Spirit Week Showdown

by Crystal Allen

  “They’re like superheroes or . . .”

  I hope she’s thinking the same thing I’m thinking, because the GGC is hands down the best group of superheroes ever. If we can win those five points tomorrow for our superhero outfits, maybe Connie won’t care that I did something really bad.

  She stares at her warriors. “You really think we could do this, Mya?”

  I step closer to her, smiling. “Meet me at my house in an hour.”

  Mom is excited that Connie’s coming over. I tell her about the Girl Guardian Court, and what the guardians look like. She gathers material as I talk, and I can tell she’s listening by the things she’s setting aside for our costumes. She’s got wire, glue, and feathers for our wings, along with scissors, pushpins, and a measuring tape.

  “I’m going to change clothes. I’ll be right back,” I say.

  Nugget’s standing at the top of the stairs. I signal him to come to my room without saying a word. He follows me.

  I close my door once we’re inside.

  “Hey, Nugget, what do you think of Naomi?”

  He shrugs. “She’s vain, selfish, and rude. Connie has a much nicer disposition. Why do you like Naomi anyway?”

  “I don’t anymore,” I say.

  Nugget grins. “Excellent news.”

  “Did you know she wants to be your girlfriend?” I ask.

  He rolls his eyes as his nose wrinkles like he just smelled the world’s stinkiest skunk.

  “I knew, but I don’t like her. Can we talk about something else, because it’s quite possible that I miscalculated the negative impact of my friendship with Solo on Fish.”

  “I’m not sure what you just said, but I think I have one of those problems, too. I can’t talk right now, maybe later, okay? Connie’s coming over and I need to do something first.”

  He nods, and opens the door. “Sure. But I really need to talk about this.”

  Once my brother is gone, I grab the rope off the hook on my wall. My stuffed animals are still on the floor, where I left them a few days ago. Sometimes I do my best thinking when I’m calf roping. I sure hope I can think of a way to tell Connie what I did without her hating me.

  It doesn’t take long to get a good lasso going. I throw it toward the longhorn.

  Missed.

  I toss the rope toward the goat.

  Missed again.

  This rope is horrible! It never lassos anything! I might as well throw it in the trash, because I’m never going to be a good calf roper like Annie Oakley or Cowgirl Claire. I’m never going to ride a Clydesdale. I’m not going to win those VIP tickets, because I’m not even a good Spirit Week partner!

  Since the day I picked Connie’s name out of that big black hat, she’s been the best fake friend I’ve ever had. Mom likes her. Dad likes her. Even Nugget likes her. I don’t know where all those rumors came from or where she got her nickname, but starting tomorrow, I’m going to be as nice to her as she’s been to me. And then, when I tell Connie that Naomi wore that Bo Peep outfit because I told her what we were going to wear, maybe she’ll forgive me, like a real friend would do.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mom’s standing at the door with me when Connie comes.

  “Hello, queen of hearts! So now you want to be a guardian superhero?” asks Mom.

  Connie nods.

  “What a perfect choice. Follow me to my magic sewing room.”

  There’s some happy in Connie’s walk as she talks to Mom like they’ve been fake friends forever. Ten minutes later, Connie joins me in the living room.

  “Your mom said she should have something ready in about an hour. She’s like the fastest seamstress in the universe.”

  Nugget brings us juice boxes and presses the remote. “You watch Junior High Spy?”

  “Who doesn’t?” she says.

  Immediately, my thoughts switch to Naomi. How could she like Nugget more than me?

  As I look at Connie, the only thing she’s asked me to do is be a good partner. I didn’t have to work hard or run home so I could pull out a red bathroom carpet for her to walk on.

  Soon Dad comes in. “Hey, kids; oh, I know you! Connie, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” she says.

  On his way to his room, Dad hollers back, “I just saw Naomi. She told me to tell you hello.”

  Nugget perks up. “Hey, that reminds me. Naomi asked me if I had something to tell her. When I said no, she said I need to talk to you, Mya. What am I supposed to be telling her?”

