by Laura Preble
“Can I tell you tomorrow? At school?” That’s it, buy some time. Queen of avoidance. Queen Geek of avoidance, I guess.
“Sure. But it better be good.”
Yeah. This plan better be good. I wish I knew what it was.
3
PARENTAL MISGUIDANCE SUGGESTED (or The Frisbee of Destiny)
Monday morning sucks. It sucks especially if you wake up in the dark with a lump of dread parked in the pit of your stomach. Nothing worse than a big old hairy lump of dread.
Euphoria, who is plugged into her charger in my room, bleeps to life, her green eye lights flashing. She pretends to yawn. “Why are you awake so early, Shelby?”
“What time is it?”
“It’s five A.M. According to my perspiration and respiration readings, and the fact that you yelled something about penguins in your sleep, I’d say you were having a nightmare.”
I don’t remember anything about penguins, but the nightmare part doesn’t surprise me. “I just have to have a plan and I don’t have it yet.”
Her lights flash in the dark, and I hear her processor whirring. “I don’t understand. Sorry.”
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and grab my fuzzy robe. It’s cold at five in the morning, even in the spring. “I have to have a plan to tell Becca. I’m supposed to be convincing her that I’m still one with the cause of the Queen Geeks.”
“Why does she doubt that?”
I consider explaining it all to her, but decide against it because it’s too complicated and I don’t really understand it all myself. “Let’s just say that we’re all having a little territory problem.”
“Oh.” She activates the room light, bringing it up from dim to bright at just the perfect rate for my eyes to adjust. Bet Samantha Singer doesn’t have a robot who can do that. Bet she doesn’t have a robot at all.
“Becca thinks I’ve betrayed her.” I decide to skip a shower, even though I have plenty of time, and I look through my closet for the loosest, most comfortable clothing that is still within the school dress code (no pajamas, no slippers, no fun).
“Why would she think that?” Euphoria picks up the clothes I discard and hangs them up as I throw new ones down on the floor. Again, I bet Samantha has a maid, but not one that works that fast.
“It’s too complicated to explain.” I decide on an outfit, slouch into it, and turn to Euphoria. “Essentially, they both want me to take their sides on this prom issue. But I can’t be on both sides, so I’m stuck in the middle.”
“Prom?” She follows me into the hallway, activating lights as we move toward the kitchen.
“It’s a kind of dance. Can I have pancakes?”
“Well, it’s a school day . . . but what the hick.”
I can’t help but laugh at her. “What the hick?”
“Isn’t that the way to say it?” She pulls ingredients from the cupboard and fridge, then sighs a mighty robot sigh. “Slang gives me problems. I should probably stop trying.”
I hug her shiny metallic shoulders. “Don’t stop trying. It’s fantastic.”
Euphoria doesn’t eat, but she likes to watch me while I do, and make sure that I don’t eat too much. Although I’d love to drop the whole prom conversation, she won’t let go of it. “So, why would they be fighting about this prom dance?” she asks as she sets a plate full of perfect golden yumminess in front of me.
“Becca wants to have this weird Geek Prom, and Fletcher is working on what he calls the ‘real’ prom, the one sponsored by the student government. The problem is, they want to have the events on the same night, sort of as a showdown.” I drizzle amber syrup all over my plate, making a little Samantha Singer face that I can stab with my fork.
“And each one thinks the other is trying to steal you away.” Euphoria grabs the syrup bottle and delicately tucks it back in the cupboard. She’s always watching my sugar intake.
“Something like that. I have to come up with some great plan to tell Becca today, and I haven’t thought of anything at all.”
Euphoria’s processors click and whir, a sign that she’s trying desperately to solve this problem for me. When Dad built Euphoria, I think he unconsciously intended her to be a sort of stand-in for Mom, so he programmed her with this weird maternal instinct. Consequently, she likes to interfere and meddle with every situation, just like a real mom. The only plus is that she has a super logical mind.
After a minute or two, the whirring stops, and she says, “I have it!”
“What do you have, exactly?”
“The solution to your dilemma.”
