“No, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be good.” She laughs. “I still don’t know what you were thinking spilling my secrets on the Internet, but my mom and I had a serious talk yesterday, and she’s finally coming around about this boyfriend thing. And thanks to you, Andrew’s life is pretty good right now too. Ms. Emerald is going to have the school board watch his documentary. She thinks it’ll help them see how much better the lunches can be.”
“Wow, really?”
“You’re invited to the screening, if you want to come.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “We might have to pray to the pineapple gods that we don’t fall asleep during it.”
“So you do remember!” I say. “I was afraid you forgot all about them.”
She blushes. “I did at first, but then I prayed to them the other night, and the next day, I got a call from Ms. Emerald saying that my fashion club was a go and that I had you to thank. That can’t be a coincidence, can it?”
“Definitely not,” I say. “The pineapple gods never fail us.” After all, my prayers came true too.
“Praise be to their delicious tropical juices,” Marisol and I say in unison. Then we both erupt into giggles.
Just then, my phone beeps. Another Truth Game questionnaire, this one on embarrassing moments.
“Oh boy,” I say. “I have plenty of those to share.”
Marisol wrinkles her forehead. “You’re still doing that game, even after everything?”
“No, I just haven’t gotten around to deleting it yet. Honestly, it was fun to see how I measure up to people, at least at first. But then I thought—”
“That you don’t care about that kind of stuff?” Marisol asks hopefully.
I roll my eyes. “I wish. No, I do care how I compare to others, but that doesn’t mean I need to see it in number form. Like, if I hadn’t rushed to kiss Evan because I was so paranoid about having never been kissed, I bet our first kiss wouldn’t have involved gym shorts!”
Marisol laughs. “I’m sure you would have found some other way to mess it up,” she jokes.
“I’m sure I would have,” I say. “But then I would have fixed it.”
Because that’s what I do.
Chapter 27
The day after my big TV debut, Dad drops me off at school in the morning. I’m wearing my favorite shirt and actually kind of enjoying how the sequins Marisol put on it are glittering in the sun. My hair is pulled back into a high ponytail so that it actually shows my widow’s peak. I figured instead of making my hair do things it’s not made to do, I’ll try working with what I have. I’m not sure I’m sold on the look yet, but maybe I need some time to get used to it.
“I’ll pick you up after I get out of work this afternoon, okay?” Dad says.
I nod. “I hope I don’t chicken out.”
He laughs. “You already climbed that wall once. You’ll be great.”
Whoever thought that Rachel Lee, gym class disaster, would be looking forward to another rock-climbing session? But I’m actually excited to go back. “Okay, see you then,” I say, hopping out of the car.
“Have a great day,” Dad calls after me. “Oh, and your mom told me to remind you to floss after lunch!”
I hurry away, hoping no one heard him, and spot Angela hanging out with her cross-country friends by the flagpole.
She gives me a little wave and yells, “You were so awesome on TV last night! Your wedding cake rocked!”
“Thanks!” I call back, but I don’t slow down to talk to her. I don’t think I’ll ever totally trust Angela after everything that’s happened. She might seem like a different person, but there are things about ourselves that we can’t change. Some we might not even want to.
When I get to my locker, the kissing couple is in front of it again. Gross.
“Excuse me,” I say.
They don’t budge.
“Hello?” I say.
Nothing.
Finally, I snap my fingers in front of their faces, and they break apart, looking seriously annoyed. “What do you want?” the girl asks.
“Wait,” the guy says. “You were on that cooking show last night. You’re, like, famous.”
Wow. I had no idea so many people knew about the Cooking Channel special. Honestly, I was only in it for all of two minutes. They played a clip of me explaining my cake disaster—so embarrassing but actually pretty funny!—and then showed a couple shots of my cake and of people gobbling it up. It was better than I could have dreamed.
“Yup, that was me,” I say.
“Nice,” he says with something like respect on his face. Then he turns to the girl and says, “Come on. Let’s go hang out at my locker. It’s quieter there anyway.”
