by Kieran Scott
Then he turned and ushered a few more stragglers through the doors.
“Do you think he knows?” Mindy asked nervously.
“No! How could he?” Tara replied.
My heart thumped. Getting suspended during my second week of school would not go over well with Mom and Dad. Even if it was all in the name of good fun.
“See what I mean?” Whitney said under her breath as Wharton held the door open for us. “Buzzkill.”
Half an hour later, I was seated in the third row of the auditorium next to Mindy, who was nervously picking at the plastic cover on one of her binders. The cheerleaders took up most of the front rows, while the football team gathered behind us. Principal Wharton, Coach Holmes and Coach Turcott all stood at the front of the room. They didn’t look happy but it was kinda difficult to take them seriously, what with Turcott sporting a red plaid jacket and Coach Holmes in pink-and-yellow plaid capris.
“I’m just going to cut right to the chase,” Principal Wharton began.
The back door of the auditorium slammed as Daniel Healy stepped tentatively into the room.
“Please join us, Daniel,” Principal Wharton said sternly.
Daniel jogged down the aisle and dropped into the seat right next to me. Not next to the football players, not next to Sage, but next to me.
“I want you all to know that I will not tolerate a prank war,” Principal Wharton announced.
Daniel rested his elbow on the armrest. The sleeve of his colorful madras shirt grazed my upper arm. There was a tiny little scar near his pinky. Hmm . . . what was that about?
“I already know that persons in this very room decimated West Wind High last night, but I’m not here to ask you exactly who was involved,” Buzzkill continued. “Not yet. I am willing to give you a pass on that one. It was an error in judgment and I can forgive it. Once.”
Daniel shifted in his seat. His knee brushed mine. Oh, God. Was it possible to sweat to death?
“But if I hear of anything going on over at West Wind, I mean if they have one book go missing, one kid get food poisoning . . . if one blade of grass dies on their football field, I will find out who did it and those persons will suffer the consequences.”
Wow. This guy had missed his calling. Can you say prison warden? But I guess Warden Wharton would be a mouthful.
“If anything else happens here, I want you to report it immediately and do not retaliate, understood?”
Yeah, right, I thought.
His question was met with that silence that all school disciplinarians take to mean that their message has struck the appropriate fear in the hearts of their charges. Meanwhile, I saw Tara and Lumberjack Bob exchange a look and I knew. There was no fear in them. If anything, we had just been issued a new challenge. We started this war and we were going to see it through. Buzzkill be damned.
“You’re dismissed,” Buzzkill said.
“So, Jersey, how’s the pogo ball treating you?” Daniel asked as we all gathered our things.
“I think I’m gonna end up in the emergency room,” I said. “I tried it for five minutes the other night and almost took out my dad’s entire presidential plate collection.”
“Your dad has a presidential plate collection?” Daniel asked.
“There’s no excuse for him,” I said.
Daniel paused at the top of the aisle and my pulse seized up with anticipation. He had that look on his face that he was about to say something. Something that he wasn’t sure how to say. Like a question, maybe? Or maybe an invitation of some kind? Ooh! Maybe he’d decided to give me a little private concert!
What? I thought. What? What? WHAT?
“So, I—”
“Hey, baby!”
Sage appeared out of nowhere, her blonde hair flying as she practically tackled Daniel away from me. She slung her arms around his neck and planted a huge kiss on his lips. Daniel looked surprised for a moment, but then wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back.
“Walk me to class?” Sage cajoled, looking at me out of the corner of her eye.
Then she basically dragged Daniel away, her arm through his. Daniel tripped forward, turned slightly and gave me a little wave. I waved back, all nonchalant. But the second their backs were turned, my eyes narrowed. One of these days I was really going to have to save him from her clutches. I know that in classic fiction it’s usually the guy who swoops in and saves the girl, but in this scenario it was more than clear—Daniel was definitely the one in need of a knight in shining armor.
