Things Are Gonna Get Ugly (7 page)

A Sour Note

Apparently, during fifth-period elective, I'm in orchestra.

Ninai's now opening the double doors and, before I know it, I am swept into the music room along with all of the other orchestra dorks.

“You don't need to be nervous about your solo coming up,” Ninai babbles. “You'll do fine in the concert.” Students pluck violins, violas, and cellos as they tune their instruments.

Concert? What concert? That means I have to play an instrument I know nothing about in front of actual, live human beings. A couple of violinists play something very complicated as their fingers dance up and down the strings. I have to do that? I don't know the difference between Mozart and Beethoven. It all sounds the same to me, like the soundtrack of a movie about someone dying or a
National Geographic
special about penguins. There's just no way!

“Ernestine, are you okay?” asks Ninai.

“Um, not great. Feeling sort of sick, actually. Tell Mr.—” I point to a dude in a Beatles-like haircut.

“Mr. Takashama,” finishes Ninai.

“Yeah, that guy. Tell him I'm at the nurse's office.”

With that I hold my stomach and bolt out of the double doors and into the hallway, where the only sounds are the fluorescent lights buzzing.

I spend fifth period in the girls' bathroom.

Look at Me!

At the beginning of the fifteen-minute break before sixth period, I sprint to the library, figuring that's where a geek of Winslow's magnitude would be hanging out. Olivia sits at the front desk, stamping magazines that look very important and celebrity-free. I can't believe she actually takes library skills for her elective AND does that Book Worm club after school. I edge away from her and duck by a rack of paperbacks, but she's spotted me anyway.

“Ernestine, is that you?” I'm crouching and somehow my head hits the books, knocking down a copy of
Holes
.

Olivia leans over the counter. “We missed you at lunch. Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I say, standing up and sliding the book back onto the rack.

“What were you talking about in Mr. Drabner's class? What's going on? Did he write you up?”

Mr. Drabner? Oh, right. Dribble's real name. I always forget. I shrug. “I'm
so
sorry. I don't know what I was thinking or saying. I haven't been feeling too hot. But Dribble was kind of cool about the whole deal. I mean, he didn't even give me detention or anything.”

For some reason, Olivia gives me her small, crooked-teeth smile. “What did I do? Tell me what I said. I knew I was magic. Last night, I had a dream I was soaring, Erneski, on an orange moonpie rocket through firefly winks to you.” She whirls around and smiles blissfully. Suddenly, I want to make like a spaceship and take off, but I keep myself grounded.

“Um, yeah, that's it. Olivia. You're so very powerful. Now, use your powers and tell me where Winslow might be.”

She bites her lip and her eyes grow big and suddenly a little bit mean. “Winslow who?”

“Fromes. Is there any other Winslow in this school?”

She stamps a
National Geographic
about pregnant pygmies. The date thingie pounds right on the little woman's tummy.

“Have you seen him?”

“Nyet.”
Olivia keeps stamping, even though there's no more magazines. There's a reason, I think, that a female geek like Olivia, who happens to have very good bone structure, is a geek and not a diva. She has
zero
social skills. Can you imagine if teachers gave out grades for social skills? Then all of the geeks would fall to the bottom of the class.

“Do you know where Winslow would be?” I ask in a louder voice.

“Do I look like his mother? Dial 411 if you're so curious.” Wow, Olivia has more attitude than me. She's done a complete one-eighty.

“I just thought that—”

“I'd be keeping track of him every sec because that's what I do with my time?”

“Something like that,” I said. “It's a homework question.”

She pauses, knotting her babushka scarf around her neck. “He's in the computer lab.” I can't quite figure Olivia out. She's was just so nice to me, and then, with one mention of Winslow, she goes PMS.

As another student library aide rattles her book cart past me, I make a beeline for the computer lab. This is going to be easy-peasy pie.

Target Found

In the front of the room, I spot Winslow's big blond ponytailed head, which is sort of distinctly flat, like his mother put him down on his back too much when he was a baby. He's typing so fast the chain looped onto his pants clang against the chair. Today,
Winslow sports a white T-shirt with black spots that says
Deja Moo
.

