Confidentially Yours #5

by Jo Whittemore

  “It’s not the cinnamon rolls, Mom. It’s life!” I took a deep whiff of sugary heaven.

  She handed me a glass of milk and carried her own plate to the table, where Dad was eating a bowl of cereal.

  “Does this mean you’re ready to face the world, no matter what?” he asked.

  “Absolutely.” I tore off a piece of sticky pastry and shoved it into my mouth. “Because whatever it brings, I can handle it.”

  “That’s my girl!” he cheered, toasting me with his coffee mug. I clinked my glass of milk against it.

  “I’m even ready for the nicknames people might call me after I tried to steal the Bunsen burner,” I said.

  “Really?” Mom grinned. “Like what?”

  “Brooke the Crook, the Bunsen Burglar, Lab Looter . . .”

  Mom and Dad were cracking up.

  “The Auburn Almost-Arsonist,” said Mom with a wink.

  Dad pointed at me. “The Red Menace.”

  I beamed at him. “That would be an awesome soccer nickname!”

  When Dad and I stepped outside to head for school, it was snowing. I tilted my head back and let the flakes hit my cheeks, melting into icy dots on my face. I’d seen snow every year since I was a baby, but now I was seeing it differently. It really was all about perspective.

  “Snow is amazing,” I said. “So fluffy and soft and cold.”

  “And soaking into your coat,” he said. “Let’s get in the car.”

  The entire ride, I gazed out the window and watched the snow flurries whip across the windshield. Dad pulled into the carpool lane, and I jumped out.

  “Have a good day!” he called.

  “I will!” I shouted, and sprinted into the building, ready to face whatever was coming.

  There were some stares when I walked into the student lounge, but mostly people wanted to know why I’d broken into the lab. I made it roughly five steps before the questions started.

  “I wanted to try a science experiment on my own” was all I told them.

  “Did you really get suspended?” asked Tim’s sister, Gabby.

  “Of course she didn’t. She’s here, isn’t she?”

  “Actually, I got suspended for the afternoon,” I confessed. “It was super embarrassing.”

  “Oh my God, I would die if I got suspended,” said Katie. “Mainly because my parents would kill me.”

  Several people laughed, and in the distance I heard my name being called. I stood on my tiptoes and saw Vanessa and Heather waving to me from a couch. I said good-bye to the kids around me and hurried to join my friends.

  “Thank goodness you’re okay!” said Heather, hugging me.

  I laughed. “Of course I’m okay. You saw me in the principal’s office, remember?”

  “Yes, but I’ve had that hug waiting since then.”

  All three of us laughed, and I sat between my friends on the couch.

  “Guys, I’ve got to tell you something serious,” I said. “Actually, Tim should probably hear this too.” I glanced around the student lounge and saw him talking to a couple of girls. “Tim!” I bellowed.

  He jumped and turned toward us before saying something to the girls and running over.

  “What’s up, Foghorn?” he asked.

  I looked to all three of my friends. “I wasn’t cursed with bad luck, and that wasn’t a real good-luck charm I had.”

  Vanessa gasped and clutched at her chest. “No way! You mean all this time . . . I was right?” She relaxed and grinned at me.

  “Ha-ha,” I said.

  “What made you change your mind?” asked Heather.

  “I did a lot of soul-searching yesterday afternoon,” I said with a sage nod. “And thinking about what’s really important.” I cleared my throat. “Also, it turned out I was making a marriage charm.”

  My friends looked at one another and doubled over laughing.

  “Hey, listen.” Tim cupped his hand around his ear. “You can almost hear Abel screaming and running for the exit.”

  “Be nice!” I said, pushing him. “You realize if my situation wasn’t real, it means you won’t be a millionaire by Monday either.”

  He waved me off. “Yeah, I gave up on that when the next step to fortune and glory was sending the author fifty bucks for the next book in the series.”

  I made a face. “Sorry.” I turned to Heather. “And I’m sorry I messed up your date with Emmett.”

