by Denise Vega
No, I don’t know! I wanted to shout. Tell me all about it. But I was afraid he might start telling me about Jilly or maybe some other girl I didn’t even know, and I couldn’t stand that.
“I just wish he’d stop being mad,” I said. “Ever since he got into high school, he treats me like I’m this little immature kid or something.”
Mark smiled. “Compared to sixteen, we are immature.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said, taking a shot from the top of the key. Swish.
“At least you don’t have a sister who thinks you’re cute like a puppy dog and introduces you to all her college friends like you’re her pet.” Mark made a face. “She thinks she’s this big adult and I’m a little kid she needs to take care of.”
“Ugh.” I wasn’t sure which was worse.
We kept playing, sharing tidbits of information with each other. Then Mark went for a layup. I jumped to block it, but my arm got tangled in his. We dropped down together in a heap and when we looked at each other, our faces were super close. I was looking right into his eyes, our noses practically touching, his lips about two inches from mine. My heart pounded crazily in my chest and I held my breath. Could this be it?
Our eyes held for a moment and then Mark untangled his arm and rolled away, bouncing to his feet.
“Foul,” he said. “I get two shots.”
“No way!” I scrambled to get up, trying to hide my face, which was getting warmer by the second. I wiped my hands on my shorts and squared my shoulders. He could never know I thought we were about to kiss. Never. “I didn’t touch you on the way up.”
“Foul,” he said again, grinning.
“Cheater,” I muttered. But I stood on the foul lane, ready for the rebound. Neither of us said anything about being face-to-face, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. He beat me easily, 20 to 15. In the end, he won three games and I won two.
“Okay,” Mark said. “Where will I kick your butt next? Baseball field? Football?”
“The soccer field,” I said. “Where else?”
“No way,” Mark said. “You’d kick my butt.”
“I know.” I picked up my basketball as we headed across the gym toward the water fountains. Placing it on top of my index finger, I spun it, smacking it to keep it going.
“You’re the first girl I’ve ever seen do that,” Mark said. He started spinning his, and pretty soon we had dueling spinning basketballs.
“My brother taught me,” I said, glancing at the clock. “We can time ourselves. Best two out of three?”
“You’re on,” Mark said.
Saturday, October 12
Things That Make Me Think Mark Is My Friend
• He talks to me 1st. I’m not always going up to him.
• He plays basketball with me.
• He makes fun of me in a good way.
Things That Make Me Think Mark Is Using Me
• Boys have used me B4 to get to Jilly.
• Not so long ago, I was a puppet.
• Not so long ago, Mark saw me almost pull a table down on top of myself.
• Not so long ago, Mark gawked at my best friend at play practice.
I can’t help it. I keep thinking he’s trying to get to Jilly. I’ve never had a friend that’s a boy B4, just boys I play sports with, not talk to about stuff.
Today I went really crazy. Mark said he wanted to ask me something and suddenly I was convinced that there was a hidden camera nearby and any minute some hyper announcer with a banana-wide smile would jump out of 1 of the Y restrooms and shout, “Erin P. Swift, You Fell for It!” I would find out that I was the subject of a new TV show where losers were approached by people who would never talk to them in their wildest dreams and act like they were friends. Just when the Losers were about to fall down and kiss the feet of the person who was talking to them, the announcer would break their cover and shout, “You Fell for It!”
I could see it now, like the opening of the show was being played out in front of me.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ‘You Fell for It,’ where we track gullible losers with a hidden camera, watching them make fools of themselves as they believe someone cool would actually talk to them! Today’s unsuspecting contestant is Miss Erin P. Swift, also known as Pinocchio, who will be approached by Cute Boy himself, Mark Sacks!” Applause, applause, applause as they project a 6-foot copy of the Erin-Pinoccho-Ped picture up on the screen behind the announcer. Then they cut to a shot of the YMCA hallway, where an unsuspecting Erin Swift (that’s me) is walking down the hall with the Cool Person (Mark Sacks). He’s there in all his cuteness, lulling her with that 1-eyed gaze, making her swoon, and just B4 she drops to her knees, ready to kiss his feet—
But then he just wanted to know my opinion on using software that creates web pages or just using HTML.
