“Is that pine I smell?” he asked, sniffing the air.
I quickly covered my mouth. “Um, no. No. I don’t smell anything.”
“The woods are stupid,” he said.
“Yep, stupid. Totally,” I replied.
Logan sniffed again just to be sure. I held in my breath.
“Yeah, tomorrow’s coo…No wait, can’t do tomorrow. I’m already playing video games. But we can do the day after that,” he answered.
“Okay,” I said. “Same time?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “But to be honest, we gotta figure out a way to make these meetings shorter. Not to hurt your feelings or anything, but, well, it kinda felt like, unproductive and disorganized today. I mean, no offense, but my time is sorta valuable.”
“I’ll, um, try to be more efficient for the next meeting,” I told him.
“Would ya? Thanks.” Logan pushed his chair under the table. “Later,” he said.
“Um, later,” I answered.
I watched as he jumped over a chair and zipped out of the library.
I sat there for a moment facing a dilemma. Logan was clearly a wee bit short on the how-sharp-is-my-pencil scale, but he was also hot like a frying pan full of bacon.
Hmm, what was I to do—go for a hot guy with no brains or a brainy guy with no hots?
I thought about it for a moment, but really, it wasn’t much of a choice at all. Girls like me, we always know what the right decision is when it comes to stuff like this. We know it deep in our bones.
We want bacon! Mmmm!
I blame DNA.
My mind drifted into dreamland. Only two more days til I got to see Logan again. And next time, I’d be prepared.
With milk-ball breath!
Finally, after four days of waiting beyond the day we were told we could see the darn thing, Marty put the computer brain into Poochy.
And it didn’t work.
Marty had some technological mumbo-jumbo stuff he said was wrong with the dog, but he swore he was going to be able to easily fix it.
And that’s what he said the next time and the next time and the next time, too.
For another three days we sat there waiting for this stupid robotic mutt to do something robotic. The most advanced thing it seemed capable of was staring off into the distance with a blank look on its face while wearing a hot pink top that had been sewn by Department Store Mom.
Dumb dog.
“The ThreePees must be quaking in their boots,” I said after Marty tried yet again to get the stupid mutt to do what he said it would do.
“Relax, we’re close,” said Marty. “Very close.”
He fiddled with a wire and then programmed a code into his computer for the third time that afternoon.
“Look, let’s face reality. We should call this whole thing off before—”
“Look!” said Beanpole.
Suddenly, as if waking from the dead, Poochy sprang to life.
It began with a blink. A moment later Poochy rose to its feet. Actually, it rose to its wheels because it didn’t have feet. It gracefully rolled across the floor.
Then, as if it had real eyes that could really see, Poochy came to a stop right in front of Marty.
“Sit,” said Marty.
Poochy sat.
“Heel,” said Marty.
Poochy walked side by side with Marty as he took a few steps across the garage.
“Speak,” said Marty.
“Aarff,” said Poochy in a voice that sounded exactly like some kind of adorable, fluffy little puppy.
Wow, I thought.
“Roll over!” shouted Beanpole, wanting to try it out herself.
Poochy stopped, processed the instructions, and then, sure enough, rolled over.
“That’s amazing!” Beanpole said. “And then, once we arrange our dance moves, it’ll look like this.” She rushed across the room, dropped to the ground next to Poochy, and yelled “Roll over!” so she could roll over right next to the dog.
Both Poochy and Beanpole twirled onto their backs at the same time. It looked awesome. However, when Beanpole rolled over, she crashed into the side of a shelf, which caused a box of old cooking pans to fall on her head.
“Ouch!” she said as things collapsed on top of her. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’m okay.”
“Try not to kill yourself, Beanpole,” I said. “At least until after the talent show, all right?”
“See, I’m using RFID to create programmable animatronics that imitate live action,” Marty explained.
“English, please,” I said.