  “It’s okay,” she said with a smile. “He and I talked, and since we don’t see eye to eye on dating, we agreed that we’re better off as friends.”

  “Aw.” I leaned forward and hugged her. Then I turned to V and hugged her.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but what was that for?” she asked.

  “For putting up with me even when I was being a bit of a dork,” I said.

  “You mean a huge dork,” she corrected me, laughing. “And I’m your best friend. I’m always going to be there for you.”

  “Me too!” said Heather.

  The three of us hugged, and Tim shifted his weight from side to side. “Are we done here? Because if I don’t get back to those girls I was talking to, I’m going to have bad luck.”

  “Almost,” I said. “Has Mrs. H changed her mind about letting us enter the newspaper contest?” I asked.

  Tim shook his head.

  “Nope,” said V.

  Heather sighed. “This morning I saw Mary Patrick dunking a king-size Hershey bar in a jar of peanut butter.”

  I nodded. “That’s what I figured. Which is why I came up with this.” I pulled a sheet of paper out of my notebook.

  “What is it?” asked Tim, taking it from me.

  “It’s an agreement for everyone on the newspaper staff to sign,” I said. “It says if any section wins an award, they have to split the money with the rest of the newspaper staff.”

  “‘Because when one of us wins, we all win,’” Heather read from the agreement. “I like it!” She took the paper from Tim and signed the top line.

  “But whichever section wins will still gloat about it,” said Vanessa. “And Mrs. H won’t like that.”

  “Which is why there’s a line in the agreement about that.” I pointed. “‘Good sportsmanship means being gracious in victory or defeat. We will be both.’”

  “Here’s hoping this works,” said V, adding her name below Heather’s.

  I signed below them and passed the paper back to Tim, who sighed.

  “You know sharing money is against everything I stand for,” he said, scrawling his name on the page.

  The bell rang, and there was a general shuffle of movement toward the door.

  “And now to track the other members down in homeroom and get the rest of the signatures,” I said.

  “Hurry,” said Heather. “You don’t want to be in trouble two days in a row.”

  I pointed at my feet and winked. “That’s why I got my good sneakers on.”

  I pushed through the crowd and sprinted for the eighth-grade hall.

  Getting signatures ended up taking all the way through lunch, but everyone was eager to sign. When I snuck the list to Mary Patrick at the start of Journalism, she put down her jar of peanut butter and gave me an actual, real-life hug.

  “Was that like hugging a robot?” asked Tim as I sat down.

  “Actually, it was more like hugging a five-year-old,” I said, feeling my hair. “I think she got a piece of candy bar stuck in here.”

  For once, the entire classroom was quiet when Mrs. H walked in, and when Mary Patrick handed her the Lincoln Log agreement, she read it with tears in her eyes.

  “I couldn’t be more proud,” said Mrs. H, clutching the paper to her chest, “to be the adviser who shares in your victory.”

  The entire class cheered, and instantly Mary Patrick was back in action.

  “Okay, I’ve made a few tweaks to the paper based on suggestions from our team leaders.” She turned on the projector, and Mrs. H smiled.

  “That fast,
huh?”

  Mary Patrick smiled sheepishly. “I was kind of hoping you’d change your mind.”

  An image of the front page appeared on the dry-erase board.

  “You’ll notice we’ve changed the look a bit,” said Mary Patrick. “Along the right border, we’ve got shaded squares positioned at different heights based on what section of the paper it is.”

  I sat up a little taller and puffed out my chest. That had been one of my ideas, based on V’s cloth tabs for different clothing designs.

  “We’ve also bolded key words, like dates, places, and people, so readers can focus on what’s important about each piece.”

  Also my idea! Heather wanted to be bold and stand out, and so would our newspaper.

  Mary Patrick continued to go through the changes, all of which I had to say were impressive, including my third idea, which I’d based off Tim’s constant want for money.

  “We’re doing a classifieds section?” someone asked. “Cool! It’s like a real paper!”

  When we broke into our small groups, I told my friends which suggestions I’d made, and they all smiled proudly. Before class ended, Gil wandered over to our team with something behind his back and a big smile on his face.

