Four Truths and a Lie

by Lauren Barnholdt

  “It was just one grade,” Amber says, putting her arm around me.

  “Yes, one grade TODAY, plus the one grade MONDAY, plus not having ANY IDEA WHAT THE HECK I’M DOING.” I’m so upset that I drop my spoon into my strawberry yogurt and a blob of it flies up and hits me in the cheek. Perfect. I wipe it off with a napkin.

  “We’ll fix it,” Amber says. “We’ll study every night.”

  “No,” I say. “It’s hopeless.” I don’t know how in the world my secret pen pal could have possibly thought I sounded smart talking about math. He’s obviously delusional and crazy.

  “Look,” Amber says. “It’s not hopeless. My dad always says that if you really want something, you put your mind to it, and you do it.” She pulls a wooden beaded bracelet out of her bag. “Look, here. Take this. My dad gave it to me—he wore it on his first tour of duty in Iraq. He would look at it during a really bad day and it would get him through.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I say, but she presses it into my hand.

  “Just take it. You can borrow it. And tonight we’ll study. Meet you in the library at seven.”

  “Thanks,” I say, squeezing her hand around the necklace. I feel a little better, but I’m still not hungry. I take a bite of my turkey club sandwich anyway. I have to eat something. Otherwise at practice I’ll be all out of sorts. Last time I tried to run around on an empty stomach, I almost fainted and Andrea had to fetch me an orange juice from the vending machine in the gym to get my blood sugar up. Coach Crazy was not pleased. I think she thought I was kind of being a wimp.

  “Anyway,” Amber says, “do you want me to ask my pen pal if his name is Louis Masterpole?”

  “No time,” I say. “I have to find out if this one is true by tomorrow.”

  “Jeez,” Amber says. “He’s getting a little demanding, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” I answer.

  “You’re not going to do it, are you?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, shrugging. “I mean, the only way I’d be able to would be if I could somehow get the pen pal list out of Miss Cardanelli’s desk.” The last thing I need is to get caught sneaking around in an empty classroom.

  But then the words “you will be revealed” flash across my mind. There’s no way my secret pen pal could know my secret. Although he does know my last name, so I suppose it is possible. But he started this little game before he knew who I was, so that doesn’t make sense. And even if he did know my secret, why would he want to torment me with it? And what would he do with it anyway? Tell everyone at Brookline Academy for Boys? Boo hoo. But if he told someone there, they might tell someone here, and then …

  On the other hand, sneaking into an empty classroom isn’t the end of the world. I’m sure it would be super easy, and if anyone asked what I was doing there, I could just say that I left something in class this morning. I look at the clock over the lunchroom wall.

  “I think I’m going to try it,” I say, throwing my napkin onto the table and pushing my chair back before I can lose my nerve.

  “Try what?” Amber asks. Her eyes get wide and she grabs the sleeve of my blouse. “You’re not … you’re going to try and find the list?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m just going to run up to Miss Cardanelli’s room really quick.”

  “Scarlett, I don’t think—”

  But I’m out of my seat and running out of the caf before she can stop me, and before our lunch monitor can realize what I’m doing. The cafeteria is on the first floor of McGinty, which is connected to Howser, so I don’t have far to go.

  The hallways are deserted, since all of the students at Brookline have the same lunch period. Still, I can hear some teachers talking in an empty classroom. I tiptoe to Miss Cardanelli’s room and peer in. The door is ajar, and no one’s there.

  I try to act like I’m really looking for something, and even go so far as to head over to the vicinity of my desk and look around on the floor. All that’s there is a gum wrapper and some lint. Actually, this floor is really dirty. Wow. They really should—

  I hear voices in the hallway, and I hold my breath, but whoever it is passes by pretty quickly. Okay. New plan. Time to speed things up a little bit. I head over to Miss Cardanelli’s desk, and slide open her top drawer. I know she keeps the list in her grade book, because I’ve seen her checking it off as we hand her letters. This is, presumably, so we don’t decide to play a big game and start writing to people who aren’t our pen pals. I wonder how she would feel if she knew there were already lots of shenanigans going on with the letters. Probably she wouldn’t be pleased.

