Authors: Janet Tashjian

My Life as a Stuntboy (14 page)

I race to the cafeteria and scan the room for Matt. “How could you do that to me?” I ask.

“Hey, you're the one trying to be a big shot, with your movie and your newspaper article. I was just trying to help you out.” Matt takes a giant swig from his carton of milk.

“By calling me an idiot?”

“That video's already gotten more
than five thousand hitsâstop complaining. I'm helping you in your quest to get famous.”

“I don't want to be famous.”

“You could've fooled me.”

I have a sudden desire to pick up his bowl of disgusting beef stew and throw it at him.

quest

“It's probably not five thousand
different
people,” Swifty adds. “I'm sure some people watched it over and over again.”

I ignore him and return to Matt. “If you were going to upload a video of me onto YouTube, why didn't you use the one where I'm walking up five flights of stairs on the handrailâsomething
you
were too afraid to do?”

Swifty and Joe laugh and Matt gets defensive. “I wasn't afraid. You were just so busy showing off, there wasn't any time left.”

defensive

taunts

Joe pretends to read from a book in his bag. “I â¦ can â¦ do.. lots â¦ of â¦ stunts,” he taunts.

His impersonation of me isn't what hurtsâit's how hard Matt is laughing at the joke.

impersonation

I turn to face my ex-best friend. “Maybe you could've done some stunts tooâif you didn't have to race home to babysit your twenty-three-year-old brother.” I normally would
never
use Jamie as a weapon against Matt, but with our friendship over, hitting below the belt almost seems fair. “Or was that the time he didn't come home for a week and your parents didn't know where he was?”

Swifty and Joe look at Matt to
see if these things about Jamie are true. Matt looks almost wounded by my comment, and for a second, I feel bad.

“
You're
the loser,” he shouts, “not Jamie!” Matt dives across the table at me, and the two girls on the other end jump out of their seats.

“Whoa! Calm down!” Mr. Walsh, the gym teacher, grabs Matt. “Save your tackling for phys ed, unless you want to spend the rest of the afternoon in Mr. Demetri's office.”

“He started it!” Matt points an accusing finger at me.

Swifty and Jo chime in. “It was Derek!”

“It was not!” I say.

“I don't care
who
started it. It's over.” Mr. Walsh ushers Matt back to his seat and stands behind him for
several moments. Matt, Swifty, Joe, and I keep quiet until he leaves.

Matt finishes his milk and squashes the carton. “You better get to the media center before class starts,” he says. “Take out
Goodnight Moon
before someone else does.”

ridiculed

When I storm out of the cafeteria, it feels as if the entire room is laughing behind my back. A few days ago, I was worried about people on the movie set making fun of me; I never once thought I'd be ridiculed in my own school. By my best friend!

I duck into the restroom next to the nurse's office and lock myself in a stall.

I can't remember the last time I cried, but I make up for it now.

An Unexpected Friend

I use the rest of the lunch period to wash my face and get it together. For a minute, I think about going home sick but don't want to give Matt, Swifty, and Joe the satisfaction. I keep my head down and race for the door when the bell rings.

I decide not to say anything to my parents; just thinking about the sad look on Mom's face if she
watched the YouTube video is enough reason to keep quiet. I didn't get a chance to eat at school, so when I get home, I wolf down my sandwich, feeding the crusts to Bodi. Then I get Frank out of his cage and take him and Bodi up to my room.

disability

As painful as it is, I use my father's laptop to watch the video again. It's not news that I've always had trouble reading, but now it feels like a real disability. The more I watch it, the more broken I feel. And when I think about losing my best friend on top of it, I want to hide underneath the comforter Grandma made and never come out.

I ignore the knocking on the back door, hoping whoever it is will go away. When the knocking continues,
I scoop Frank up in my arms and go downstairs.

Carly stands outside on the step and points to the monkey in my arms. “This must be Frank! He's so cute!”

I roll my eyes and let her inside. “I know you want to hold him, but monkeys are strange with people they don't know. I don't want him to bite you.”

“Yeah, I don't want him to bite me either.” She moves her hand toward his head. “Can I pet him?”

I tell her she can if she moves slowly. She smiles when she touches Frank's fur. I tell her it's okay to pet Frank but she can't forget about Bodi. She gets down on the tile floor and places her face next to Bodi's as she rubs his belly. He looks so happy, it almost makes me glad Carly came over.

suspicious

“I thought we could go to the video store in the Village and see if any good DVDs came out this week.”

Carly and I have never done anything like this, which immediately makes me suspicious. “You don't have to hang out with me just because Matt and I aren't friends anymore.”

defiant

She looks at me defensively. “That's not why I came over.”

“Yes it is.”

She puts her hands on her hips, even more defiant. “I came over because I didn't want you sitting around thinking about that stupid video.”

“That's kind of hard to do when eight thousand people have already seen sit.”

“It was only five thousand,” Carly says.

“Well, now it's eight. Not to mention how many viewers wrote comments about what a moron I am.”

Carly continues to pet Bodi's belly. “Is there any way we can take it down?”

I tell her we'd need Matt's password, which I don't have.

“Can you guess what it is?”

I run up and get Dad's laptop, and Carly and I attempt several different word and number combinations with no luck.

combinations

“This is all because of Swifty and Joe,” Carly says. “They couldn't care less about Matt, but he's trying to impress them anyway.”

I close the computer and ask Carly if we can talk about something else. I should've figured she'd want to talk about Tanya Billingsâwhat she looks like up close, what she was wearing, neither of which I paid much attention to.

fervor

While Carly grills me, Tony calls to give me updates on the next day's schedule. Carly jumps up and down in the kitchen with fervor, pointing to herself. I shake my head no, but she doesn't stop.

“Would it be okay to bring a friend?” I ask Tony.

He pauses before he answers.

“It's probably not appropriate because you'll be working. I hope she won't be too disappointed.”

“I didn't say it was a girl.”

Tony laughs. “But is it?”

Instead of answering, I tell Tony I'll see him tomorrow.

Carly is still jumping and pulling on the sleeve of my T-shirt. “Well? Well?”

“I wish I could, but I can't. Sorry.”

We put Frank back in his cage and go outside to set up traffic cones in the backyard. We go into the garage and get the wheelbarrow, cooler, and stepladder too. We place them all around the yard in a tight course and spend the next hour running and jumping over the obstacles trying to beat each other's times. I had no idea Carly was so agile.

My mom comes out after her last patient and brings us lemonade and mini cupcakes. I don't really think about the video or Matt the entire time Carly's here, and when she leaves, I really mean it when I tell her I had fun.

agile

Other books

Wild Indigo by Judith Stanton

Trustee From the Toolroom by Nevil Shute

Wheels of Steel, Book 3 by Pepper Pace

Lighting the Flames by Sarah Wendell

Wicked Destiny by Tiffany Stevens

Elizabeth and After by Matt Cohen

Forty-Eight Hour Burn by Tonya Ramagos

Sally's Wolf (Motor City Vampires Book 3) by Anjela Renee

The Quilt Walk by Dallas, Sandra

When You Least Expect It by Whitney Gaskell