The Right-Under Club

by Christine Hurley Deriso

  ALSO BY CHRISTINE HURLEY DERISO

  Do-Over

  To Jules, my “editor” who keeps it real.

  I love you.

  1

  “Mine!”

  At age twelve, Tricia was a little old for one-word sentences screamed at the top of her lungs, but ever since her half sister had reached the terrible twos, brattiness had seemed contagious in the household.

  Tricia swished her straight blond hair out of her face, squinted, clenched her teeth and turned bright red in her effort to wrest her CD from her little sister's chubby hands.

  “Mine!” Tricia repeated to her sister.

  “Mine!” Hissy squealed in protest, tugging harder on the CD.

  “Mom!” Tricia wailed.

  “Just let her have it, Tricia!” their mom called wearily from the kitchen.

  “Oh, I'll let her have it, all right!”

  “Hey! Enough with the attitude!” her mom barked.

  “Doesn't ‘attitude’ need an adjective?” Tricia snarled, this time more to herself than to her mom. What was the point?

  She relaxed her grip on the CD and leaned into Hissy's face with slitted, menacing eyes. “Hisssssss!” she said, a snake imitation that usually reduced her little sister to tears.

  Not this time. Hissy poked out her bottom lip. “Meanie!” She spun on a bare heel and toddled off indignantly with Tricia's CD.

  Tricia rolled her eyes and plopped backward onto her bed. Little sisters were so exasperating. “Hissy's a brat!” she called out to no one in particular.

  “Don't call your sister a brat!” her mom called back. “And don't call her Hissy!”

  There were lots of reasons Tricia called her sister Hissy. She had written them down in her journal:

  She has hissy fits at least a thousand times a day.

  Saying it gives me a chance to hiss at her (which she hates).

  It's short for half sis.

  Hissy is HIS daughter. (Mom's, too, of course. But HIS. Hisssss.)

  Hissy's real name, Everly, is just too ridiculous. (HE made it up.)

  “Hissy” gets me in less trouble than my other nickname for her: Neverly.

  Tricia flopped over and buried her face in her solar system bedspread. “Grrrrr!” She rubbed her forehead against Pluto.

  “What did she take this time?” her mom asked. Tricia turned onto her side and saw her mom standing in the bedroom doorway holding a dish towel.

  “What hasn't she taken of mine?” Tricia groaned. “She destroys everything I own.”

  Her mom laughed lightly, then walked over and tousled Tricia's hair. “Hey, you used to be two,” she said, “and believe it or not, you were a lot like her.”

  With their heart-shaped face and the single dimple in their left cheek, Tricia couldn't deny how much she and Everly looked alike. But they certainly didn't act alike. As if.

  Her mom seemed to read her mind. “You were just as stubborn as Everly.” She swatted the dish towel playfully against Tricia's legs. “Still are.”

  “But I didn't have a big sister to torment.”

  “Right,” her mom agreed. “Only me.”

  “And Dad,” Tricia said petulantly.

  Her mom bit her bottom lip. “Right. And Dad.”

  It was a sore subject. Tricia's mom kept trying to erase her dad from their lives, and Tricia kept trying to pencil him back in.

  “Quit being so crabby,” her mom said, smoothing Tricia's hair. “A new house, your own room… you're not quite as pitiful as you make yourself out to be.”

  Right…a new house. True, it was much bigger than their old one, and thank heaven she no longer had to share a room with Hissy. But he picked it out, so how could it ever really feel like home? The neighborhood had a hoity-toity guardhouse at the entrance and lawns that looked so perfect, a stray dandelion on a bright green carpet of grass was liable to trigger a frantic call to 911. The houses looked like museums, with white columns in front and ceilings so high that your voice echoed.

  “It doesn't feel much like home,” Tricia mumbled to her mom.

  “Give it time,” her mom said soothingly. “We just moved in three days ago. I've already seen tons of girls your age riding their bikes. By the time you start your new school this fall, you'll already have made loads of new friends. I guarantee it.”

  By now, Hissy had toddled back in and walked over to Tricia's bed. Her face broke into a rose-petal smile as she extended a pudgy arm and handed the CD back to her big sister. “A present!” the little girl cooed.

