Mrs. Jonas snatched John Hancock out of Lydia’s hand. “To the office,” she ordered. “Both of you.”
At the trailer door, Mrs. Jonas paused. “Jenny,” she said, pointing, “you’re in charge.”
I jumped. Me? In charge?
As the door slammed behind them, I cleared my throat. “Uh, okay everyone. Listen up.” About a billion eyeballs bounced off
my body. Which made it swell in size.
I could play this two ways. Be responsible. Be popular. Some choice. “Free time,” I announced.
While everyone trashed the classroom, Prairie, Max, and I tried to unsabotage Lydia’s diorama. Except for the mustaches on
the girls—er, Founding Fathers—we managed to put most of the Chamber back together.
“Here they come,” Kevin whispered urgently from his lookout position at the door.
“Sit down and shut up!” I hollered.
The door flew open and Lydia stomped in, followed by Mrs. Jonas and Ashley. Lydia splat into her desk, fuming. It wouldn’t
have surprised me if her seat burst into flames. The smirk on Ashley’s face spoke volumes.
A whole bottle of aspirin wasn’t going to help Mrs. Jonas now, the way she looked. Luckily, the final bell rang. “Class dismissed.”
She waved feebly. “Oh, Lydia,” she called as Lydia charged for the door. “If you want to come in tomorrow before school to
work on your diorama, I’ll be here.” Under her breath, Mrs. Jonas muttered, “If I’m not in Bellevue by then.”
Lydia paused at the exit. In measured steps, she walked over to the window display. She picked up her diorama and lifted it
over her head. Then she threw it across the room and said, “That’s what you can do with your stupid diorama.”
Dear Food Diary,
For lunch I ate an Oscar Mayer turkey bologna sandwich, which tastes nothing like turkey or bologna. I even ate the crust
on both slices of light Wonder bread. I’m still wondering how they can get away with calling that bread. The Libby’s fruit
cup is for people without teeth, so for dessert I finished off Prairie’s brownie. Everyone else had hot lunch: hamburgers
and fries and corn and brownies.
How did I feel? Cheated.
It actually made me feel better to write it down. Ashley and I had one thing in common: We were fat. The difference between
us was that I cared. I was trying to do something about my weight.
Still, keeping a food diary was the dumbest idea in the world. How was writing down everything I ate, when I ate it, why I
ate it, and how I felt afterward going to help me lose twenty pounds in two weeks? Unless I got writer’s cramp and they had
to amputate my arm.
“Vanessa, Jenny, hurry up,” Mom yelled down the hallway. “Your father has dinner ready and we have to leave.”
I shoved my food diary under my pillow and rolled off the bed. The sound of muffled clarinet music wafted under my sister’s
bedroom door. I pounded as I passed. Don’t ask me why. When Vanessa was lost in her music, the world could end in a flash
flood and she’d be like, “Hey, don’t get my instrument wet.”
“Is Vanessa coming?” Mom asked, hurriedly pouring milk into our glasses at the kitchen table.
“What do you think?” I cupped my ear.
“Vanessa!” Mom shouted. She pleaded hopelessly at Dad with her eyes. He sighed and took off his apron before tromping down
the hall. Our nightly ritual.
Mom transferred dinner from the oven to the table. Dad had done himself proud. Corn dogs and onion rings. Fried food heaven.
As I was reaching for the longest, thickest corn dog, Mom clenched my wrist and said, “I made you something special.” She
set a plate in front of me with a scoop of cottage cheese on it, topped by half a canned pear. Sticking out either side of
the scoop were two sesame seed breadsticks.
“Think of it as Chinese gourmet.” Mom smiled. “And these are the chopsticks.”
I didn’t say what I was thinking, which was where she could stick her chops.
Dad returned with Vanessa in tow and we all took our places. Vanessa eyed my dinner and drooled. A ninety-nine point nine
percent DNA match would not prove to me that Vanessa and I were related. She was tall and skinny and talented, while I was…
Well, just picture the opposite. We did share one behavior trait: We both had addictive personalities. Vanessa was borderline
anorexic and addicted to the clarinet. I was a junk food junkie and addicted to Kevin Rooney.
“Jenny, did you remember to write down everything you ate today?” Mom smiled as she squeezed a glob of ketchup onto her plate.
I glowered in response.
Van began to scrape the cornmeal off her corn dog and said, “How about the Ding Dongs you have hidden in your drawer?”
