by Kirsten Rue
They just stand there, though, not moving or making eye contact with me. Right then, the door bangs again and a squat figure strides in on very quick legs.
Assistant Principal McCloud, his face violet and blotched with anger.
“Thank you, Mr. Kirk, Mr. J.D.,” he says, rocking back and forth on his heels. “I see you were right.”
Samantha and Glenn snap to their feet. “What’s going on?” Samantha shouts. She takes a couple of angry steps towards Kirk and J.D. They step back as if they’re afraid she’s going to follow that up with a fist. Glenn shakes his head and crosses his arms.
“I can’t believe it, guys,” he says, shaking his head again. “I just can’t believe you’d do that.” It doesn’t seem like Kirk and J.D. are feeling too happy with themselves at the moment, either. Both of them wear a pale and sunken expression. They can barely even look at us.
“Sorry, guys,” Kirk whispers. “We just have to be careful, ya know? We can’t do anything that would affect us getting into college. We can’t have something bad on our record.”
“Well, the last time I checked, you guys hadn’t helped us with the dance at all!” Samantha says, still looking like she might throw a punch.
“Samantha!” Glenn shouts. “Stop!” I know what he means. She’s giving us away even more to Assistant Principal McCloud, who’s still standing there looking very angry. He just keeps rocking on his heels, glancing from my face to Glenn’s face to Samantha’s face.
As for me? For once, I’m tongue-tied. I know I’m supposed to be the leader of the Geeks and this should be my cue to jump in and smooth things over. I should find a way to sweet-talk Assistant Principal McCloud. I should explain just what we’re doing in the gym, while still protecting the Mystery Ball. I should be confident, like I pretended to be when I was last in McCloud’s office, even while his fish, Chloe, was staring at me. But . . . I can’t seem to find my voice. I just wasn’t prepared for two “friends” to give us away to the one person who has the power to stop the dance in its tracks.
Is the rebellion over before it even began? What about all the work we’ve done—getting people excited about the dance, working with Mrs. Zuck, planning?
The whole point was to wow the whole school with the coolest dance ever, and then to reveal the truth: The Geeks had planned the whole thing. We were going to change our image, once and for all. We were going to start demanding a little respect. We were going to get some of the good P.R. “buzz” my dad always talks about at work. And now? Standing here with a pile of lights and tables and speakers at my feet, I can feel all those dreams crashing down to the ground. It feels kind of like getting your homework torn in half. Except worse.
The Mystery Ball
“so, Mr. Watkins, I can see that you took my instructions to not create a disturbance at Halsey School and disobeyed them. Completely.”
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but my tongue feels stuck to the top of my mouth with tape or something. Me? The one who always wants to jump in with the answer? That me is still stuck, unable to speak up.
“I’ve been told a number of very interesting things by these two helpful young men here.” McCloud gestures towards Kirk and J.D., who both keep backing up towards the doors of the gym. They’re probably trying to make an escape. “They’ve informed me,” he continues, “that the dance, which I approved a month ago is, in fact, organized by YOU. And that you created a fake group . . . for reasons I have not discovered yet. And you even lied to Mrs. Zuck and got her to submit a form for you. Naturally, I have informed her of your actions as well.” He shakes his head, and reaches up to scratch his chin with two big fingers.
Now, he turns directly to me. “Mr. Watkins, I just cannot understand why, after your little roar incident and after I let you take a pass, you decided to try this charade instead.”
I look down, and I hate to admit this, but I feel a hot tear fizzing underneath my eyelashes. This has got to be a low point: crying in the Halsey gym in front of all my friends and the meanest assistant principal in the whole world. I mean, seriously, he’s even meaner than some of the monsters in my Valcora game.
“Hey!” someone shouts, interrupting Assistant Principal McCloud. I look up, surprised. McCloud does, too. He looks around like a bird flying off its perch after hearing a loud sound.
It’s Glenn and Samantha, standing there looking serious. I’m not even sure which one shouted. Samantha takes a step forward and then Glenn follows. They both stand almost toe-to-toe with Assistant Principal McCloud. He backs up a little bit.
“Mr. McCloud,” Samantha says, “we know what this looks like. But all we’re trying to do is put on something nice for Halsey School.” She gestures to me. “Tim came up with this idea as something we could do as a group. Because we’re all friends and, well, we need to help each other.”
“Yeah,” says Glenn. “Tim knows that you didn’t want a disturbance, but we just want the rest of the school to take us seriously. We thought that maybe after this dance, they’d look at us differently. The other kids bother us all the time. We knew we had to pretend to be someone else to get them to come.”
“If Tim is going to be in trouble, then you better take us to the office, too. The Geeks stand together!” says Samantha, standing tall and puffing out her chest. Glenn pumps his fist. Assistant Principal McCloud looks like he honestly doesn’t know what to make of all this. And me? I’ve never felt so warm and happy in my life. These are my friends. And they just stood up for me when I couldn’t stand up for myself. I guess you could say I feel highly lucky.
