Things Are Gonna Get Ugly (19 page)

Mom holds her camera focused on me and starts snapping. “Smile! You look gorgeous.”

“Please,” I say. “Can you take pictures of me later?”

She gazes around at all of the kids bunched up with their friends, nodding their heads to the music, which is really rocking. “Sure, honey.” She winks, as
she heads toward the wall with the dance grams. “I'll give you some space.”

Space.
I don't need space. Winslow needs space and I need Winslow! Where is he? Is he outside with the rest of the boys? Finally, Tyler and Justin move into the gym and the rest of the sheep follow. I look to see if Winslow is among them.

I see a guy with longish hair and my heart flutters. Oh, right. He cut his hair. The suck-up. Where's Winslow? Petra hugs Caylin, who bounces and swishes her hair. She's wearing tight jeans, a black jacket with a lacy, frilly shirt underneath that's way too cropped to be a top. Justin has his hands on Caylin's waist. She keeps on pretending to bump into Petra and Tyler. Is she trying, in her way, to get some distance from Justin? Then Petra turns around and sneers at me in my apron. It's like she has eyes on the back of her highlighted hair.

Petra motions at Olivia to come onto the dance floor. Pointing to Tyler's back, she smacks her lips like he wants Olivia to dance. She's acting out those fake e-mails we wrote from Tyler to Oliva. This is too much. How can Petra do this again? Not that Olivia is falling for it this time. Tyler's sort of rocking out in his laid-back way, swinging his head to the beat. Is Petra trying to get Olivia to dance with him, and,
then, like, what—spit in her face? In the distance, I can see Mom motioning to a bunch of kids to smile for her camera. To look all happy.

I can't take this anymore. Everyone else in the room stands in girl and boy packs. Someone turns off all the lights and some girls shriek. The lights go back on. Two sixth-grade boys pretend to punch each other while their buddies chase and bump into everyone.

“Don't forget,” says the DJ, who's all decked-out in holiday gear, “Santa's in the house. He's wearing a jingle bell hat.”

The crowd cheers, and I'm thinking,
Okay, where's Winslow?
As Ninai and Olivia whisper in the bleachers, I can tell they're thinking the same thing.
Where's Winslow?
Olivia's actually pushed her hair out of her eyes and is surveying the room. Then I glimpse Olivia and Ninai huddled together whispering, and something about their glances in my direction lets me know they're talking about me. I don't like it one bit.

“Yesterday, at some other school called Oakview, they were much louder,” says the DJ, naming our rival school.

“Booo, booo,” goes the crowd and there's not one big blond dude among the bunch. But he promised he'd be here. Maybe I missed him somehow.

“When they booed you, they were MUCH louder!” calls out the DJ.

“Boo! BOOO!” goes the crowd, a decibel louder.

“Boo? What is this, a Halloween party?” asks the DJ.

There's dancing now, mostly groups of girls. “Everybody dance! C'mon!” screams the DJ.

When's Winslow getting here? Why wasn't he in that Hummer?

Girls give girls piggyback rides, which turns into boys giving girls piggyback rides, which turns into girls giving boys piggyback rides.

“Time to wind down, and hook up with a slow dance,” says the DJ. “Listen to your heart.”

The gym thins out, and the couples appear from the periphery and fill out the dance floor. After another survey, I see that Winslow is definitely not among the couples converging onto the floor. He's definitely not the VERY short boy with the tall girl. They're swaying, their arms around each other. Only preppy leadership girls and the couples are out there. I see Petra stepping out with Justin. Certainly, Winslow should have been here by now. Everyone else watches, including me. There are a bunch of girls doing a group slow dance.

After the song ends, Petra goes back with her
friends by the wall of dance gram messages. I hear her laughing. “Thank god that dweeb didn't show up. Even if he's looking semidecent.”

“He still might.”

“I don't think so. Not after what I did to him.” Then they high-five.

It hits me like a rockslide, splits me like an earthquake, and drowns me like a flood.

Winslow isn't coming.