  “Ooh! Do you have a present for me?” asked Vanessa, trying to peek behind him.

  “For the paper, actually,” he said, revealing what he’d been hiding.

  It was a photo taken during my PE class the day before, where Katie and I had faced off against eleven kids in dodgeball . . . and emerged victorious.

  Heather, Vanessa, and Tim all cheered, and I clapped a hand over my mouth.

  “I thought it perfectly summed up beating the odds,” said Gil. “But I didn’t want to submit it without Brooke’s permission.” He gave me a hopeful smile, and I nodded.

  “It’s perfect. Go for it.”

  Considering how horribly the week had started, it was actually turning out to be pretty good. I made a few last-minute tweaks to my response to Swimfan, based on my own personal experiences, and when I turned in my team’s advice to Mrs. H, she gave me a knowing smile.

  “Thanks for all your hard work,” she said, and I knew she was talking about more than the advice column.

  That afternoon when I got to the soccer complex, I made a beeline for the locker room to see if Lacey was there. She wasn’t.

  “Has anyone heard from Lacey?” I asked the other girls who were changing.

  “I think she’s still sick,” someone said.

  “Oh,” I said, checking my watch. “Well, I’m sure we’ll be okay without her.”

  “You said you were going to come up with ways to help us,” said Brin. “Did you?”

  I nodded. “I’ve got some videos for you, Lana, and Allison to watch that’ll help with the areas where you’re having trouble. For Jenny too. And I came up with a couple drills to help.”

  “Neat!” she said. “What else?”

  I hesitated. “What else?”

  I didn’t have anything else. I’d been so busy trying to get the newspaper back in the contest and finding videos that I hadn’t thought of anything else.

  Then a voice spoke from the doorway. A stuffy, snotty voice. “We need to talk to Coach about running plays that work toward your strengths,” said Lacey.

  “You came!” I cried, walking over to her. “Can you play?”

  Lacey shook her head. “The doctor says it’s not pneumonia, but he doesn’t want me playing until next week,” she said. “So I’m just here to help with training . . .” She paused and added, “As your co-captain.”

  “Great! Let’s go tell Coach.” I nudged her out the locker room exit.

  As soon as we were out of earshot of the others, she said, “You know we’re not friends.”

  “I know.” I stopped and turned to face her, grinning. “But we’re also not enemies.”

  Lacey rolled her eyes and smirked. “Just keep walking, Brooke.”

  “Actually,” I said, “it’s the Red Menace.”

  Dear Swimfan,

  Being a top athlete takes physical and mental training. You’re not alone when you say you crack under pressure and lose your talent. Athletes even have a term for it: choking. But it’s important to remember that the fear is in your head. Which means you can get rid of it! Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies, and we don’t succeed because we tell ourselves we can’t. Tell yourself you CAN and watch what happens. (But keep your eyes closed underwater, because chlorine stings.) I believe in you!

  Confidentially yours,

  Brooke Jacobs

  Acknowledgments

  Always for family, friends, and God.

  For the new members of my family, because they make my heart even bigger.

  For Eve Mercado, who I hope grows up to be an awesome reader.

  For my brother-in-law Will, because he works hard, sacrifices much, and puts up with my sister.

  For Paul Blackthorne, the person I envisioned when I wrote Coach Bly. Thanks for the inspiration!

  And for the SCBWI, who encourage writers and illustrators to dream and do big things.

  Excerpt from Confidentially Yours #6: Vanessa’s Design Dilemma

  Turn the page for a sneak peek at the next book in the Confidentially Yours series:

  CHAPTER

  1

  Unconfidentially Yours

  “Major disaster! End of the world!” Katie Kestler sprinted toward me, waving her hands over her head.

  I lifted an eyebrow but didn’t join the panic. . . . Mostly because it’s not my style, but also because I’d recently bought a cute sweater. The world wasn’t allowed to end until I’d worn it at least twice.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “And how can you run in those shoes?” added Tim Antonides, peering at Katie’s heeled boots.