And just like that, they’re gone. I can’t help grinning in triumph, and I’m still grinning when I run into Pierre outside the home ec room.
“Hey, Rachel,” he says. “Great job on the show last night.”
“Thanks,” I say. “How did your sludge come out?”
He sighs. “Not good. I’m going to try a slurry next.”
“Sounds…interesting.”
“Have you thought of a goal for the year yet? I’m thinking I might try a different one, maybe something about gels instead of foams.”
I shrug. With everything that’s been going on, I haven’t had much time to think about it. I start to say “to get better at baking,” but then I can almost hear Mrs. Da Silva telling me to make it more specific. So I say, “Maybe something about learning the basics. I know most of them already, but I want to know what I don’t know, you know?”
Pierre gives me a confused look, but I don’t bother explaining. It makes perfect sense to me.
I head to Marisol’s locker—finally managing to navigate the endless identical hallways without getting lost—and find her having an animated conversation with Andrew. For once, he’s the one doing all the talking. When I get closer, I realize he’s going on and on about how much the school board loved his documentary.
“The principal is going to make the whole school watch it next week, all three hours of it. Isn’t that great?” he says.
Marisol and I share a look, and it’s like the past couple of weeks never happened. We’re totally on the same wavelength again, even if we also have a lot of our own stuff going on now.
“Rachel!” I hear Evan call. I turn and see him walking toward me. For a second, the old panic comes back. Should I kiss him? Hug him? Give him a high five?
But then he’s in front of me, grinning, and all that goes out of my head. Because it doesn’t matter if I get things perfect. Let’s face it. Most of the time, I probably won’t. But that doesn’t mean I won’t find a way to get them right eventually.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to all the young readers who asked for a fourth book—you inspired me to keep telling Rachel’s story. My thanks to Aubrey Poole for being open to the idea of adding one more volume to the Dirt Diary “trilogy,” to Ammi-Joan Paquette for helping me get this story right, to Sarah Chessman for her culinary wisdom, to my family for the endless support, and to Ray Brierly for always being excited to read the next book.
About the Author
Anna Staniszewski lives outside Boston and teaches at Simmons College. She was a writer-in-residence at the Boston Public Library and a winner of the PEN New England Discovery Award. When she’s not writing, Anna reads as much as she can, eats lots of chocolate, and avoids cleaning her house. Visit her at www.annastan.com.
See where it all begins in
The Dirt Diary
Eighth grade never smelled so bad.
Rachel Lee didn’t think anything could be worse than her parents splitting up. She was wrong. Working for her mom’s new house-cleaning business puts Rachel in the dirty bathrooms of the most popular kids in the eighth grade. Which does not help her alre
ady loser-ish reputation. But her new job has surprising perks: enough dirt on the in-crowd to fill up her (until recently) boring diary. She never intended to reveal her secrets, but when the hottest guy in school pays her to spy on his girlfriend, Rachel decides to get her hands dirty.
The Prank List
To save her mom's cleaning business, Rachel's about to get her hands dirty—again.
Rachel Lee is having the best summer ever taking a baking class and flirting with her almost-sort-of-boyfriend Evan—until a rival cleaning business swoops into town, stealing her mom’s clients. Rachel never thought she’d fight for the right to clean toilets, but she has to save her mom’s business. Nothing can distract her from her mission…except maybe Whit, the cute new guy in cooking class. Then she discovers something about Whit that could change everything. After destroying her Dirt Diary, Rachel thought she was done with secrets, but to save her family’s business, Rachel’s going to have to get her hands dirty. Again.
The Gossip File
Some things are best kept secret...
Rachel is spending the holiday break with her dad and soon-to-be step-monster, Ellie. Thank goodness her BFF Marisol gets to come with. But when Rachel meets a new group of kids and realizes she can leave her loser status back home, quirky Marisol gets left behind. Bored and abandoned, Marisol starts a Gossip File, collecting info on the locals. When the gossip includes some dirt on Ellie, Rachel has to decide if getting the truth is worth risking her new cool-girl persona…
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