Pants on Fire

by Meg Cabot

  Like, for instance, what I was going to do about Tommy.

  Because there was no way I was going to let him get away with this. He couldn’t just waltz back into my life and destroy it because of something I’d done to him four years ago, when we were both still basically children and couldn’t, technically, be held responsible for our actions. Nuh-uh. No way. Not going to happen.

  Only how was I going to stop him?

  That’s what I was asking myself as Sidney and I got beautified over at Spa-by-the-Sea (which should have been called Spa-by-the-Sound because that’s what it overlooked, but whatever). Mrs. van der Hoff had given us both gift certificates for pre-pageant full-body massages, sunless tanning, non-extraction facials (she didn’t want us to be discolored for the big event), manicures, pedicures, makeup application, and hair styling. Which was super nice of her.

  It would have been even nicer of Mrs. van der Hoff if she hadn’t insisted on coming along with us and commenting on everything we did. (“Are you sure you want a French manicure, Sid? You know how tacky they can look if you don’t get a thin enough line.” “Should you really wear your hair down, Katie? It would be so pretty up, with just a few tendrils curling down, here and there.”)

  Still, it was nice she took an interest. Not that my own mother doesn’t. She’s just busy with her job, something Sidney’s mom, who doesn’t work, doesn’t have to worry about.

  And I have to admit, her presence kept Sidney from asking me uncomfortable questions, such as, “So what’s the guy from the parking lot’s name?” and “When are you going to see him again?” and “Does Hottie McHot-a-Lot know you’ve got a boyfriend? Who’s on the football team? And not just any football team, but the Quahogs?”

  It wasn’t because Sidney shied away from embarrassing me in front of her mother. She simply couldn’t get a word in edgewise. The only time Sidney’s mom stopped talking was when I was under the hair dryer—and that’s just because I couldn’t hear her with all the hot air blowing around me. I used the opportunity to decide what I was going to do about Tommy. Which was…avoid him. I had to. I had no choice. Clearly I couldn’t be in his presence and not throw myself at him.

  And now that I’d actually tasted the sweet nectar that is Tommy Sullivan’s kisses (ew…but it’s true), I knew it was going to be extra hard to resist him.

  But I was just going to have to gird my loins (um, literally) and do it. Because I had way too much at stake.

  So I would just do everything I possibly could not to be in his presence. If he called my cell, I wouldn’t pick up. (Thank God I’d never given him my number anyway.) If he called at home, I’d tell whoever picked up to tell him I was in the shower. If I ran into him on the street, I’d turn and go the other way. If I ran into him at the Gull ’n Gulp, I’d make Shaniqua take his table. If I bumped into him anywhere else, I’d either hide or leave.

  I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if he ended up in any of my classes at school. Steadfastly ignore him, I guess.

  And maybe…just maybe…if I did all that, and word did get out that I’d been seen making out with him (because Sidney was going to put it together one of these days—she wasn’t that stupid), I could just deny it. I could say that Sidney must have inhaled too many fumes from her spray-on nail polish dryer and was seeing things.

  It could work. I may be a liar. But my pants don’t necessarily HAVE to be on fire.

  Becoming pageant-ready takes a long time. I didn’t get home until late afternoon—just an hour before I had to show up at Eastport Park—by which time my brother had apparently also just gotten home from Quahog tryouts. As I walked into the house—my hair up (Mrs. van der Hoff won), my tan perfect, my finger- and toenails pearly pink and professionally filed, my makeup immaculately applied—Liam was telling Mom and Dad, who were home from the office and sitting at the kitchen counter, listening to him with rapt attention, “So then Coach Hayes had us do a shuttle run, and I made it in thirty-two seconds, and then he had us do a forty-yard dash, and my time was five point nine seconds, and then we had to run a mile, and I don’t know what my time was on that, but it must have been good, because—”

  That’s when everyone finally noticed I had walked into the room, and they turned to me with big smiles on their faces. I knew the smiles weren’t because I looked so good. I wasn’t even in my pageant dress. Yet.

  “Well, hi, honey,” Mom said.

  “Katie, Katie, guess what?” Liam could barely contain his excitement.

