by Kieran Scott
By the time classes let out, everyone in the school was one Toll House cookie shy of manic. The cheerleading squad was released from classes twenty minutes early so that we could get to the lobby and set up for the bake sale. I couldn’t wait to get down there. This was going to be so much fun!
I was jogging down the stairs from the front hall when I saw Daniel and Terrell, along with K. C. Lawrence and a couple of other guys from the wrestling and football teams, jostling their way into a boys’ bathroom near the cafeteria. They were all whispering urgently and a couple of them had clothing on hangers folded over their forearms.
Instantly my radar went off. Something was up.
“What’re you guys doing?” I blurted.
Daniel nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Nothing!” he said, backing into the room as I pursued him. “Can’t come in here,” he said, pointing at the little metal sign. “Boys’ room.”
Then he closed the door in my face and everyone inside burst out laughing. Frustration shook me from head to foot. What were they doing in there? Did it have something to do with their fundraiser? Could they have possibly pulled something off without any of us hearing word one about it? And what did K. C. and the other guys have to do with it?
Behind the thick wooden door I heard stall doors slam and a couple of raucous shouts. Something strange was afoot in the boys’ bathroom. And suddenly I smelled doom.
At least that was all I smelled. Hanging around outside the guys’ bathroom, you just never knew.
My holiday spirit somewhat dampened, I trudged to the lobby where three tables had already been set up, Christmas and Hanukkah tablecloths smoothed over their surfaces. Tara and the others were laying out the baked goods we had all stashed in Coach Holmes’ office that morning. It was a seriously impressive spread. Cookies and pound cake, fudge and brownies, muffins and carrot cake, and tons of other stuff. My stomach grumbled audibly, but even the sight of all that sugar couldn’t knock the dread out of me.
“What’s with the puss face, puss face?” Chandra asked.
I grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the others. No need to cause mass hysteria among the team just yet. “The guys are up to something,” I whispered. “And it might be something big.”
“What?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“I wish I knew,” I replied. “All I know is they’re not in it alone. They’ve got K.C. and Adam Rider and a couple of other jocks involved.”
“Those thumbheads? What’re they gonna do? Lift weights for money?” Chandra asked.
“Not a clue,” I said.
Just then the first of the teachers—some of whom didn’t have last-period classes—approached the table and strolled along, checking out the goods.
“Okay, let’s not worry about it now,” Chandra said. “We’re on.”
We took our places with the rest of the squad behind the tables as a small crowd began to form. Soon bus drivers started to come in from outside, leaving their vehicles idling. A couple of the janitors joined the line and the librarians moseyed in as well. We were just starting to do a steady, leisurely business when the bell rang, and before we knew it, we were flooded with customers. The sale was a yearly tradition and had also been heavily publicized on the morning announcements and with flyers all over the halls, so everyone was ready for it. Before long Tara was hauling in the cash so quickly, she could barely keep track of the change.
“Where are they?” I asked Chandra, scanning the crowd for a glimpse of Daniel and the others. I had to shout to be heard over the din that now filled the lobby.
“Who knows? Who cares?” she replied. “All I know is right now we’re making money and they’re not. That’s all that matters.”
“Good point,” I said with a nod. Leave it to Chandra to state the obvious.
Chandra shook her hair back. “I thought so.”
“Hey, miss! Miss! Can I get that last brownie with the red sprinkles?” one of the bus drivers asked me, waving a dollar in the air.
“Absolutely!” I replied.
Soon enough, I had to forget all about the boys. We were just too busy.
“Wow. This is going well,” Jaimee said to me, sneaking a chocolate chip cookie from one of the plates.
Instantly Tara’s hand reached in and grabbed it away from her. “No eating the profits,” she said, tossing the cookie back on the plate. “You can have the leftovers. If there are any,” she added in a self-congratulatory way.
For once, she deserved to pat herself on the back. The bake sale was clearly a huge success. Brownies, cookies, cakes and muffins were disappearing like bread crumbs off a park bench. I looked up and saw Mrs. Corning, my chemistry teacher, take her slice of carrot cake into the cafeteria, along with a couple of other teachers. At first I thought they were just going in there to eat, but then I saw a freshman girl wave to her friends, all excited, and they rushed into the caf as well. Soon a murmur sprouted up throughout the lobby and everyone started to trail out toward the cafeteria doors.
“What’s going on?” Tara asked.