  The whole world goes quiet. I can feel Connie looking at me. Nugget is, too.

  I snatch the remote from the table. “Can’t we watch something else?”

  “You watch Junior High Spy every day,” says Nugget.

  “Not anymore.”

  “You asked her, didn’t you?” says Connie.

  I nod.

  “Answer my questions. What am I supposed to be telling Naomi, Mya?” asks Nugget.

  Connie gets up. “Tell your mom I’ll come by later and pick up my costume. I think you need to talk to your brother.”

  I nod again, trying not to cry. Connie leaves, and now it’s just me and Nugget in the room. I tell him what I said, and why I said it. His face is full of anger, but he waits until I finish before saying anything.

  “Using me to trap Naomi was wrong. As bad as that was, I still can’t believe you broke the biggest Spirit Week rule of all time. Good grief, Mya, you double-crossed Connie. That is the worst thing a Spirit Week partner could ever do. You’ve got to tell her. She can’t find out from Naomi.”

  I can barely talk. I pull on his shirt. “Help me, Nugget. I don’t know how to fix this.”

  Mom comes out of her sewing room. “Where’s Connie? I have her costume in this bag.”

  Nugget takes the bag from Mom and hands it to me. “Connie had to go home, but Mya said she’d take her the costume as soon as you finished, right, Mya?”

  I take the bag from Nugget. My eyes are full of tears, so I don’t look at Mom. Instead, I stare at the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  Connie told me she lives on Bayou Bend. I know where that street is. It doesn’t take long before I’m standing at the intersection of State Street and Bayou Bend. There are the apartments she must be talking about. I walk to the front, open the door to the main entrance, and see a mailman sorting mail and placing it in the mailboxes. One by one, I check the names on the outsides of the mailboxes. There it is! Tate, J. Apt. 215.

  I wait for the elevator since I don’t get to ride one that often. After just two knocks, the door opens. Connie’s eyes widen.

  “Are you okay? Come in. Was Nugget mad at you?”

  I hand her the bag. “He was, but you might be even madder. Here’s your costume.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Inside, the apartment is small, with the living room and dining room in one area. Paintbrushes and paint cans sit on the table. There’s an easel with a tablet of paper sitting near a window in the living room next to a little table with paint and brushes on it. Everything else in the apartment is pushed together just to make room for the paints. The television is on the coffee table. Four TV dinner trays lean against the wall near the fireplace. On the mantel, I count five big trophies.

  “Those trophies belong to your dad?”

  “They’re mine.”

  I walk toward them. “Are you serious?”

  She looks out the window. It takes her a while to answer me. “I don’t like to talk about that stuff anymore.” Connie points to the sofa. “Sit down over there. I want to know what’s wrong. You look terrible. Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

  I hold up a hand. “Okay.”

  No more messing around. This is it. I sit on the sofa. She plops down in a chair, and I start with the part she already knows.

  “You were right. Naomi likes Nugget. She never really liked me. I should have believed you. I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes squint as she stares at the ceiling. “I hate her, Mya. I’ve never t
old anybody about what she did to me. I wish I had, but I didn’t think anybody would believe me.”

  The mood changes. It’s the same feeling I get when dark clouds fill the sky and the wind whistles. Those are signs of a bad storm brewing, and I think there’s a hurricane coming right here inside Connie’s place.

  “How did you know she wasn’t my friend?” I ask.

  There’s a look on Connie’s face I haven’t seen before. Her eyes are focused on mine. Her lips move, but nothing comes out, and it makes me squirm. Then she points her finger at me, and her face is so serious that I sit up straight.

  “What I’m about to tell you is a secret. You have to promise never to tell anyone, not even Nugget.”

  That scares me. I’ve got a feeling Connie is about to tell me the juiciest gossip to ever hit Bluebonnet. But it may be news that I don’t want to hear. If it is, that will make us even, because I definitely have something to tell her that she won’t like.

  “So can you keep a secret or not?” she asks again.

  I grip the couch cushions and hope for the best. “Tell me. I’m ready.”