I think I’m being paranoid. I hope I am. PLEASE let it just be paranoia.
I may or may not kiss his feet, it would depend on whether they were clean or not…wouldn’t mind kissing his lips…never kissed a boy I liked B4, only boys I didn’t like when we played spin the bottle. 1 guy stuffed his tongue down my throat like he was trying to lick my tonsils …GROSS OUT. But Mark and I were THIS close to kissing on the basketball court. I know we were…and it would not have been disgusting.
I hope we get another chance.
In the meantime, I think I’ll practice kissing my pillow.
chapter 11
Erin Swift, Scout
“So who did you play basketball with yesterday?”
We were lying across Jilly’s bed, flipping through her latest issue of CosmoGIRL! while we waited for her mom to get off the phone so she could take us to the mall. Jilly wanted (she said “needed”) a new shirt. More competition with that blonde.
I squinted at the page in front of me, pretending not to hear. “Was it Rosie?”
“Huh?” I closed the magazine. Looking at those glossy girls made me feel like a total loser. I pulled out my copy of Sports Illustrated and opened it up.
“Did you play basketball with Rosie on Saturday? I called your house and your dad said you’d gone to play basketball with a friend.” She pulled the magazine out from under my nose. “Who’s your friend? I hope it wasn’t Rosie.”
It almost sounded as if Jilly was a wee bit jealous. But she’d already made a ton of friends at MBMS, and if I’d made only one, she couldn’t be mad about that.
“No, it wasn’t Rosie. Just … someone I met at school.”
“Do I know her? Did she go to Jordan last year?”
I frowned. Of course she assumed it was a girl. But I wasn’t going to tell her about Mark.
“Okay, girls! I’m ready.” Mrs. Hennessey stood in the doorway, smiling. “Sorry about that but now we’ve got to hustle. My hair appointment is in twenty minutes.”
“I want to get my hair done for the Spring Dance,” Jilly said, sliding off the bed. “We should go all out.”
The Spring Dance was almost five months away, but that didn’t stop Jilly from planning. I was grateful for the change of subject, even though I knew I wouldn’t be going “all out.” I wouldn’t be going at all.
“Definitely,” I said.
Jilly sighed. “I hope someone asks me.”
“Of course someone will ask you,” I said, smacking her arm. “Are you crazy?”
When we got to the mall, Mrs. Hennessey gave us strict instructions to meet her back at the hair salon in an hour. “No dawdling.”
Jilly saluted and we both laughed as we hurried across to PacSun. She rummaged through the jeans racks, pulling out pair after pair to try on.
“Do you even have any money?” I asked.
“Just enough for two smoothies,” she said. “But I’ll put these on my Christmas list. Dad’s leaving for New York Thursday so I should have them by Sunday.” Jilly’s dad traveled a lot so she would sometimes leave a magazine open with something circled, or a list lying around with things she want
ed. The next time he got home, he usually had a “surprise” for her.
As she turned a carousel of blouses, she gasped. “It’s that boy from the bus,” she said, ducking down to the floor. I turned to look. It was the boy who had said, “Jillian-not-Geppetto” on the second day of school.
“Why are you down there?”
She yanked me down next to her. “I don’t want him to see me.”
“Why not?”
“He might think we’re following him. That would be lame.”
“Jilly, we’re inside a store. He’s in the middle of the mall by a fountain. How could we be following him?”
“He might think we’re spying. You know, ducking into stores as we go.” She scooted under the rack and peered out between two blouses.
And I thought I had a wild imagination. “He’s not even looking this way.”
Jilly leaped up, knocking three blouses to the floor. “Don’t look at him,” she said. “Just act natural.”