“No idea,” I replied. Though I had a suspicion. A suspicion that the guys on the squad were in the cafeteria doing . . . something. They must have sneaked past us during the deluge of customers.
“Go check it out,” she said, eyeing the doors as she made change for a parent who had just purchased a half dozen cupcakes.
She didn’t have to ask me twice. I was already pretty much dying of curiosity.
“I’ll come!” Jaimee offered, scurrying after me.
“Me too,” Chandra said.
“Fine. But the rest of you stay,” Tara said. “Get back to work.”
There was a definite buzz in the air as we approached the caf. I reached out and grabbed Jaimee’s hand as if I needed her for support. She squeezed back. Why did I get the distinct feeling that I did not want to know what was behind those double doors?
“What do you think it is?” Chandra asked, pausing as a pair of giggling girls rushed in ahead of us. They may as well have just scored backstage passes to an Usher concert. What the heck was going on in there?
I scoffed. “Come on. How bad could it be?” With a confidence I didn’t feel, I shoved open the doors.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I walked into the room. There, standing near the windows in the cafeteria, were at least twenty guys, singing Christmas carols at the top of their lungs. Daniel, Terrell, Joe and Steven were front and center and they were surrounded by a couple dozen hotties from all the various varsity sports. K.C. and Adam—the football team’s kicker—were there, along with Corey Robinson and Rick Klein from the soccer team, Todd Blauschild from the cross-country team and on and on. They were all wearing suits and ties and damn did Daniel look fine in his dark blue suit. But that wasn’t even the best part. The best part was that every last one of them was wearing either a Santa hat or a yarmulke to top off their outfit.
“Oh. My. God,” Jaimee said slowly.
My sentiments exactly. Clutching hands, we pushed through the crowd to get to the front, just as the guys hit the final chorus of “Deck the Halls.” They were all hamming it up, acting goofy, getting everyone around them to laugh. In front of them was a huge red basket that was already filled with bills and as I watched, a pair of moms who were munching on Chandra’s mother’s gourmet gingerbread tossed some more cash in there. Mad cash.
Meanwhile, Bethany walked slowly around the periphery of the makeshift choir, her digital video camera up and running. Wise move, saving this one for posterity. She’d probably be able to sell the copies to every girl in school for a profit.
“They recruited all the hottest guys,” Jaimee said in awe.
“Except for Christopher and his merry band of manly men,” I noticed.
“This is so not fair,” Chandra said. “If we did this, everyone would think we were total dorks, but they do it—”
“And it’s ridiculously hot,” I said.
“Exact
ly!” Chandra and Jaimee said in unison, Chandra throwing up a hand and letting it slap down at her side.
Irritating as it was, I was still barely able to control my grin. Guys in suits, singing. It was so basic and yet so genius.
Terrell was an evil mastermind. Either that or he was destined for a life in television programming.
The song came to a close and Daniel stepped out of line to address the crowd.
“For our next number, we’d like to do a more modern classic,” he said, then slowly grinned. “Please forgive me in advance.”
With that he turned his back to the crowd and hit the play button on a mini-stereo. I recognized the music and saw Daniel’s life flash before my eyes about two seconds before he turned around and launched into a solo of “Santa Baby.”
“Oh my God,” I said, cracking up along with the crowd.
“Oh no he did not,” Chandra said with a guffaw.
Jaimee clung to my arm and Chandra pressed her face into my back, unable to take it anymore. I felt them both trembling against me with laughter.
“Santa baby, I want a yacht and really that’s not a lot,” Daniel sang. “I’ve been an awful good boy, Santa baby. Hurry down the chimney tonight.”
He totally hammed it up, throwing out sexy glances and waggling his hips. The crowd of freshman girls in the corner squealed and screamed like he was some kind of rock star. It was all I could do to keep myself from going over there and putting my hands over their eyes. That was my boyfriend. Back off, ladies!
I had to hand it to him, though. The guy really knew his audience. What could be cuter than a hot athlete, dressed in a suit, singing and winking at the crowd?
Bethany spotted me in the throng and rushed over, keeping her camera poised at all times. “Your boyfriend gets the Cojones of the Year award,” she said to me. “This is comedy.”
Wow. They had even won Bethany over. Daniel had once told me he had powers beyond my understanding. Maybe that was true.
“What’s with the camera?” I asked.
“Steven asked me to film it. Apparently no one in his family could believe he was actually going to sing in public,” she said.
