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  Joey opens the door and comes back in, wide-eyed with excitement. “Holy crap! Corbin Moon just high-fived me,” he says. “Man, this plan rocks!”

  I hear a squeak come out of Phoebe—it’s the same squeak I heard the day of the office supplies. But now it’s followed by a strange howl-cackle. Phoebe sounds like she’s in great pain. It takes a moment for me to realize it’s a laugh. She’s actually laughing. We all look at her, surprised. “What?” she asks, when she realizes we’re staring at her. “It was funny.”

  Joey looks stunned—seriously, I’ve never seen him look this way. Nothing shocks this kid. Mandy’s blackened mouth is hanging open.

  Phoebe turns a deeper shade of pink. “What?” she asks again.

  So, even though part of me wants to bury my head in shame for Joey, I laugh. We all laugh. Loud. Ms. Greenwood yells at us, but we are laughing too hard to hear her. Even Phoebe is laughing. Especially Phoebe.

  While we were so busy being amused by Joey’s bodily functions, Brynne was busy getting an illegally early start on her campaign, plastering the school with her face. It’s only been an hour and seven minutes, but her campaign flyers have been jammed up the vent of every locker, and the halls and stairwells are now lined with “Win With Brynne!” posters, featuring her larger-than-life-size headshot, which looks like it was taken at Glamorland. In the photo, she has this sort of dreamy look. Her hair is wavy like a mermaid’s, and the scar on her chin is nonexistent. If I didn’t know better, her picture might convince me that she’s some sort of superhuman creature, maybe even an angel.

  Two things become clear. One, it’s time for us to go public with our campaign. And two, anyone who says pictures don’t lie is most likely a moron.

  WE’VE SPENT ALL weekend coming up with a slogan and making posters, and on Monday, the public part of our campaign officially begins.

  “What the crap is this?” I hear Carolyn Quim say, as she stands facing one of our campaign posters. I walk carefully behind her, undetected.

  We’ve ended up using an idea of Delia’s—“Have Some Candy, Vote for Mandy”—for two reasons. One, it really drove home the reward concept, and two, Joey made good on a claim that he had access to an “event-sized” bag of Jolly Ranchers, which, we all agreed, were colorful, indestructible, and tastewise put most other hard candies to shame.

  “I don’t know,” Tamberlin says, not sounding too concerned. She grabs a green-apple-flavored piece off the poster, unwraps it, and sticks it into her mouth.

  I continue down the hall to science. Before I go into the room, I turn and look back. The two of them are still standing there, looking utterly confused.

  And then someone says, “Oh, yum. Is that one water- melon?”

  We’re at lunch and Phoebe is telling us about her first act of abolitionism.

  “I gave away my last Neo-Gel pen today, but it was worth it. Carolyn Quim rolled her eyes when Brynne called me an Albanian!”

  “I think she meant albino,” Mandy says.

  Phoebe gives her this confused look and asks, “Why would she call me an albino?”

  Mandy shrugs, smirking.

  Delia smiles. “Well, guess what happened to Olivia and me? We were walking down the hall and Brynne handed Corbin Moon a stack of flyers, and he was like, ‘Oh my God. You know what I just realized? Your initials are B.S.!’ And then he started laughing so I slipped him one of my mom’s cookies.” She looks over at me. “Crazy, isn’t it?”

  But I can’t answer. I’ve overstuffed my mouth with Chikkin M’Eaties and am now having to chew three times my normal speed, as Caleb Austin approaches our lunch table, flanked by preppy-boy Carson Winger and Sudoku Club president Ryan Stoles. I’m also banging the table with an open palm to get everyone to shut up about the plan. But they stare at me like I’m weird until I can finally swallow and tell them, “Caleb Austin is coming.”

  They look up just in time. Caleb reaches out his hand for Mandy’s, which she extends slowly and suspiciously. I wish he’d hold out his hand to me. “Congratulations,” he says to her. “I see you’ve started your campaign.”

  “Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

  “Always glad to have another candidate on the books.”

  Mandy laughs a little and says, “Really?”