  “Um,” I said, pretending like I had no idea what he was about to say. “They found asbestos in the school, and we’re not going to have to go on Monday after all?”

  “No,” Liam said. “I made the junior varsity team! I’m a Quahog!”

  I screamed politely to show my excitement for him, and then the two of us jumped around the kitchen (me being careful not to jump so hard that my updo fell down), while Mom and Dad beamed at us.

  “This calls for a celebration!” Dad declared. “We’re all going to Pizza Hut!”

  Mom smacked him. “Steve! You know we can’t! Katie has her Quahog Princess pageant tonight!”

  “I know,” Dad said, grinning. “I was kidding. But we could still go after. For a double celebration, when she wins.”

  “I won’t win,” I said, at the same time Mom said, “Why would we go to Pizza Hut when they’re having the Taste of Eastport in the park tonight?”

  Meanwhile, Liam was going, “Wow, Katie, if you win tonight, then we’ll both be Quahogs.”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying not to think about how quahogs make me gag. “Great!”

  “You should’ve heard Coach Hayes’s speech—you know, to the new junior varsity team, after all the losers went home—”

  “Hey,” I said, not smiling anymore. “They aren’t losers, just because they didn’t make the team. They just didn’t make the team.”

  “Um, hello,” Liam said sarcastically. “That is the definition of loser. So Coach Hayes, he goes, ‘Today is the first day of your new lives…not as ordinary citizens of Eastport. But as Quahogs. As a Quahog, you will find that new doors are open to you…doors that were never open to you as ordinary schmos—’”

  “Schmos?” I raised my eyebrows. “He called people who aren’t Quahogs schmos?”

  I don’t know why I was so insulted. I don’t even know what a schmo is.

  “May I finish?” Liam asked. “So then he goes, ‘And as Quahogs you have a tradition to live up to. A tradition of greatness. There are people out there who will try to tear you down, just because they’re jealous of your greatness—’”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted, with a glance at my parents. “Are you guys listening to this?”

  “The Quahogs are the top-ranked team in the state,” Mom said. “Maybe even the country.”

  “Yeah, but jealous of your greatness?” I shook my head. “Come on.”

  “See?” Liam glared at me. “Coach Hayes was right. You’re already jealous of my greatness, and I’ve only been a Quahog for an hour.”

  “I’m not jealous,” I informed him. “And you aren’t great. And if you say that again, I’ll show you just how not great you are.”

  Liam took a single step toward me, forcing me to have to lift my chin up—way up—in order to look him in the eye.

  “Oh, yeah?” he demanded, looking down at me. “You and what army?”

  It’s so weird how much he’s grown in such a short period of time. At this time last year, I’d easily been able to lift him up and throw him into the yacht club pool. Not to hurt him, or anything. Just to show him who was boss.

  I couldn’t help wondering who was boss now. It still had to be me. I mean, I’m the oldest.

  “Ha ha,” I said sarcastically. “That’s so original. Coach Hayes obviously didn’t pick you for your brains.”

  “Hey, now,” Dad said mildly. He’d already wandered out to the family room, just off the kitchen, picked up the remote control, and was flipping around,
trying to find the golf game.

  “Coach Hayes warned us about people like you,” Liam said condescendingly. “He said the elitists in society would try to make out like just because we’re athletically gifted, we must be mentally deficient.”

  I burst out laughing. “Oh my God,” I said.

  “Katie,” Mom said absently, as she checked the messages on the answering machine—most of which seemed to be from Tiffanys and Brittanys, asking for Liam to call them back. “Stop picking on your brother.”

  “But it’s like he’s in a cult, or something,” I said. “I mean, elitists in society? Just who is that supposed to be? The people in this town who don’t think just because you’re a Quahog, you should get extra-special treatment? I mean, beyond the corner booth at the Gull ’n Gulp?”

  “I know exactly what you’re talking about, Katie,” Liam said, narrowing his eyes down at me. “Or should I say, who you’re talking about. And Coach Hayes had something to say about him, too.”

  “Him, who?” I demanded. Even though I knew perfectly well.