I picked up a breadstick and broke it in half, indicating the technique I would later use on her scrawny neck.
“Vanessa, stop doing that and eat your corn dog.” Mom clucked her tongue. To me, she said, “Are you hoarding food in your
room again? I thought I told you—”
“I’m not hoarding food,” I snapped at her. Then I added, “That was Vanessa’s idea of a joke.” Ha ha, I thought. How’d she
know about those Ding Dongs, anyway? Borrowing a line from Max, I muttered, “She’s so funny I forgot to fart.”
Dad howled.
Mom silenced him with a scowl. She exhaled a short breath and said, “So, how was your day?”
Van and I both shoveled food into our mouths.
Mom said, “Vanessa?”
She glanced up and replied, “Fine.”
Mom cocked her head.
Vanessa shrugged. “It was fine. Uneventful. What do you want me to say? It was school. Duh.”
Mom sighed. “And how was your day, Jenny?” She twisted my way. “Don’t tell me uneventful.”
I sucked up a curd of cottage cheese and gagged. Setting down my spoon, I said, “It wasn’t uneventful.” Which was true. The
ongoing feud between Lydia Beals and Ashley Krupps had provided endless hours of amusement—for everyone other than the Snob
Squad, since we’d all been there. To Mom I said, “It wasn’t memorable, either. I forget.”
Mom aimed her corn dog at me. “You want your father and me to communicate more, but whenever we try—”
“Look at the time,” Dad interrupted Mom mid-rampage. “We better get going, hon. We don’t want the medical meter to start running
without us.”
She finished her corn dog, dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, and stood.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“You know,” Mom answered. “Marriage counseling.”
Dad faked a smile. “If we’re not back by morning, go ahead and put yourselves up for adoption.”
I laughed. Van didn’t. She bit her lip, looking worried.
In the doorway Mom slipped on a sweater and said, “Don’t make any plans for Friday night. We’re doing something together.”
As soon as the back door closed, Van and I exchanged expressions of horror. “God, I hope whatever we do is out of state.”
I switched her dinner with mine.
Van was quiet as she cut the pear into a dozen identically sized pieces. Stabbing the first piece with one fork tine, she
said, “Do you think they’ll make it?”
A frown creased my brow. “Make what?”
“You know, make it. Stay together.”
Swirling Vanessa’s corn dog in Mom’s leftover ketchup, I smiled in anticipated bliss. “They have to.” I chomped off the end
and finished in a garble, “For the children.”
Vanessa met my eyes and held. “News flash,” she said. “We’re not children anymore.”
Which made my corn dog go mealy in my mouth.
I
stepped down from the bus on Friday morning to find Prairie and Max waiting for me. “Where’s Lydia?” I asked.
“In the temp.” Max thumbed over her shoulder.
“We should g-go help her fix her diorama,” Prairie said.
Slinging my backpack over one shoulder, I led the way to the trailer. “I tried to call Lydia last night,” I told them, “but
the phone just rang and rang.”
“I tried, too,” Prairie said. “She sure was upset yesterday. I’ve n-never seen Lydia do anything like that.”
“Me neither.” Lydia Beals had a reputation as the biggest brownnoser in the history of the world.
Max said, “I heard all Krupps had to do was write a letter of apology.”
“What?!” My jaw hit the pavement. “No wonder Lydia went ballistic.”
We all fumed for her. “Lydia’s right,” I said. “Ashley gets away with murder. Remember that time
someone
flushed Lydia’s gym shorts down the toilet? It overflowed and since no one confessed, we all had to run laps.”
“I remember that,” Prairie said.
“We all knew who did it.” I seethed. “But Ashley puts on this horrified, innocent act. Then she claims she has a sprained
ankle and can’t run, so we end up getting her punishment.”
Max shook her head. “She never got busted for the graffiti in the girl’s restroom, either. Everybody knows she did it. Who
else dots their
i
’s with little hearts?”
Sometimes I did, but now was not the time to mention that.
“The problem is,” Max went on, “no one ever catches Krupps in the act.”
“I know,” Prairie and I said together. Prairie pointed. “Hey, there’s Lydia.”
Jogging down the sidewalk from the temps, Lydia stopped in front of us and bent over, wheezing.
“Lyd, you all right?” I put a hand on her back.
“I’m okay.” She erected herself. “Just an asthma attack. Probably set off by Melanie’s perfume.” She stuck out her tongue.
