“But there’s six of us,” Sofes said.
We all paused.
“So?”
“So, doesn’t that mean we’d have to six-feit? You know, not four-feit but six-feit? Tee-hee.”
“Okay, she goes last,” I said.
“Hallelujah, the first thing we agree upon,” Kiki said, throwing her hands in the air.
Beanpole locked eyes with me in one of those disapproving, motherly glares.
“What?” I said.
“Don’t be mean, Mo. Being mean is not nice.”
“Being mean is not nice?” I said. “What are we in, second grade?”
However, Beanpole was entirely serious. “That is correct,” she answered. “Being mean is not nice.”
I let out a sigh. Deep down, I knew Beanpole was right. It was just that the ThreePees always seemed to bring out the worst in me. Why did I let those girls get under my skin the way they did?
“Finally, our coach,” Kiki said, noticing that Mr. Stone had entered the library. “Maybe he can snap you dipsticks into shape.”
“You’re the dipsticks,” I said.
“No, you are!”
“You are!”
“Hey, hey, hey!” Vice Principal Stone said, walking up to our table. “Now, let’s get one thing straight. I may be the coach on paper, but let me tell you, I only have six months before retirement, and I have no plans to do squat with any of this contest nonsense.”
“Huh?” We stared. Having a coach was a big part of the Academic Septathlon.
“That means, don’t ask me questions, don’t bring me problems, and don’t get me involved in any aspect of this,” he instructed. “You are absolutely and entirely on your own.”
Mr. Stone scanned the library to make sure the conversation wasn’t being overheard.
“And if you tell anyone, I’ll make sure every official document that says you ever attended this school vanishes from the system,” he threatened. “You’ll be like ghosts. No transcripts, no records, not even a photocopy of your birth certificate will exist, you understand me?”
We stared, wide-eyed.
“Oh, believe me, I can do it,” he said confidently. “You’d be amazed at the power of cyberspace to suck data into places where it will never be seen again.” Mr. Stone adjusted the knot of his tie and straightened it. “The last thing I want right now is to be some lame coach in some lame trivia game for a bunch of mean-spirited, wannabe Einsteins, got it?”
“Yes, sir,” we softly replied.
“Good. You’ll only see me twice. Once now and once on the night of the competition, where we’re all going to pretend that we’ve worked really hard putting in lots of long hours, like good little goofballs. Otherwise, zap! Your files will disappear into the black hole of the Internet.”
Mr. Stone buttoned his coat and checked his wristwatch. “By the way, why are you still even here?” he asked.
“Um,” I said, “we’re studying?”
“But you’ve got to get over to the Civic Center to register by six tonight, or you won’t be eligible.”
“We do?” None of us had heard about this.
“Ah jeez, this is exactly what I mean,” he said, throwing up his hands. “If you don’t hightail it over to the Civic Center to register within the next eighty-seven minutes, you won’t be allowed to participate. Holy cow, don’t you know that the Academic Septathlon is governed by rules, rules, rules?”
“But, like, don’t you need to be there to sign some documents or something for us?” Brattany asked.
“Have Kiki forge them,” he replied. “I mean, she forges her parents’ signatures all the time, anyway. How hard can mine be?”
Kiki sheepishly looked down as Mr. Stone grumbled something I couldn’t quite make out and then walked off.
Great, I thought. We were now coachless.
The other girls started calling their parents right away, to see which of them could drop everything and drive us over to the Civic Center. I didn’t dare call my house.
“And why is that?” Beanpole asked, her hands on her hips.
“Because dear old Dad might show up wanting to fill a hole or something,” I replied honestly.
She shook her head. “I bet if he knew you just said that, he’d be hurt.”
“And I bet if I even knew him AT ALL, I’d care.”
I popped a piece of saltwater taffy into my mouth. I’d always liked saltwater taffy. Number one, it’s taffy. Yum. Number two, it is practically a zero-fat food item. Of course, it is also a zero-nutrition food item, but considering that it must have come from the ocean—I mean, why else would they call it saltwater taffy (like, duh)?—how unhealthy could it really be?
