All the Feels

by Heather Nuhfer

  Lizzie and Dean looked at each other in silence for a moment before turning to me at the same time and saying, “Sure.”

  “Cool! Thanks!”

  The period went by so fast! And I was absolutely dreading where I had to go next.

  As I walked into Mr. Murray’s classroom, there was more than a smattering of hushed giggles. Sitting on the desk I had saved for Charlie the day before was an open English book. Next to it was an apple with a bite taken out of it.

  “Uh-oh, Veronica, I think Imagin-Amy might have stepped out on her own,” Mr. Stephens said with fake concern. The kids laughed, and he mugged for them.

  I didn’t say anything and just walked to my desk, feeling the eyes of the other kids on me.

  “This is in good fun! I hope you can see it that way. You know, grow a sense of humor!” he told me.

  Yeah, right.

  I made sure not to look at Mr. Stephens or the class or even in the general direction of Imagin-Amy for the entire period. I was so mad that I probably would have shot a fireball right through Mr. Stephens’s overly producted hair.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until final bell that I saw something that perked the day right up. It was a boy with very red hair that was now mostly covered in gross green goo. Charlie pointed at his head, a wild grin on his freshly scrubbed face.

  “This was brilliant!”

  “Were you with Chomers?” I asked.

  “No, but we were both ‘victims’ of a very, very mean practical joker, Ms. McGowan,” he giggled. “Wait. You mean, you didn’t leave it for me?”

  “What?”

  “It was in me locker. Got slimed before lunch.”

  I realized what had happened. There wasn’t just one bubble. Another one had gone into Charlie’s locker and I hadn’t even noticed! Even weirder, it had hung around in the locker for all that time. My powers were usually in the moment. Once my mood passed, so did they. But not this one. It was persistent. It felt like getting a piece of food stuck between my teeth, or between me and Charlie.

  “What brought that one on?” he asked, grabbing his backpack.

  “Uh, I dunno. Totally rando for sure,” I said quickly. “Where’s Betsy?”

  “She had to pick her brother up and walk him home.”

  “So, what else happened today? I hate not being able to talk to you … both.”

  “You mean other than getting marked? At least I look lovely in green.” He paused. “It does kind of blow, doesn’t it? I guess I hadn’t thought about it too much.”

  Thanks, pal.

  “What can we do?” I said. “Text?”

  “No. No way. Mom said if I get busted for texting in class again, I’ll be spending next summer on Uncle Mike’s yam farm.”

  “Suggestion: Don’t text during class.”

  “Impossible. It’s the height of rudeness to ignore a text message. It’s completely uncivilized.” Charlie mimed drinking a cup of tea with his pinky finger stuck out.

  “Well, then I’ll just leave a bubble o’ goo in your locker every day and you can figure out what it means,” I joked.

  “Wait!” Charlie gasped. “That could be really fun!”

  “I think the powers that be might get a little suspicious if you are covered in goo every day, dude. Sorry.”

  “No! What if you left a superpower in my locker? It could be, like, our own secret code.”

  The thought tumbled through my brain. “That’s still a little dangerous, don’t you think? I mean, if I can even conjure up a power, I’ll still have to manage it. And, you know, not burn down part of the school. Again.”

  Charlie had started hopping up and down excitedly. “But it would be so fun! You kinda learned how to direct your powers when we were at camp—”

  “And I destroyed our movie and made everyone hate me,” I interrupted him.

  “But you didn’t! Come on, V. Our way of communicating! Just ours.”

  It was that last little bit that hooked me.

  “Okay. Okay. We can try it. It’s only a trial!”

  Charlie hugged me, pulling me into his bouncing. “So. Much. Fun!”

  “You gotta help me figure out a party for Ms. Watson, though. That has to be part of the deal,” I added. My calves were starting to cramp up.

  “Sure!”

  “That was quick,” I said suspiciously, as our hopping died down.

  “Betsy’s in too!” he exclaimed.

