Mia the Meek (13 page)

Sister Donovan plopped two dead frogs on our lab table, saving me from saying something I’d regret.

“We are beginning our unit on life sciences, and the best way to immerse you into nature is to explore the miracle of anatomy. We will use these frogs as our gateway to the body.”

Jake grabbed his frog and made it tap dance around the table. “Dude, watch the toad giggin’.”

“Jake, put that frog down or I’m going to puke,” Cassie said, holding a Kleenex over her nose. For once, I agreed with her.

“I’m protesting this experiment,” I declared. “That frog didn’t do anything to deserve being cut up by us.”

“Forget the protest,” Tim replied. “We need this grade, and you’re not going to blow it due to your liberal, misguided, bleeding heart, PETA ideals.”

“I don’t have a bleeding heart. I just don’t think we need to cut up helpless amphibians for a school project.”

“If you were twice as smart,” Tim said, “you’d still be stupid.”

Sister Donovan intervened.

“Mia and Tim, are you fighting again? If I had any sense, I’d separate you and assign you to different lab partners.”

I gathered my books. “That would be wonderful,” I said.

“But since I think you two need to work it out, I’m keeping you together. So, figure out a way to get along, and do it now!”

She walked away and I sat back down on my stool and crossed my arms.

“Fine. Sister Donovan can make me work with you, but she can’t make me talk to you.”

“You’re not going to talk to me?” Tim smiled. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.”

M
y dad and I pulled into Jake’s circular driveway and I looked at his gigantic house. It was not actually “in the hood,” as Jake pretended it was, but in the old money part of the city. In fact, I think the governor’s mansion was just down the street. My dad turned off the ignition. “So, what are you and Jake planning on doing tonight?” “I don’t know. Stuff, I guess.” “What sort of ‘stuff’?” “What’s your point?”

“Um,” Dad said, searching for the right words. “I just remember when I was in ninth grade and, well. . .”

“Dad, if you’re going to tell me about your teenage love life, please stop. I already have bad enough nightmares as it is—I don’t need you adding to them.”

“All right, I get your point. I just want you to know that you don’t have to change the way you are just to make someone like you. I think you’re pretty likeable already.”

“Great—just what every girl wants to hear. I’m the type of girl only a father could love,” I muttered, climbing out of the car. My dad opened his car door and I turned to face him. “Oh my God,” I said. “You can’t walk me to the door. Get back in the car this instant!”

He paused and then, shaking his head, got back into the car. I waited to make sure he didn’t follow me, then rang Jake’s doorbell, half-expecting a butler named Jeeves to answer the door.

Instead, Jake swung open the door and I suddenly felt very overdressed as I surveyed his outfit—sweats and a ripped T-shirt. Hearing my dad’s engine, I turned around and waved him off. Jake and I watched him pull away.

“So, you wanna chill in the basement?”

“Sure.” I followed him downstairs and was soon immersed in a collection of video games, DVDs, CDs, sporting equipment, and posters of half-dressed women draped across the hoods of cars.

“You wanna play a video game?” Jake asked.

“Um, sure, but I don’t own any video games, so you’ll have to teach me how to play.”

“No games? That sucks. I betcha watch a ton of TV.”

“Actually, I don’t watch a lot of TV, either.”

“Dude, what do you do when you’re kicking it?”

“I read a lot.”

“That’s why you’re so freakin’ smart.” Jake popped in a cartridge. “This game’s off the hook. Just get your dude through the jungle before the aliens cap him. You have to dodge the jungle dudes and the space dudes. If you see any warrior spears, collect them. You, like, get extra points for those and you can use them to spear all the dudes later in the game. Are you cool with that?”

“Um, I think so.”

“You go first,” he said.

I took the controller from him and clicked on “start.” Immediately, a lion came out of the bush and ate me.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Oh snap! That jankity old lion just busted your grill. You should’ve ducked and the lion would’ve jumped over you. It’s my turn now.”

Jake took the controller from me, and about twenty minutes later, I timidly asked, “Jake?”

“Yeah?” he replied without taking his eyes from the TV screen.

“Do you want to do something else for a while?”

“Are you clowning on me? I’ve got one more dude to cap before I get to the next level.”

“OK,” I said, sighing and getting up to wander the room. After another fifteen minutes, I sat down next to him again. “You almost done?”

“Sorry, dude. I forgot you were here. I’ve never gotten this far on my first guy before,” Jake said, continuing to play.

I started hoping with all of my might his dude would die. I was desperate for a way to get him to stop playing the game. I’d walked around his basement so many times I started to feel like all the models’ eyes on the posters were following me. I chewed a hangnail.

“How about I ask you a question and then you ask me a question?” I said.

“Whatever.”

“Um, all right,” I said, reminding myself that he was Jake Harris and I was just Mia Fullerton, I should be grateful that he’d invited me over. “If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?”

“Professional football player.”

After five minutes of silence, I finally said, “Um, now you’re supposed to ask me something.”

He continued staring at the screen.

“Do you think the Chicago Bears’ defensive team has a chance against the Vikings’ offense?”

“What?”

“Don’t you watch football?”

“Not really.”

“How whack is that?”

“I watch the WNBA,” I offered.

“That’s just a bunch of chicks playin’ ball.” Jake returned his focus to the video game, where an entire fleet of aliens was attacking his dude. I decided to give it one more try.

“Um, if you could live anywhere, where would it be?”

“Ohio.”

“Ohio?”