It's amazingly unfair. I'm punished, while Petra gets to celebrate after she cheated. I mean, nothing seems to have happened to her, and it's been more than twenty-four hours. Suddenly, I need to cry. I can't do it in front of THEM. They are about to pass this way. It's just too much. I race down the hallway, past all of the signs for the dance and the outside picnic tables, and find a bathroom that's far away from the blaring music and from them, my so-called friends.

Inside the bathroom, I let everything out and, after washing my face, stare at the mirror at my red eyes, my flyaway hair. I blot my cheeks with a paper towel, not even bothering to reapply lip gloss or whatever. What's the point? I look at my watch. Eighty minutes left of the dance.
He could still show,
I think.
Give it some time.
So I lean over the sink, my
hands on the cold porcelain counting to one hundred Mississippi. I am at ninety-seven Mississippi when I hear screams.

Not Silly!

I rush outside. The sounds are coming from the parking area. By the limo. It's covered with shaving cream and Silly String.

The words are sprayed on the windshield and on the trunk and hood. I just don't get it. Silly String. Toilet paper. That's Petra and Caylin's (and my) handiwork. They wouldn't do it to themselves. Beside the car, a straw dummy dressed in mule heels, a tank, and jeans, leans against the bumper.

Caylin and Petra stand outside with a growing crowd that includes the limo driver, the principal, Mrs. Barnes on a crackly walkie-talkie, and two teachers. The Girls are clutching their chests as if the straw girl is like a voodoo doll with pins through its heart.

Petra points to me. “She did it,” she says simply.

Principal Barnes stares at me incredulously. “Ernestine?”

“No,” I say, backing away. “Sorry. Wasn't me.”

“She did just leave the snack table,” says a voice in the crowd. It sounds like Mushroom.

I turn around. Yes, it's her, frowning at me with her porcini hair. “I was in the bathroom!”

“Oh, yeah,” Mushroom goes, “but you were gone a looooong time.”

“I went to the other bathroom. I just needed a break. From the dance. And…” I take a deep breath. “Don't stick up for them.” I point to The Girls. “Do you know what they think of you? They call you Maggie the Mushroom, and you”—I nod over at her friend—“Invisible Girl. Get a life. Dress how you want.” Maggie shakes her head and rolls her eyes at Meshell-like-the-beach.

Petra juts her jaw out and stares at me like I'm mono and bird flu all rolled together. “In the gym yesterday, she screamed a psychotic threat that something bad would happen to me today.”

“She completely did,” adds Caylin.

“I said something bad would happen to Petra because…because,” I say, sputtering, “I was trying to warn her.” How lame I sound.

I'm so far from myself I've forgotten how to react normally, like I don't even protest when Mrs. Barnes starts printing my name on some sort of pink slip
for Supreme NP. She's coming down extra hard on me, I know, since I was basically on probation due to the letting-Petra-cheat-off-me incident. Looking at my watch, I see it's already 7:55. The dance will end in a little over an hour now. How can I right this wrong? Will I have to wait until another dance, which won't happen until next year? By then will I even remember I want to be Taffeta? Do I even want to be Taffeta now?

Mrs. Barnes gazes at her pink slip on her clipboard. “We'll need to go to the office and call your mother. To pick you up pronto from this dance.”

“That's unnecessary,” I say. “Since she's here. Taking photos.”

“Last I saw she was over by the DJ taking some close-ups,” says Caylin.

Mrs. Barnes talks into her walkie-talkie. “Please bring Ernestine's mother to my office. She's over by the DJ.”

Suddenly, I see a hennaed hair vision whip past me. “I did it, Mrs. Barnes,” says Olivia, racing up the sidewalk, almost falling down. “I messed up the limo. Caylin and Petra had it coming to them for what they did to Ernestine.” As Ninai speeds up next to her on the curb, Olivia lists on her fingers. “Cheating off her,
TP'ing her house. It's our supreme birthday present.” I'm trying to take this in.
Olivia did this? Medieval Russian Queen? And my friend. Yes, my friend!

“Sorry not to say anything, but I couldn't tell you,” she adds in a low whisper. So that's what she and Ninai had been whispering about for the past few days.

My mind leafs through all of the incidents from last year, and I remember the fake e-mails that we—chiefly I—wrote to Olivia pretending to be from Tyler.

Mrs. Barnes stands there, blinking like she can't believe that I didn't do this.