  “Good!” I said, trying to focus on the fact that I was getting what I wanted, not that everything was about Betsy.

  “Why don’t you come over to the house? We’re sending out invitations. You could help,” I offered.

  Charlie shrugged.

  “And Dad just got ice cream.”

  “Let’s go!”

  “You have to wash the green out of your hair here. Dad won’t handle that amount of paint in the bathroom sink. Trust me.”

  * * *

  There were about seven thousand cards and envelopes on the dining table.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to just put an ad in the newspaper?” I teased Dad, but got a stealthy nod of agreement from Ms. Watson.

  “Skywriting?” Charlie offered between bites of an ice cream bar.

  “Go big or go home,” Dad said.

  “Mrs. Brannon called it the ‘event of the season,’” I told Dad.

  “Well then, she gets an invitation written by me,” Dad said.

  “You do have very nice handwriting,” I complimented him.

  “We’re inviting the art teacher?” Ms. Watson asked. “The art teacher we’ve never had any social contact with before?”

  Dad reached across the table and put his hand on top of Ms. Watson’s hand. “We deserve a massive, beautiful wedding, where we can celebrate with our friends, with cake and punch and a top-of-the-line karaoke machine and dancing.”

  “You want a big wedding so you can justify a big karaoke party, don’t you?” Ms. Watson saw right through him.

  “She is good.” I nudged him. And we all laughed.

  “I’m doing it for the love, my dear!” Dad assured Ms. Watson, then added, “And for hits from the eighties.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Enter!” Dad yelled without getting up.

  “Sup,” Betsy said as she walked into my kitchen.

  “Betsy? What happened?”

  She looked at me puzzled. “What?”

  “Why are you here?” I said in the least insulting tone I could.

  “I invited her,” Charlie said as he closed up an envelope. “Many hands make … Jack a dull boy…” Charlie pondered. “I don’t think that’s right.”

  “He called me like twenty minutes ago,” she said.

  “Yeah! When I was in the WC.”

  “You called her from the bathroom?” I asked.

  Everyone looked at him.

  “I washed my hands first!” he said defensively.

  “Won’t you sit down, Ms. Monroe?” Ms. Watson suggested.

  Betsy’s eyes went wide as she looked to me, then Charlie.

  “It’s okay, she’s nice!” Charlie reassured Betsy, and patted the seat next to his.

  Hesitantly, she joined us.

  “So, Betsy,” Dad started, “how has your first week back been?”

  She shrugged.

  “I feel ya,” Dad said as he slid her a stack of envelopes to stuff.

  “We’ve actually had a lot of fun so far, haven’t we, Bets?” Charlie offered. “We might even get to be partners for our social studies project.”

  “That’ll be cool,” she admitted. “Aztecs and stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie agreed.

  “Well, I mean, we also have our own cool thing going on at school, don’t we, Charlie?” I heard myself say.

  “We do? We don’t even see each other,” Charlie mused.

  “You know, the thing,” I said, and made a motion with my hand like it was a bubble that popped and dripped goo over my h
ead.

  “Oh yeah!” Charlie suddenly remembered our stupidpower messaging.

  “You’re not dumping anything on anyone’s head, are you?” Dad asked, suspicious from my gestures.

  Ms. Watson seemed to be staring at Charlie. I followed her line of sight and saw what she was really looking at: a streak of green paint just below his earlobe! I tried to gently kick Charlie under the table.

  “Ow!” he shouted. “Who kicked me?”

  “Sorry, it was an accident,” I told him while rubbing the same spot under my ear where the paint was on him. He didn’t get it, so I gave up.

  “Did you check the guest list, Veri?” Dad asked. “Anyone we forgot?”

  I’d been pondering something and I wasn’t exactly sure how to bring it up. My gut was telling me it probably wouldn’t go over very well.

  “So, uh, I was thinking that maybe we should invite my mother to the wedding,” I said, but it sounded a lot more like a question than I had intended.

