The three new best buds laugh together over some apparently hilarious story Hunter is telling, and it hits me: There’s no room for a fourth member of the group. And the member who got kicked out is me.
That does it. I can’t reveal my secret identity right now. Not with Lucy around. Something tells me she can’t be trusted. Maybe it was the way she looked at me when she claimed she “wanted a bagel.” She probably doesn’t even like bagels.
Mid-laugh, Ellie catches me staring at them. We lock eyes for half a second before she snaps her head away. Where do I go from here? I can either join them and be treated like I have the plague or walk away and look like a wimp who can’t bear confrontation. Lose, lose.
I need to stall.
Enter: the vending machine.
I dig through my pockets for extra change and come up empty-handed. I’ll have to mime inserting a quarter, and then pretend my chips got stuck. I eye the assortment of chips and vitamin waters, deciding which item to fake select.
A deep voice calls from the middle of the cafeteria. “Benny boy!”
Duke waves to me from his table, a couple of rows down from my usual spot. “Come sit with us!”
The table looks crowded as is. There are about ten guys, all members of the basketball team, and squished in the middle are the two new additions: Jayla and Paris.
Paris scoots over on the bench, leaving an empty space for me next to Jayla. She points to the spot and mouths the words, Sit here.
I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to eat at the basketball table. Sitting squished next to Jayla doesn’t sound so bad, either. I walk over and slide into the spot next to her and manage a smile. My friends may have rejected me, but at least I have other options.
Ellie turns her head to the side, holding her chin out straight and stiff. She hates me. I know it.
“Don’t you have anything to eat?” Jayla asks. She smells like peach and vanilla, which reminds me: I’m starving.
I look at my hands as if expecting food to suddenly appear in them. “My food got stuck in the vending machine.”
Paris rests on her elbows. “We can get someone to knock it out for you.”
“No, thanks,” I say. “I’m not hungry.”
“A guy as big as you?” asks Jayla. “How are you not hungry?”
I straighten my spine. She thinks I’m big? Compared to her, I guess I am. Maybe the dumbbells I sometimes lift before bed are more effective than I thought.
While I’m here, I might as well do some digging to see what Duke has planned for the mascot. But how can I bring it up casually? Naturally?
Paris is eating potato chips. Jackpot.
“Hey, Paris,” I say. “Can I have some of your chips?”
She holds out her bag. “Thought you weren’t hungry.”
“I can’t resist potato chips,” I lie, biting into the nasty salt-and-vinegar flavor. “Speaking of potatoes…”
Paris smirks. “Speaking of potatoes?”
“Yeah. It just reminded me. You’re looking for the Spud mascot, right?”
“Yeah.” She leans in closer. “You know him?”
“No. Not at all. I was just wondering what was gonna happen once you find him.”
Her eyebrow arches like a villain’s in a comic book. “Let’s just say you’ll want to be at the game on Friday. It’s gonna be good.”
The game on Friday. The last game of the season. Of course the payback will happen there. It’s the perfect place to humiliate the mascot. The whole school will be watching.
My stomach suddenly feels very heavy, despite only having eaten chips. “But what are you going to do, exactly?” I ask.
“You’ll see,” she says in a tone that tells me I better not ask again. It’s obvious I’m not getting any more out of her than that.
Duke yells down the table to no one in particular. “Guys, look! A meat burrito!” He wraps a slice of pizza around a stick of salami and waves it in the air. “But wait,” he says. “Needs some salsa.” He empties a packet of mustard over his “burrito,” and the guys around him hee-haw like donkeys.
Cole’s cackly laughter rings out above the rest. He sits on the other side of Jayla. Ellie never told me for sure if she followed through with asking him to the dance.
I lean back to call down the table. “Hey, Cole.”
He reluctantly shifts his attention from Duke to me.
“You’re going to the dance with Ellie, right?”
Jayla and Paris gape at each other.