“I can’t wait. What is it?”
“Well,” she whispers confidentially, “you let them hold both events on the same night.”
I wait, and nothing more follows. “That’s it? That’s your great plan? How does that help me?”
“There won’t be any more fighting. They will both think they’ve won the argument, and you’ll all get along perfectly. Until the night of the dance, of course.”
“And then what happens?”
A couple of clicks and whirs, and she says, “Well, that’s more of a problem. But you’d at least have a few weeks free of conflict!”
“I’ve got to talk to Dad. Is he up?”
“He came in quite late last night. I think he’s still sleeping.”
“Well, it’s his own fault for staying up too late in the lab. I need a ride to school.”
“He wasn’t in the lab,” she says softly as I walk down the hall toward Dad’s bedroom. That doesn’t register, of course, although I hear her say it. I’m too focused on getting my ride and solving what I think is my big problem.
“Dad?” The door creaks as I open it; his room is like a cave, totally dark, and he’s huddled up under the covers in a big lump. I gently poke at his exposed arm.
“What?” He bolts upright as if I’ve tapped him with a Taser.
“Hey. Just wondered if I could get a ride to school? Please?” I try my best wheedling daughter whine, which usually works. “It’s been raining.”
He rubs his eyes and squints at the clock on the nightstand. “Isn’t it Saturday?”
“I wish.” I grab his arm and pull. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be late.”
He grumbles, but he gets up, stumbling in the dark for his pants and shirt. “Why can’t you walk again?” he mutters.
“It’s raining. And I need your advice, actually.”
He nearly falls over as he pulls on a sock. “You need my advice? About what?”
“I’ll tell you in the car. You don’t want me to be late for school, right?”
We pile into the old Volvo wagon, and since the skies are still gray and overcast, I’m especially glad I scammed a ride. “So, what’s the big crisis?” he asks.
I tell him the whole Becca/Fletcher prom tale. I tell him about Euphoria’s solution, which is to pretend I’m siding with both of them until the night of the prom, at which time I beg the earth to swallow me whole. He chews on the inside of his cheek, a thing he does when he’s thinking really hard. Finally, he says, “I don’t know.”
“That’s it?” I explode. “That’s your great advice? They ought to kick you out of the Dad club.”
He grunts. “Well, if you don’t want to choose sides, you don’t have a lot of choices. You can’t persuade either of them to change their minds, so you’re stuck. The only other option I see is to not be involved with either dance. And by the way, do you realize that in the larger scope of things, this isn’t really a problem?”
He pulls up in front of the school, and in my self-absorbed cloud of anxiety, I am unable to comprehend how right he is about this not being a big deal. There are many, many things worse than my little problem, but I am unaware of that at the moment.
As he drives away, I slosh across the grassy campus in search of a dry spot. Since our whole school is bungalow-type buildings exposed to everything, a dry spot is kind of tough to find. I guess the people who built it figured it would never rain in Sou
thern California, so we didn’t really need any shelter.
I spot Becca and Amber huddled under the drama building overhang, so I trot over there. “Good morning, fellow drowned rats,” I say. Immediately, my cheerful attitude is popped like an overinflated balloon by the look on Becca’s face. “What happened?”
Amber sighs heavily and looks down at the ground. Becca has her arms crossed and looks like she’s barely slept. Instead of answering me, they just stand there like tragic dolls. Elisa skitters into our space clutching a soda, and shakes her rain-soaked jacket like a wet dog.
“Thanks for that,” I mumble, wiping the droplets off my own coat.
“So?” she asks, taking a long swig of caffeine and sugar. “Did you tell her yet?”
“Tell me what?” I look from one sad face to another, hoping for some hint about what’s going on.
Becca puts her hands on my shoulders and looks me square in the eye. “Your dad is dating my mom.”
It takes a second for this to register, kind of like when you see people in movies get into car crashes and everything goes in slow motion. I process the information, and I determine that this is all a joke.
“Ha!” I shake off her hands. “You had me for a minute. Good job.”