  “Absolutely not,” Dad answered immediately.

  “Whaaaaaat?” Charlie looked at me, aghast.

  One point for my gut. “Can’t we just, I don’t know, invite her? Try to make things … copacetic?”

  “Even if I knew what that word meant, I would vote no,” Charlie added.

  “It means to have everything in order, smooth stuff out, Chuck,” Dad explained, “but there is no vote. This isn’t even a thought we’re entertaining.”

  “Of course,” I muttered. “’Cause this is all about you two.”

  “Veri,” Dad warned.

  “I’m just saying. Why not? Why not give her a chance to change? For us to have a normal relationship,” I complained. I could feel my powers stirring as my irritation rose, but I didn’t care.

  “There is nothing normal or nice about her. You know that.”

  “What? Are you scared?”

  “Excuse you?” Dad challenged.

  “Scared that I’ll like her more than you.”

  “You know what, kiddo? I am scared. Scared that she’ll drag your snotty little butt off to someone who really could hurt you. Now stop.”

  “You asked if there was anyone I wanted to invite.” I gestured at the table. “But I guess what I want doesn’t mean much anymore.”

  “You are being—” Dad started, but that just made me angrier.

  “What am I ‘being,’ Dad? Oh, I forgot, it doesn’t matter what I think!”

  He threw his hands up in the air before taking a deep breath. “That’s not true,” he said in his fake calm voice.

  “Pfft!” I stood up. “I’m out. You know, ’cause it doesn’t matter that I’m here anyway. Do whatever you want. Invite whoever you want. Spend forever with whoever you want. Obviously, you don’t need me anymore.” I pushed my chair out from the table and marched toward the door.

  Pfffft!!

  “Oh, look!” I said, pointing at the bursts of hot steam that were shooting from each of my ears. “Great! Stupidpowers! Yet another thing I have absolutely no say in!” I slammed the kitchen door behind me.

  “Well, that was awkward,” I heard Betsy say through the door.

  Awkward, no. Enraging, yes, I thought. But I was also already questioning myself. Why did I want to invite my mother so badly? Why was this becoming a fixation when I had so much other stuff to think about? Fun stuff to think about! I knew one thing: I couldn’t go back to the dining room. My dramatic exit had left me a little embarrassed. I needed to give all of them some time to forget it. Well, what the heck was I going to do after that? I went up to my room and crawled into bed, surrounding myself with every pillow I could find. If they were doing invitations, so would I. I did have two parties to plan, after all. I grabbed my notebook and drew a line down the center of the page. One side for Dad, one side for Ms. Watson. I quickly started writing down the names of my dad’s friends: Waldo, John, Oscar, Tito, Frank—the list went on and on. Once it was time to start on Ms. Watson’s side, I grabbed the yearbook and flipped to the faculty pages.

  Suddenly there was a familiar clomp on the door.

  “Come in, Charlie,” I said. As I looked at the opening door I had to add, “And Betsy.”

  “All right?” Charlie asked, his brow furrowed with concern.

  “Yeah, just … ugh.” I rolled my eyes.

  “So that’s what it’s like at your house all the time?” Betsy asked. “You just do freaky weird stuff and no one says anything about it?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Cool.”

  “How’s it looking down there?” I asked.

  “Your dad mumbled something about hormones. Then Ms. Watson did something very curious,” Charlie said, raising his eyebrow.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “She stood up. Then sat down. Then stood up again. Then sat down again,” Charlie recalled.

  “Then she just went back to stuffing envelopes like a robot,” Betsy added. “It was like she had a computer glitch that made her stand and sit over and over again.”

  “Weird,” I said.

  “Chuck! Your mama’s calling you!” Dad shouted up the stairs.

  “Does he have superpower hearing or something?” Betsy asked, amazed.

  “No, that’s just what he says when he wants me to leave,” Charlie explained. “Be right down, Rik!”

  “Suppose that means I should go, too,” Betsy said.

  “You really all right?” Charlie asked me.