  Tricia grinned in spite of herself as she sat up on the bed and took the CD. “Thanks for the ‘present,’ ” she said, then grimaced and wiped a damp hand on her shorts. “And thanks for drooling all over it. I'm sure it'll sound much better that way.”

  She playfully pinched Everly's cheek. The kid was so annoying. But Tricia loved her anyhow. It was one of many paradoxes in her life right now. She had written them in her journal:

  I love having my own room. I hated moving.

  I love that Mom and Dad don't fight much anymore. I hate that they got a divorce.

  I loved helping Mom plan her wedding. I hate that she got remarried.

  I love visiting Dad. I hate that I have to visit Dad, because that's what you do with uncles, not dads. Dads are supposed to live with you.

  I love that Mom has new people in her life to love. I hate having to share her.

  I love that I'm almost a teenager. I hate being twelve.

  “Why don't you read Everly a story while I finish the lunch dishes?” her mom said, tossing the dish towel over her shoulder and walking back toward the kitchen.

  Tricia grumbled. “Let's cut to the chase,” she said to her sister, who was already cuddling into her lap. “Everybody lived happily ever after. Or, in your case, they lived happily Everly after.”

  “Book!” Everly demanded, so Tricia sighed, reached across her bed and grabbed Cinderella, Everly's favorite, from her bedside table. Everly called it “Umberella.” Tricia turned to the first page.

  “Once upon a time, there lived a girl named…”

  She always paused at this part.

  “Umberella,” Everly said, filling in the word on cue.

  “Umberella,” Tricia repeated, kissing the top of her sister's silky head. Then she improvised. “See, Umberella had everything going for her until her dad hooked up with some new family, at which point Umberella turned into the leftover meat loaf somebody puts in the back of the refrigerator and forgets all about until the meat loaf starts stinking up the place, at which point everybody hates the meat loaf, as if it's the meat loaf's fault that everybody forgot about it and it turned all stinky.”

  “Umberella,” Everly repeated contentedly, flipping to the back of the book so she could see her favorite picture of Cinderella transformed into a beautiful princess.

  “Right,” Tricia muttered. “And they all lived happily Everly after.”

  2

  “You're going out like that?”

  Twelve-year-old Hope's bright blue eyes narrowed as she stopped in her tracks on her way toward the front door. “Like what?”

  Hope's stepmother, Jacie, waved a hand through the air, aiming for casual as she stood in the foyer subtly inspecting her rumpled stepdaughter. “Oh, nothing. It's just…your hair's a little messy.”

  Hope tried to feign indifference, but she self-consciously tucked an unruly copper-colored ringlet behind her ear.

  “Your hair looks fine,” Hope's best friend, Mei, said gently. Hope loved Mei for being supportive; she'd been loyal to the core since they met four summers earlier, when Hope had moved into the neighborhood. But Hope couldn't help feeling a twinge of envy. Mei's glossy black hair framed
her delicate Asian features beautifully. Why couldn't Hope have sleek, straight hair? And why was Jacie constantly rubbing it in her face that she didn't?

  “Where are you girls going, anyhow?” Jacie asked, eager to change the subject and defuse her supersensitive stepdaughter's irritation.

  “Just out,” Hope replied tersely.

  “We thought we'd bum around the neighborhood for a while,” Mei said with a smile. It was true that Jacie's “constructive” criticism wore a little thin, but Mei thought she was a nice lady who tried awfully hard. And the things Hope most disliked about her stepmother—her fine blond hair, her dainty nose, her ultrafeminine flair—were beyond her control anyhow. It wasn't fair for Hope to despise Jacie for being pretty. But she did. Mei always felt torn when she was around them…Jacie trying so hard, yet always managing to say the wrong thing… Hope never giving her the benefit of the doubt, yet with often understandably hurt feelings. They were both great people. But they weren't great together. Kind of like Mei and her stepfather, Stan. A lot like that, actually.

  “Aren't you supposed to be tutoring Leighton now?” Jacie asked Hope.

  Hope rolled her eyes. “She stood me up. Again.”