I wasn’t really looking at him and I was acting natural, but I turned my head anyway. Picking up the shirts Jilly had knocked down, I watched while she moved to another rack. I could see her out of my peripheral vision. “You’re looking at him.”
“That’s because he’s not looking this way now.” She whipped her head toward me. “Okay, now he is.” She bent to tie her shoe, which was already tied. “Is he still looking at me?”
“Are you saying it’s okay for me to look at him?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“Why can I look at him now but I couldn’t look at him before?” Jilly groaned in exasperation. “Because before we were both standing and it would have been obvious, but now you’re already facing that way and I’m down here so it’s natural that you would look over that way.”
“Oh.” This boy surveillance thing was pretty complicated.
“Well?”
“He’s not looking at you. He’s eating a pretzel and jabbing his friend with a straw.” I could see him better now. I frowned at Jilly. “So do you want him to see you or not?”
“I want him to see me, but I don’t want him to think that I saw him first because then it’ll look like I’m after him when I’m not. He’s really after me.”
“Oh.”
She was still on the floor, retying her other shoe now. I glanced back out the window.
“He’s leaving,” I said.
“He’s leaving?” Jilly bounced up and ran to the window. “Follow him.”
“What?”
“Just go out and see which store he goes in.”
“I thought you just said you didn’t want him to think we’re following him. That it would be lame.”
“It would be lame if I followed him, not if you followed him.”
I furrowed my brow. “Why not?”
“Erin, he’s getting away. Please!” She practically shoved me toward the door.
“Geez, Jilly. All right. All right.” I shrugged her hands off my back. Turning on my heel to face her, I saluted. “Erin Swift reporting for duty.”
Jilly rolled her eyes, but I could tell she was fighting a smile. “Just go already.”
I turned back toward the door and performed an exaggerated march.
“Don’t do that when you get out there,” Jilly said.
I saluted again and returned to my normal walk as I stepped out of the store. I took a few steps in the direction of Bus Boy and his pal. Bus Boy kept walking, then stopped in front of a music store. He quickly downed his drink and scarfed down his pretzel, leaving the cup on the floor outside the store. Litterbug. Minus two points.
As he and his friend entered the store, he paused. Swiveling his head, he looked right at me. I was so startled, I just stared. He grinned and waved at me. I waved back. I didn’t know what else to do. Once he was safely inside the store, I ran back to Jilly.
“Did you just wave at him?” Jilly turned from the window, where she had had her nose pressed against the glass.
“He waved first,” I protested. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I can’t believe you waved at him,” Jilly said, shaking her head. “You totally blew our cover.”
“I only blew my cover,” I said. “Yours is still safe.”
I looked at some shirts and a jacket while Jilly made out her Christmas list. We walked over to another store (after I snuck ahead to make sure Bus Boy was nowhere in sight), and Jilly added to her list.
“I was going to look at some CDs but we can’t go anywhere near that music store now,” Jilly said. We sat at a table near Juice Express, sipping a couple of smoothies. “Hey, I think that’s Brian Johnson.” Jilly dropped her head under the table.
“Who?”
“Brian Johnson,” Jilly said, her voice muffled by the table top. “He’s in my homeroom. Isn’t he cute?”
“The one in the blue shirt and earring?”
Jilly popped up, then popped back down. “Yeah.”
“Yes. He is. Cuter than Bus Boy.”
“Who?”
“The boy we were spying on earlier. Bus Boy. The one on our bus.” “Oh, right. I think he’s an eighth grader.” She paused. “Where’s Brian?”
I took a sip of my smoothie, making her wait as I hatched my diabolical plan. “You can come out now. He just went into Structure.”
Jilly sat up. Brian stood only a few yards from our table.
“Jillian!” He waved at her and she waved back, smoothing her hair, which stuck out at odd ends because she had been practically upside-down under the table.
“I hate you,” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth as she smiled at Brian.
“No, you don’t,” I said. She looked at me and laughed.