“Oh yeah.” Cole scratches his neck and steals a side glance at the girls. “It, like, just happened yesterday, so I haven’t really told anyone yet. But Ellie’s chill. You guys are tight, right?”
“Pretty tight.” At least we used to be. My stomach clenches and my ears burn. Cole will probably replace me as Ellie’s best friend. Cole, who doesn’t deserve her friendship. He hasn’t even told anyone she asked him to the dance, like he doesn’t even care.
“This is how you get your protein in!” Duke is a few bites into his burrito creation.
Seth Lopez shoves a hot dog up to Duke’s face like it’s a paper he wants autographed. “Duke, take this! Stick this in the pizza too!”
Duke wrinkles his nose. “This?” He snags the dog and flings it over his shoulder. “I’m not adding that—that’s gross.”
Look at that: Even Duke has food standards.
The hot dog bounces a couple of tables away and rolls up beside Hunter’s foot. He stares at it but doesn’t pick it up. Our hot-dog-chucking days are long gone. I don’t know if we’ll ever get them back.
I look over to Ellie and catch her eye. This time she doesn’t jerk her head away, and neither do I. Instead we hold each other’s gaze for about three whole seconds. In that time, she somehow reassures me that she doesn’t actually hate me. She looks sad, not angry.
I want to go sit with her. I wonder if she can tell.
As I listen to the chatter at my new table, I realize something. I’m exactly where I always thought I wanted to be. Jayla is on my left, and the basketball crowd is on my right. And yet here I am, when I should be happy, wanting to leave. Wanting to be at my old table.
A new realization hits. No—it more than hits. It smacks me across the face. It zaps me like an electric fly swatter. It bulldozes me over, kicks me in the shin, and screams in my ear: I like Ellie. I more than like her. It’s the kind of like that hums in my ears and turns my chest into a giant balloon that’s one puff away from bursting.
I don’t just like Ellie. I like like her. Oh no.
How did I not notice this before? It’s so obvious. When I’m with Ellie, I feel happy. I feel like myself. I feel not-like-right-now. If I’d been smart enough to realize this earlier, maybe I’d be going to the dance with her instead of with Jayla.
What would she say if I told her? Would she ever choose me over Cole?
It’s a slim chance, but if I never try, I’ll never know. It’s not enough to tell her I’m the Spud. I have to tell her how I feel.
21
Love Letters
That night, I sit on my bed scrawling out the most pathetic letter of my life.
I read over what I have written so far:
Dear Ellie,
Wait, “dear”? What is she, my pen pal? I scratch out the word and start again.
Dear Ellie,
This may come as a shock to you, but the truth is, I have been Steve the Spud for the past two weeks. Super embarrassing, I know. Especially now that the whole school hates me.
That’s why I pretended to be grounded. I really should have told you from the start. But I am a terrible person, and so I didn’t. I’m sorry.
I also wanted to talk to you about Jayla. At first, I was excited about the dance. But the thing is, I don’t
feel the same way anymore…
That’s all I’ve got. I cringe at the thought of Ellie reading this. But I forge onward, tacking on a sentence that I know immediately I’ll have to rewrite:
I have started to realize that I like you more
Ughhh. “I like you more”? I sound like a six-year-old. How can I word this better?
I have started to realize that I like you more think about you a lot
Too creepy.
I have started to realize that I like you more think about you a lot miss your company
Too formal.
I have started to realize that I like you more think about you a lot miss your company wonder if we could ever be more than friends
Sounds like a cheesy One Direction song.
I have started to realize that I like you more think about you a lot miss your company wonder if we could ever be more than friends notice how pretty you are
No. Just, no.
Maybe I could be poetic about it. Use a metaphor.
I have started to realize that I like you more think about you a lot miss your company wonder if we could ever be more than friends notice how pretty you are You know how in a potato field, you can’t see the potatoes growing because they’re hiding underground? Well, that could represent how sometimes things develop without you even noticing. Then one day, you dig it up, and boom, it’s there. Like my feelings for you…
BAD. BAD. BAD.