  Hope and her thirteen-year-old neighbor, Leighton, had nothing in common except that they were both going to be eighth graders at Clearview Middle School. Academics had never been Leighton's strong suit, and when she joined the cheerleading squad in seventh grade, schoolwork fell completely off her radar screen. Hope's natural intelligence combined with her mind-of-their-own ringlets sealed her fate as Clearview Middle School's official nerd—the polar opposite of gorgeous, too-cool Leighton. When Leighton's mom had asked Hope to tutor her daughter in math over the summer, Hope had been less than optimistic—and less than thrilled— at the prospect of spending so much time with the biggest snob in school. No big surprise that Leighton had blown off the first two sessions.

  “Did you call her?” Jacie asked, looking concerned.

  “Duh,” Hope said. “Her mom answered the phone and said, ‘I thought she was at your house.’ ”

  Mei laughed lightly at Hope's breathy imitation of Leighton's clueless mother.

  “Maybe she's on her way over,” Jacie said.

  “Or maybe not,” Hope replied. “Considering she should've been here forty minutes ago, I'm thinking not.”

  Jacie's eyebrows furrowed. “I really hope the tutoring works out,” she said. “I'd love for you to get to know Leighton better. She seems like such a nice girl.”

  Hope and Mei exchanged glances, and Mei forced herself not to smile. There were lots of ways to describe Leighton, but “nice girl” didn't make the cut.

  “C'mon, Mei,” Hope said, reaching for the doorknob. “We're outie.”

  “Bye,” Mei said to Jacie, then followed her friend out the front door.

  Hope made a point of slamming the front door with a flourish, then shook her head as she and Mei walked down the driveway. “ ‘She seems like such a nice girl,’ ” she said, imitating Jacie. “ ‘And maybe if you hang around her, dear, you can pick up some beauty tips.’”

  Mei gave her friend a playful push. “Your poor stepmother,” she said. “She can't win with you.”

  Hope shrugged, holding the palms of her hands skyward. “Duh. You can't exactly win with a loser, now, can you, Einstein?”

  But her tone was light, and a warm breeze blew the smell of jasmine in their direction. Hope took a deep breath. True, Jacie was totally annoying. But on a warm summer day with her best friend by her side, how bad could things be?

  3

  Beeeeep!

  Pedestrians were so annoying.

  Leighton adjusted her sunglasses and floored the accelerator of her golf cart. The pedestrian she almost nailed shot her an icy glare, but Leighton had already moved on. Funny that she was in a hurry, considering she was going exactly nowhere, but that never slowed her down. She tossed her head jauntily, her thick brown hair flowing behind her like a wave.

  “You act like you rule the universe,” her stepbrother, Kyle, had told her once.

  “Trust me: if I did, you'd be long gone,” she'd replied.

  True, she had nowhere to go on this hot June afternoon, but since summer vacation had started a week earlier, Leighton had been having serious issues with personal space. Kyle was barely tolerable during the school year, but at least they had separate teachers. (Kyle was in all the brainiac classes.) Having to deal with him 24–7 at home was going to make for a very long summer. Thank God she'd finally worn down her mom and stepdad, convincing them that if she didn't have her own golf cart, she'd just die. Of course, now that she had one, she was thinking what she really needed was a BlackBerry so she could IM her friends from wherever she escaped to. Give her a week… two weeks tops. She'd wear 'em down. She always did.

  It wasn't that she was spoiled. “So the opposite,” she said with a sniff to her friends when they leveled the accusation. She and her mom had been downright poor all those years they'd lived together, just the two of them, in one tiny apartment or duplex after another. Leighton hadn't been thrilled when her mom remarried a year earlier (hello, nerdy Kyle came with the package), but at least her stepdad, Carl, was rich, compared to what she was used to. No more shopping at those tacky outlet stores for irregulars or off-season clearance items. Trendy clothes and a golf cart were the least she deserved, putting up with a loser stepbrother who was only one month older and in the very same grade.

  “That's your brother?” people had asked her constantly during seventh grade as he ambled toward his locker, all gangly arms and knobby knees.