  Jeez, she has a lot of stuff in here. Hair ties, paper clips, stapler, some Tic Tacs (so she’s ready to kiss Mr. Lang at any time?). Finally! My fingers close around the grade book. I pull it out, quickly open to the page for first period, and slide my finger down the list, until I get to number fourteen.

  Amber Hultenschmidt, and Louis Masterpole. Bingo. And then, just, you know, out of curiosity, my eyes wander down to number seventeen. Scarlett Northon and James McFayden. Hmm. James McFayden. He doesn’t sound scary. Scary people have names like Gus Hargrave or Drake Midnight.

  Anyway. I slide the grade book back into Miss Cardanelli’s drawer, and then start to head out of the room. Easy-peasy.

  I’m walking out the door when I bang into her. Miss Cardanelli.

  “Scarlett!” she exclaims. She’s holding an empty Tupperware container. I guess she was eating her lunch.

  “Oh, hi!” I say. My face feels all red, and my heart is beating super fast. I try to pretend I’m happy to see her.

  “What are you doing in here?” A look flashes across her face, like she wants to believe I’m doing something very innocent, but she’s not exactly sure.

  “I was looking for my cell phone,” I say. “I thought I left it in here, but I guess I didn’t.” I hope she doesn’t decide to search me. My cell phone is right in the bottom of my bag, which is slung over my shoulder. Worse, I hope it doesn’t start ringing. I have it on vibrate, but she could still totally hear it.

  “Oh,” she says. “Well, you’re not supposed to leave the cafeteria during lunch.”

  “Oh,” I say, hoping I sound breezy. “I didn’t know.” She frowns for a second, but I rush on. “I’m new, you know?” I shrug and practice looking innocent and confused.

  “Well,” she says, her face relaxing into a smile. “If I find your phone, I’ll be sure to hold on to it for you.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “And I’d better get back to lunch!”

  Whew. That was a close one.

  The bracelet totally helps. The one Amber gave me, I mean. From her dad. Well, it’s either that or the fact that I’ve been sitting in the library for six (okay, two—but it feels like six) hours with Amber, going over and over the same three math problems. But I think I have the basic idea down, and I just did the last three on my own. AND I GOT THEM RIGHT.

  “Yes!” I say, checking my answers against hers.

  She gives me a high five.

  “Wow,” I say, looking at the clock. “It’s almost three o’clock already. I gotta get to practice.” I start stacking up my books.

  “I’m gonna stay,” Amber says. “I’m gonna read my supplementals and maybe review for the history quiz.”

  “Good plan,” I say. “Hey, do you want to have dinner together? Then maybe we can go to the computer lab later. I want to Google my secret pen pal.”

  “Ooooh, you found out his name?” She sighs. “I hope it’s something more interesting than Louis Masterpole.” Amber was not impressed when I told her that her pen pal was, indeed, Louis Masterpole. In fact, she crinkled up her nose and said something along the lines of, “How come I never have a romance like in those romance books?”

  “Yup,” I say, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “James McFayden.”

  Amber frowns.

  “What?” I ask, alarmed. “You think he sounds scary? I thought he sounded very innocent, actually. Like some ki
nd of foreign royalty, even. Something very innocuous.” I wait for her to notice that I’ve used the word “innocuous,” which means “not likely to irritate or offend.” It’s one of our English vocab words.

  “No, I just …” Her eyes dart around nervously, and she swallows.

  “What?” I say. “What is it?”

  “It’s nothing, it’s just … Scarlett, James McFayden is Crissa’s ex-boyfriend.”

  Of course he is. I mean, nothing can ever be simple, now can it? Does this mean I have to stop flirting with him? Does this mean Crissa’s going to hate me even more? Will she find out? Is James McFayden a jerk? Is he flirting with girls now that Crissa has dumped him? Is he heartbroken? Does he like hanging out at family gatherings with Mrs. Bacon? My head is spinning as I rush across campus to the athletic building for practice.