I crumple the sheet and chuck it into the mini trash can by my desk. No more letter writing for me. I’ll give Ellie the message in person. And just the first part about me being the potato, not the mushy stuff. I don’t know what I was thinking. Telling her I like her would only make things awkward between us and completely ruin our friendship.
I hop off my bed and dig the note back out of the trash can, worried that my sister will somehow get hold of it. I wouldn’t put it past her to dig through my trash. This letter would give her blackmail on me for the rest of my life.
It must be destroyed.
“Ben!” Mom’s voice floats up the stairs. “Time for dinner!”
“One second!” I hurdle over my bed with the note in hand and scour the top of my dresser for the little red lighter that Dad bought me once for a camping trip. I shuffle some books around but can’t find it. I could have sworn I’d left it here.
I search for a spot of red like I’m playing I Spy. I Spy with my little eye something that is…
Green! Turns out it’s a green lighter. It’s camouflaging itself on top of the green beanie on my nightstand.
“Ben!” Mom persists.
“Coming!” I snatch the lighter and hold it to the corner of my letter. I flick on the flame and let it lick up all evidence of my pathetic confession. A soft smell of smoke fills the room as my words transform into bits of ash drifting to the floor.
“Ben.” Mom swings the door open and pokes her head inside. I startle and drop the half-devoured sheet of paper. I catch it midair with my other hand and shake it violently until the flames go out.
“What in the world are you doing?” She peers over my bed at the ash-covered carpet.
“Just. Um. Playing with fire.” I drop the last scrap to the floor and cringe.
Her tone hardens. “Are those ashes on the floor?”
“I was just going to vacuum them up.”
She crosses her arms. “We do not light fires in this house. Understand?”
I nod vigorously.
She blows a wavy strand of hair out of her face. “You can vacuum after dinner. We’re all waiting on you.”
All the way down the stairs, she rattles on about how I need to have better respect for property and my room is a disaster and fire is not a toy and yada yada. At least she didn’t ground me. Not that it would make a difference, since I have no one to hang out with anyway.
We join Dad and Abby at the perfectly set table. Dad prays and we dig in—roast beef, steamed carrots, and Mom’s signature gluey mashed potatoes. I fork up a few slices of roast beef.
Mom glances at my plate. “Take some potatoes and carrots, Ben.”
I swallow. “No thanks. I’m on this new diet where I have to be purely carnivorous.”
Dad puts on a stern expression. “Listen to your mother, Ben.” He’s probably thinking, If I have to eat this, so do you.
Mom slops a huge serving of potatoes onto my plate, giving me extra, most likely as punishment for playing with fire.
“Look how Abby is eating so many carrots!” Mom says. She seems to have forgotten that Abby is ten, not four. But her praise-the-good-behavior trick works nonetheless, and Abby dishes up even more carrots.
“I did really well on my chair test today!” pipes Abby. “I made it to first stand with Brielle Mendoza! She’s really nice. She’s helping me with my scales.”
“That’s great,” I say, muscling a smile. Mom and Dad light up. I’m really happy for Abby. Her hard work is paying off. At least one of us is settling in here.
Then I zone out while Mom and Dad talk about boring stuff like Mom’s website designing and how Dad’s supervisor is a jerk. If Dad hates his job so much, I don’t get why we can’t just move back to California. The only thing I liked about Idaho was Hunter and Ellie, and now they hate my guts.
“Want to shoot some hoops after dinner?” Dad asks. “I mounted a rim above the garage this afternoon.”
Basketball’s the last thing I want to think about, but it’s been a while since I shot hoops with Dad. I shrug. “Sure.”
Mom cuts a piece off her roast beef. “I forgot to tell you, Ben. I saw your friend Ellie at lunch yesterday.”