I stand behind him and go, “Hey, Wins,” in my best reel-in-a-boy voice, but he keeps on typing. Listening to their iPods, two girls next to him chat online with their friends.

“Heh-lo,” I say again, stomping my foot. The girls turn around and stare. Winslow still doesn't budge. His thick fingers hip hop on the keyboard and his eyes laser into the screen, where a dragon shoots a ball of fire at a princess in a plunging-neckline–type dress.

As the princess sprinkles some dust, shrinking the dragon, Winslow mumbles, “Hey,” to me, and then goes right back to staring at his screen filled with those flying dragons, centaurs, and scantily clad Xena types.

Is a computer screen
so
much more interesting than my face?

Yup. I, unfortunately, glimpse my reflection in the glass office next to the lab. My glasses don't fit—they are halfway down my nose. My hair makes a golden frizz halo around my shoulders. That's right—at the moment, I am Ernestine. This is
so
pathetic.

I tap Winslow on the shoulder. “I need to talk to you right away,” I say urgently, and this time he turns
around, blinking, as if the lights were just switched on after hours of darkness.

“Okaaaay,” he says, obviously irritated at being interrupted. “What?”

The bell rings, blaring in my brain, and I realize a quiet moment alone in middle school is an oxymoron.
Where am I getting these vocab words from?

“We'll walk and talk,” I say. As the two iPod girls exit the computer lab, Winslow gathers up his messy binder, jams it into his canvas backpack, and I follow him out the door. As he weaves through the hallway, jocks bang into him, and he crashes into a kid in a wheelchair. His duct-taped shoes make a crinkly sound as he walks. Winslow is s
o
oblivious. Can't he see everyone watching, disapproving? I can. They are also looking at me. Just being near him incriminates me further as a loser. As we stroll past rows of blue lockers, I can feel the stares. It's as if we're walking in a giant bubble together and every kid in the school wants to stick in a finger, see it pop, and watch the two of us disintegrate.

An Indecent Proposal

He's standing there with his ponytail, biting the ends of it. There's hair in his eyes, and a monster
thrashing on his PDA. Warts dot the creature's face, and it blows smoke in my direction. Now the ponytail is out of his mouth and he's munching on some Cool Ranch tortilla chips.

“So, are you going?” I blurt out and nod over at a poster for the dance taped up on the cinder blocks above the water fountain.

“Where?”

“Winterfest. The dance.”

Winslow shrugs. “What do you think?”

I don't.
“Are you?”

He shifts his feet and cups his chin so that his neck cracks. He shrugs again.

“So are you?” I repeat, feeling all interrogator-like.

“Look at me,” he says, patting his chest.

I take in his T-shirt, his ponytail, his duct-taped sneakers, and the smell of Cool Ranch tortilla chips.

“Do I look like the type of guy who's all, you know, psyched about going to the next middle school dance? Like, eeny meeny miny mo, which girl is it going to be this time because I'm such a hottie? Tell me. The truth, now. Do I look like that type of guy?”

“No,” I say. “You don't.” Why does the truth spurt out of my mouth at exactly the wrong time?
I'm much more comfortable repressing, exaggerating, and telling lies.

He flips the back of his ponytail like it's his finger. “Thought so.” He plows past me and turns to go down the steps.

“You've got to go.”

“Why?”

“Becaaaaaaaause”—for a moment I think about telling him the truth but this time, thankfully, I think better of it—“if you'll go, I'll dance with you!” I throw out my hands. “That's why.”

“Oh, wow, that's so big of you.”

“Winslow, it's not like that. Okay? Just show up. I'm telling you, I'm going. It's not a maybe. We—me and you—are
going
to dance at Winterfest. End of discussion.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He goes back to looking at the tentacled monster on his PDA. “Not my thing.”

“You are so…” Ahhhh, I bite my tongue. Can I say what I
really
think of Winslow—I don't think so! Not again. “I'll dance with you. Are you getting this?”