  The speed of my head must directly relate to the speed of my legs, because I get to basketball practice five minutes early. Coach Crazy is standing over by the bleachers, and the team’s huddled around her, looking serious.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “Oh, good, Northon, you’re here,” she says. I’m not sure what’s more upsetting—that she got my name right, or that she’s happy to see me. Neither is a good sign.

  “What’s up?” I say. At practice, you don’t have to talk the way you normally would if you were in class. “What’s up?” is a normal thing to say.

  “Andrea’s hurt,” Coach barks. I look down at Andrea, who’s sitting on the bottom bench of the bleacher. And then I notice she has a cast on her ankle. “Oh, my goodness,” I say. “What happened to you?”

  “I fell,” she says. “Up the stairs.” She looks miserable.

  “I’m so sorry!” I say. And I really am. Basketball is like breathing to Andrea. She can hardly live without it.

  “It’s not your fault,” she mumbles.

  “Northon, you know what this means,” Coach says. She’s marking something off on her clipboard.

  “What?” I ask. We need to organize a party for Andrea? Ooh, score! Like a “Get Well Soon” party for the whole class. That would be fab! And maybe I could set up a makeover booth, like a special treat since it’s for a good cause. And we could have Sandy Candy, this totally cool thing where you make multicolored vases out of that powdered sugar candy that comes in Pixy Stix.

  “It means you’re in,” she says.

  “In what?” I frown.

  “In the game. You’re starting. Now go suit up; we’re going to have to rearrange all our plays.” She looks over her clipboard at me. “Since you’re so short.”

  “What?” I say, horrified. “Oh, no. I can’t start. There’s no way. Isn’t there someone else?” I rack my brain, trying to remember if there are any tall girls I know who’d be good in Andrea’s position.

  “No,” Coach says. “There’s no one else.”

  “What about Morgan McGinley?” I try. “She’s at least five foot ten. Or Michelle Radichio! She’s super athletic, I saw her playing badminton on the lawn once, and it was fierce.”

  “Northon, what’s wrong with you? It’s too late to get someone else—everyone has their extras set up already. Now go suit up.”

  I march to the locker room, my eyes on the floor. Great. How could my luck get any worse than this? I can’t start during basketball season! The only thing that’s kept me going so far is the fact that I’m going to be riding the pine! Isn’t that what everyone said? That I’d be riding the pine? I wanted to ride the pine! I loved the idea of riding the pine! Riding the pine seemed easy and fun.

  I sigh as I slam my feet into my sneakers.

  When I get back to the gym, the rest of the team is standing around, and they don’t look too pleased. No doubt they’re seeing their perfect season going right down the toilet.

  “Northon! There you are!” Coach hikes up her shorts. “Now, listen, take a look at this screen.” I realize she has a whiteboard behind her, with a bunch of marks on it. Now, it’s not like we’ve never gone over plays before. But up until this point, I didn’t really have to pay attention. I’d use the time to daydream up new color combos to try out during my makeovers, or to go over math problems in my head. One time I even pretended I was writing down basketball plays in my binder, when really I was reading my science homework. It was totally obvious, too, but the coach wasn’t going to say anything, because it didn’t matter. I was a pine rider—which is what I wanted to be!

  “What screen?” I look around. Not all the classrooms have screens set up for PowerPoint. I didn’t even know the gym had one. I mean, we’ve never used it before.

  “This one,” the coach says, pointing at the whiteboard.

  “That’s a whiteboard,” I say. Maybe they just call it a screen at Brookline, so that no one feels bad. Kind of like when I was little and they used to tell my cousin Kristi that she was really driving her car at the amusement park, when in fact it was motorized and on a track. Of course, this is a little bit different. I mean, all you have to do is look at the board to be able to tell that it’s obviously not a screen. And the girls at Brookline are supposed to be supersmart, so I don’t think the coach is really fooling anyone. Still, it’s the thought that counts, right?

  “The screen on the whiteboard,” Coach says.

  “This is ridiculous,” Nikki whines. She pulls her long blond hair out of its ponytail, and then gathers it back up again. “Can we please talk about other options?”

  “We’ve already discussed this,” Coach Crazy says. She puts her hands on her massive hips. “There are no other options.”

