My Name Is Evil (2 page)

She started to wander off, but Judy pulled her back. “Let's stick together for a while, Jilly. It's a party, remember?”

The carnival opens on the pier every summer. It's kind of tacky, but we hang out there sometimes on weekend nights. There isn't much else to do in Cedar Bay.

Fall had arrived. In a week or two they'd be shutting the carnival down and packing up. Some of the rides were already closed. And the big Fun House sign lay on its side on the ground, the paint chipped and fading.

We wandered through a long row of game booths. “Try your luck, girls!” a man shouted, holding up three baseballs. “You can't lose! Really!”

I stopped across from a brightly lit booth. A young woman stood in front of a wall of balloons. “Hey—darts. Want to throw some darts? I'm pretty good at that.”

Jackie shook her head. “No way. Let's do something wild.”

I squinted at her. “Something wild?”

“Yeah. Something really crazy,” Jilly chimed in, her green eyes flashing. “Something we normally wouldn't do. For your birthday.”

“But darts is fun,” Judy argued. “If Maggie wants to throw darts …”

That's why I like Judy. She's always on my side.

“Forget darts,” Jackie said, pulling me across the row of booths. “I see the perfect thing. Awesome!”

She dragged me to the door of a low, square building. I gasped when I read the red-and-black hand-lettered sign next to the door:
TATTOOS WHILE-U-WAIT
.

“Whoa! No way!” I cried. I tried to pull back. But Jackie was too strong. She tugged me through the doorway.

The little room was dark and hot, and smelled of incense and tobacco. Red and blue tattoo samples on jagged pieces of paper were tacked up and down the walls.

Jackie hadn't let go of my arm. “Check them out. I'll buy you one for your birthday!” she said.

I stared at her. “You're kidding—right?”

“Ooh, look at this one!” Jilly gushed. She pointed to a blue half-moon circled by red stars. “That's the prettiest one. Or how about this red flower?”

“Doesn't it hurt to get tattooed?” Judy asked Jackie.

Jackie picked up a long needle from a workbench against the wall. She pressed the tip against the back of my hand. “Zip zip zip, and it's done,” she said. “Can you imagine the look on your mother's face when you come home with a tattoo?”

“No way!” I cried. “Come on—I don't want any tattoo!”

I tried to pull free of Jackie's grasp. And as I did, a large tattoo tacked up beside the door caught my eye.

It was so ugly. A dragon's head. A snarling green dragon with its jaws open, red flames bursting from its gaping nostrils. And beneath it, red words with blue shadows behind them. Bold, bloodred words:

My Name Is EVIL!

As I stared at the ugly tattoo, I felt a chill run down my back. It seemed to hypnotize me or something. I couldn't turn away from it. Couldn't take my eyes off it.

Finally Jackie's voice cut through the spell. “Pick one. Hurry.”

“N-no,” I whispered. “Let's get out of here!”

I headed for the door, but Jackie gripped my arm from behind. “Grab her,” she ordered the others. “Don't let her get away!”

They held on to me tightly, staring at me in cold silence.

Jackie broke up first. “Wow! I think you really believed us!”

Jilly laughed too. “You did! You thought we were serious.”

Judy frowned. “Maggie, I told them it was a mean joke. But they wouldn't listen to me.”

I stared angrily at Jackie. “You—you creep! You really scared me,” I confessed. “How could you do that?”

Jackie laughed. “Easy!”

“Jackie has a sick sense of humor,” Judy said, still frowning.

“Ha ha,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Jackie shrugged. She put her arm around my shoulders. “I'm sorry, Maggie. I really didn't think you'd believe us.”

I sighed. “I always fall for dumb jokes. Not too sophisticated, huh?”

“Forget about it,” Jilly said. “Now you're thirteen, remember? Makeover time?”

I sighed again. I felt really dumb.

Why did I think that my best friends in the world would force me to do something I didn't want to do?

Why did I panic like that?

The four of us stumbled out into the warm night. Across the path a tall girl was heaving baseballs at a target, trying to dunk a young man in a swim tank.

A mother hurried past, pulling two little boys. Both boys carried huge cones of pink cotton candy. They had the stuff stuck all over their cheeks and noses.

“Let's have some fun!” Jackie declared. She still had her arm around my shoulder. The four of us walked side by side in a solid row.

Jackie pulled back when she saw Glen Martin. I saw him, too. He was with two other guys from school. They were all singing some kind of song, snapping their fingers as they walked, bopping along.

“Oh, wow,” Jackie muttered.

I glanced at her. What did she mean by that?

Everyone in school knows that I have a crush on Glen. Everyone except Glen, that is.

I watched him come nearer. He is tall and lanky, and he's so cute with his wild, curly brown hair, which he never brushes, and serious dark eyes.

Glen is always goofing, always cracking jokes. He's always in trouble in school for breaking up the class. He has the greatest laugh. And when he smiles, two cute dimples appear on his cheeks.

Glen doesn't live in my neighborhood. He lives in a tiny house in the old part of town. And the guys he hangs out with are kind of tough.

Sometimes I think about inviting Glen over or something. But I always lose my nerve.

That's going to change, too. It's makeover time, I reminded myself. And I'm going to invite Glen over real soon.

“Hey—it's the Three J's!” one of Glen's friends called.

“Yeah. Jokey, Jumpy, and Jerk-Face,” Glen said.

Jackie tossed back her hair and sneered at him. “That's a compliment, coming from you—Tarzan!”