  “Sure. This is a democracy, isn’t it?” Then he looks at me and shoots me one of his award-winning, heart- melting smiles, and I totally soak it in. When he rips his gaze away, it almost smarts.

  “Do you all know Carson and Ryan?” he asks.

  We nod. Phoebe hums an acknowledgment that sounds kind of like a low growl. Phoebe’s never really gotten over the Sudoku Club Incident from last year—where they stole our Bored Game Club membership drive idea and doubled their roster.

  “Well, they’re going to be helping me out on my campaign,” Caleb continues.

  “I’m campaign manager,” Ryan says.

  “Hang on, dude,” Carson argues. “I’ve done this before—”

  “Yeah, in fourth grade,” Joey whispers, as Caleb calmly quiets his campaign staff. “And he lost.”

  “Well, we just wanted to stop by and wish you and your staff good luck,” says Caleb, turning back to us.

  “You too,” Mandy says. As he walks away and I try not to look at him too longingly, Mandy winces. “That was so totally awkward,” she says.

  “Why? He’s not that hot,” I say. Okay, I lie.

  “Good lord, Olivia,” Mandy says, her nostrils flaring. “I didn’t say he was hot. I just mean that was awkward. He’s only been here a couple of weeks and already people are fighting over him.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I say, and shrug. I try to look casual. “Anyway, I think he’s totally weird-looking.”

  “I think I know what’s going on and I’m getting really grossed out,” Joey says. “Olivia’s in love or something.”

  “I am not!” I yell. “He looks like a—” I realize I have no idea what to say, because the words that are coming to mind are things like Spanish prince, or incredibly successful underwear model. “Chocolate Lab,” I finally manage. I mean, his hair is brown and thick and smooth. His eyes are that deep, thoughtful brown. And he kind of has that Labrador personality—easygoing and attentive, and he might even save your life.

  They all give me these grins that I don’t like, but luckily Phoebe starts coughing from swallowing her chocolate milk down the wrong pipe, and everyone gets too involved in walloping her on the back to continue that conversation.

  “Is she okay?”

  The ridiculous walloping stops, and we all glance up. Max Marshall is standing there, looking both amused and concerned.

  “She’s fine,” I say, embarrassed.

  But he smiles at me and makes it better. “Okay, just making sure.”

  And then, over Mandy’s shoulder, I see Brynne, who’s been watching Max and me from her table. She’s decked out, like all the Spiritleaders, in bright orange sweats (Spirit Dress-Up Day. Theme: Jailbreak). She has a broccoli floret up to her mouth but hasn’t taken a bite. When she catches me looking, her eyes flit to the side as if to pretend she hadn’t been watching at all. Averting her eyes. A sign of submission? Good girl, I find myself thinking.

  On the way to the buses, Delia and I stop by her locker to get her science textbook for homework. She’s telling me that she passed Joey in the hall on the way to sixth period and, for the first time, she didn’t hear him before she saw him. And Erin Monroe was walking next to him, appearing to be actually listening to whatever nonsense was coming out of his mouth.

  “No way,” I say.

  “It’s true. It was like it was an after-school special, and someone else—a normal person—was acting the role of Joey,” she tells me.

  Then Phoebe strolls by and waves to us. “See you tomorrow,” she calls from the crowd passing through the hallway.

  We hear a voice call to her. “Hey, Phoebe. Wait up!”

  It’s Brant Farad pushing through the crowd to catch up to her. And then
they get to the exit. He does the nice-man thing where he lets her through first and then follows, like they’re on a date or something. Sort of like a grown-up, human version of the command heel.

  I actually get goose bumps.

  BESIDES BEING FORCED to undress in public, there’s another form of twisted abuse going on in the Hubert C. Frost Middle School gym, and it’s called Sleeterball. Sleeterball was created by Colonel Sleeter, who taught P.E. at the school for like a million years and, lucky for me, retired the year before I got here. When dodgeball was outlawed in the county in 1998, Colonel Sleeter dreamed up this supposedly more humane version, so it’s basically the same game with a somewhat lighter ball, fewer ball-launchers, more inner-circle victims, and specific (but completely ignored) rules about hitting only between the shoulders and belt.