Steven asked her? Steven asked her? No fair! I couldn’t believe Steven Schwinn had told Bethany what was going on in advance, but Daniel had, once again, managed to keep me in the dark. This was just so wrong. But to be honest, I wasn’t angry this time. The surprise was just that good. I would have been more upset if he’d ruined it for me.
“What people will put themselves through for the blahrah squad,” Bethany said, shaking her head. “I just don’t get it.”
Now that she mentioned it, Steven was looking wan. But he was grinning and bearing it.
“Plus, I figure this’ll be great ammo for blackmail later,” Bethany added.
There was the girl I knew and loved!
The rest of the guys finally joined Daniel, theoretically putting him out of his solo misery, although he looked like he was having a really good time out there. He caught my eye and I shook my head at him, practically crying from laughing so hard. I had to give the kid credit. He had guts. Especially after having his manhood teased by his brother and his friends. But it was good for the squad’s bank account. Several people threw money in after his routine, probably as impressed as I was by his courage.
“What the hell?”
I turned around to find Tara right behind me. “I . . . uh . . .”
I think I was still a tad flustered from Daniel’s performance. Like, dizzily incoherent style flustered. Bethany, meanwhile, trained her camera on our fearless leader. Girl really did have a nose for news.
Tara Timothy, mouth agape, took it all in slowly. The crowd, the suits, the hats, the money. I could tell she was feeling a little bit queasy. And Bethany got it all on tape. Or digital chip. Whatever.
“I told you guys to check it out, not stay and enjoy the show,” Tara snapped finally.
“Sorry,” Jaimee told her. “We were just—”
“And get that camera outta my face,” she said, slapping Bethany’s viewfinder closed.
“Hey! You break, you buy!” Bethany protested.
“Bake sale,” Tara said, glaring at the rest of us. “Now.”
Hanging our heads, we followed our leader back out of the cafeteria to the tune of “The Dreidel Song.” I knew I had to be loyal to my gender, but to be perfectly honest, I, like everyone else in the Sand Dune High community, wanted to stay exactly where I was. The guys had really outdone themselves.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, the guys finished up their concert and came out to snag some refreshments from the bake sale, which was winding down. Tara, of course, made them pay for whatever they took. She was giving nothing away, especially not to them.
Soon the last stragglers left school to start their December breaks and the members of the cheerleading squad were the only people left in the lobby. Somewhere in the back of the building a vacuum ran and we could hear a pair of teachers talking somewhere down the hall. The bake-sale tables were covered in crumbs, crumpled napkins and balls of discarded cellophane. The guys sat on the floor against one wall, their sleeves rolled up and their ties loosened, laughing as they went over their concert song by song. Phoebe, Chandra and I were wiping the crumbs off the third table while the rest of the squad gathered up garbage or lounged on the benches near the walls. Suddenly, Tara slapped the cover of her lock box closed and looked across the lobby at Terrell.
“So. How was your little concert?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
“It’s getting four stars from the Weekly Catch,” Steven joked, offering his hand to be slapped by his cohorts.
“It was very lucrative,” Terrell said with a laugh. “How about your little bake sale?” he asked, mimicking her tone.
“Lucrative as well,” she said noncommittally.
Terrell narrowed his eyes. He toyed with a twisted piece of red cellophane with both hands. “How lucrative?” he asked.
“This should be good,” Sage said.
“What?” I said.
“Watch,” Phoebe told me. “Somehow this kid knows exactly how to get right under her skin.”
“I mean, how much money did you make, if you had to guess?” Terrell asked with a questioning frown.
“I bet we made more money than you did,” Tara shot back.
“And there it is,” Chandra said.
They were right. Tara was pretty darn predictable. There was no way she was going to back down from an implied challenge, but Terrell had worked her so that in the end, she had suggested they strike a bet. Like I said, evil genius.
“You’re on,” Terrell said. He shoved himself up off the floor, tossing his suit jacket over his shoulder, hooked on one finger. He put his other hand in his pocket and strolled over to Tara, looking all GQ. “And I even have an idea of the terms.”
“What?” Autumn asked warily, standing up from the bench behind Tara.
“Whoever loses the bet has to wash the other side’s cars,” Terrell said, then slowly smiled. “In bikinis.”
“Ugh!” Chandra blurted. “No way. No deal.”
“You’re on!” Tara said, thrusting out her hand.
“Tara!” about half a dozen girls protested.