That's so mean, I thought. I can't believe Jackie is still calling him Tarzan! The name made Glen blush.

“Hey, guys. What's up?” Jilly walked over to Glen's two friends and started flirting with them.

Judy sighed impatiently. “Are we just going to stand here? Aren't we going to do any rides?”

Glen grinned at Jackie. “You'd better hurry. The Ugly Dog Contest is starting over there.” He pointed to a tent at the end of the pier. “You could win a dog bone!”

Jackie scowled at him. “Shut up, Glen.”

His dark eyes flashed. “You shut up.” He grabbed the beaded necklace Jackie always wears and gave it a tug.

“Let go!” she screamed.

I stepped between them. “Come on—be nice,” I said. “It's my birthday.”

Glen turned to me and his eyes flashed, as if seeing me for the first time. “Maggie—hey. Is it really your birthday?”

I nodded. “Yeah. We all came here to celebrate, and—”

“Wow! It was my birthday yesterday!” he declared.

Before I could utter a reply, he grabbed my hand and shook it. “Happy birthday to us!” he cried.

And then, believe it or not, he raised my hand to his mouth—and planted a wet, noisy, slobbery kiss on the back of it.

His friends laughed. Judy and Jilly laughed, too.

I stood there stunned.

Glen started to back away.

Then Jackie shoved me from behind—shoved me into Glen. “Go ahead—kiss your boyfriend!” she cried.

Glen and I stumbled over each other and nearly tumbled to the ground. Everyone laughed. They thought it was a riot.

“Jackie—give me a break!” I shouted angrily. How could she embarrass me like that?

Glen backed away, blushing again. “Happy birthday. Catch you later.” He flashed me a thumbs-up and started off with his friends.

A few seconds later the Three J's and I were hurrying away, heading past the Tilt-A-Whirl and FreeFall Mountain. Shrill screams rose up all around us.

Judy and Jilly were giggling about something. Jackie twined her arm around mine and pulled me along. “He is such a geek!” she exclaimed. “How can you like him?”

“He totally hates us!” Jilly declared.

“Especially Jackie,” Judy added.

“And I don't blame him,” I said. “Jackie de-pantsed him in front of the whole school!”

Jackie laughed. “What an awesome moment!”

“It almost caused a riot!” Jilly said. “Poor Glen was embarrassed for life!”

Judy sighed. “Another one of Jackie's great jokes.”

“I can't believe you're still calling him Tarzan,” I said. “That was a whole year ago.”

Last year Jackie was in charge of costumes for the talent show at school. And Glen decided to do a crazy comedy act wearing a Tarzan costume. Well, Jackie had this insane idea. Somehow she rigged Glen's costume. She secretly removed most of the elastic.

And there was poor Glen, onstage in front of the entire school. And Jackie's trick worked. His pants dropped to his ankles in front of everyone!

“I'll never forget those black bikini briefs he was wearing!” Jackie exclaimed. All three sisters exploded with laughter.

“He looked like such a geek!” Jilly cried. “Standing there onstage in the stupid black underpants, trying to cover himself up.”

“He just stood there. He froze,” Jackie remembered. “And the whole auditorium went wild. Everyone just freaked.”

“We've called him Tarzan ever since,” Jilly said. “It makes him blush every time.”

“It was a year ago. You should let it drop. Give him a break,” I said.

“Why? Because he's your boyfriend?” Jackie teased.

“It was so mean! Why did you do it in the first place?” I asked.

She fiddled with the tiny glass beads on her necklace and grinned. “I don't know. I just thought it would be funny.”

“Hey, check it out. A fortune-teller!” Jilly said. She pointed to a small black tent that stood beside an ice-cream cart. “Can we do it? I love fortune-tellers!”

“No way,” I said. “They make me nervous. I don't even like watching them in movies.”

“Come on, Maggie. It's your birthday,” Jackie said, pulling me to the tent. “You have to have your fortune told on your birthday.”

“Let's see what the fortune-teller says about you and Glen!” Jilly teased.

“I don't think so,” I said.

But as usual, they didn't give me a choice. A few seconds later we were standing at the doorway to the dark tent.

“We'll all have our fortunes told,” Jackie said. “My treat.”

“This is so cool!” Jilly whispered. “Do you think it's a real psychic? Do you think she can really tell the future?”

The three sisters started into the tent. I held back, staring at the red-and-black hand-lettered sign:
MISS ELIZABETH. FORTUNE-TELLER. ONE DOLLAR.

I suddenly realized that my heart was racing.

Why do I feel so weird? I wondered. Why do I have such a bad feeling about this?

I followed my friends into the tent. The air inside felt hot and steamy. Two electric lanterns on the back tent wall splashed gray light over the fortune-teller's small table.

Miss Elizabeth sat hunched with her elbows on the table, head in her hands, staring into a red glass ball. She didn't look up as we stepped inside. I couldn't tell if she was concentrating on the red ball, or if she was asleep.

The tent was completely bare, except for her table and two wooden chairs, and a large black-and-white poster of a human hand. The hand was divided into sections. There was a lot of writing all over the poster, too small for me to read in the smoky, gray light.

As she stared into the red glass ball, the fortune-teller muttered to herself. She was a middle-aged woman, slender, with bony arms poking out from the sleeves of her red dress, and very large, pale white hands. Squinting into the light, I saw that the polish on her long fingernails matched the red of her dress.