“No, Shelby. I’m serious.” Becca’s hands drop listlessly to her sides. “He was over at our house last night. Our house is so big, I guess they figured I wouldn’t notice, but God, what am I, stupid? It’s insulting.”
I am speechless, something quite unusual for me. Amber puts an arm around my shoulder.
“Why didn’t you call me?” I hear myself squeak.
“Thea took my phone. She said I was ‘abusing my privileges,’ and then she basically banished me to my room for the rest of the evening. I wasn’t even supposed to see your dad, but I managed to spy on them a little bit. I would’ve called you, but I didn’t have access to any electronics. Not even my computer.” The bitterness in her voice is unmistakable. Never tear a teenager away from all lines of communication. It’s like taking the oxygen away from a scuba diver.
“Well, it’s not like we didn’t see it coming.” I lean against the wall and feel an iron basketball in the pit of my stomach. “I mean, last year’s Halloween party, the flirting, the questions . . . I’m not surprised at all. Just disgusted.”
“Hey, it’s not so bad,” Elisa says. “If they got married, you guys would be, like, sisters. Wouldn’t that be convenient?”
Becca and I stare at each other for a minute. I can’t even think about that . . . what would it be like, if we were actually related? Oh, but then we get to the whole idea of my dad getting married again, and her mom being my stepmom . . . and I feel like I’m going to throw up. Even though it’s not a total surprise, it’s still like the vaccination shot you get as a little kid: You know it’s going to hurt, but nothing prepares you for that nasty stab.
Luckily, the bell rings for first period. I’ve never been so happy in all my life to go to class.
We’re reading Hamlet in English, but I am totally unable to concentrate. My mind is on the whole earth-shattering revelation that my best friend’s mom is somehow involved with my dad. Involved . . . and what does that mean? Did they have dinner? Did they kiss? Oh, God. What if they have a baby together? I plunk my head down on my desk, unable to focus on Hamlet’s petty problems.
My English teacher notices, of course, because they always notice if you’re in a particularly bad mood and really don’t want to do English. It’s like they have radar or something. “Shelby, what do you think about Gertrude and Claudius?”
“They shouldn’t be dating!” I blurt out. “Her mother is dead, for God’s sake. Doesn’t he have any respect?”
She looks confused. “Whose mother is dead?”
“Mine! I mean, Hamlet’s!”
The class giggles. The teacher gives me a quizzical look and moves on. Not only is my own life in ruins, I’ve rewritten Shakespeare. I’m probably going to hell.
It’s still raining at lunch, so we are forced to huddle under the overhangs again, sheltering our runny nachos from the drips of water. Becca seems to be in a better mood, although I’m still feeling like a wad of gum under someone’s shoe. My dad’s shoe, I guess.
“Let’s look on the bright side,” Becca says, scooping fake cheese onto a soggy chip. “At least we know the person our mom or dad is dating is actually not a serial killer or used car salesman.”
Elisa arches her eyebrows. “Wow, that’s some serious positive thinking.” Rain drips down in sad little ropes.
Becca pulls her coat more tightly around her and brushes some droplets from her blond spikes. “I think I’d prefer to put my energy into Geek Prom instead of worrying about something I can’t control, like my mother’s love life. So, Shelby, speaking of love life, have you decided whether you’re siding with the boyfriends or your real friends?”
“That’s pretty unfair,” I respond, trying to buy some time. “Boyfriends can be real friends, too.”
“Not in this case,” Elisa says, wagging her head. “Naveen is with us, though. He doesn’t want to go to the real prom anyway, because he doesn’t want to rent a tux.” Naveen became Elisa’s boyfriend earlier in the year when they met at a Halloween party and ended up making out in my laundry room. Seeing Raggedy Ann and an Indian pasha rolling around in the dryer lint no doubt caused me permanent psychological damage.
“Jon doesn’t want to go either,” Amber pipes up. “He’s totally into our event. He wants to dress up like Rob Zombie.” Jon, a black-clothed artist type, became Amber’s sidekick after last year when he helped us create a website and then basically spurned Becca’s puppy-dog advances in favor of Amber’s darkly poetic charms. Now they share black clothing, and they both seem happy. Or depressed, I guess, since all they wear is black clothing.