Okay, maybe Beanpole had a point, but I hadn’t really come to terms with how I felt about my father. However, he’d been gone for years and years, so I should at least have had that much time to figure it all out on my end, no?
Or at least months and months.
Weeks and weeks?
“Mo, please don’t take this the wrong way,” Beanpole said in a kind, sympathetic, might-become-a-kindergarten-teacher-one-day type of voice, “but you have issues.”
“Beanpole, you alphabetize your underwear, so when it comes to having issues, let’s just agree that I’m not alone, all right?”
Q hung up her phone. “My mom’s on her way. She’ll be here in ten.”
“You see?” I said. “Problem solved. Let’s go wait by the carpool loop.” The three of us grabbed our backpacks and got ready to go.
“Shouldn’t we, you know, offer them a ride?” Beanpole asked, sort of nudging over toward the ThreePees.
“Let them hitchhike,” I said. “With any luck, some campfire-story guy with one eye and a rusty chainsaw will pick them up.”
Q smiled. When it came to the way we felt about the Three-Pees, she and I were simpático. (That’s Spanish for “on the same page.”)
“Come on, you guys, they’re our teammates. And like it or not, we’re going to have to start working with them.” Beanpole turned toward the ThreePees and cheerily called out, “Hey, you need a ride?”
Sofes twirled around and smiled. “Um, yeah, I think we actually—”
“Eat a molded muffin, Beanpole,” Kiki said as she stepped in front of Sofes. “My sister will be here in five.” She put her phone into her back pocket and stared at Sofes with a What are you doing? look on her face. Sofes hung her head and shrugged.
“See?” I said to Beanpole as I headed through the silver turnstile. “You can’t be nice to them. It doesn’t pay.”
Before we knew it, Q’s mom, Mrs. Applebee, picked us up in what we had affectionately named the Nerd Mobile. Really, the car was nothing more than a four-door blue import with leather seats and cup holders for every passenger, but once we’d given the car this nickname a couple of months earlier, the joke had sort of stuck.
We climbed in and put on our seat belts.
“Are you okay, Alice? You know I’ll always drop everything to come and get you right away. You know that, right?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” Q replied. “We just needed a ride.”
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” Q’s mother asked. “I noticed you wheezing last night.”
“I’m fine, Mom.” Q rolled her eyes. “Fine. We’re going to be late.”
After a silent mother-daughter battle of wills, where Q’s mom communicated through eye contact that she was highly concerned for Q’s health, and Q responded by dismissing her mother’s phobia, averting her gaze and looking out the window, Mrs. Applebee put the car in gear and we drove away.
By 5:35, we’d arrived at the Civic Center, a crisp white building that Grover Park had built a few years earlier in an attempt to attract some fancy theater productions to the area. Broadway revival shows like Cats and musicals that old people loved, like Oklahoma!, played there practically every other month. But there were minor shows that played there, too, like B-level circus shows where the elephants we
re blind, and international dance troupes featuring ballerinas from countries no one had ever heard of, like the Republic of Nauru.
Two years ago, for my birthday, my mom took me to see a production of Peter Pan, but the stage ropes weren’t working that night, so the actors couldn’t even fly. There’s nothing more pathetic than a nonflying Peter Pan. Captain Hook should have kicked his scrawny butt. Plus, Tinker Bell should have suffered a beat-down, too. I mean, what kind of wimp can’t stomp a nonflying fairy?
Carnegie Hall this theater was not.
Kiki and her coconuts beat us to the Civic Center, so by the time we arrived and walked inside the main lobby, they had already been to the registration table and picked up all the forms. The place was buzzing with activity. Nine different middle schools would be competing in the California Region Eight showdown, and you could feel the energy and excitement in the air. Parents swirled about; coaches addressed their teams, giving them instructions and pep talks. We were the only group of kids that was just a group of kids, with no adults to guide our way. Mrs. Applebee had decided to run to the drugstore to get eucalyptus drops to put into Q’s air purifier as a way to help her with the wheezing, and said she’d pick us up in forty-five minutes, despite the fact that Q said she didn’t want any eucalyptus drops and wouldn’t use them. So we huddled off to the side and tried to figure everything out by ourselves.