“You’re right,” she said. “You may be a sneak, but you’re a good friend. Thanks for playing spy.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Thanks for the smoothie.” We drank in silence for a while. “I think Brian likes you.”
“Umm,” Jilly said, her chin in her hand as she leaned her elbow on the table.
“If he still likes you in the spring, I bet he asks you to the dance. I bet you’ll have so many guys asking you, you’ll have to put their names in a hat and draw one out.”
Jilly laughed. “I wish.”
I didn’t say anything else. But I did wonder what it would be like to have someone like me. I didn’t need a whole hatful of guys. Just one.
chapter 12
Ouch
“You’d never know you were a puppet, except from back here.” Mark was walking slightly behind me as we headed for the computer lab. We’d been hard at it for a few weeks now, first developing the Intranet and then the content. The idea that everything we wrote and created would be seen by every kid at MBMS was starting to freak us all out. We realized how important everything we did was. Mark and I talked practically nonstop about web pages and other stuff, in addition to having a few pickup games of basketball in the gym with some other kids to give our brains a break.
“I can see where the strings come out.” Mark tapped me lightly on the back, sending a shiver through me. I shook my head, but I couldn’t help smiling. Only Mark Sacks could say something like that and have it send my heart soaring. It was so great to be friends with him that it was almost okay that he didn’t like me more than a friend. Almost.
“You know you’re the only one who still talks about the PI,” I said. “When are you going to get over it?”
Mark smiled and shrugged. “It’s fun to tease you.” He flipped his bangs back, and I raised my eyebrows in mock surprise.
“You do have another eye.”
“Yeah, I let it out every once in a while to stretch.” I laughed as we stepped into the lab.
“Erin, check this out.” Rosie waved me over.
“That looks great,” I said, leaning over her shoulder. “I like that font.” “Hey, Erin, are you all ears?” I glanced over at Steve, who was in Mark’s group. He was grinning and tugging at his ears. Then he pointed
to his screen and read aloud, “Molly Brown Middle School was proud to present A Harvest to Remember, starring blah, blah, blah, and our own Erin Swift as …” He swiveled around in his chair. “Drumroll, please … an ear of corn!”
“Ha, ha, ha,” I said, shaking my head. I didn’t know why they even had to put it on the Intranet since it would be over before we went live. But Ms. Moreno didn’t want to leave any events out. “I tried out as a favor to a friend and got stuck in the vegetable chorus, okay?”
Steve whirled back around in his chair, chuckling to himself. A few titters ping-ponged around the rest of the room, but it all seemed good-natured. Serena sneered but I ignored her. I was in my element now. Her meanness couldn’t penetrate my webmaster shield.
Ms. Moreno smiled at me. “I like to see that mix of the arts and science.”
“Thanks,” I said as I headed to my group.
Tyler leaned over as I sat down at my computer. “I think you’ll make a great ear of corn.” His hair gel almost made me gag but I held it back and scowled instead.
“I’m serious,” he protested. He did look like he meant it. “Thanks,” I said. “I think.”
He smiled and looked back at his monitor.
We worked hard for the next two and a half hours, taking only a quick snack break at the vending machines. When 5:30 rolled around, I logged off and scrambled out the door. I had exactly thirty minutes to get home and then go over to Jilly’s to help her with her lines.
“Tell them they are welcome. Everyone is welcome. They have given us much, taught us much, and we are —”
“They have given us so much and taught us even more —” I interrupted.
“Darn it,” said Jilly, slapping her thigh. “That ‘much, much’ speech comes later.” She strode over to her starting place and began walking toward the center of the room. “Tell them they are welcome. Everyone is welcome. They have given us so much and taught us even more. I will speak with your father about a welcoming party.”
I clapped loudly and Jilly grinned before collapsing on the floor with the back of one hand thrown over her forehead in an exaggerated gesture.
I reached down and she gave me five. “Thanks, Erin,” she said. “You’re a lifesaver.”