“Look, I appreciate the effort but there're way too many people at one of those things. I've never
gone to a dance and it's not like I'm going to start now. The whole thing's twisted anyway. Invented by Leadership girls to make the rest of us feel bad. That's sorta against my religion—being made to feel bad. I can do that on my own. Thank you very much.”

“Okay, fine. Think whatever. But this is different. I'm not making you feel bad. I'm saying, Gooooooo. It'll be fun. We'll have fun. F-U-N. Fun.”

“No.” He shakes his head emphatically.

“No?!!” I'm getting mad now. REALLY MAD. WHAT. IS. HIS. PROBLEM??

“I don't think you like me,” he says, sighing heavily.

I lean into him and smell his ranch-dressing breath. “What do you mean I don't
like
you?!!!”

He tugs on his ponytail. “Ever since sixth grade we've been, like, in competition—who's the biggest social loser. Me, gaming freak, or you—leader of brain girls. And some days, I win, and some days you're the big kahuna. But we've pretty much avoided each other, or I should say
you've
done that because, according to you, if the two of us were ever seen hanging out together it would be, what, like, double toxicity.”

A bunch of stragglers blow past us in the hall
and, for the moment, we're sort of swept apart. I let them pass, and say, “I don't think that. I never thought anything like that.”

He shuts his eyes and presses his fingers to his temples, as if the very thought of me gives him a major headache.

The second bell's going to ring any second. I
have
to get this over with. I don't think I can stand too much more of my new bizarro world. I lean even closer to him and see that his eyes are actually like Saturn—blue-gray with rings of yellow. “I like you, Winslow,” I whisper. “Really. It's not that I'm happy about it. It's, like, weird because I don't want to like you because, look at you, I mean, I really do like you, though.” I gaze at his lips, and they're full, fleshy, a little moist, and there was that love patch growing beneath it all, but I just have to do it—lean forward to kiss him, like with Justin on the swing at Petra's party.

Ohhhhhhhh, How is this My Life?

I close my eyes because I can't look. Grasping with my arms, I reach out and pull him toward me, but it's not so easy because he's big and stiff as a board. I fall into him, into his canvas backpack with the
little red buttons that say BYTE ME and DANGER, OPEN MIND, pressing into my ribs, and I start to kiss him. My lips graze his cheek, which feels cool and peach fuzzy. Puckering up, I search out his lips, still without actually opening my eyes, because I don't
actually
want to see what I'm doing on Winslow's face. I squeeze my stomach muscles together to avoid incoming nausea.

“Stop,” commands Winslow, putting out his hand like a crossing guard. He sounds more than a
little
irritated.

I'm being pushed away. By Winslow?

In fact, I'm losing balance and falling onto the floor.

I peer up and see Petra and Caylin sashaying down the hall, and they are snort-laughing, which is NOT very becoming, even if you are beautiful. “Girl, did you just see that? Omigod,” goes Petra, holding her stomach. “Ernestine's hot for Winslow.”

Looking suddenly sheepish, Winslow shrugs. “It's not my fault. I'm a chick magnet. Can't keep 'em away.” Then he glances at me like
I
am the one who wants to be Chewbacca's girlfriend. Hey, wait a minute. I sorta want to be Chewbacca's girlfriend. At least, I need to get him to the dance.

Sniggering, Petra bends down and stares at me. “Who's next, Sneed?”

“I think it's gonna be Mr. Dribble,” says Caylin. “She thinks his purple socks are hot.”

“It's not what it looks like,” I say, standing up and brushing off my pants. Caylin and Petra make smooching noises all the way down the hallway. I CAN'T believe this. More whispers and giggles, strutting and turning back to stare at me.

Winslow leans down and glares. “I don't know
what
that was about but
don't
do it again.”

“Don't worry, I won't. Not a problem. Bloated computer nerds are not high on my to-kiss list. Whatever came over me was delusional.”
Uh-oh. Did I just say that?

Winslow wipes his mouth with the back of his hand as if cooties are dancing on his lips. “That's good because I'm more into human beings, you know, with feelings and normal human emotions. I guess you've got to do something desperate to get attention from a hottie such as myself.”