“I don't care what you do to me. It was worth it,” says Olivia, looking at Mrs. Barnes. “Petra cheated and Ernestine got punished. I can't stand it anymore.” Ninai is nodding her head.

I stand there silent, completely ashamed.

“Put me on NP, give
me
a suspension,” Olivia cries out, catching the principal's eye. “I made the straw dummy. The writing on the limo. Let Ernestine go.”

No Show

Olivia's on NP and Winslow isn't going to show up at Winterfest because Petra told him that she had NO intention of actually dancing with him. I'm
having
such
a great time. The disco lights spin and the throbbing bass squeezes into my temples. Headache. I've got to get to Winslow. I'm looking at the clock. There's fifty-five minutes left of the dance. Seven to ten minutes to pedal to his house and back. Not much time. I have no choice.

I hop onto Mom's bicycle built for two and hope for the best.

Hard Knocks

After passing the thousandth blue Dumpster in front of another house in the middle of a remodel, I speed it to Winslow's. There's a very important gate around Winslow's house so I leap off my bike and, somehow, I scale the fence, scratching my legs but landing on my feet. Now I'm at the door. I bang a brass lion's head and ring the bell. Nobody comes to the door. Not his hot corporate mom or shooting-particles-down-a-mile-long-tube dad.

I go to leave when I notice that the garage door is slightly ajar, so I slither under it and push myself into a bowl of wet cat food. Gross. I have to do this, though. The lights are off and I grope around looking for a switch. Finding none, I push open the door into a hallway with a laundry room and cubbies filled with
shoes. Suddenly, I feel like an idiot (and a burglar). What if his parents are home? What will they think? What could I possibly say? Soon I'm in an enormous kitchen. There's a light on above the oven and I can make out a granite countertop, cherrywood cabinets, and gleaming stainless steel appliances.

When I hear footsteps, I hold my breath, ducking next to the kitchen island that stores carving boards and a wooden block full of knives.

Now I can hear someone padding into the adjacent dining room, and I go to call out
Who's there?
when I hear a whoosh of air and a yelp of pain. A cat screeches as the butcher block falls down and knives clatter onto the tile floor.

“Who's there?” I yell.

“OWWWW,” somebody moans—a voice I recognize—and another moan.

I flick on overhead lights that are on a dimmer switch by the fridge.

It's Winslow. His hair, although still short, looks almost messy. His T-shirt is black. This one says COEXIST. No polo shirt, no clean, pressed pair of khaki pants. The duct-taped shoes are back. Even the chain is back. It's ridiculous but I've never been so happy to hear clanging metal in my life.

“My hand's bleeding,” he says. “I think one of the knives scraped it when it fell.” He lifts up his head to gaze at me. “What are you doing here?” he demands, totally out of breath.

“I came to get you to go to Winterfest.”

“Heard of knocking?”

“I did.”

“Oh, riiiiight,” he says, pulling off his iPod. “I thought you were…whatever. So I used my tae kwon do moves on the butcher block. Defensively, of course. You're lucky you weren't hurt. Yesterday, I crushed Tyler in my sparring class.”

“You crushed Tyler?”

“Yeah, we're in tae kwon do together. He's been trying to build up his confidence after his, you know, the kidnapping thing last year.”

I'm so surprised I blurt, “Why would Tyler need to build up his confidence? He took care of those guys, the ones that broke into his house.”

Winslow scratches his chin where his love patch used to be. “Actually, Ty opened the door to the crawl space in his parents' closet and escaped under the house. The scar on his chin—you know, the one that kinda looks like a caterpillar—is from when he banged into something in the crawl space. He was
really scared. He started taking tae kwon do to get over the fear thing. I've been trying to help him.”

“You?” Now it's
my
turn to almost knock into the counter.

“Shocking, I know. Ever since I got my black belt I've been helping the dojo and, sometimes, Ty even comes over to my house for some pointers.” He taps his black, scrubby notebook. “I write down all of the forms we're working on and some sparring class techniques in here.”
Ooooh, that's why he's obsessed with that notebook.
“Plus, I'm trying to learn some Korean. I want to know more than Kibon, Taegeuk, and Palge. Which are forms.”