Getting Caught (8 page)

I look down at her, defiant, and mouth the words, “Is that all you have?”

She has her mouth in a wrinkled pucker, but it loosens just long enough for her lips to move in the shape of a “Fuck you.”

So, that’s it. That really
is
all she has.

I can’t help but be reminded of the early days of this prank war, back in ninth grade, when our jokes basically took all of a few minutes to think up. Back then, we weren’t cultivated pranksters. There was no build-up, no anticipation. Of course, as things got more heated and we began to anticipate each other’s moves, we gradually kicked things up.

But this is a definite step back. I mean, how hard was it to sneak into the audio-visual room and program the message into the scoreboard? The janitors always seem to forget to lock the room, so at least a dozen times during the past year, a surprise message would greet first period gym class. Usually it was stuff like “T.K + N.M. 4-Ever!!!”—but the point is, it isn’t that hard. It doesn’t require much work, and it’s almost impossible to get caught. In fact, I’d considered using the scoreboard a few times in hours of desperation but always found something better.

Hell, even the first prank ever was better than this. In ninth grade, right after that fateful summer academy, Peyton had this princess air about her. She would look down her nose at the clothes I wore, the bands I listened to, everything. All of a sudden, she had new friends in the honors classes, and she started following them around and acting like them, like she was better than everyone else. Better than me. Monkey see, monkey do. So I found a picture of a chimpanzee in a magazine, cut it out, painted a fake crown over its ears, and stuck it on her locker with the caption, “Princess Peyton.” As her best friend, I thought maybe she’d realize she’d been treating me like dirt and come around. Instead, it backfired. I didn’t think she’d get so worked up as to call me a loser and freak and rip me to shreds in front of her friends at Ken Greeley’s house. On top of all that, the next day, I found a cover of National Geographic taped to my locker, with my picture pasted on the front, half under water, just like the pool at Greeley’s house. The caption said, “The freak! She lives!”

Things went downhill pretty quickly from there. I refused to let Peyton have the last word, and I pranked her right back.

I look up at the scoreboard again. I still can’t figure out why she did something so petty and simple. Our rules quite clearly require that we outdo one another. Technically, I could tell her that her little prank doesn’t even count. No way is it better than my Harvard interview. But to do that, I have to actually bring up the Harvard thing to her face. And I’m not sure I want to do that.

So I’ll let this one slide. Besides, being the prankster is much better than the pranked, so why give her the opportunity to do two in a row?

“Hey, Stinky,” a deep voice calls, snapping me into reality. Dave is climbing the bleachers, two at a time, coming toward me.

I dig deep into my brain, trying to think of something halfway witty to say. “It’s Miss Stinky to you.”

He grins and plops down next to me, making himself comfortable. “Sorry.
Miss
Stinky.”

“Better. So what’s up, Switzerland?” I’m trying to be cool, but I’m sure it has to be obvious I’m overheating. Dave is sitting next to me, like, an inch away. And meanwhile, I have an audience. Peyton and the rest of the Pep Squad are staring at me, mouths partially opened, as if they’re watching an episode of General Hospital. It makes me want to squirm, but I force myself to sit still.

“
Mr.
Switzerland,” he corrects, leaning over, elbows on his knees, just as relaxed as ever. “Thought we could be partners again.”

I can’t close my mouth. Is he serious? “Why?” escapes before I can think.

He shrugs. “Just… I don’t know. You want to?”

“Um…” I clamp my mouth shut. I really hadn’t expected another interaction with him until I was toothless and so brain-dead from the Alzheimer’s that I didn’t know my own name. “Depends. What’s today’s lesson?”

“Come on. None of my buddies are in this class, so we’ll probably end up together anyway. Like last time. I’m just trying to break the ice.”

“So you won’t feel bad when you break my neck later on?”

He grins. “Something like that.”

“Okay, it’s a deal. But don’t be surprised when I kick your ass,” I say, feeling a little less nervous. But then the butterflies come swarming back when I realize I’m going to be spending the next few minutes rolling around on a mat with Dave Ashworth.

Oh, God.

My head starts to pound along with my heartbeat, and I look over and see Peyton glaring at me. Still. I’d been crushing on Dave years ago when Peyton and I were friends, and back then, she always encouraged me to talk to him.
He’ll like you, honest he will! What’s not to like?
she’d said. But I never could bring myself to string two words together in his presence; I knew all I would do is stammer like an idiot. And now Peyton’s looking at me with an expression of pure disgust. As in,
Score, Jess—after ten years, you finally got him to talk to you. At this rate, you’ll probably have your first kiss when there’s a colony on Mars.

Miss De Frisco demonstrates the first move and has us all pair up, and when I stand next to Dave I feel like a midget. He has to kneel down. I crouch behind him and try to wrap my arms around his chest, but my hands won’t meet in front. I have to come in so close to him that my chest is against his back, my cheek pressing against his shoulder.

I know I’m going to get creamed, but suddenly I’m struck with another thought. “You
are
still Switzerland, aren’t you?” I whisper in his ear.

He glances over his shoulder at me and cocks his head. The look is irresistibly hot. “Trust me,” he breathes.

“Then, game on,” I say, right before Miss De Frisco’s whistle blows.

Chapter Eleven

The plush carpet in my bedroom no longer feels good on my bare feet. I think they might be raw from all the pacing.

Dave should have been here twenty minutes ago. What’s with guys? Can’t they be punctual?

Bryn is sitting on my bed, her leather sandals kicked off and her miniskirt-clad legs crossed in a rather unladylike position. I can actually see her green and pink polka-dot underwear. She’s leafing through a copy of
Cosmo,
her bright purple fingernails turning the pages. She upgraded from
Seventeen
last year and can’t stop talking about all the scandalous topics. “Seriously. Do you really think there are twelve types of orgasms?”