“See?” Becca turns to me. “Everybody’s on board except you. So what are you going to do?”
I remember the conversations I had with Euphoria and Dad; I stare blankly into space. I realize they’re all waiting for an answer, and that words of some sort will need to be uttered. I just can’t figure out what they are at the moment.
Luckily, I’m spared when a girl we don’t know chases a Day-Glo pink Frisbee from the rain into our little overhang space, upsetting nacho cheese all over the drama building wall, and leaving Elisa with nothing more than greasy cardboard for lunch. “Hey!” Elisa yelps, checking for cheese burns.
“Oh, sorry,” the girl says as if she’s just noticed we are all standing in the line of Frisbee fire. “Really. Can I buy you some more of those nachos?” She says naa-chos, and has an Australian accent. She’s almost as tall as Becca, with short-cropped brown hair, large hazel eyes, and mod-looking black rectangular glasses. “Seriously, I’ll get you some more.”
Elisa thaws a bit when replacement nachos are mentioned. “Never mind. Lunch is almost over anyway, and it’s being kind to even call that lunch.” She picks up the pink Frisbee and hands it to the Australian girl. “I’m Elisa.”
“Hey. I’m Evie Brandt.” She extends a hand. “I just got here two weeks ago. And I’m damn sick of playing Frisbee by myself, so do any of you by chance have a personality?”
“You sound like that Crocodile Hunter guy. Or his daughter,” Elisa says.
Evie kind of stares at her. “That’s probably because we’re both from Australia. But for the record, they sound like me.”
“Good point,” Elisa says, nodding. We all kind of awkwardly stand there waiting for someone to speak. Evie gestures with the pink plastic disk and says, “Well, thanks again for understanding about the Frisbee. They have minds of their own.” She turns to go, although it seems as if she wants to stay.
“So what brings you here from Down Under?” Becca asks. Evie turns back toward us, and smiles slightly, a crooked, gentle smile. It’s that unspoken high school code: If a stranger intrudes on your conversation, you have to invite them to stay with some unimportant question, otherwise, the
y have to leave immediately in order not to appear desperate or stalker-ish.
“I’m here on an exchange program, actually,” she says. “I’ve only been here for two weeks, and I’m ready to lose my mind. I’m staying with a family and this girl, their daughter . . .” She shudders in something like disgust. “She’s a galah if I ever saw one.”
“Galah?” Amber asks.
“Sorry.” Evie shakes her head, as if to remind herself that we do not speak Australian, if there is such a thing. “Galah—stupid, foolish. It’s a bird that does crazy stunts. And she certainly fits that description. Of course, I suppose I should shut up, because some of you might be friends with her, right? Same problem I have everywhere; I never know when to shut up.”
“Who is it?” Elisa asks.
“I shouldn’t say—”
“C’mon,” Becca coaxes. “I’m sure that if she’s so galah we’re probably not friends with her. Who is it?”
Evie wants to tell us, you can just see it: She probably hasn’t had anyone to talk to for two weeks. “All right,” she says finally. “Her name is Briley. And what kind of name is that? Sounds like a kind of cigarette or something.”
I wonder . . . “Hey, is this Briley somebody who looks like an overcooked Barbie doll?”
“Yep, that’s her.” Evie smiles, crosses her arms, and says, “So, if you’re friends with her, sorry.”
“She’s my next-door neighbor,” I say. “And she is a galah.” I guess I never noticed Evie moving in next door, probably due to the glaring whiteness of Briley’s perfectly bleached teeth. I really try to avoid looking over there to avoid retinal damage.
With the mention of Briley, we all relax. Clearly if Evie doesn’t like Briley, she would like us. Briley is one of the perfect blond robots who populate our school, the girls who point and stare at us in the cafeteria, the ones who ask for help with their homework but then pretend they don’t know you during sports assemblies. Last year, we tricked her into doing a promotional commercial for our club, and we made her look pretty stupid, which wasn’t exactly nice, but she did volunteer.
