“What do you want?” Raya asked.
She didn’t sound as friendly as she looked.
“I like your stickers,” I said.
“Why are you spying on me?” She slid her note under her spiral notebook.
I wasn’t quite sure what to say. So I skipped to a new topic. “Hey. Where do you live?” Because I wanted to tell Raya that I’d seen her fall off that trampoline.
Raya wrinkled her face. “Why? Do you want to come spy on me at my house?”
I shook my head. Because I’d already done that. “I was just curious.”
Raya turned and faced the girl on the other side of her. I watched her hand the note to her. Then she faced the front of the room. And she never told me where she lived. Which made it hard for me to bring up her trampoline. So I didn’t. Raya Papas was treating me like a potential kidnapper, and nobody had ever done that to me before.
As my boring teacher wrapped up his boring discussion about how to determine the surface area of a cube, it was pretty clear that I would not be eating lunch with Raya Papas. This became especially clear when the bell rang and we filed out of class and I timed things so that I could leave class with Raya.
“Do you sleep in all your classes?” Raya asked me.
“No,” I said. “Just math.”
“You talk in your sleep,” Raya said.
I tried to stop my face from making a freaked-out expression.
“Do I say interesting things?” I asked.
“No,” Raya said. “You kept saying one word over and over and over.”
And I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know what this word was, but Raya told me anyway.
“Potato.” Raya walked into the hallway. “You repeated it in a moaning way. You must be starving.”
And I was a little bit excited when Raya said that, because if she thought I was starving, maybe she’d suggest eating with me. But she didn’t.
“You made it really hard to focus,” Raya said. “If it happens again, I’m going to ask to move my seat.” Then Raya walked off in her supercute clothes with her supercute friend.
I didn’t even bother going to the cafeteria. I headed to the vending machine and the alt crowd. Because there weren’t any club meetings to attend today. I was starting to feel that the hallway and the alt crowd were right where I belonged.
As I stood in front of the vending machine, I could see my own bummed-out reflection in the glass. I pulled a dollar bill out and fed it into the machine. Then I pushed the button for oatmeal raisin cookies. But something rotten happened. The bag got caught on the metal spiral dispenser. I pushed the button again, but nothing happened.
“Hurry up,” some boy said behind me.
But I couldn’t hurry. Because my purchase wouldn’t drop.
“My cookies are stuck,” I said, pushing the button rapidly.
“Buy something else,” the boy said.
“But I already paid,” I said.
“That’s not our problem,” the boy said.
I turned around to see who was being so rude in the vending-machine line. And I wasn’t too surprised when I saw it was psycho-bully Cola. I turned back around and pressed the button again.
“Hurry up!” psycho-bully Cola said. “Lunch is only thirty minutes.”
“I know!” But then I just stood there and looked at my cookies. I stared at them really hard, trying to make them fall. But they didn’t.
Then I felt somebody standing next to me. At first I thought it was Cola. But the person was much taller than Cola. Then I thought maybe it was a teacher. But the person was wearing boots with black electrical tape wrapped around them. So I looked at the person. And I swallowed hard. She was very alt. She had black clothes, black hair, black lipstick, and black nail polish, and she was wearing what looked like a black studded dog collar. Also, most of her head was shaved. All except a thick line in the middle.
“My cookies are stuck,” I explained.
She frowned at the machine. “You have to kick it.”
I shook my head. Because I didn’t want to attack the machine.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll kick it.”
And the girl kicked the side of the vending machine with her big black boots. Bam. Bam. Bam. “Drop!” she yelled.
But my cookies didn’t drop.
She kicked again. And again. Harder. It sounded like somebody was hitting a trash can with a baseball bat. Slam! Slam! Slam!
And then my cookies finally fell.
“Thanks!” I said.
But the alt girl wasn’t finished. I think she was a very angry person, because she kicked the vending machine very powerfully one more time. Kaboom! And this time, instead of smashing her boot against the machine’s side, her heel made contact with the glass front. And I heard an awful sound. It was the sound of glass cracking.
“Holy crud!” I yelled. “You broke the glass!”
“Didn’t mean to,” the alt girl said.
Then, out of nowhere, a teacher I didn’t know showed up. She was wearing ugly brown pants. And a whistle.
“Who did this?” the teacher asked.
And psycho-bully Cola jumped in right away with the answer. “Bessica Lefter and Nadia Strom! I saw them.”
And I didn’t even have a chance to point out that I hadn’t attacked the machine like Nadia; I’d only attempted to buy a zero-nutrition lunch.
“Bessica and Nadia,” the teacher said. “Come with me!”
I tried to reach into the vending machine and get my cookies, but the teacher wouldn’t let me.
“Stop touching the machine!” the teacher said.
“I just wanted my cookies,” I mumbled.
And so we followed the teacher to the principal’s office. I was too scared to cry. I felt pretty terrible. Because it didn’t seem fair that I was going to have to miss my lunch and leave my cookies in the vending machine for somebody else (probably psycho-bully Cola) to eat. But that was exactly what was happening.
When we got to the principal’s office, the teacher told us to sit down. Then she went inside to talk to the principal.
