Girls Don't Have Cooties (4 page)

“Who says?” Jeremy asked.

“Hey, you’re the one who picked a girl for your soccer team!” Manny told him.

Jeremy looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Hello? Aren’t you the one who picked Mandy Banks to be on your team?” George asked.

Jeremy thought for a minute. “I think I remember something like that,” he began. “I don’t know. It’s all kind of weird.”

“We thought it was pretty weird too,” Manny told him.

“
Scary
weird,” Andrew added.

“Next thing you know, you’ll be putting on a frilly nightgown and going to Suzanne’s dumb old sleepover party,” George said. He pretended to hold up the edges of an invisible skirt.

Just the mention of Suzanne’s party made Jeremy really mad. There was no way he was going to be called a girl lover!

“Hey, can’t you guys take a joke?” Jeremy asked.

“Huh?” Kevin asked.

“It was just a joke,” Jeremy told them. “Come on, George. You love jokes. You must have known I was kidding. I would never play soccer with a girl!”

George thought about that. “I don’t know, Jeremy. You seemed pretty serious out there.”
“I’m not a girl lover!”
Jeremy insisted.

Katie couldn’t believe her ears. How could Jeremy say that? They had been best friends since they were babies.

Jeremy looked away from Katie’s sad, angry eyes. “I wouldn’t be caught dead near a girl!” he assured the boys.

“Oh yeah?” Manny asked. “Prove it!”

Jeremy thought about that for a minute. Then he got an idea. “Okay, you guys meet me by the slide after school. Those girls think it’s okay to have a party without us? We’ll show them!”

Just then, Mrs. Derkman blew her loud whistle. “Class 3A line up!” she called out. “Recess is over.”

As the boys raced to line up, George whispered to Jeremy, “This had better be good!”

“Oh it is,” Jeremy assured him. “It’s
really
good!”

After school, Katie and Suzanne went to Katie’s house. “What do you think the boys are planning?” Katie asked Suzanne as the girls walked into Katie’s bedroom.

“Who knows?” Suzanne answered, plopping down on the bed. “Who cares? No matter what they’re planning, it won’t be as fun as my sleepover party.”

Just then Pepper, Katie’s cocker spaniel, padded into the room. He hopped up on the bed and licked Katie’s face.

“I guess Pepper is the only boy who’ll hang out with me anymore.” Katie kissed her dog right on his cold, wet nose.

“Blech!” Suzanne exclaimed. “I don’t know how you can kiss Pepper. He’s got dog breath!”

“It’s not so bad,” Katie told her.

“I guess not,” Suzanne agreed. “It can’t be any worse than George Brennan’s breath after he eats pickles and Doritos.”

Katie laughed. George did eat some weird food combinations. “No, it’s definitely not that bad. I don’t mind kissing Pepper. He’s like part of my family.”

“Exactly,” Suzanne said. “He’s not like a human boy. He’d never turn on you the way Jeremy did!”

Katie frowned. She wished Suzanne hadn’t brought that up. Jeremy had hurt Katie’s feelings—big time.

“Where were you today during recess, anyway?” Suzanne asked Katie suddenly. “You went to get your jacket and then you just disappeared.”

Katie didn’t say anything. There was no way she could explain what had happened to her.

“Well, you definitely missed it,” Suzanne continued. “Nobody could believe it when Jeremy picked Mandy to be on his team. It was really mean of him to tease her like that.”

“Are you sure he was teasing?” Katie asked.

“Of course. The boys would never have let her play,” Suzanne said.

“But Mandy is a good player,” Katie replied.

“I know,” Suzanne agreed. “The boys are
afraid
to play against her.”

Katie shrugged. “I guess.”

Suzanne smiled and pulled a notebook from her backpack. “I don’t want to waste one more minute talking about those yucky boys,” she said. “I want to plan my sleepover party. It’s going to be the best ever!”

Katie listened as Suzanne talked on and on about junk food, movies, and flashlight games. It wasn’t all that interesting, but it was better than thinking about what the boys were planning. There was going to be real trouble in school tomorrow, and Katie couldn’t help but feel that it was all her fault.

By the time Katie got to school the next morning, all of the boys in class 3A were already there. They’d gathered under a tree.

Katie walked over to the crowd of boys. “Hey Jeremy, what’s going on?” she asked her pal.

Jeremy turned away and didn’t answer.

“Come on, Jeremy, cut it out,” Katie said. “Answer me.”

“Go away Katie,” he told her. “You can’t be here.”

“Why not?” she said.

“Because this is a meeting of the Boys Club,” Kevin butted in.
“No girls allowed!”

“What Boys Club?” Katie asked.

“It’s our new club,” Manny told her. “We have a club handshake and a club language. They’re secret. Only boys can know them.”

“Oh, come on guys, we can tell Katie Kazoo,” George said suddenly.

“Are you nuts?” Kevin asked him.

“Nah. Katie’s cool. We can teach her our secret language,” George said.

Katie was surprised. She was also happy. Maybe this fighting was finally going to end.

“Yeah, I’m cool,” she assured the boys.

“So, repeat after me,” George told her. “Awa.”

“Awa,”
Katie repeated.

“Ta
si.”

“Siam,”
George finished.

“Siam,”
Katie said.

George nodded. “Good. Now put it all together.”

Katie took a deep breath. “Okay, here goes.
Awa ta si lee goo siam,”
she said. All the boys started to laugh.

At first Katie didn’t know what was so funny. Then she figured it out. When she said the words all together, it sounded like “Oh what a silly goose I am!”

“Gotcha!” George told her. “We’ll never reveal our secrets to a girl. Now get out of here!”

Katie choked back the tears as she walked away.

“What’s wrong?” Suzanne said when she spotted Katie walking alone on the playground.

“The boys have started a club,” Katie told her.

“So what?” Suzanne asked.

“No girls are allowed,” Katie explained.

“Like I said,
so what?”
Suzanne said. “We should start our own club. A Girls Club. It’ll be so much better than theirs.”

Just then, the boys started chanting their new cheer. “Girls go to Jupiter to get more stupider. Boys go to college to get more knowledge!” the boys shouted.

“Oh, please!” Suzanne said. “That is so old. The last time I heard that one I fell off my dinosaur.”

Katie didn’t laugh. Her feelings were too hurt.