Marty rolled his eyes and repeated what he had just told us, but in a language we could understand. “I’m using radio frequency identification tags to basically, well…let’s put it this way: you can now program about eighty moves for the dog. I mean, they’re already selling stuff like this in the stores but, well…I think it’s going to impress people more to see it in a homemade model. Have you mapped out your routine yet?”
“Kind of,” I answered. “But we wanted to see how the dog moved first.”
Just then Q walked up to the robotic dog, bent down so they were face-to-face, and looked Poochy in the eye.
“Shake,” she said.
Poochy raised its paw and extended it out for a shake.
“Play dead,” she said.
Poochy laid down and acted as if it were entirely lifeless.
“You say you programmed this stuff based on info you found on the Internet?” asked Q.
“There’s tons of stuff out there,” said Marty. “But I just put in a few of the basic dog commands. Once you finalize the performance, we’ll add in more.”
“How long’s that gonna take?” asked Q.
“Coupla hours,” said Marty. “Not long.”
“Poochy, beg,” commanded Marty. The robotic dog sat up, bent its front paws, and began to pant and whine and beg as if it were a real dog waiting for some scraps at the dinner table.
“Cool, huh?” he said.
The three of us looked at one another. With matching outfits, a few dance moves, and Poochy, we realized that, holy moly, we weren’t gonna be talentless, doof-o-la dipsticks at the talent show after all. Matter of fact, we were gonna rock it.
Rock it like mad!
“This is cool,” said Q. “But there’s one more part in that bag that I couldn’t figure out.”
“What?” asked Marty.
“In that black one, over there,” she answered. “It looked too big to be part of its head, but I swear, it seems like it needs to be a piece of the dog’s ears or something. Can you take a look?”
“Sure,” Marty answered, heading over to open the big garbage bag. “No problem.”
When he had his back to us, Q eagerly tapped Beanpole and me on the shoulder, trying to get our attention to take a look.
“What?” I said in an annoyed way.
She held her finger to her lips. “Ssshh,” she said in a low voice. Then she pointed at Marty. “Look.”
I turned to see, though I had no idea in the world what Q was talking about. Marty opened the black bag and BOOM! an explosion hit him in the face.
“Aarrghh!” he screamed, jumping back. “Yuucckkk! What is it?” he exclaimed as giant gobs of white goo dripped from his face and hair.
“Hand lotion,” said Q with a smile on her face.
I turned to Q, trying to figure out what had just happened. “You booby-trapped it?”
She took a suck off the scuba tank. Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh. “Payback time,” she said.
Marty struggled to wipe the cream from his eyes. He couldn’t even see.
“But I helped you with the dog,” he said, still in shock from the explosion.
“That’s why I went easy on ya,” answered Q. “I was gonna mix in bacon grease, too,” she added. “Do you know that when you leave bacon grease and hand lotion mixed together out in the sun for too long, it starts to turn green?” she said. “If I’d have gone all out
on you, your head wouldda smelled like rotten meat for three days.”
“Gross!” said Beanpole.
“And you can’t really wash it out, either,” Q added. “So consider yourself lucky.”
Marty stared at Q with a face covered in white goop. For a moment, I thought he was going to grab Poochy, shut down his computer, and tell the three of us to go stick the whole talent show up our butts.
But he didn’t. Instead, Marty nodded his head and cracked a smile. “I respect that,” he said in this weird, tip-your-hat-tothe-competition type of way. It was as if Q had tapped into some kind of secret code of honor between pranksters or something. “I respect that,” he repeated, and then he opened the door to go inside the house and wash everything off.
“What happened to you?” asked my mom, shocked to see her son covered in a face full of goop.
“Nothing,” answered Marty, not wanting to admit he’d been pranked. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go shower. It’s all in my ear holes and stuff.”
Without another word, Marty headed up the stairs. My mom then peeked her head into the garage, smiling big and bright.
“Good one,” she said, giving us a thumbs-up. “Really good one.”