“Oh yeah?” I say, as if I don’t already know about the chicken wing encounter. Buster nuzzles up against my leg, and I sneakily drop a spoonful of potatoes onto the tile for him.
Mom draws in her eyebrows. “She’s such a nice girl. Why haven’t I seen her or Hunter around lately?”
I know that look. She’s onto me.
I shred my roast beef with my fork. “Ellie’s been tutoring a lot. And Hunter has a new girlfriend.” See how I manage to tell the truth even when lying? I am becoming a master falsehood-wielder indeed. A fact I’m not entirely proud of.
Abby drops her jaw dramatically like she’s a character on one of those Disney Channel shows she’s always watching. “Hunter has a girlfriend?”
Dad tsk-tsks and shakes his head. “He’s too young to have a girlfriend.”
“I think it’s sweet,” Mom says, giving me a knowing grin. “Besides, kids this age just text and invite each other to school functions. It’s not like they’re really dating.”
Actually, Hunter invited Lucy to his house and he bought her a bagel. I don’t think you can get more “really dating” than that. But I’ll let her believe what she wants.
Abby swirls the potatoes around on her plate. “Don’t you guys think we eat mashed potatoes a lot? There are, like, a bajillion other things we can do with the potato stash in the cupboard.”
“I’d be happy to help you cook,” volunteers Dad. “What should we make?”
Dad and Abby take turns suggesting future meals:
“Scalloped potatoes.”
“Funeral potatoes.”
“Potato soup.”
“Baked potatoes.”
“Twice-baked potatoes.”
“NO…MORE…POTATOES!” I slam my fork on the table and glare at my plate. Three pairs of eyes watch me curiously, and Abby snickers under her breath.
“Are you upset about something?” Mom asks.
“Yeah.” Dad sets his fork down. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I inhale through my nose. “I’m just not feeling well. I gotta go to my room.”
I abandon my half-eaten food and head for the sta
irs.
Mom’s chair squeaks back, but Dad stops her. “Just let him go, hon,” he mutters. “He needs a little space.”
I tromp up the stairs, Buster scrambling behind me. He’s getting better at this climbing thing. Back on my bed, I curl into a semicircle around Buster, combing through his soft, sandy hair with my fingers as he rests his chin on my thigh. Something about petting dogs is therapeutic. Something about dogs in general. I rest my hand on his bony back and feel his body pulse up and down as he pants.
“Buster, Buster.” I scratch him behind the ears. A low moan rumbles deep in his throat. He stands, straightening his legs.
“You okay, buddy?”
His skinny little body heaves and huffs, heaves and huffs. He opens his mouth and…splat. Dog barf. All over my jeans.
“Ewwww, Buster!” I examine the damage. Potatoes. Naturally.
After rinsing off in the bathroom and replacing my sheets, I change into my red flannel pajamas. I flick off the light and crawl under my covers, but it becomes obvious I won’t be falling asleep anytime soon. Thoughts whirl around my brain like a giant tornado: Will I survive the last game tomorrow? Will my friends hate me forever? What kind of revenge is in store for the Spud?
I don’t want to think anymore. There’s only one place I can go to escape. I click on my desk lamp, prop a pillow behind my back, and open my go-to app: CloudGerbil. I rhythmically tilt my phone from side to side, helping the cartoon gerbil jump high and higher, up into the sky and away from his problems.
Somewhere around level twenty, someone taps on my door.
“Ben?” It’s Mom. I lie down and slide the glowing phone under my back.
The door creaks open. “Ben,” she whispers, hovering in the doorway.
I breathe deeply and pretend to be asleep, just wanting to be left alone. Miraculously, Mom sighs and shuffles her fuzzy slippers out the door.
I remain still in case this is a trap. For all I know, she’ll pop back in after thirty seconds and yell, Gotcha! I keep my eyes shut, and soon enough, fake sleep melts into real sleep as my consciousness drifts away to join the gerbil up in the clouds.
My Life as a Potato Page 13