“Okay, according to Bobby, the best defense is a good offense and a good defense . . . whatever that means,” Whitney said as she stopped her car in my driveway that night. Sage was in the front seat with her while Mindy, Autumn and I had, once again, been relegated to the back. “So we’re going to go to West Wind to execute Operation Bleach while the guys hang back at the school to keep watch.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back,” I said, climbing out of the car. I was about to slam the door when I saw that Mindy, Autumn and Sage were following. “What, you’re coming?”
“I want to see your house,” Sage said.
“Us too,” Autumn said.
“Why?” I asked Sage.
“Morbid curiosity?” she said. “I want to see what you’ve done with the place since rendering Phoebe homeless.”
Would it be wrong to scratch her eyes out? “Fine,” I said. “Let’s go.”
As we stepped into the kitchen, the floor crunched under our feet. Pork rinds and peanut shells. Yum. The place was a complete wreck. There were empty beer cans on every surface and a pile of pizza boxes stacked up against the overflowing garbage can.
Gabe was so dead. If I ever had time to get around to killing him.
“Do you not have parents?” Sage said.
“My brother’s home,” I told her. “He’s like a walking landfill.”
We walked through the kitchen toward the stairs, but had to pass the living room on the way there. Gabe, Tucker and Joe were all sacked out on the couch, bags of Doritos and Fritos surrounding them and spilling out onto the floor. Some Russell Crowe movie played on the TV, but the guys weren’t paying attention. They were too busy conducting a freakishly loud belching contest.
Ick. I was so over college guys. Even if they did think I was hot.
“Hey Gabe-rot!” I shouted.
“Hey Annoy-sa!” he shouted back without turning around. He punctuated his greeting with a burp.
I started up the stairs and was halfway to my room when I realized that only Mindy had followed me. Apparently Sage and Autumn had been too intrigued by the so-called men in the living room.
Good deal Maybe Tucker or Joe will sweep Sage off her feet and make her forget all about Daniel Healy, I thought.
“Dude! Is it true that if chicks eat a lot of red meat, they can make their boobs grow?” I heard Joe ask loudly.
Okay. Maybe not.
Operation Bleach turned out to be sixteen girls with buckets of white paint attempting to paint twenty-foot-tall letters into the grass of the West Wind High football field. Apparently it was something Buzzkill had said that had inspired the idea—his warning about one dead blade of grass. There were going to be a lot more than one.
Mindy, Sage, Chandra, Kimberly and I worked on the H of SDH, holding towels over our mouths with one hand to block the fumes while clumsily splashing paint everywhere. I did my best to just breathe through my mouth so I could have both hands on my bucket. The last thing I wanted to do was ruin my favorite black Lycra pants. If only someone had warned me. I would’ve worn something more expendable.
“So, your brother goes to Miami U., huh?” Sage asked through her towel.
“Yep,” I said. Why are you talking to me?
“What is he, a sophomore?”
“Yep.”
“How long is he home?”
Okay, that’s it.
“Why do you care?” I asked her.
“Just trying to make conversation,”
Sage replied. “Sheesh! Forget it!”
I couldn’t believe it. How big of a moron did Sage think I was? Everything she’d ever said to me up until now had been obnoxious and hurtful. Now, on the very night she’d met my brother, who for reasons completely baffling to me was some kind of chick magnet, she suddenly wanted to be my best friend? She was more transparent than a roll of Saran Wrap.
I wanted to puke, and not from the intense paint stench that was assaulting my nasal passages. Sage wanted Gabe-rot. Not Tucker, not Joe, but Gabe. It was all too gross to contemplate. So of course my brain couldn’t stop contemplating it.
Sage and Gabe-rot sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
We worked in silence for a few minutes while I fumed. How could she grill me about Gabe when she was already dating Mr. Perfect? If only Daniel were here to hear all this instead of sitting back at SDH, oblivious.
“So are you and Gabe, like, close?” Sage asked.
Ugh!
“Very close,” I said, tilting my head to one side. “Incestuous, actually. He’s a fabulous kisser.”
“Eeeeeeew!” Sage cried. “Omigod! You are such a total freak!”