  “Tommy Sullivan, that’s who,” Liam boomed down at me. Ever since his voice changed, he likes making it sound deeper than it actually is. On the few occasions he’s ever actually home to pick up the phone when one of the Tiffanys or Brittanys calls, he lowers his voice even more, saying, “Hello?” in a tone so deep, he sounds like freaking James Earl Jones. “Coach Hayes said some people in Eastport would be so jealous of our greatness, they’d even stoop to making up lies about us—”

  I thought my head was going to explode.

  “Tommy Sullivan may be a lot of things,” I shrieked at my brother. “But he is not a liar!”

  Unlike me.

  “Oh, right!” Liam snorted in disgust. “Give it up, Katie. Tommy Sullivan was just jealous because he knew he’d never be a Quahog, so he—”

  “Oh my God,” I burst out. “You’ve drunk the Kool-Aid!”

  “I drank Gatorade,” Liam shouted back. “Not Kool-Aid! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I ignored him. It was time to seek help from a higher power. Or two. “Mom,” I said. “Dad. Liam’s drunk the Kool-Aid.”

  “Stop saying that!” Liam screamed.

  “Katie,” my mom said, stabbing the Pause button on the answering machine and cutting off a Brittany, mid-giggle. “Please. Don’t be so dramatic. And Liam, stop screaming. I can’t hear our messages.”

  “And I can’t hear the TV,” Dad said, turning up the volume on his golf tournament.

  “Mom,” I said, trying hard not to be dramatic. “Would you please tell Liam that Tommy Sullivan did not make up the story about Jake Turner and those guys cheating on their SATs?”

  “Yes, he did!” Liam cried. “Coach Hayes told us all about it! He said the press is full of members of intelligentsia, who will stop at nothing to make Quahogs look like fools, because they’re jealous of their athletic prowess—”

  “Coach Hayes obviously hasn’t seen Tommy Sullivan lately,” I muttered.

  “—and that the year the Quahogs had to forfeit the state championship will forever be a black mark on the history of Eastport because of the act of one envious person—”

  “That is ridiculous!” I yelled, knowing I was being dramatic again, but unable to help myself. “Tommy didn’t write that story because he was jealous! He wrote it because it wasn’t fair that the Quahogs got special treatment from the proctor of that exam! I mean, they’re just a bunch of football players! Why should they get to cheat on the SATs if nobody else does?”

  “I told you,” Liam said angrily. “They didn’t cheat! It was a conspiracy! Coach Hayes told us so. And that’s a nice way for the girlfriend of this year’s team kicker to talk, by the way. I wonder how Seth would feel if he knew you think his brother’s a cheater.”

  “Oh, bite me,” I snarled at him.

  Which is exactly when Tommy Sullivan’s voice filled the kitchen. At first I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I thought he was actually there, in the room with us.

  Then I realized it was a message he’d left on the answering machine, which Mom was playing back.

  “Hi, Katie,” Tommy said, his deep voice solemn. “It’s me, Tom. Tom Sullivan. Look…about last night—I still don’t understand exactly what happened. I—look, just call me, would you?” Then he gave his cell number. “We need to talk.”

  Then he hung up.

  And I realized the gaze of every member of my family was on my face. Well, except my dad’s, since he was still watching golf.

  Liam was the first to speak.

  “Tommy Sullivan?” He was sneering. He was most definitely sneering. “You and Tommy Sullivan? Oh my God! Mwa ha ha ha!”

  That’s when I went for him.

  I managed to grab a nice handful of leg hair, and was tugging mercilessly—Liam screaming shrilly in pain—when suddenly I was seized by the waist from behind, and lifted straight up into the air by my father.

  “The updo,” I shrieked. “Watch the updo!”

  “That is enough!” my father roared, setting me down again on the opposite side of the bar separating the kitchen from the family room, so that Liam and I were in different rooms. “I have had it with the both of you! I am trying to watch GOLF!”

  “She started it,” Liam said sulkily, rubbing his leg.

  “You started it!” I yelled at him. “You’re the one who told Tommy Sullivan where I work! If you had just kept your big fat mouth shut about my private business—”

  “That’s it.” Mom had on her One More Word and You’re Grounded face. “Liam. Katie. Go to your rooms.”