Kiki passed out two forms to each of us that needed to be signed and returned by the following Wednesday.
“The first’s a registration and grade-verification form,” she explained, “and the second is a parent permission slip to appear on TV.”
“We’re going to be on TV?” Q asked, her eyes big.
“Calm down, goober,” Kiki answered. “It’s only a local community station, like channel 723 or something.”
“Yeah,” Brattany said. “Only about thirty-eight people ever watch it, and most of them are old folks in nursing homes who drool.”
Q turned to me for support. I knew how much she dreaded appearing in front of crowds. Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh. “TV?”
“It’ll be fine,” I told her, with a false confidence. “Don’t worry.”
But of course, I was worried, too. Appearing on TV could mean only one thing: I needed to lose some weight.
And fast.
I immediately made a plan to eat only celery stalks for the next thirteen days, supplemented with small sips of water. Then on day fourteen, I’d give up the celery and go with just straight H2O until the competition. Perhaps I could even cut the 2 in the H2O and just go with HO. I bet that would help trim flab faster. I knew I’d need all the help I could get, because I’d heard that TV cameras put ten pounds on you.
Ten pounds? How unfair is that? I mean, if something is going to add ten pounds to my body, shouldn’t I at least get the pleasure of its being soaked in caramel and traveling over my taste buds?
“Oh, look. If it isn’t Kiki Masters.”
“Well, if it isn’t Wynston Haimes,” Kiki responded.
A dark-haired girl with sparkling green eyes approached. She was wearing a navy blue schoolgirl uniform accented by a crisp white shirt with tasteful red trim on the collar. On her chest was an embroidered SD, the initials of her school, and on her feet were a pair of chocolate-brown penny loafers that must have cost $350.
Of course, the kicker was the knee-highs.
It takes a lot of guts to wear knee-high socks when you’re our age—a lot of self-confidence, too—and not every girl has the legs to make them look good.
Wynston made them look great. I could tell right away by the manner in which she approached, with her army of knee-high-wearing junior bunny rabbits following closely behind, that we were looking at the ringleader of the Saint Dianne’s team.
“Competing in the Septathlon, are you, Keeks?” Wynston’s classmates formed a wall of crisply dressed private-school prigs behind her. And yes, it was intimidating.
“Competing? No,” Kiki answered. “Winning? Yes.”
Wynston and her henchgirls laughed.
“Oh, you’ve got to love that public-school spunk, don’t you?” Wynston said. “Well, losing won’t sting too bad, Kiki. I mean, you’ve got to be getting used to it by now.”
Ouch. The girls from Saint Dianne’s snickered. Kiki and Wynston had a history that went back to cheerleading camp, where they had gone toe to toe for the past two summers to see who would be named head cheerleader of the city’s formidable intramural squad.
Both times, for division six and division seven, Wynston Haimes had eked out a close victory over Kiki.
“Well, here’s a little FYI and four-one-one you can take to the B-A-N-K,” Beanpole suddenly blurted out, as she stepped forward and crossed her arms in a Take that! manner. “The Aardvarks are on a mission to make some whomp-’em powder!”
Beanpole turned to high-five Q. They raised their hands for a That’s what I’m talkin’ about, baby hand slap.
But missed. Beanpole nearly fell into a table.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’m okay,” she said, regaining her balance. Then, remembering how to deal with such situations, she slowly spread her arms, stood on one foot, and began to chant, “Ommmmmm.”
Wynston lowered her chin and looked us over, first Beanpole, then me, then Q.
In response to the scrutiny, Q took a scuba dive. Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh.
“New chums, Keeks?”
“Not hardly,” Kiki answered, as if we were nothing but pieces of garbage.