Beanpole and I laughed and looked at Q. But Q didn’t smile back. Instead she raised the scuba tank and got that Wild West gunfighter look in her eyes again.
“Next up”—Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh—“the ThreePees.”
Lunchtime became giggle time for the three of us. Q and Beanpole and I giggled at the way our math teacher, Mr. Sung-Li, wore four pencils in his shirt pocket in case he was suddenly attacked by a multiplication problem or something. Q and Beanpole and I giggled at the way Josephine Morales tried to hide the fact that she loved the smell of notebook paper. She practically jammed pieces of homework up her nostrils, thinking no one ever saw her. But most of all, Q and Beanpole and I giggled at the dorkasauressness of one another.
“At least I don’t crash into parked cars.”
“At least I’m not allergic to air.”
“At least 254,327 people haven’t seen me do a doof-o dance on YouTube.”
I paused and got serious. “Is it that many?” Wow, over a quarter of a million people had now seen me utterly embarrass myself.
A quarter million, that’s a lot.
“Aw, don’t worry,” said Q, seeing the gloom on my face. “In like a hundred years, what’s it gonna matter anyway?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Except people will still be able to see you on YouTube in a hundred years,” Beanpole said. “’Cause, like, once something’s on the Internet, it like never gets erased. Never, ever. But yeah, at least you’ll be dead and cold and buried in the ground, so it won’t matter much.”
“Thanks, Beanpole,” I answered. “I can’t tell you how much better that makes me feel.”
“Even your kids will still be able to see it. And your grand-kids, too. Heck, even your great-great-great-grandkids will be able to see it. I mean, even your great-great-great-great-great…OUCH!”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “Was that your hand underneath the book I just smashed on the table?”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”
“Who’s worried?” I replied.
“Oh no, look who’s at it again,” said Q. We turned to look at—who else—the ThreePees.
If there was one thing that we loved to giggle about more than making fun of one another’s lunches or weird personalities or dorkiness, it was the ThreePees. At the way they sprayed all that stuff in their hair. At the way they wore their name-brand clothing as if designer labels made them better people than everybody else. The way they walked with an extra wiggle in their butts. Lately, however, we’d been having extra fun giggling at the way Sofes O’Reilly, the Albert Einstein of our school, still kept screwing up that make-a-right-not-a-left turn at the crucial part of their dance performance.
“It’s a right turn, Sofes. A right turn!” said Kiki for the ten-thousandth time. Clearly, Sofes was driving Kiki bonkers.
“I know, I know,” said Sofes. “I just get mixed up there. It feels more natural to go left.”
“It’s gonna feel more natural to go to a different school next year if you don’t get your act together,” snapped Kiki. “The show is in three days!”
“The show is in three days!” said Q in a high-pitched snooty voice. “And if I don’t win and get my picture in the yearbook, I’ll never be named the Queen of the Universe like my daddy promised when he paid all that money for my fake eyelashes.”
The three of us laughed. Loud. A bit too loud, I think, because Kiki seemed to know we were laughing at her.
She stormed over to our table.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded. The rest of the ThreePees followed behind her like good little donkeys.
“Nothing,” said Q, looking at the ground, trying to hide her smile.
“Well, something’s gotta be funny if it’s making the school’s biggest dorkwads laugh,” said Kiki.
None of us answered. We just looked at one another and continued to try and hide our giggles.
“So what’s your talent anyway, doof cheese?” Kiki asked in a biting tone.
“Nothing,” answered Beanpole. “We don’t have any talent.”
“You got that right,” said Brittany-Brattany.
“I mean, we’re not telling,” replied Beanpole. “It’s super secret. Like top secret. Like you could torture us right now and light our fingernails on fire and put us in a pit of poison scorpions and we’d never tell. Never, ever, ever!”
“You mean you’d never tell me about the robotic dog?” said Kiki.
Beanpole’s jaw dropped to the floor.