I looked at Nadia. She was digging through her black furry bag for something.
“Is that made out of a bear?” I asked. Because I couldn’t think of another black furry animal.
Nadia frowned at me. “It’s fake,” she said. “I’m not a murderer.”
“Oh,” I said. “I don’t have a bag. I just have a backpack. It’s in my locker.”
Then Nadia and I sat there in silence. The clock on the wall ticked and ticked.
“Will they call my mom?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Nadia said. “They’ve probably already done that.”
“Are we going to be billed for the damage to the machine?” I asked. I had no idea how much the front of a vending machine would cost.
“You won’t,” she said. “You didn’t kick it.”
It was encouraging to hear Nadia taking the full blame for the incident. Because really, me and my cookies were just innocent bystanders.
“Am I going to get suspended?” I asked.
Nadia looked at me. She had such an intense stare. Like if she turned her gaze toward a raw steak, she’d be able to cook it.
“Officially, nothing is going to happen to you,” she said. “You didn’t do anything.”
“Cool,” I said. And I thought maybe I should offer to take a teeny bit of the blame for Nadia. But I worried that if I did, my parents might freak out. Also, I worried that if Mrs. Potaski ever heard about this incident, I would need to look as innocent as possible. And that meant not taking any blame.
I smiled at Nadia. “You’re right. I didn’t do anything.”
Then Nadia said something troubling.
“Unofficially, you’re probably going to be socially certified as hard-core alt.”
I didn’t quite know what that meant. “You mean I’ll be expected to hang out with the other hard-core alt kids?” I asked. And I liked that idea a little
bit. Because at least I’d be part of something, even if it was unofficial and antisocial.
“No,” she said. “The hard-core alt kids don’t hang out with anybody. They spend all their time in loner town, like me. And, in light of the day’s events, most likely you too.”
“What?” I asked. How was I supposed to make friends in loner town? “But I want to join chorus. And maybe become a cheerleader.”
“That’s too bad,” Nadia said. “Once you end up in loner town, you never get out.”
My mind flashed to a commercial about bug traps for killing roaches. “That’s impossible,” I said. “Somebody has to have gotten out of loner town before.”
Nadia tapped her finger on her chair leg. “Nobody. Never.”
I felt very panicked. Because I did not want to spend three years in middle school living in loner town without any friends. Who would want that?
“There must be something I can do,” I said.
“Switch schools,” Nadia said. “That’s your only option.”
“No. There’s got to be a solution.” Grandma once said that there was a solution to everything. Even bloodstains on a white carpet. You just had to think creatively.
“Listen,” Nadia said. “You’ll like loner town. Cookies every day.”
This made me frown a little bit. Because I did not think that cookies were more important than friends. My mind spun as I considered my new, terrible reputation. Then I thought of something Marci and Vicki had told me.
“How close is loner town to the row?” I asked. I was hoping they were at opposite ends of the school.
Nadia almost laughed. “Loner town is the row.”
My eyes grew very wide and I mouthed the word no.
This could not be happening. I could not spend the next three years eating lunch in a hallway with criminals and malfunctioning lightbulbs. I breathed very quickly and looked around the principal’s office. I needed a solution very badly. And then it hit me. It was the most obvious solution in the world. If I became a cheerleader, I would become automatic friends with all the other cheerleaders and there was no way I’d end up in loner town.
“All I have to do is become a cheerleader,” I said. “That will solve everything.”
Nadia scowled. “That’s lame. And highly improbable.”
I sat up straighter. “No, it’s not. All it takes is the power of visualization.”
And before I could explain to Nadia about how the power of visualization worked, Principal Tidge came out. Until this moment, I had only seen Principal Tidge from long distances. Up close, she looked pretty cute. Except she was a terrible dresser. She had a nice, round face; a small, round nose; bright green eyes; and a long neck. But her clothes were rotten. She was dressed in all gray. Gray sweater. Gray pants. Gray shoes. She had a red shirt on underneath all the gray that poked out a little bit, but not enough. And she wore a big gold pin that looked like a fish. She smelled like deodorant.
“I’m very disappointed that you two girls decided to vandalize the vending machine,” she said. “We’ve called your parents. Nadia, considering your offenses last year, this will result in suspension.”
“That’s cool,” Nadia said.
“Bessica,” the principal said.
And when I heard the principal say my name, my throat grew tight and tears started slipping out of my eyes. And I decided I needed to explain myself.
“But I didn’t do anything!” I said. “I paid for cookies and they didn’t drop. And then Cola kept yelling at me to hurry. And so I pushed the buttons again. Gently. And then Nadia showed up and attacked the vending machine.”
“Are you sure that’s an accurate depiction of events?” the principal asked. “You didn’t touch the vending machine in any way?”
I reached my hands out toward the principal in a pleading way. “Just to make my selection. Gently.”
The principal rubbed her temples. It looked like this situation was giving her a headache. “Is this true?” she asked Nadia.
“Pretty much,” Nadia said.
“Bessica, return to lunch. We’ll call your mother and tell her it was a misunderstanding.”
But I really wanted the principal to be able to erase the whole event so I didn’t end up in loner town.