  “I can’t go to my room,” I declared. “I have my Quahog Princess pageant in—” I threw a glance at the clock. “Oh, great. Half an hour. Now I’m going to be late.” I glared at Liam. “Thanks a lot, nimrod.”

  “Why bother going?” Liam shot back. “You’re not going to win. Not when everybody finds out who you were hanging out with last night—”

  “SHUT UP!” I shrieked.

  And stormed from the house.

  Sixteen

  I don’t know how my parents can be so casual about this whole thing. I mean, this thing with my brother, becoming one of them.

  Although, now that I think about it, that’s exactly what Tommy accused me of being. Right? I mean, didn’t he express wonder at how I’d assimilated?

  And I’d told him he was wrong, that there is no us versus them.

  But according to what Liam says, Coach Hayes obviously thinks there is. And if Coach Hayes thinks that—

  Oh, God, what’s wrong with me? I’ve let Tommy Sullivan into my head! It’s bad enough he seems to be setting up permanent occupancy in my heart (if that is the correct place for someone you can’t stop thinking about kissing, and not somewhere a little more southerly). Now I’ve got him in my subconscious, too!

  It was with dark thoughts such as these that I arrived at the pageant tent. It wasn’t as easy to get there today as it had been yesterday, because the park was open to the public now, and the place was packed with locals and tourists alike, enjoying the Taste of Eastport. Every restaurant in town (except the chains) had booths set up. I had to get off my bike and walk it at the park’s entrance, because there were too many people milling around for me to bike through.

  I spied Shaniqua and Jill working at the Gull ’n Gulp booth, and gave them a wave as I pushed my bike past. They waved back and each mouthed Good luck!, but didn’t have time to chat. The line for quahog fritters was about a mile long, and Peggy was keeping an eagle eye on the staff, to make sure they didn’t give the customers more than the single fritter (and dollop of sauce) their food ticket allotted.

  I walked my bike toward the pageant stage and saw that a few people had already taken seats in the folding chairs in front of it. One of those people was Mr. Gatch from the Gazette. He was smoking a cigar and playing solitaire on one of those electronic games you can get at Kmart. So I knew better than to go over and ask h
im, again, what Tommy Sullivan had been doing in his office.

  Instead, I wheeled my bike around to the back of the changing tent behind the stage and locked it to a small sapling. I knew the workers from the parks department wouldn’t like that, but there were no bike racks, and all the park benches were taken by tourists digging into their quahog fritters. My bike secured, I grabbed my garment bag and lifted one of the flaps of the changing tent.

  Behind it, I found bedlam. Ms. Hayes was screaming at the sound guys, because apparently the hand mikes weren’t working, and we were going to have to use clipons, which wouldn’t work because there was no place near enough to Sidney’s mouth to clip a mike, thanks to her gown’s plunging neckline. Sidney was screaming at Dave, who’d apparently ordered the wrong color tux from Eastport Formal Wear, and the powder blue of his jacket was going to clash with the red of Sidney’s dress. Morgan was freaking out because she’d forgotten her rosin and was going to break her neck on the stage if her toe shoes didn’t stick to it well enough.

  And Jenna. Well, something had happened to Jenna. I didn’t even recognize her at first. Her piercings were gone, as were the purple streaks in her black hair…which was now a pretty auburn color and was sitting on top of her head in a gorgeous updo, with baby’s breath tucked into it. She’d been stuffed into an empire-waisted lacy dress from Bebe (Sidney had the exact same one, but for day, not pageant, wear) that accentuated her long, pale limbs, and on her feet were a pair of stilettos so shockingly high, they were sinking into the dirt and grass beneath the chair she was sitting on. On her face, she wore an expression not unlike the one hostages tend to wear after being liberated from days of captivity—she looked dazed.

  I couldn’t help going up to her and being all, “Jenna? What happened?”

  Jenna blinked up at me. “Oh,” she said. “Hi, Katie. Yeah. Ambush makeover.”

  Shocked, I sank down onto a nearby folding chair. “Your mom?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “My friends. They think if I win, I’ll be in a position to promote their social platform.”