  He was sitting beside me at lunch, along with my other best friends Brooke Jacobs and Heather Schwartz.

  “I actually can’t.” Katie’s panicked expression turned into a pained one, and she dropped into a nearby chair. As she bent to inspect one of her boots, she placed a fabric scrap on our table.

  Brooke picked it up.

  “I’m guessing the major disaster has to do with this red cloth,” she said. “That, or you’ve started miniature bullfighting.”

  “No, you had it right the first time,” Katie said, straightening. “The cloth is the wrong shade of red. Vanessa and I ordered crimson.” She took the swatch from Brooke and held it up for my inspection.

  “Oh no. Poppy?” I clapped a hand to my forehead. “What happened to our fabric?”

  Katie and I are the future of fashion. When she moved in across the street a few months ago, we started talking clothes, and not before too long we’d come up with our own company: KV Fashions.

  Lately, we’d been stocking material so we could sew tops for a runway show we were holding at Abraham Lincoln Middle School. It hadn’t been easy to get approval to use the stage, but luckily, Katie’s parents were good friends with the principal, and we’d promised all the money from ticket sales would go to improving the campus. Plus, Katie pointed out that our success could also be good for the school.

  That was, of course, before the Great Crimson Crisis.

  “The fabric company ran out of our color and thought we’d settle for this!” Katie threw the swatch down in disgust, and it landed on top of Tim’s mac ’n’ cheese. He calmly used it to wipe the corner of his mouth and then kept eating.

  “Maybe you can find the red you want at a fabric store in town,” suggested Heather.

  I shook my head. “We already looked. The closest match Dee’s Fabric World had was cherry, which was a little dark, and ketchup, which was a little ugly.”

  Heather and Brooke laughed.

  I shrugged at Katie. “We’re just gonna have to make the poppy work. Who knows? Maybe it’ll look better than the crimson.”

  Katie leaned over and put a hand on mine. “You are so brave, Vanny.”


  Tim nudged Brooke. “Did the meaning of that word change while I was in the lunch line?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘brave,’” I told Katie while I pinched Tim’s arm. “Just optimistic.”

  She nodded and stood, pulling her phone out of her back pocket. “Excuse me. I have to call my mom, my dad, and my life coach.”

  “I can’t believe you guys are still waiting for fabric to come in,” said Brooke as Katie hurried away. “If I were you—”

  “You wouldn’t be wearing sweatpants right now?” I asked with an innocent smile.

  Brooke lifted one of her legs. “These are comfy and functional, which is exactly what I told Abel when he called me Lazy McSweatpants this morning.” She lowered her leg and narrowed her eyes. “Did he tell you to mock them?”

  Abel Hart was her seventh-grade boyfriend who loved to tease her almost as much as I did. Brooke would’ve worn gym shorts to the school dance if that was an option.

  “Abel didn’t need to tell me. Those things demand to be judged,” I said.

  Brooke stuck her tongue out at me. “What I was going to say was that if I were you, I would’ve already had all the clothes sewn and on hangers by now.”

  “Ha!” said Tim. “This from the girl who’s usually the last to turn in her assignment for the paper?”

  Brooke, Heather, Tim, and I write an advice column, “Lincoln’s Letters,” for our school’s newspaper, the Lincoln Log. And despite the fact that Brooke is our section leader, she definitely doesn’t set the best example.

  Brooke raised her eyebrow and countered, “This from the guy who’s usually the last to show up for class?”

  Heather waved the scrap of cloth between them. “Break it up, you two! Truce!”

  “Technically, a red flag is a symbol for battle,” said Tim, “so you’re actually telling us to go for it. Unless you’re color-blind and think that’s white.” He gestured at the fabric.

  Heather narrowed her eyes in mock disapproval. “Do you want to see even more red? Because I can make that happen.”

  “Ooh!” said Brooke and I.

  Tim grinned and leaned back, holding up his hands. “Okay, okay! I’ve never seen your dark side before, and I’m kind of scared of it.”