  Chapter Twenty

  She turns to face me. “All those trophies are from pageants and beauty contests that I’ve won,” says Connie.

  I stand and stare at the mantel again. “What? No way!”

  She keeps talking. “I went to the same private school as Naomi. My parents don’t have a lot of money, and private school is expensive. But my grades were good enough to get a scholarship. It paid for all of my classes, meals, everything. The private school has an art program, and as you probably guessed, I love art.”

  “And you’re really good at it, Connie. That art room is amazing.”

  “Drawing helps me say things when I can’t find the right words. So that school was perfect for me. The only thing I had to do to keep my scholarship was make good grades and stay out of trouble. No problem.”

  I sit back down and stare at her. Five days ago, I would never have believed that Connie Tate was not a troublemaker, and I wouldn’t be caught dead sitting in her living room. But now, I’ve got a feeling she’s about to unload some hair-raising, heavy-duty truth on me, and I’ve made a promise not to repeat it.

  Connie folds her arms across her chest. “My mom began signing me up for beauty pageants when I was in second grade.”

  I almost fall off the couch. “You? I can’t imagine you in a beauty contest. I bet you hated it.”

  “Actually, I loved it! Texas has tons of pageants, so Mom entered me in at least one every month or so. They were a lot of fun. That’s when I first became friends with Naomi. We already went to the same private school, but we had different friends and didn’t hang out together. Once, we ended up in the same pageant, and she asked me to be her best friend. I said okay. She won that pageant, and I came in second. I didn’t care because I was having so much fun, and I even had a best friend who liked to do the same things I did. We played together, ate lunch together, and even went to the movies together. Things were great until the next pageant.”

  I let go of the couch cushions. This doesn’t sound too bad. “What happened? Did you come in second again?”

  She grins. “I almost won!” Then the grin fades away. “That was the problem. The judges liked Naomi’s song, but they clapped for a really long time after I showed them the picture I drew. Some of the other contestants thought I was going to take first place. So Naomi asked me to drop out.”

  My face wrinkles. “What?”

  Connie nods. “She said if I was really her best friend, I would drop out of the pageant. I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never quit anything in my whole life, especially a pageant. I told her I didn’t want to quit.”

  There’s no doubt in my mind that Naomi was mad at Connie. And I bet she did the same thing to her that she did to me

  “So what happened?” I ask.

  She chews on her bottom lip. “Every pageant I’ve been in, when it was time for the talent part, I always drew pictures while music played in the background. That’s why I was so angry when Naomi accused me of cheating. She knows I can draw. But anyway, one of the other girls in the pageant asked me if I broke my brother’s fingers. I didn’t know why she would ask me that, so I told her what really happened. My brother broke his fingers when he fell out of a tree. A few minutes later, another girl in the pageant asked me if I trashed the principal’s car. That wasn’t true either.”

  I grip the couch cushions again. I can barely listen.

  “But the worst was the rumor that I took my ankle boots off a homeless woman. There are lots more, like painting stripes on my dog, and taking doughnuts back to the bakery for some weird reason. All the girls said Naomi told them the rumors. They believed her because we were best friends. I yelled at Naomi to stop lying about me. That’s when she started calling me Mean Connie.”

  I pound the couch with my fist. “She flipped everything to make it look like you were the mean person when it was really her.”

  Connie moves from the chair to the sofa, and sits right beside me and pounds the couch, too.

  “I was so mad at her for all her lies that I threatened to beat her up. She told the pageant coordinator and got me kicked out of the competition. Then she told her parents that she was afraid to go back to school because I was going to hurt her. A few days later, the principal gave me an envelope to take home to my parents. It was sealed. I was a good student, Mya, and I had never been in trouble, so I had no idea what the letter said. I thought it was something good! I gave it to my parents. They read it, sat at the table, and stared at each other. I’ll never forget the looks on their faces.”

  Connie gets up, walks over to the mantel, and stares at her trophies. I try to be patient, but the suspense is killing me. When she turns around, her eyes are wet. I’m hurting for her, and I don’t even know why yet. But I can tell it’s something bad.