“Well, I do hope that you and your band of tragics aren’t too embarrassed come competition night,” Wynston replied. “I mean, it must get so tiring being defeated by me all the time.”
Wynston smiled. Her teeth were beautiful, like fine jewelry.
“Times change,” Kiki answered defiantly.
Wynston took a second gaze at me and my nerd herd.
“Indeed they do, Keeks. Indeed they do.”
“Come, come, girls,” the coach of Saint Dianne’s said to her team, with a clap of her hands, as she walked up with the requisite registration forms. “I’ve scheduled a nutrition break of artisanal salads in twenty minutes, and then we’ll do a study session on Greek rhetoric.”
Beanpole leaned in to ask me a question, trying to speak in a low voice so no on else could hear. “What’s rhetoric?”
“Yeah,” Sofes said, overhearing. “And what language is Greek?”
Wynston smiled again. “Ciao, Keeks.” With her army of identical soldiers following immediately behind, she began to walk away.
“Eat lint, Wynston!” Kiki cried.
Wynston stopped, turned, and grinned.
“So cultured, they are,” she said to her navy blue crew. “Must be a class they insist upon campuswide.”
The girls from Saint Dianne’s swished away, swirling their skirts from side to side with every step.
“Note the purses,” Kiki said to Brattany as she crossed her arms.
“François Fumeil?” Brattany replied.
“Yep. Straight from Paris,” Kiki replied. “I want one, like, so bad.”
“How much?” Brattany asked.
“Six hund-ee,” Kiki replied. “If you can even find one.”
Kiki and Brattany continued to stare at the girls from Saint Dianne’s. Their envy oozed.
“Sheesh, they’re even more stuck up than you,” I said. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Put a sock in it, Maureen.”
“And, like, way to stick up for your teammates, too,” I added. “Real cool the way you hung us out to dry.”
Kiki spun around and jumped in my face. “Look, we’re not teammates, we’re not friends; we’re nothing other than a bunch of kids thrown together who are trying to avoid being suspended from school; you got it, skinny-chubby?”
“You should think about seeing the school counselor, you know that, Kiki?” I said. “I mean, you realize they’ve been specially trained to deal with ps
ychopaths like yourself, right?”
Kiki sniffed and grabbed her backpack. “Just make sure you and your band of geeknods know the material,” she ordered. “It’s embarrassing enough having to appear with nerds, but having to appear with nerds who aren’t even supergeniuses, well, that just takes the Christmas cake.” She turned to her donkeys. “Come on, ladies. We are outee.”
And without a good-bye or a “see ya tomorrow,” the Three-Pees were gone.
“But we are, too, smart,” Beanpole said. “I mean, I have a 3.92 GPA.”
“Four point”—Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh. “Oh.”
“You have a perfect 4.0?” I said to Q. “Like, you’ve never even had a B plus?”
“Nope. Never will, either.” Q reached into her backpack and pulled out a cylindrical container filled with a weird-looking brown liquid. “Education was important to my dad. I’d die before I’d get less than an A now.”
She withdrew a straw. Not just a regular old straw, though. Always having to be different, she pulled out one of those twisty, swirly straws that make whatever you’re drinking look like it’s on a crazy roller-coaster ride before it hits your mouth.
“And that is…?” I asked, watching a swoosh of brownish liquid travel up and around and sideways before entering her mouth.
“Almond milk?”
“Allergy fighting?” I asked.
“Double bonus of being brain juice, too,” she answered. “I think Barbara’s right. It’s time to break out the whomp-’em powder.”
A smile came to Beanpole’s face, and she started excitedly clapping her hands like a five-year-old who had just found out the whole family was going to go out for ice cream. She and I knew that Q was the smartest of all of us, and that she was going to set her mind to actually kicking some butt at the Academic Septathlon.
“Your doctors give you that?” I asked, staring at the sludgy-looking mush she was consuming.
“Cashews,” she answered.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s got ground-up cashew nuts in it,” she said. “You see how my mom is getting more and more obsessive? Time for me to step up the plan.”
A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions Page 10
