on our date. I read through a few articles about him from different sources, mostly the town online newspaper.

  “Carter Jones has three pins…Carter Jones is now at ten pins…Carter Jones has the most pins out of every wrestler on the Rosehill High Varsity wrestling team…”

  Yay for him, I guess. Strange what one finds newsworthy. What is he going to do with all of these pins anyway? Sew a shirt? Hem some pants? Ugh. This isn’t helping me at all.

  I return to the search page to see if there is anything I missed. Score! Carter has a Facebook page. I click on the link, hoping for some good info on him. Oh, annoying. He’s one of those people who have like a million FarmVille updates on their Wall. I mean, who really cares if you have extra pig slop or you just scored some sweet strawberry bushels? Not me. I click on the Info tab to see what he says about himself.

  “What are you doing?” a voice says.

  I leap back in my seat.

  It’s just Mom.

  “Geez Mom, you scared me,” I say, quickly minimizing the screen. Mom is way anti-Facebook. She thinks if I get a Facebook page, I’ll hook up with an old man who will kidnap me and bring me to another country to be a sex slave. She saw it on a talk show once and you know, things like that happen so often in Rosehill.

  “What are you doing?” she repeats. “Homework?” She tries to nonchalantly see what is on my screen.

  “Kind of,” I reply.

  “Oooh…what are the birds doing?” she says, stepping closer to the bird cage and peering in. Baby and Chris Jr. are flying around the cage in circles, nipping at each other.

  “Looks like they’re fighting,” I say. I glance at my bedroom window and see two brown birds sitting on a tree branch. I bet Chris Jr. was checking them out. He’s just like his two-timing daddy. I glare at him. I hope Baby plucks out all your feathers.

  “Are you seeing Chris tonight?” Mom asks.

  “Uh huh.”

  “He called while you were at the mall getting your haircut. It looks adorable by the way.” She sets a stack of folded jeans down on my bed.

  “Thanks.” I touch my hair. “What did he want?”

  “I’m not sure,” she says, shifting the laundry basket she has on her right hip to the left. “I just told him I’d tell you.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  She starts to close the door and then peeks in once more. “Are you going to be here for dinner?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Good. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.” She closes the door.

  As soon as I’m positive she’s down the hall, I maximize Carter’s Facebook page. There really isn’t a vast amount of information here. He does list his age, school, and bands that he likes. Mostly old bands from the nineties trying to make their comebacks like Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and Dave Matthews Band. I kinda like Dave Matthews Band, though, so that’s one thing we have in common. There are no pictures of him on his page, just a psychedelic-looking graphic. And he doesn’t have any status posts about what he’s up to. Hmm. Maybe I’ll just scan through his Friends list? We may know some of the same people. I scroll down to the Friends section. I recognize a handful of the names—mostly people from school but no one I know on even an acquaintance level. This really isn’t helping me too much.

  What else can I search on? I hit the back button until I’m back at Google. I think for a few minutes and then enter a new search term.

  “tinman99@funmail.com”

  Yes! Victory! Six pages of hits. I eagerly begin opening links in new windows. Wow…Carter really gets around online. There are a bunch of posts from him on various video game message boards. He seems really interested in Fantasy Football. He’s also into online role-playing. Too bad I totally suck at video games or that could build some common ground for us. Maybe I can learn quickly? I keep scanning the search results and oooh…what’s this? I click on a link for “WWFPOET” at blogworld.com and start reading. Ohmigod, Carter has a blog! Yes! WWFPOET is his handle. It doesn’t say his name anywhere on it but I’m positive it is him. This will totally help me. Now I can really get a feel for who he is.

  His bio says, “I’m a senior Varsity Wrestler at a small high school in Illinois and I love poetry. Mostly British stuff. So that is what I blog about.”