“We were coming to help you fix your diorama,” Prairie told her.
“Forget it,” Lydia muttered.
“They’re
in there.” She curled a lip. We all knew who she meant.
“Is it true all Ashley had to do was write you a letter of apology?” I asked.
Behind her glasses, Lydia’s eyes narrowed. “Plus, help undo the damage. Like I care anymore.” She stared off across the playground,
adding, “Someday, somehow, justice will be served.”
I hoped she was right, but doubted it.
As we wandered over toward the bleachers, our usual morning hangout, I said to Lydia, “I tried to call you last night, but
your phone just kept ringing.”
“That’s because I unplugged it after Mrs. Jonas called,” she replied. “She left a message for my mom, which I erased. Thank
God I got to the answering machine first.”
“What did your mom say when you told her what happened yesterday?” I asked.
“I didn’t tell her.”
Prairie, Max, and I exchanged surprised glances. Lydia told her mother everything, or so I thought. Since it was only the
two of them, Lydia and her mom had a really close relationship. Even though her mom could be a little overprotective, I sort
of envied Lydia’s home life.
We sat on the bleachers, Lydia and Max behind Prairie and me. Prairie asked first. “Why d-didn’t you tell her?”
I twisted around to face Lydia. “Yeah, Lydia. Your mom would be down here in a second raising hell with Mr. Krupps.”
“I know.” She let out a short breath. “But Mom told me last time she was getting a little tired of fighting all my battles.
She said I needed to figure out how to deal with people like Ashley; that there’d always be someone in my life trying to take
advantage of my good nature.”
That was a depressing thought. “Did she give you any tips?” I asked.
“Nothing that would work. All this psychology crap. Like ‘Try to find out the reason she’s targeting you.’ ‘Sit down and conduct
a dialog.’ ‘Strike a mutual agreement.’ Blah, blah, blah.” Lydia rolled her eyes.
“How do you conduct a dialog with sewer sludge?” I muttered.
Lydia blinked at me and howled. She had this really obnoxious hyena howl, but it didn’t bother me at the moment. It was good
to hear Lydia laughing again.
The warning bell rang and we meandered slowly across the soccer field to the trailers. Surrounded by the Snob Squad, I suddenly
felt at home. My friends were like my family—my family of choice as opposed to the ones I got stuck with. Before this year,
I hated coming to school. Dreaded every moment. But now, with the Squad (not to mention my daily dose of Kevin Rooney), I
dreaded the thought of school ending.
As soon as roll was taken, Mrs. Jonas handed out the weekly reports of our missing assignments. This week she’d listed everything
we’d missed over the last grading period. Mine ran on for three pages.
Mrs. Jonas said, “I’ve cleared it with Mr. Biekmund for you to skip science lab today and Monday, if you need to stay here
and work.”
My eyes scanned the room and came to a crashing halt on Kevin. He pointed to the floor with his index finger and mimed, “Stay.”
Which sealed my decision.
Just about everybody stayed. Unfortunately, Mrs. Jonas was serious about working. She wouldn’t even let us visit quietly.
Lydia, whose only unfinished assignment had to be her social studies project, immediately removed one of her trashy romance
paperbacks from her backpack and immersed herself in it. Rats. Helping her was going to be my excuse to move closer to Kevin.
I actually completed two math practice sheets and a geography map of Africa, whatever continent it’s on. But the effort cost
me. My foot fell asleep and my stomach was growling like a grizzly for a sugar fix. As I was digging in my desk for an old
malted milk ball or something, a knock sounded on the door. Mrs. Jonas rose from her seat and tiptoed over.
“Mrs. Jonas, you have a call from your ex-husband in the office. He says it’s an emergency.” Needless to say, all ears tuned
in. That’s the danger of complete silence.
Mrs. Jonas whispered to us, “I’ll be right back.” Her eyes darted around. “Jenny,” she said, “you’re in charge.”
Oh, great. My reward for being so responsible yesterday. The door hadn’t even whooshed shut before everyone transformed into
their natural selves—zoo animals. The chimpanzees started hurdling over desks and chasing each other around the room, while
the elephants stampeded out the back door. I noticed Hugh take Prairie by the hand and slip behind the big comfy chair next
to Mrs. Jonas’s desk.
Kevin sauntered over to me, which I hoped meant he had ideas of his own. Which he did. “You want to play hangman at the board?”
he asked.