  When you “play” Sleeterball, it becomes pretty clear that the school board overlooked the fact that Colonel Sleeter had extensive military expertise in “ballistics and trajectory weapons,” which really means missiles and bombs.

  So it’s Tuesday, and I am in the middle of the Sleeterball circle, scared out of my wits. There are five of us left inside, and only one of them has a larger body mass index than me. His name is Charles Wooten, and he moves faster than you’d think—certainly too fast to hide behind. And yes, I’ve tried.

  One of the other potential casualties is none other than Brynne Shawnson.

  Amber Menendez, who seems to be looking for extra credit, shoots the ball across the circle at us, and we all scamper successfully and breathe a collective sigh of relief.

  But it gets worse, of course. Tamberlin catches the ball. She narrows her eyes and looks at me. I hop around, having abandoned any sense of dignity for the more important goal of survival. I run to the back of the huddle, which opens up and exposes me. We are all running around like roaches under the nozzle of a can of Raid. It is every roach for himself.

  Finally, having nothing to protect me from Tamberlin’s angry glare, I crouch and cover my face. I bring my arms close in to my body. I don’t have much, chestwise, but what I do have, I would like to protect. My body squeezes up and prepares for the pain. And then I hear the slap of rubber meeting flesh. And then a wail.

  I look up. Brynne Shawnson is doubled over, rubbing the red welt on her thigh. Her face is crunched up like she’s about to cry. “You’re out,” Tamberlin says, and cracks her illegal gum.

  Brynne stumbles toward the bleachers, and I blink and look at Tamberlin. She gazes back at me vacantly. I look for her eyebrows to lower, her lip to curl at me in disgust, for some sign that she still hates me. And then—

  Thwack.

  The ball has hit me in the back of my knee—Amber’s doing—and my legs buckle. The sting of the rubber is almost unbearable. “Whoops, sorry, Olivia,” Amber says, and appears to mean it.

  “Why weren’t you looking?” Charles asks, and gives me a look that tells me how stupid I am, just in case I had any doubts about it.

  I scoot out of the circle just as Tamberlin fires the ball back in. It hits Charles with a rich splat, square in the belly. “Awwww,” he moans, and bends forward, his hands on his stomach.

  I am back on the bleachers by the time he throws up. Everyone acts like it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened in weeks.

  But I am busy mulling it over, marveling at the fact that Tamberlin chose to assault Brynne instead of me. Marveling at the fact that Brynne is sitting thirty feet away from me, alone on the bleachers, nursing not only her injury but also her ego.

  Because I can’t exactly hop across the court and stick a piece of lame Freedent into Tamberlin’s hand, I stare at her until she glances in my direction. And then I “reward” her with a smile.

  Of course she doesn’t smile back. But what she does do is look away very quickly, and then back at me, and away quickly again. And it’s the weird nervousness in her glances that makes me really, truly believe that yes, Mandy could be right. And yes, Delia could be right. And yes, maybe even Phoebe’s right.

  It feels too good to be true. Could the plan really be working?

  That afternoon, Corny and I go to Kisses’s. By now she’s mastered the sod, although she still won’t step out onto the lawn. But today I get this wild idea all on my own. I take a few extra patio stones and make a short path on the grass. You can tell she’s not happy about it, but I get her to walk three stones out. She’s surrounded by all this enemy territory, but she manages to stay sitting on the third stone for close to five pretty calm minutes.

  She’s almost there. And maybe we are too. Like I said. Maybe it really is working.

  THAT EVENING, Delia calls me at home. Corny answers and comes to get me. “I think it’s the one who used to have all those pimples,” she says. She doesn’t mean to be rude, it’s just that in the dog world, people use words like roach-backed or dish-faced to describe a characteristic, and it’s a perfectly acceptable practice.

  “Guess what I just got?” Delia says, her voice full of exclamation points. “An Evite to Erin Monroe’s party!”

  “Really?” I say. Oh. “Wow. Congrats.”

  “You too, you goof. We all got invited—you, me, Mandy, and Phoebe. Obviously not Joey, since it’s a sleepover.”