“Duh, the Football Hall of Fame is in Canton, Ohio.” Jake threw down his controller and said, “I’m tired of talkin’ and my dude just died. Do you wanna watch a movie?”

“Sure. What do you have?” I asked, envisioning a romantic comedy so I could snuggle in his arms.

“How ‘bout the first
Robo
movie? It’s off the chain. The special effects are the butta.”

“Great.”
He is Jake Harris, He is Jake Harris, He is Jake Harris
. . . I repeated to myself.

The rest of the evening was spent watching
Robo Destructive Force
, an endless display of people getting mutilated, evaporated, beheaded, or just plain killed. All thoughts of romance disintegrated as I swallowed the bile rising in my throat.

Mercifully, Jake’s mom called down the stairs a few minutes later, “Mia, your mom is here.”

I jumped off the couch and dashed for the stairs.

“Thanks for a great evening, Jake.”

“Aren’t you forgettin’ something?”

“Oh yeah, my jacket. Thanks for reminding me.” I grabbed my jacket off the couch.

“Um, I kinda thought, after how you acted at the movies, that we might. . . you know. . .”

“What?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Come on, you know what I’m talkin’ about.”

It suddenly occurred to me he wanted me to kiss him.

“Jake, my mom’s upstairs. Why didn’t you try to kiss me before?”

“I dunno. I guess I was waiting for you.”

I did a mental brain slap. How come I always had to make the first move with Jake? Jeez, if Tim were in the basement with me, I doubt I would’ve had to play video games, watch human mutilation, and make the first move. Tim and I never ran out of things to say to each other. In fact, Tim. . . Then I realized I was doing it again. I was going to kiss Jake while thinking about Tim.

Tim was
not
going to ruin my love life. I pulled my retainer from my mouth and kissed Jake like I had the last time. I figured I knew what I was doing, because Jake wouldn’t stop kissing me once we started. Then his tongue started its lizard routine and darted in and out of my mouth. I struggled not to gag.

Jake’s mom called again, “Mia? Are you down there?”

“Coming!” I pried my lips from Jake’s and hurried up the stairs, wiping his saliva off my chin.

When my mom gave me the fish eye, I knew she was checking for hickeys. Jake ambled up the stairs behind me.

“Thanks for letting Mia hang with me tonight, Mrs. Fullerton.”

“You’re welcome, and I hope you had a good time.” Then, in her best teacher voice, she asked, “Did you finish your English assignment for tomorrow?”

“Uh, not yet. I was just gonna do that.”

Jake’s mom raised an eyebrow.

“You told me you didn’t have any homework tonight.”

Not wanting to see Jake get dogged on by his mom, I said, “See you, Jake,” and hurried my mom out the door.

“Did you have a nice time?” she asked once we were in the car.

I buckled up. “It was interesting,” I mumbled.

“W
here were you this morning?” I asked Lisa as I twirled the combination to my locker. “I stopped by your house so we could walk to school together, but your mom said you’d already left.”

Lisa slammed her locker door. “Do I know you?”

“Ha, ha, very funny. I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you very much lately, but Jessie and I are so busy planning the dance and getting student council stuff done, I haven’t had a chance.”

“As long as you have a good excuse.”

Judging by her attitude, I decided to change the subject.

“How was Academic Quiz Bowl practice last week?” I asked. “I’m sorry I missed all the practices, but Jessie and I—”

Lisa silenced me with a glare.

“The Academic Quiz Bowl practices were great,” she said. “Tim and Mike are really dedicated to the team.”

“Meaning I’m not? It’s not my fault student council work is taking up all my time.”

“Isn’t Jessie supposed to help you, or is she too afraid of breaking a nail?”

“Actually, Jessie’s pretty cool. I never thought I’d say this, but she’s really nice.”

“I’m getting worried about you,” Lisa said as we headed down the hallway. “It’s weird enough you’re going out with Jake, but now you’re becoming friends with Jessie? If you don’t watch it, you’re going to become one of them.”

“It’s not like they’re alien invaders, Lisa. They’re just people.”

“All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” We walked silently to American History class. Finally, Lisa sighed.

“So, have you hired a DJ for the dance yet?” she asked.

Grateful for the reprieve, I said, “Jessie hired some awesome DJ. I guess he’s really hard to get. We’re lucky he had a cancellation and agreed to do our dance.”

“If you need any help on the decorations committee, I’d be glad to volunteer,” she said. “I’ve got some terrific posters of Einstein, and I found some streamers with the theory of relativity stamped on them. We could do a theme of theorems and equations. It would be totally original.”

“Thanks, but I think we’re going mainstream and doing a fall theme. You know, hay bales, pumpkins, scarecrows. . . Jessie said if we position the hay bales correctly, people can make out behind them.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to disagree with Jessie,” Lisa said a bit caustically.

I was getting a little tired of Lisa’s attitude. After all, Jessie and I had spent hours working on perfecting the details to the dance. Who was she to judge what we had planned? “Anyway,” I replied, “who’d want to dance in a gym filled with scientific formulas?”

“I would, and not so long ago, you would have, too.”

“Well, now I know better. And I think Jessie and I have a better idea of what the ninth graders want as decorations for their dance than you do. If you remember, they elected us, not you.”

“It’s amazing how fast this presidential power has gone to your head,” Lisa said. “Go plan your own dance with all your new
popular
friends, but don’t say I didn’t warn you when they drop you and you need a real friend.”