“I know all about your lame metal mutt,” said Kiki. “Logan told me everything.”
Beanpole and Q turned to me. I looked at my shoes.
Oops.
“But you last-place finishers in life really don’t think you have a chance with this stupid dog idea, do you?” said Kiki.
“Yeah, do you?” added Sofes.
“The question is,” said Q, pausing to take a scuba slurp before finishing her sentence—Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeeshwhooosh—“do you?”
“Do we what?” said Kiki. “What are you talking about, dodo breath?”
“Yeah,” repeated Sofes. “What are you talking about, dodo breath?”
“I’m talking about the fact that we’re makin’ you nervous, aren’t we, Kiki?” said Q.
“Who’s making me nervous, allergy freak?”
Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh. “We are. We’re making you sweat.”
“Are not.”
“Are too.”
“Are not.”
“Are too.”
“Are not, ya loser.”
“Are too! Are too! Are too!”
“Well, if we’re not making you nervous,” I said, rising to stand next to Q, “then why are you over here right now asking us all of these questions, Keeks?”
I said that last part, the word Keeks, with a whole lotta oomph.
Silence fell over the ThreePees as they thought about what I had just said. I could tell they realized I was right. They were nervous. They were feeling afraid. For the first time ever, the idea that they might not actually win the talent show had entered their minds, and it rattled ’em.
Rattled ’em good.
Suddenly, sensing blood in the water, Q got that Wild West gunfighter look in her eyes again.
“You witches best get ready”—Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeeshwhooosh—“’cause it’s payback time.”
“Yeah,” said Beanpole, standing up as well. “It’s payback time.”
Beanpole got face-to-face with Sofes. Q glared at Brittany-Brattany. Seeing what they were doing, I quickly took a step forward and got right up into Kiki’s grille.
“That’s what the Nerd Girls are talking ’bout, Keeks,” I said. “Payback time!”<
br />
The six of us stood there nose to nose, three on one side, three one the other, having a monster stare down.
A moment later, amazingly, the ThreePees backed off.
“Come on, girls,” said Kiki, turning to walk away. “In seventy-two hours, we’ll see who’s got the tears and who’s got the trophy.”
“Yeah,” said Brittany-Brattany as she flipped her hair and turned to walk away as well.
“Yeah,” said Sofes. “Just wait and we’ll see how you like having the trophy.”
“The tears, Sofes…they’re going to have the tears,” said Kiki with a shake of her head. “We’re going to have the trophy.”
“Oh,” said Sofes as they wiggled away. “See, I thought it was like a tears of joy type of thing and they’d be carrying the trophy of sadness, know what I mean?”
“No, I don’t know what you mean, Sofes. Half the time I have no idea what you mean,” snapped Kiki. “So how about if you just focus on learning your right from your left and leave the rest of the thinking to me, okay, you mental midget?”
“Like, harsh again,” said Sofes.
“Like, true again,” replied Kiki.
“You’ve heard of the trophy of sadness, right Brit?” said Sofes, seeking a bit of compassion from her other donkey friend.
“Let’s just make sure we win, okay?” answered Brattany. “Like my dad always says, the only thing that matters in this world is when you win.”
The ThreePees returned to their spot on the other side of the courtyard and got ready to practice their routine again.
“We did it!” said Beanpole. “Didya see? They’re scared! They’re scared!”
“I saw that they knew all about Poochy,” said Q with a look toward me.
“Sorry,” I said. “Blame DNA.”
“Uh-huh,” said Q.
“Well, I told you I was no good at keeping secrets,” I added. “You can’t trust me with hush-hush stuff at all. I mean, I spoil surprise parties and everything.”
“It’s okay,” said Q. “Crushes’ll make you do weird things.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I said. “I can’t believe how much work I am doing on this stupid justice project right now. Logan is just a total flake.”
Beanpole stared at the ThreePees as they worked on their moves.
Nerd Girls Page 9
