by Zoe Evans
“Tabitha Sue! I’m surprised at you!” I joked.
She smiled. “It seems to always work on TV.”
“Trust me, I’m tempted, but I don’t need to give her any more reason to do something worse. Not like I can imagine how she CAN do worse, but Clem never stops amazing me.”
“Fine, then let’s just ignore her for the rest of the night.”
“That’s easy,” I said. “I have zero interest in being nice to her. She can get a taste of what it’s like to be the outcast.”
When we got on the bus to go home, Lanie and Marc sat next to each other (surprise, surprise), and then Lanie said to Evan and me, “You guys should sit across from us so we can chat.” I LOVE LANIE. If she hadn’t said that, it would have been total Awkward Town to ask Evan to sit next to me.
But here’s the big problem: Even though Evan came out today to support me, and even though he gave me that never-ending hug, here we are sitting next to each other and he’s barely talking to me. I’m trying to hide my journal as I write this, and trying not to be hurt or annoyed. But I’m really confused. Is he still mad about the picture? And if he is, why isn’t he saying anything? I’ve been trying to talk to him every chance I get, so he knows that I want to. Just now I even tried to start a convo with him by saying, “So, what’s new?” And he was just like, “Yeah, I gotta work on some SuperBoy stuff before the fair tomorrow.” So what could I say? Oof! Our knees were just touching, but he moved his away .
THAT NIGHT, POLISHING MY CHEER MEDAL!
We got home kinda late, but I felt like unpacking my cheer bag to give myself a feeling like this was final, the competition was finally over, and now it is time to CHILL.
So anyhoo, as I was unpacking and simultaneously stroking the medal that I was still wearing around my neck, I heard the doorbell ring. I didn’t really think much of it—figuring it was probably Mr. D coming by to hang with Mom, but next thing I knew Mom was calling for me.
“Madington! Come downstairs!”
Her voice was a little hoarse from trying to yell above the crowds that day.
A big part of me was hoping, hoping, hoping it was Evan, but as I walked down the stairs, I caught a familiar blond ponytail swish by on its way into the kitchen. Katie?
“You girls want some sundaes?” Mom asked, her head already deep in the freezer.
Katie saw me in the doorway and came running at me with her arms outstretched. “Congrats on the big win!” she said.
“Thanks!” I said, getting a big whiff of her fruity shampoo.
Katie pulled out a chair from our kitchen table and made herself at home. “I heard about the music mix-up,” she said, her eyes wide. “But you guys must have really knocked the judges’ socks off to make such a comeback!”
“Yeah, it was kind of a miracle,” I said, joining her at the table.
Mom laid out three different kinds of ice cream, plus chocolate syrup and sprinkles, all on the counter. “I’m gonna go make some phone calls. You girls enjoy.”
“Thanks, Coach!” I said, as she made her way up the stairs.
We each assembled a rockin’ good sundae, then sat back down. I was quiet for a while, and Katie must have noticed, because she asked me what was wrong.
I took a big bite of whipped cream, and then came out with it:
“I really hate to say this, because I know how you feel about her, but I’m convinced the music mix-up wasn’t really an accident. I think Clem did it.”
There, I said it. It was out there, whether I liked it or not. I never stopped feeling awkward about pointing fingers at Katie’s best friend, and Katie doesn’t make it much easier for me. She always clams up when I bring up the subject, and this time was no different. Besides, I feel like we’ve had this talk a million times already, and I never get anywhere.
Katie pursed her lips and started picking at the sprinkles on her sundae with her fingers.
“Do other people think that?” she asked finally.
I nodded. “I just feel like I’ve been keeping so many secrets lately, all so that no one knows about your audition in New York, and it has gotten beyond out of hand, you know? Like, I can’t tell Evan about Luc, so now he’s practically not talking to me. And we almost lost everything we’d been working for today because Clem never tires of her Super Mean Girl act.”
Katie nodded but didn’t look at me.