  “Step,” she would quickly clarify. “Totally separate gene pool.” As if it wasn't, like, so obvious. Leighton was the prettiest girl at Clearview Middle School (simply a fact… everybody said so) and Kyle was the dorkiest guy. Just her luck that their parents had met at the school's open house two years earlier and had made like lovesick teenagers ever since. The wedding was nothing short of mortifying, with gawky Kyle adjusting the fly of his tuxedo while he walked Leighton down the aisle.

  “Would you stop it!” she'd spat under her breath, not yet having learned that Kyle was hopeless, a lost cause, a poster child for dweebs, with his black-rimmed glasses and show-off vocabulary. Leighton was the coolest kid in middle school, but even she couldn't redeem Kyle. The most she could hope for was to avoid him. Without this golf cart, she'd be sunk. Now all she needed was a BlackBerry….

  Beeeeeep!

  Leighton slammed on her brakes. Some moron on a skateboard had just whizzed directly into the path of the golf cart. The horn apparently startled the skateboarder, who veered too sharply, then crashed onto the sidewalk in a heap.

  “You okay?” Leighton asked hesitantly, too irritated from the disruption to feign much concern.

  “I'm fine,” the skateboarder said, standing up and brushing damp grass off her legs. She was annoyed, too. It was the golf cart that had come tearing into her path, not the other way around.

  “I'm Tricia,” the skateboarder said.

  Leighton curled her lip and pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head, revealing ocean green eyes. “Yeah, well…I'm outta here,” she said, preparing to zoom off again.

  “Where ya headed?” Tricia asked, more out of boredom than curiosity.

  Leighton raised an eyebrow. “Around,” she said coolly.

  Tricia rolled her eyes. So much for her mother's guarantee of “loads of friends” in her new neighborhood. “Yeah, well, see ya,” she replied, then righted her skateboard and prepared to hop back on.

  “Uh…,” Leighton said hesitantly.

  “Yes?”

  “My name's Leighton.” She smoothed a lock of hair with the heel of her hand.

  Tricia's face grudgingly softened into a smile. “Hi, Leighton. I just moved into the neighborhood three days ago.”

  “Where are you headed?” Leighton asked, trying to sound uninterested.

  Tricia shrugged. “Nowhere. Just trying t
o escape. If I stayed home, I'd be stuck reading “Cinderella” to my little sister for the fiftieth time in a row.”

  Leighton giggled and held fingertips with manicured nails against her lips. “I'm escaping, too. My dweeby stepbrother.”

  “What's his name?” Tricia asked, nudging the skateboard lazily back and forth with her foot.

  “Kyle. Kyle Clayton. Ugggh.”

  Tricia brightened. “Hey, I know a Kyle Clayton. Did he go to Northside Elementary School?”

  Leighton rolled her eyes. “Yeah.”

  “Me too. He was in my third-grade class. Isn't he, like, a genius?”

  “Whatever.” Leighton sniffed.

  “He's funny, too,” Tricia said. “He said such off-the-wall things in class. He was always making us laugh.”

  “Yeah, he's a regular riot,” Leighton said, then pulled a tube of lipstick from the pocket of her low-rise shorts and slowly circled her full, peach-colored lips. She smacked them together and returned the lipstick tube to her pocket.

  “You wear lipstick already?” Tricia asked in a tone that Leighton wasn't sure was admiring or disapproving.

  “Duh,” she responded. “Since like sixth grade.”

  “What grade are you in now?”

  “I'm going into eighth. I know: you're thinking I look like I'm in high school.”

  “Ohh-kay.” Tricia resisted the urge to snicker.

  “Everybody thinks that,” Leighton continued breezily. “High school seniors have asked me out.”

  Now, that was pretty impressive. “Does your mom let you date them?” Tricia asked.

  Leighton leaned closer with a conspiratorial smile. “Not yet. But I'm thinking this is the year I wear her down. There's a hottie named Scott who I am totally crushing on.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” Tricia said in a playful tone. True, Leighton was a snob, but Tricia was more amused than irritated. And at least Miss All That was talking to her. Beggars couldn't be choosers.

  “Wanna come to my house?” Tricia sucked in her breath a little as soon as the words had impulsively tumbled from her mouth. It was probably a stupid thing to say. Leighton didn't seem like a come-over-and-play type of girl.