  “Wow,” I say again, feeling a little shocked. It’s the first non– Bored Game Club sleepover I’ve been invited to in the year I’ve lived here, and I’m having visions of my eyebrows being shaved off while I sleep.

  “It’s the night before the Fall Ball, so everyone’s probably going to practice makeup and show off their dresses and stuff,” she tells me.

  “Well, then, what the heck are we going to do?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, none of us is going to that dance. Well, Phoebe thinks she is, but by then—”

  “Don’t say that,” Delia says. “You don’t know what’s going to happen between now and then. I mean, a month ago you would never have believed we’d be invited to this.”

  “True,” I sigh. Okay, I’ll give her that. But it makes me nervous because I don’t want to get my hopes up that much. Caleb Austin’s face pops into my head, and I close my eyes and forcefully bury it in the thought-free trunk of my brain. That part is getting so filled with things that if I ever have a problem with balance—or is it vision?—I’ll know why.

  “So you want to go to Erin’s sleepover?” I say.

  “Of course I want to go! Are you crazy?”

  “Mandy and Phoebe do too?”

  “I’m sure they do,” she says. “Come on, Liv. Aren’t you excited?”

  “Well, yeah, sure,” I say. Because I am. And I’m also terrified. It’s amazing—we’re getting what we wanted, and it’s great, but all of a sudden there’s a lot to lose. “Just don’t freak out with your response and act like we’re lucky to be invited.”

  “I know that. I’m not going to even respond for a little while.”

  Right away, I go check my e-mail. Sure enough, there’s the Evite in my inbox. Brynne, of course, is on the list. She’s already RSVP’d, which isn’t something I’d have expected from someone like her, who should be WAY too busy for a stupid Evite. But the strangest thing is her response—OMG I’M SO THERE, ILY BFF!!!!!!!!!! There’s like twenty zillion exclamation points—so many that it takes up an additional five lines.

  I feel weird, because her response sounds more than a little desperate. And also because that gives me a little thrill.

  “DO YOU REMEMBER your class elections?” I ask Moncherie during my Wednesday afternoon psycho session, after I’ve given her an update on how the campaign’s gearing up.

  “Hey, don’t worry, okay?” she says, giving me one of those wincing smiles. “I know it’s rough, but it’ll be over before you know it. One day, middle school will just be a distant memory.” I guess she thinks she’s comforting me.

  “But I actually think we might have a shot,” I tell her, feeling frustrated. “I mean, things are going pretty well in gener
al.”

  “Well, good,” she says, but in a way that makes me think she doesn’t believe me. Not really. “But remember, you don’t want to set yourself up for disappointment.”

  “I’m not,” I say, a little hurt. I don’t bother telling her how much we’ve already done so far. She just doesn’t need to know that—or anything about the plan.

  She taps her pencil against her palm and looks down at her notebook. “So, how are you feeling today?”

  “Like I said. Things are actually going okay for once.”

  “That’s not a feeling,” she says. “That’s just a…statement. A speculation. I need to write down—I mean, I need you to tell me how you’re feeling.”

  “I’m feeling good,” I say quietly.

  She exhales loudly. “Good is not an emotion.” She leans forward and starts making little round cartoon faces on the back of the manila file for my case. “This is happy,” she says, drawing a smiley face. She draws another, almost identical, but the smile is upside down. “This is sad.” Then she draws upside-down arches over the eyes on the next. “This is disappointed. Now, do you see ‘good’ anywhere on here? Good is—I don’t know—a three-bedroom ranch house with a fenced yard, or a, uh, spacious city condo. Or maybe a small cottage on the beach where you can hear the waves lapping the shore—no, actually, that would be great. But good is not an emotion!”

  I’m sure I give her a strange look, because she says, “Sorry, got carried away, but you know what I mean.” She opens a bottle of water and takes a sip. “Look, Olivia, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to force you—” She stops talking and shakes her head. “It’s just—well, if you don’t want to talk about the issues with your mother, can you just think about why you don’t want to talk about it?”

  My throat starts to feel tight. I clear it as quietly as I can, and say, “But I thought you were interested in what happens at school.”