  Wrestling and poetry. Huh. What a combination. And he isn’t kidding. I scroll down to one of his posts from last month and it says:

  WWF Saturday Showdown:

  Match 1: Buff McBuff vs. Muscle Mayhem

  Buff started the match immediately grabbing MM by his injured wrist and throwing him into the ropes. MM came back with his dropkick special and momentarily paused Buff. But not for long. Buff climbed the ropes, turned, and gave MM a Big Buff Bomb, knocking him out. Winner: Buff McBuff.

  There are a bunch more of these wrestling descriptions and then whoosh, right into…a love poem? Weirdness. It’s called Counting the Beats by Robert Graves (1895- 1985).

  “You, love, and I,

  (He whispers) you and I,

  And if no more than only you and I

  What care you or I?”

  It goes on for another five stanzas. Hmmm. Carter certainly is interesting. I wonder if he sends any of these to Cassie? Not that she strikes me as the type to enjoy love poems. I wouldn’t mind getting some from Carter. I expand the comments to this post and see what his blogworld friends have to say.

  One person, “Poetricia” wrote, “Thanks for sharing, WWFPOET…another good one. One of my favorites actually.”

  Carter, aka WWFPOET, replied, “It’s a favorite of mine too. Actually, Graves is my favorite poet.”

  I continue reading through Carter’s posts. VERY interesting. I think I can use this.

  Chapter 13: Follow Those Boobs

  Last night’s date was, well, boring. Chris was quiet most of the night and I wasn’t about to ask why. I didn’t really care, to tell the truth. If he was mad at me about something, then so what? I’m still plenty mad at him. If he was moody because he had a bad date with Cassie or she cancelled or whatever then I don’t really care about that either. And I re
ally don’t care to find out if it was a good date. I asked him how his family dinner went on our way to Rosehill Lanes to meet our friends and he said it was “fine.” He didn’t offer more so we left it at that.

  We bowled two games and then stopped at Sammy’s for frozen custard. There were seven of us altogether, Chris and I, Lizzie and Jacob, Melanie and Chad (oboe and tenor saxophone) and Angela (harpist). Angela isn’t in the marching band, but we’re friends from concert symphony in the winter. Since it was an odd number, I decided that I would spend a good amount of time making sure Angela was comfortable. Melanie and Angela are best friends but Melanie and Chad were in some really strange fight all night so she wasn’t paying any attention to Angela. I’m not sure what the gist of it was, but they kept whispering angrily at each other and then putting on fake smiles for us. And Lizzie and Jacob were making out the entire night, I swear. It’s crazy how fast they’ve hooked up.

  Like I said, Chris was just a big ball of moody all night so he kept mostly to himself. He was really involved with keeping track of the bowling scores on a scratch piece of paper. He swore that the computer was miscalculating everyone’s score. Funny how he can be so attentive to something like that but he can’t even tell that I’m feeling different toward him.

  I don’t have a whole lot to do today. I told Mom I’d clean my room and vacuum the house. I have a little bit of homework: two pages of math and I have to write a paragraph for French. The biggest item on today’s list is to continue working on my Get a Date with Carter Jones Plan. Specifically, STEP 2, ITEM 2, Develop a Plan to get Carter to date me. I completed ITEM 1 yesterday. I already talked to Rayne about Carter and got everything she knows about him; I’ve researched him as much as I can online; and I poured over all my yearbooks last night, studying each and every page he appeared on. And I have to say, Carter is pretty adorable. He seems to have had a huge growth spurt the summer between sophomore and junior year. He looked almost dorky in his sophomore year. Though I’m sure he probably wasn’t. But he was about a foot shorter with braces and a really crazy haircut. There was a really cute shot of him dressed up as a cheerleader at the girls’ powder-puff football game that year. Like I said, adorable. And there were tons of shots of him pinning opponents in wrestling, which doesn’t involve actual pins at all. From what I can tell, one guy somehow shoves the other guy down onto the mat and then kinda sits on him so he can’t get up. Carter is really good at that. The wrestling outfits the guys have to wear are a bit ridiculous and female-bathing suit like but, wow, his muscles look pretty yummy.