“Hmm . . .” Assistant Principal McCloud grumbles. I don’t think he likes being in this situation. It kind of makes him look like the bad guy, even if we did make some mistakes. I mean, we did lie . . . but it was for a good cause! Now, the gym door creaks open again and Mrs. Zuck walks in.
“Hey, Morty,” she calls to McCloud. Morty?! His name is Morty?! Somehow that makes him seem a LOT less threatening.
“Oh, Mrs. Zuck, well, er . . .” He seems at a loss.
I think he still wants to be mad, but part of him just wants to forget about the whole thing.
“Can I make a suggestion?” Mrs. Zuck asks him. “How about instead of detention, we put these three to work in the Computer Resource room. I could use some help after school with working on the networks. I am their faculty advisor, after all.” I look over at Mrs. Zuck, almost afraid to meet her eyes, but she makes the tiniest wink back at me. She’s on our side!
“Well . . . well . . .” McCloud crosses and uncrosses his arms. Steps forward and then steps back. Finally, he throws his arms dramatically up into the air. “Okay! Make sure you report to me. Tell me if they miss even a single day. I’m serious. One single day.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Zuck replies calmly.
“I’m a busy man,” McCloud says, “and I’ve got other things to do.” He begins to shuffle out of the gym.
“Sir?” I call to him. My voice is finally back. “What about the Mystery Ball?”
McCloud turns back around and wearily waves his arm at me. “Oh, you already have all these . . . things . . . everywhere. And Mrs. Zuck has agreed to chaperone. You might as well go ahead.” He sighs heavily and trundles out of the gym once and for all. The three of us all wait for a few seconds and then we’re jumping and high fiving and cheering.
“Wahoo! Mission accomplished!” Glenn yells.
Mrs. Zuck is smiling at us, too. “Looks like you guys have a lot of work to do,” she says. “Better hop
to it.”
“Um, Mrs. Zuck, THANK YOU.” I try to act like a grown up and shake her hand. She shakes mine firmly back.
“I know what sixth grade can be like,” she says with a smile. “But, hey, next time? Let’s not make up any fake students, m’kay? Then I might actually have to get mad.”
“Deal.”
“Deal.”
“Deal.”
All three of us repeat the word.
It�
��s 8 p.m. on the night of the dance. Red popcorn and blue and yellow sugar cookies line the tables. Thirty cups of punch in every shade of the rainbow glitter and bubble. It’s dark. Samantha and Glenn and I stand there, hearts beating. Halsey gym doesn’t seem quite as gross as usual, even though the wood floor feels sticky under our feet. The smell of sweat from gym class the day before has finally faded. Mrs. Zuck is stationed outside the gym doors, ready to let the first students in. We hear footsteps outside the door.
Creeaaaakkkk.
The door opens.
“Here goes nothing,” I say. In unison, I flip on the light show, Samantha presses “play” on her laptop, and we’re off! The Mystery Ball has officially begun.
THE NEXT COUPLE OF HOURS ARE KIND OF A BLUR. At FIRST, Samantha and I look at each other and whisper, “Uh-oh,” because only a few students come in. They look around and see that no one is there and almost leave.
But then, a whole lot of students begin coming in. In wave after wave, they come up to the tables and look at our colored punch. Some of them grab cookies. They stand around, looking up at our blinking light show with wide eyes. They nibble cookies. I see Sweets and Lardos and kids from my classes. I even see some kids I’ve never actually seen before.
“Cooool lights,” I overhear one of the Sweets murmuring. So far, no one has really noticed us, since we’re up against the wall near the speakers and laptop.
“Pssst, Samantha!” I whisper.
“Yeah?”
“I think we’re going to have to start the dance party ourselves.”
“Do we have to?” “Yep.”
“You in, Glenn?” I know Glenn doesn’t exactly
love dancing, but teamwork is good, right?
“Okay,” he sighs.
The three of us go out onto the dance floor where the bass makes the wood floors shake. We step from side to side and raise our hands in the air. Samantha grins. And what can I say? We dance. At first, it’s just us, but whether it’s the music or the cool lights, soon, a few other kids shrug and come out onto the dance floor, too. We bounce up and down. I can hear the rubber of my shoes squealing on the wood floors. I feel elbows poking me as other students show off their dance moves.
As more and more kids go out to the floor, I catch sight of Joe Russo from gym and computer class. He’s nodding his head to the beat. Suddenly, Kirk and J.D. are there, too. They step out shyly, and seem to search for Samantha, Glenn, and me in the crowd. When they see us, they give us very serious, very sorry nods. And then, even they are dancing! I turn back to Glenn and Samantha, and I can’t seem to stop smiling. Glenn raises his hand to give us both a high five. I’m pretty sweaty from dancing so much, so it’s kind of a slippery high five.
I close my eyes, and for once, I don’t think of anything. I’m just lost in the sound of the music and the feeling of my friends dancing next to me.