“I keep thinking about what you said last time,” I continued. “About what her reason is for being like this to me. We still haven’t figured out what it could be.”
“All right,” said Katie. “I have an idea that’s been kind of creeping up on me, but I didn’t want to admit. What if Clem figured out that I auditioned in New York, and she’s mad at me for lying? And maybe she knows somehow that you know, and so she knows we’re friends, and she’s trying to punish me by hurting you?”
I hadn’t even thought about that until Katie said it, but as soon as she did, it made so much sense. Why else would Clem keep upping the ante in her Ruin Maddy’s Life campaign?
“Punish you?” I asked. “Why wouldn’t she just tell you she knows?”
Katie took a tiny bite of her ice cream. I was kind of losing my appetite too.
“She wouldn’t just come out and tell me, because if she felt that I had betrayed her, she would want to teach me a lesson. That’s her style. And now I’m not only worried that Clem somehow knows about our friendship and New York, but that she might tell the rest of the team.” Katie was getting a little more frantic now. “And if she tells the team, they’ll probably be really mad at me. I know Clem. She could make the whole team turn against me if she wanted to. And if that happens, they could try to take captain away from me.”
“Really?” I asked, shocked. “They could do that?”
Katie nodded solemnly. “Yeah. If they can argue that my trying out for the dance school shows that I’m not as devoted to the team as I say I am, then they absolutely could do that. And Coach Whipley would definitely agree. She’s all about loyalty.”
“So basically she keeps doing all this stuff to me so that you’ll try to put a stop to it and tell her everything, like, in my defense?”
“Uh-huh.”
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about this until Katie said it. But her theory made sense. And if she’s right, it means this wasn’t so much about ME in particular. This was about Katie and Clem all along.
“Katie, I hate to say this, but if you think Clem is really the kind of person who would do all this stuff to hurt you, then I don’t think she’s as good a friend as you think.” In a million years I couldn’t imagine Lanie doing anything like this to me. Or Evan even. In fact, I’d been pretty rotten to Evan, and the worst thing he’d done was just not talk to me.
“You don’t understand,” said Katie.
I didn’t know what else to say. I was just glad that I didn’t have a friend like Clem. But I felt really bad for Katie.
Before going to bed, I decided to get the whole team on video chat. Everyone was online, luckily. It was hard to hear any one person, because we were all practically still jumping up and down over our win.
“Too bad for poor Diane,” said Jared sarcastically. “She missed out on all the fun today.”
“Jared, when are you gonna just talk to Diane and end this stupid fight?” demanded Tabitha Sue.
“I don’t want to waste my breath,” said Jared indignantly.
“Guys!” said Jacqui, putting her face up close to her video screen.
“Ew, hello nostrils!” I joked.
She backed up and held the team’s second-place award up to the camera. “Um, hello? Can we focus on how AWESOME we were today?”
Everyone cheered so loudly I had to hold my hands over my ears.
“I just wanted to tell you,” Jacqui continued, “I’m bringing this to the dunking booth tomorrow. And also, I wrote an e-mail to Mr. Datner about placing it in the trophy area outside the gym and he said yes!”
I w
asn’t sure if this was just Mr. D’s way of being nice to Mom through me, but either way it would be way cool to have a Grizzly trophy out there for all the school to see.
Oh and everything is all set for tomorrow, for Lanie’s and my booth. Good thing we prepared ahead of time or else I would have been too DEAD to do anything else tonight. I feel like I could sleep forever. But no rest for the weary! Fair tomorrow, bright and early. Ugh.
Just tried to write to E on chat, because his status said “active,” but he didn’t write back. Either he’s still ignoring me, or he got eaten by a hungry bear.
Seriously. Long. Day. So many ups and downs. But in the end, lots of ups! Where do I begin? Okay, fine, at the beginning (ha-ha)! This morning Lanes and I got ourselves quite a workout just lugging the boxes of T-shirts from Mom’s car to our booth. And it really must be spring, because I was literally sweating by the time we were done. I think with the combo of all that pom-pom waving yesterday and the manual labor of today, my arms might literally quit on me.