“Sage! Keep it down!” Whitney hissed.
“Did you hear what she just said?” Sage squeaked.
“We’re almost done!” Tara told her. “Just finish up so we can get out of here!”
“You have issues, Annisa Gobrowski,” Sage said as we came to the end of our leg of the H.
“And don’t you have a boyfriend?” I shot back.
“Yeah, I do. One you should stay away from,” she told me.
My face heated up. “Fine. Then you stay away from my brother.”
Sage narrowed her eyes, held her bucket of paint up with two thumbs and then dropped it on the ground right at my feet. Before I could jump back, paint had splattered all over my pants and sneakers. A couple of droplets even hit me in the face.
“Ooops!” she said, opening her mouth in an exaggerated O. “Too bad.”
Then she turned on her heel and walked off, heading for the parking lot. I was so stunned, I couldn’t even move, though in my mind’s eye I let out a barbaric screech and tackled her right into the white S.
“Are you all right? I can’t believe she did that,” Mindy said, coming to my aid with a tissue from her bag.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Though I couldn’t have said the same for my black Lycra pants. I wiped off my face and glared after Sage the Psycho. It just didn’t make sense. What could a guy like Daniel possibly see in a girl like her?
Back in my Room of Pink Shame, I found a note sitting on my computer keyboard.
A—
I thought I was supposed to meet you here, but I guess not. You’ll be making this up to me tomorrow. Latah.
—B
P.S. LOVE the pink.
Bethany. How had I totally spaced that I’d told Bethany she could come over and work on the site that night? She must have been so mad at me. Stupid prank war. My stellar idea was coming back to bite me in the ass in more ways than one.
I walked down to Gabe’s room, where I could hear him and his friends engaged in a heated debate. I shoved the door open without knocking. Gabe was lying on his bed, tossing a Nerf basketball into the air while Tucker and Jon played spit with a deck of Miller Lite playing cards on the floor.
“Did you guys see Bethany when she came over?” I asked, holding up the note.
“You mean High-Strung Girl? Yeah. We saw her,” Gabe replied with a laugh.
“Oh, God. Did you torture her?” I asked, a newfound fear taking over. Bethany stranded in the house with a bunch of surf boys. It was probably her idea of a waking nightmare.
“Hey, all I did was offer her a brew, dude,” Gabe replied. “She was all, ‘Thanks, but I need all my brain cells just now.’ That babe needs to relax.”
“How long did she wait?” I asked.
“Not long,” Gabe replied. “Like I said, the girl was high . . . strung.”
He launched the ball at me and I caught it before it could hit my face. “Are you going to clean up the kitchen anytime soon?”
Gabe made a fake-concentration face. “Umm . . . I don’t believe that’s on my current schedule, no.” His friends cracked up laughing.
“Gabe, come on. You promised,” I said, sounding whiny.
“I promised no parties. I never promised I would clean,” Gabe said. “And come on, it’s not that bad.”
“There’s something growing on the floor.”
“All right, fine, Mom. I’ll do it in the morning.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t you guys ever have, like, classes?”
They all looked at each other and laughed again. I rolled my eyes and turned to go. Back in my room, I read over the note once more. Tomorrow? How was I going to swing that? Not only was I sure that I would have more wacky hijinks to pursue with the squad, but I had that geometry test to study for. It was already eleven and I was exhausted. When was I going to study?
All I wanted to do was go to bed, but as I stared longingly at my sheets, suddenly a little angel-me appeared on my right shoulder. “Annisa! You have to study!” she trilled in my ear. “No time like the present!”
With a heavy sigh I slipped out of my paint-spattered pants, bunched them up and shoved them into the garbage can. Sage-related anger flared up in my chest again, but I had to ignore it. There was nothing I could do about it now, and if I sat there and obsessed, I’d never get any work done. I changed into my PJs and, pushing all thoughts of Bethany, Daniel, Sage and Gabe aside, cracked my geometry book. I could deal with the social drama tomorrow.