  “They took away my scholarship, Mya. The letter said the principal had met with the private school committee over a recent incident when I threatened a student. My scholarship was only good as long as my grades were good and I didn’t cause any trouble. Because I was a good student, they would allow me to stay if I accepted a one-week suspension, and my parents would have to pay for the rest of the year on the day I came back to school. That was over ten thousand dollars! No way could my parents afford that.”

  Tears roll down my face and I don’t even try to stop them. How can one person be so ugly to so many people, and still win beauty contests?

  “Why didn’t you tell everybody that the rumors weren’t true?” I ask.

  She glares at me. “You mean like the way you told everybody that you didn’t break your promise on purpose?”

  My face warms. I can’t look at Connie as I think about all the things I’ve done to her, when all along, she’s the one who deserved to walk on my red bathroom carpet.

  And I double-crossed her.

  And Naomi Jackson double-crossed me.

  Naomi didn’t just use me to get Nugget. She used me to get Connie, too.

  Now there’s no way I can tell Connie what I did. I just can’t.

  She sits back down. “So that’s how I ended up at Young Elementary. Mr. Winky and Mrs. Davis found out about my art talent and asked me if I wanted to do posters for special holidays and school events. I said yes. All the posters you see for Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and Spirit Week, I did them.

  “Mr. Winky and Mrs. Davis took me down the K3 hall and showed me an empty room. Mr. Winky said if I stay out of trouble, and do a good job on those posters, I can use that room in the back to draw or paint. But if I get in trouble, I lose my art room.”

  I wipe my eyes and try to smile. “I like your art room, Connie. But I . . . I can’t believe what Naomi did to you.” I get up and walk to the door. “Tomorrow I’m going to be the best Animasia you’ve ever seen. And we’re going to win those VIP tickets.”

  Connie smiles. “I think you’re going to be an awesome Anim
asia. You know, I’m glad I didn’t agree to trade partners last Friday. You’ve been a really good Spirit Week partner, Mya, and the best fake friend I’ve ever had!”

  She’s still smiling, but I’m dying inside. “I’ve got to go, Connie. See you tomorrow.”

  My boots are too heavy and I can’t run as fast as I need to. I want to run faster than all the terrible things I’ve done to Connie Tate. I have to outrun the things Naomi Jackson is going to say to her tomorrow. I’ve got to stop it all, but I don’t know how.

  Even though I’ll be dressed like Animasia, the best warrior in the Girl Guardian Court, tomorrow may be the worst day of my life because Naomi may tell Connie what I couldn’t—that I gave away our secrets, and that I tried to help her win. I may get called names that are worse than Mya Tibbs Fibs. And I’ll take the blame for all of it, as long as Connie doesn’t get hurt again.

  I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it’s the perfect day for her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  As I walk home, the streetlights buzz to life. It’s still light outside, but that’s not why I run like the wind toward the house. Mom and Dad have a strict rule about being home by the time the streetlights come on. I open the front door. Mom’s there, smiling at me.

  “You had me worried for a minute. Is everything okay? Did Connie like the outfit? Did it fit?”

  I look for Nugget. His door’s closed. That always means he doesn’t want to be bothered. I don’t know if Connie’s costume fits. I don’t even know if she likes it. I want to tell Mom what I did, but she doesn’t need the stress. Dad’s so tired when he gets home from all the work he has to do at the store that I don’t want to give him extra drama to handle. Nugget and I promised we wouldn’t bother Mom and Dad with our problems unless they were too big for us to figure out on our own. My problem with Naomi and Connie is pretty big, but I’m going to fix everything tomorrow.

  I smile and walk toward my room. “Connie’s going to be an awesome Queen Angelica.”

  I stop on the steps and look back to look at Mom. She’s still smiling, rubbing her belly, and looking like the most beautiful mom to ever wear house slippers shaped like cowgirl boots. “You really are amazing, Mom. Thanks for helping us with our costumes, and my braids, and everything else.”