Lanie knows me so well, she brought us some cool frozen iced coffee drinks that you can buy in the supermarket. Basically, it’s like a gallon of sugar and caffeine. YUM-EE. Before long, I was running in circles with energy. Which is a good thing, as long as you don’t think about how badly you’re gonna CRASH later. But hey, I was living in the moment. Or at least trying to.
Evan walked by as we were setting up our booth and barely gave us a wave. Or if I’m being totally honest here, he basically waved at Lanie and didn’t really look at me. Nice.
I buried my head in my hands. “He’s still mad at me,” I said to Lanie.
She put a hand on my back. “I promise you, this thing with Evan will blow over soon.”
“He still hasn’t said anything to you, has he?” I was kinda hoping maybe they’d talked about things on their ride to the competition yesterday.
Lanie shook her head. “Sorry. But listen, this isn’t going to be a morning of Evan and Maddy drama. Right NOW we have to get this booth in order before the crowds stampede us.”
“I know, I know,” I said. I started posting the different design options on the bulletin board behind us. I have to admit, they looked really cool.
Clementine was running back and forth all over the place, shouting orders into her megaphone. It hit me at that moment that Head Fair Leader wasn’t such a stretch for Clem. She’s used to shouting things in her megaphone—except in cheer, they’re usually inspiring and uplifting things, not orders. She had one poor kid practically shaking with fear. He was bent on the ground picking up a granola bar wrapper that he’d tried to throw into the garbage, but missed by a few centimeters.
“Did I say you should ADD trash to the ground?” she barked. “No, I didn’t think so!”
It was only a little bit funny, the way she insisted on using the megaphone even when she was within a foot of whoever she was yelling at.
Thank goodness we’d finished setting up when we did, because literally two seconds later, the school started letting people in. It was mostly parents of students at first, and then a few little kids. A bunch of our friends stopped by to say hi, but no one wanted to make a T-shirt. Guess they wanted to see what else there was out there first! Finally, Mom and Mr. Datner stopped by. Yay! Our first real customers. Trying not to feel like a loser about that.
“Want to design a T-shirt?” I asked Mom.
“Of course, sweetie!” said Mom, perusing the different design options.
Mr. Datner chose an extra-large T-shirt and asked to keep it simple. Since it is kind of hard to get very creative with a guy’s T-shirt look, we stuck to just using a decal instead of slashing it up. I couldn’t really see Mr. D rocking the heavy metal look.
For Mom, we made a cute halter-style shirt. Lanie wanted to make it cropped, too, but I quickly nixed that.
“These are wonderful, Maddy!” Mom exclaimed, holding hers up for Mr. Datner to admire. “Let’s put them on now! We can match!”
“Fine. Be just a little more obvious that you’re a couple,” I muttered.
“What was that?” asked Mom.
I plastered an easygoing smile onto my face. “I said, glad you walked away with a couple of designs!”
Lanie kicked me under the table.
Guess Mom and Mr. D started a trend, because after we did their T-shirts, people started crowding toward our booth. I almost couldn’t believe how popular we’d become all of a sudden. All our friends who’d stopped by earlier just to say hi came back asking for their own T-shirt design. It kind of became this “thing” to be walking around the fair in one of our T-shirts.
After what seemed like five straight hours of chopping, drawing, tying, and safety pinning, I needed a BREAK.
“Maybe we need to start making some ugly T-shirts?” joked Lanie. “I can’t stand the hordes!”
“I know!”
We took turns taking walks around the fair to scope out the other booths. I’d stopped by earlier at the Grizzly dunking booth, but that was pretty much before the fair had started picking up. Now the booth was crowded with people taking pics with their camera phones of the football team getting doused. I’d never seen such glee in Katarina’s face as when she was pressing the big red button that ended up soaking the jocks. Everyone was laughing, most of all their coach.