A double toot of a car horn ripped me from a sound slumber. I raised my head, vaguely aware of that whirring sound a car makes when it backs up. Something was stuck to my face. I batted it away in a half-asleep, there’s-a-bug-on-me panic and saw that it was just a piece of notebook paper fluttering to the floor. Blinking in confusion, I realized I had fallen asleep at my desk with my head in my geometry notebook. Lovely.
I glanced at the clock and fast-forwarded into panic mode. It was already 8:00 A.M. I had fifteen minutes to get to homeroom.
I scrambled out of my clothes and into a pair of gray sweats and a white T-shirt, then hid my scraggly hair under my Yankees baseball cap. In the bathroom I threw some cold water on my face, doubled up on the layers of deodorant and brushed my teeth. I looked like death warmed over, but there was nothing I could do about it now. I had to get to class.
I jogged downstairs with my backpack and froze in my tracks. There, standing in the center of my kitchen in nothing but a pair of baby-doll pajamas and furry pink slippers, was none other than Sage Barnard. And she was feeding my brother a powdered jelly from a box of Dunkin’ Donuts. My brother in all his Tasmanian Devil–boxered glory.
“Is that what you wear to bed?” Sage asked me, her face scrunched up in disgust. I had totally spaced on the fact that it was Pajama Day.
“Expecting a camera crew from Playboy?” I shot back. I grabbed a chocolate donut as I headed out the door, not even bothering to acknowledge my brother. There was no way I wanted to be around to witness whatever was going to happen next.
I couldn’t believe it! How could Sage possibly have the gall to show up at my house after what she’d done to me last night? And in that outfit with my brother! Didn’t she know she had a boyfriend?
I was shoving half the donut in my mouth when I noticed Daniel waiting for me at the edge of the driveway. He was wearing a wife-beater and striped pajama pants with flip-flops. Just looking at his shoulder muscles made my fingertips tingle. I was so not worthy.
I swallowed, wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and prayed that crease I’d noticed on the side of my face was gone. Daniel’s eyes flicked over my outfit.
“Nice pj’s, Jersey,” he said.
“Eh, these? They’re nothing special,” I said, the sight of Sage’s exposed thighs flashing through my mind.
�
�Hey, was that Whitney I saw driving away from your house a couple of minutes ago?” he asked as we started to walk.
I blinked and it all came to me in a haze. The double horn honk. The backing-up car. Whitney must have been dropping her sister at my house and had honked before driving away.
“Um . . . yeah,” I said.
“What was she doing over here?” Daniel asked.
Dropping your semi-clothed girlfriend at my house so she could hand-feed my semi-clothed brother? I thought. Come on! Say it! Didn’t you just decide that somebody has to put her in her place?
“She stopped by to drop off something I left in her car last night,” I heard myself say.
What? Hellooooo? Who’s in charge of the voice box around here?
“That was cool of her,” Daniel said, totally oblivious.
What was wrong with me? Why didn’t I open my mouth and say, “Actually, right now your girlfriend is hanging all over my brother, and if you want to go back and see, I’d be more than happy to show you the way”? If he saw what I’d seen, he and Sage would definitely break up. And if Sage and Daniel broke up, he’d be free to date other people. Namely, me. So why couldn’t I say it?
Because you’re a wuss and a goody-goody and you know it’s not your news to relate, the little angel on my shoulder trilled. You’re just not a vindictive person, Annisa.
What I really needed was a devil to show up and take care of business—knock that angel off her high horse and start running the Annisa Gobrowski Show. Why, oh, why could I never conjure a devil?
When we got to school, the usually bustling back hall was deserted. Daniel and I paused in the doorway and looked at each other.
“It’s way too quiet in here,” I said.
“Something’s up,” he replied.
He let the door slam behind us and we double-timed it down to the front hall. My heart was pounding with anticipation. Had West Wind struck back somehow?
Moments later, we skidded into the packed lobby and found our answer. The huge cloth banner that draped from one end of the lobby to the other usually read, HOME OF THE FIGHTING CRABS! Now it read, WE’VE ALL GOT CRABS!