“You mean she doesn’t get a refund?” Nadia asked. “She never got her cookies.”
It was too bad that Nadia was a hard-core alt person who wore a dog collar and got suspended and lived in loner town, because thus far she was the nicest person I’d met in middle school.
“That’s true,” I said. “I was told to leave my cookies in the machine.”
The principal rubbed her temples again. “Wait here. I’ll have Mrs. Batts get you a refund. Nadia, go to my office.”
And even though Nadia didn’t see me give her a friendly wave goodbye, I did. Then I sat back down and waited for my refund.
“Bessica Lefter,” Mrs. Batts said. “Wait right here and I’ll be back with your change.”
As she walked away, I looked at my legs and wondered how long it would take them to learn to do the splits all the way. I kicked them a little. I figured a week. And if I practiced cheerleading bending at home, and paid total attention in PE during basic and intermediate tumbling, and visualized, visualized, visualized, this could work! I sat back in my chair, feeling very relieved. For about three seconds. And then a girl with an enormous fluffy ponytail came in and said something to me that was so terrible that I wanted a mountain lion to show up and eat me whole.
“Bessica Lefter?” the girl with the puffy ponytail said.
She must have heard Mrs. Batts call me by my name. I didn’t answer her.
Then she smiled so big that I could see her top and bottom teeth. “I’ve heard about you. You like Kettle Harris? I know. I read all about it.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. It was like somebody had dropped a bomb on me. I’d barely figured out how to escape dangerous/deadly loner town and become a cheerleader, and now this. The diary. Sylvie. I couldn’t believe it! She showed it to people. Before we threw it away, or maybe when she kept the pages.
The fluffy-headed girl kept smiling as she flitted through the office. I felt myself turning several shades of angry red. Stupid diary. Stupid Sylvie. Why had she kept the pages that talked about me liking Kettle Harris? What was wrong with her? I hadn’t shown that to anybody. I was smart enough to know that was a terrible idea. And how did Sylvie even know the puffy-headed girl? Were they secret friends? And who else had Sylvie shown that stupid diary to?
And then that puffy-headed girl took the attendance slips and left before I could deny what she’d said. And when Mrs. Batts came in and handed me my refund, it didn’t feel as great as it should have. The bell rang and lunch was over.
“I’m going to write a note giving you permission to eat in class,” Mrs. Batts said.
“Thanks,” I said. But it was hard for me to think about lunch and cookies. I didn’t know one lunch could be this bad. First I found out that I had to become a cheerleader or I’d be socially certified as “nothing” in a deadly area for three years. Then I found out that Sylvie was a total jerk. It sure was a good thing that Sylvie and I weren’t friends anymore. Because if we were, I would have called her up and yelled at her and told her how rotten she was. Then, as I walked to my stupid geography class, I realized I could call Sylvie up and yell at her and tell her how rotten she was, even though we weren’t friends anymore. In fact, if I didn’t do that, Sylvie would never know that I knew she was rotten. And I couldn’t let that happen.
I decided that I’d call her that night. I’d call her right up and ask her what her problem was. And if she pretended that she didn’t know what I was talking about, then I’d just yell more. And say superterrible things. Because she deserved that. She totally did.
raditionally, Monday was the day that my grandmother was in charge of dinner. She wasn’t expected to do this. But she was the sort of person who liked to contribute.
Grandma used to set the table, turn off both televisions, light candles, and serve dinner. She didn’t like to cook meals from scratch. Just dessert. So for dinner she brought home corn dogs from the Corny Spot. And I guess I thought my family would keep this tradition alive in honor of Grandma. But I was wrong. Because that tradition died pretty quickly.
My mother thought making fake meat loaf would be a nice change of pace. But her fake meat loaf wasn’t so hot. Instead of meat, she made it with ricotta cheese and brown rice and a large number of spices that we normally never ate. In fact, it tasted so terrible that my dad and I were forced to use a variety of condiments to disguise the fake taste.
“Try more ketchup,” my mom suggested.
My dad pounded the butt of the bottle a few more times.
“It tastes like I’m eating a shoe,” he said.
In addition to tasting bad, it was also gray. And I didn’t find gray food appealing. Also, now I associated it with my principal.
“I miss corn dogs,” my father said.
I nodded.
“Do you know what’s in a corn dog?” my mother asked.
“A hot dog?” I answered.
“And do you know what’s in a hot dog?” my mother asked.
“Meat fat and filler?” I said.
My mother’s eyes widened. She was surprised that I knew what was inside a hot dog. “And possibly carcinogenic nitrite additives.”
“Let’s not say that word at the dinner table,” my father said.
But I wasn’t totally sure what carcinogenic meant. And in my family, if you didn’t know what a word meant, it was totally acceptable to interrupt the conversation and ask for the word to be defined.
“Please define carcinogenic,” I said.
My father glanced at my mother. She set her fork down.
“Carcinogenic means that it can cause cancer,” my mother said.
And then I set my fork down too. “Grandma fed us carcinogenic corn dogs for five years and you let her?” I asked. I knew it was polite to be nice to old people, but this was ridiculous.
Bessica 1 - The Reinvention of Bessica Lefter Page 11