“Whoo, boys!” he said, clutching his stomach as one kid spouted water out his mouth like a whale. “Hope you’re thirsty!”
I caught Jared walking toward the Titan booth a couple of times, and had a feeling he was stalking Diane. Every time he’d get close, he’d just stare in her direction, and then as soon as she turned, he’d skulk away, shaking his head. I still couldn’t believe they hadn’t made up after all this time.
Which reminded me . . . I wondered how Evan’s booth was doing. His was in full swing as well. He had a nice line of people waiting for their own personal SuperBoy comic. It was kind of like those caricatures that you get done at carnivals, but instead of just getting a picture of yourself, it showed YOU inside a scene from a SuperBoy comic. I walked right up to him, where he was scribbling his signature at the bottom of one of his works.
“So I guess you do have a fan club,” I said.
Evan smiled at me, and then, as if he was just reminding himself about why he’d been mad at me this whole time, made that smile disappear faster than the Tater Tots in the cafeteria.
“So is your new friend coming to the fair?” he asked, not looking at me as he started in on his next drawing.
I knew he meant Luc. And it was funny he hadn’t brought that up at all yesterday at the competition, but maybe he didn’t want to get into a fight when I needed to be in competition mode. And even after we’d placed second, he probably didn’t want to ruin the celebration with more drama. I guess.
“No. He was just in town for that one day.” I did my best not to sound like I was defending myself.
“In town from where?”
“New York.” I hoped that if he knew Luc was all the way from New York, he’d stop worrying about this already. Then I realized that telling him this maybe was a bad idea. Because then he’d think that this was someone I’d met during my trip (he’d be right) and that I had a crush on (he’d be wrong).
When I saw Evan’s frown deepen, I quickly backpedaled. “But I swear, it really isn’t what it seems like.” Even I could hear how lame I sounded. Gaaaah! SO frustrating.
Finally he put his pen down and looked at me. “Look, I’m pretty busy fighting off the hordes, so . . . talk to you later?”
“Yeah, sure.”
I couldn’t believe it! By opening my big fat mouth, I’d only made things WORSE!
I sulked back to my booth. “What, did the Grizzlies try to dunk you or something?” asked Lanie.
“No, but Evan did. In his own way.”
“Oh Mads . . .”
“Come on, distract me. Let’s straighten up here a bit or something.”
Katie came by while we were freshening
up the booth. “The Titan booth is totally deadski. It’s like a ghost town.”
“Seriously?” I asked. “I’d have thought that with a fancy stylist person like Clementine’s mom, they’d be pushing people away.”
“I think people are afraid of Mrs. Prescott, actually,” Katie whispered. “The first few people who came for their style evaluation nearly walked away in tears!”
“I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?” quipped Lanie.
Katie stuck around to learn how to slash a T-shirt in a cute and fashionable way, and I showed her how to make hers have a bunch of slits in the back. Of course when she put it on, it looked like she’d invented the whole look herself. Katie’s just special like that.
“Hey Maddy,” said Katie, gathering her T-shirt scraps into her palm. “You okay? You look upset.”
I’m not so good at hiding my emotions.
“Well, I tried talking to Evan for the millionth time, and he basically told me to get lost.”
“He’s still mad about the picture?”
Lanie nodded yes for me. “Oh yeah.”
Katie took a deep breath and got up from her chair. “Okay. I’ve decided this is just too much. Enough is enough. I can’t be the reason that your love life gets ruined. I’m talking to Clem now.”
“Really?” I practically squeaked. I’d been waiting for her to say those words for, like, ever. I wasn’t sure if my ears were hearing right.
“Yeah. I’m tired of wondering why she’s acting this way, and being afraid of her doing something even worse.”
“Wow,” I said. “Thanks, Katie. That means a lot. Want me to go with you?”
“Actually, yeah,” she said. “That would be nice. Then after, we can all explain to Evan what that picture really was about.”
Lanes said she’d man our booth while I stepped away. “Report back to me on everything!” she said. “Don’t spare me one detail!”