“Ew,” I say. “I’m so not talking about that.”

She shrugs and keeps flipping. I wonder if maybe she should be reading
Ten Steps to More Natural Makeup
instead of the orgasm article. Today she’s wearing fake lashes. I’m not sure I’ve
ever
seen fake lashes on anyone other than a supermodel.

She leans over on one elbow and starts to pull the gum out of her mouth in one long stringy piece, and then she shoves it back in. Sometimes she can really grate on my nerves.

“You seriously have to hide in the closet when he gets here,” I say.

“I know, I know.” She waves a hand in the air dismissively. “Ooh, you should put this on your wall,” she says, ripping a page out of the mag.

I roll my eyes, thinking there’s no way anything in
that
magazine would go on my wall, when I see what she’s holding out. The girl in the picture has hair the same shade of blond as mine, but hers is straight and silky. And she’s wearing a Harvard hoodie. She’s too perfect to be a student, probably just a model, but unexpectedly, I like it. I shove it into the frame of the full-length mirror next to my bed. Even with all of Bryn’s personality quirks, she always manages to surprise me—in a good way. “Thanks.”

She nods and turns back to her magazine when the doorbell rings.

“Closet!”

She jumps up and takes the magazine and my rolling computer chair with her. I have a small walk-in, with a light fixture and everything, so she sits down in the middle and is flipping through the magazine again when I close the door. I wait a moment to be sure that I can’t hear the smacking of her gum.

Then I rush out of my bedroom and take the stairs two by two. Tina is walking into the entry just as I arrive. “I got it,” I say, and she turns and heads back to her art studio without a word.

When I open the front door, Dave Ashworth is standing on the other side, wearing a gray Green Day concert T-shirt and a baggy pair of dark blue jeans. He looks good, even though he’s not my type.

But I know someone whose type he is. And that’s why this is going to work so well.

I grab him by the shirt and yank him inside the door so quickly his eyes bug out. I poke my head out the door and glance over at Jess’s house. It looks empty. Whew.

“Whoa. Jeez.” He smoothes out his newly wrinkled T-shirt as if I just ruined his prized possession. He must have actually gone to the Green Day concert instead of buying the tee at the mall.

Ugh, seriously. Green Day? He has more in common with Jess than I thought.

“I told you, Jess can’t see you. You were supposed to go to the back door.”

“Hey, at least I drove my mom’s minivan. Whatever this is, it better be worth it. If the guys catch me in that thing, they’ll never let me live it down.” Standing in the entry way like that, his arms crossed over his heavily muscled chest, he seems huge.

I want to point out that his beat-up Nova isn’t that much better than his mom’s minivan, but I don’t. “Trust me. This is important. She would have recognized your car and then it would have ruined everything.”

I can tell he wants to ask what this is all about, but I don’t want to explain where my stepmom can overhear. “Come up to my room real quick.”

He shrugs his broad football player shoulders and follows me up the stairs. It feels weird to have him in my house. Every time I’ve ever seen him outside of school was at
his
house, where I tutor him in math. Even that’s a little bit weird. I’m not even sure anyone at school realizes we see each other outside of those halls.

I glance at the closet when we walk into my room, but it’s still shut. I close my bedroom door once Dave is inside. My parents don’t have any rules about boys. Probably because I’m the model daughter. Or maybe it’s because I’ve never had a guy over to the house, so they’ve never had to
make
any rules.

“Take a seat,” I say, and then regret it. Without my computer chair, the only seat is my bed. And the last thing I need is Dave Ashworth telling everyone he’s been in my bed. Then I realize that’s more Ken Greeley’s style, so I brush it off. Dave wouldn’t spread rumors like that.

“So, um, you already know about this prank war, right?”

He cocks his head to the side and shrugs. “Everyone does. How you guys manage to stay out of trouble is beyond me. I asked Jess about it in gym, but she didn’t tell me anything.”

I stall for a moment, hoping the perfect words will come to mind that will convince him to help me. Instead, I resist the urge to cringe as I blurt out, “I need you to date Jess.”

He recoils in surprise. “Huh?”

“You have to pretend to go out with her. Or, well, actually go out with her, but not because you want to. But you have to get her to
think
you want to.”

Is any of this making sense?

His blue eyes look troubled, and I can see he’s going to resist my idea. “I don’t know. That sounds kind of shady.”

I start pacing again. I
have
to get Dave to agree to this. Any other idea will pale in comparison. Jess struck a low blow by faking that interview. I can’t even think about it without balling my hands into fists. She’d picked the one thing that meant everything to me and turned it into a joke. That she would do that to me, that she had no regard for something that ought to be sacred…

Jess went for blood this time. Now it’s my turn. She’s going down. I’m going to use her most vulnerable side and turn it around on her.

“You don’t get it. I slept
twelve hours
that week. I obsessed over the Harvard interview—”

“You had a Harvard interview? Congratulations!” He starts to get up like he’s going to give me a high-five or something, but I shake my head and hold out my hands in a “stop” signal.

“I had two. The first one wasn’t real. Jess got her boss to pretend he was from Harvard. He wore a Harvard blazer and everything. The fact that she’d even know where to get a Harvard blazer is bad enough.” I start tearing up as I think about how excited I’d been. About how my brother had looked at me so proudly, patted me on the back. He’d said that my moment had finally come. That my dreams were about to come true. Later, when I’d gotten the
real
interview call, it was tainted. I hadn’t jumped up and down like I should have.

And I’d lied to my brother about the first interview. I made up some BS about the interviewer having a schedule conflict or something. I was lucky I’d gotten a
real
interview, so he hadn’t caught on to my lie.