  What does she mean they’ve already discussed it? How come I haven’t heard about this? Are they having secret meetings that don’t involve me? That’s pretty rude. I mean, I don’t want to start, but I don’t want them thinking I can’t start. I mean, hello. How mean.

  “Coach,” I say, raising my chin. “I’m up for the challenge.”

  The other girls sigh, and a collective groan goes up from the group. They all start talking at once.

  “We’re never going to—”

  “Worked so hard for this year and now—”

  “Forget the championship, we won’t even get to the playoffs, this is—”

  “Quiet!” Coach Crazy blows her whistle and the girls quiet down. “Now listen up,” she says. “We’re on this team not because we’re only going to be happy if we win the tournament. We’re on the team to learn about teamwork, and how to become better basketball players.”

  The team mumbles something that kind of sounds like agreement, but could just be something they do to make Coach Crazy think they agree when they really don’t.

  “Excuse me,” I say. “But has anyone bothered to ask Scarlett what she thinks of all this?”

  “It doesn’t matter what you think, Northon,” Coach barks. “We need you. And you need us.” She’s right. I can’t switch my extras. Everything else is full. “Now let’s get to work.” And she turns back to the board.

  That night, my mom comes to take me out to dinner. I catch sight of her through the window of my dorm, hurrying across the front lawn and up the steps. She’s wearing her long woolen coat with her Burberry scarf, and she’s carrying my black carry-on bag, the one I use when we go on vacation. Probably filled with the workout clothes I asked her to bring.

  I feel my throat catch at the sight of her. I didn’t realize until now how much I missed her. And then I feel guilty for kind of sort of forgetting that she was coming to visit today, what with all the James/Crissa and basketball drama going on. What kind of daughter am I? Especially with my dad out of the picture, she’s all I’ve got right now. When she appears in my room a few minutes later, I throw my arms around her, taking in the scent of her lavender perfume.

  “Hi,” she says. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too,” I say.

  “Wow,” my mom says, pulling back and surveying my room. “It looks different.”

  “What? Oh, yeah. I guess becaus
e it’s lived in.” I look at the array of papers on my desk, along with my unmade bed. Whoopsies. If I’d remembered she was coming, I would have cleaned up.

  “I brought the clothes you wanted,” she says, setting the suitcase down. “And I found a really cute little Italian place where we can have dinner.”

  “Perfect,” I say. I pull my new pink Bebe sweater off one of the hangers in my closet and pull it over my jeans and T-shirt to keep me warm outside. “Oh, you’ll never guess what happened! You know how I’m only on the basketball team because I got semitricked into it?”

  “Yes,” she says. I recounted the horror of being tricked into joining the basketball team in one of our phone conversations. My mom seemed to find it exciting.

  “Well, turns out that Andrea Rice is hurt!”

  She looks blank. Then I realize she doesn’t know who Andrea Rice is.

  “Andrea Rice is our starting point guard,” I explain. “And since there are only six girls on the team, guess who has to take her place?”

  “Wow,” my mom says. “So you’re going to be starting on the basketball team? Scarlett, that’s wonderful.” She looks genuinely pleased. I wonder why parents get all emotional about that kind of stuff. I mean, it’s just a sport. “Your dad is going to be thrilled.”

  “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t be saying that if you’d seen me play,” I say, ignoring the comment about my dad.

  “Nonsense,” she says. “I’ll bet you’re wonderful.”

  “Not really,” I say. “Although I do think my layups are improving. I hit four in a row at the end of practice today. I think I was finally getting the hang of it. I would have gotten the hang of it even more if Coach Crazy hadn’t been screaming, ‘That’s it, Northon! Keep it up!’ It made me nervous.”

  “Well, I hope the things I brought are okay,” my mom says.

  She unzips the bag, and a colorful array of fabrics peek out at me. Reds, blues, grays, and pinks. All my fave colors.

  “I’ve been borrowing things from Crissa.” I shudder and my mom laughs. “It’s not funny, I have to wash them out in the sink every single night! Plus it’s like I’m beholden to her or something. Definitely not the position I want to be in.”