  “Yeah. Just … bleh.”

  “Lemme know if you need anything?”

  “Of course. Thanks, Charlie.” I felt my heart warm a little bit. My best friend was still my best friend. At least for now.

  He swung the door open and held it, gesturing for Betsy to walk through. “After you, m’lady,” he said in a goofy voice.

  “Did you fart or something and want me to walk through it?” Betsy asked, confused.

  “No,” Charlie tittered nervously. “Being nice.”

  Betsy waved goodbye to me and walked suspiciously through the doorway. Charlie motioned for me to text him before closing the door on his way out.

  What was that?!

  A few seconds later, there was a crisp knock on my door. “McGowan, may I enter? I need to discuss something urgent with you.”

  “Uh, sure?” I answered. This was a first.

  “Wow. It’s very colorful in here.” Ms. Watson marveled at my poster-strewn walls.

  “Thanks. Are you saying the walls of your mansion are pretty bare?” I asked.

  “What?” She was dumbfounded.

  I sighed. “What can I help you with?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Ms. Watson? I thought it was urgent.”

  She sat on the edge of my bed, but quickly stood back up. Maybe she was malfunctioning again.

  “May I?” she asked, gesturing back to the bed.

  I nodded.

  “It’s about what happened downstairs,” she started.

  “Look,” I said. “I probably shouldn’t have gotten that upset. I didn’t mean to say that about you and Dad getting married.”

  “That’s all right. Anger is a normal emotion of adjustment. I’ve been reading up on these things in preparation for our next stages.”

  “Okay?” I had no idea what she was trying to get at.

  “You could have brought up your mother any other time, but it came out rather forcefully and unexpectedly tonight.”

  “You’re gonna have to help me out a little with this one.”

  “Deductive logic would tell me that you are upset about the relationship between Charlie and Betsy.”

  “What?!” I guffawed. Hard.

  “You are displaying some very textbook symptoms. You lashed out shortly after Betsy arrived. You seemed happy until then.”

  Crud. She was right.

  Ms. Watson went on. “I know it is important to have a dialogue and I’ve read that these types of situations might be difficult for a daughter to talk about with her fat
her.”

  I puffed up my cheeks with air, then pushed it out forcefully. “I am having a hard time,” I said shamefully. Then my internal dam broke. The words came fast and furious: “I just didn’t think … I mean, are they almost a couple or something? Not that that should—would—bother me. I don’t think … it’s … She was our enemy six months ago and now he’s calling her ‘Bets’? Bets?! And they are spending every second together and I’m just. Here. I don’t know what to do. Should I do something? What could I do without looking like a desperate loner loser? I’m probably just being paranoid anyway, right? Maybe? Possibly? Perhaps?!”

  Suddenly I was aware of Ms. Watson, who had gone completely stiff. Her eyes were wide and I swear she hadn’t blinked in ages. Yep. I had freaked her out.

  “Sorry,” I said, but she was already slowly getting up.

  “No. No, it’s all okay,” she said, but her face didn’t match her calm tone.

  “Once I start to vent it can be too much, I know. I forgot.”

  She was halfway out the door at this point.

  “Oh, wait!” I said, looking at my party invite list. “Who do you want me to invite to your bachelorette party?”

  “Please don’t make a fuss.”

  “We need to make a fuss! That’s the whole point,” I reminded her.

  “I don’t want to invite anyone from my past. Really. We can skip the whole thing.”

  “Then what kind of maid of honor am I?” I asked.

  “The kind that holds the big bouquet. Makes sure my bra strap isn’t showing. The kind that has fun.”

  Something about that didn’t work for me. “You gotta do something…”

  “Please don’t worry about it. It seems like you have enough on your plate,” she said. “I’ll send Rik up in a bit. I need to head home anyway.”

  “Nah, I’ll come down with you.” I hoisted myself out of my pillowy mess and followed her down the stairs, but she had basically sprinted out of sight. “See you tomorrow,” I called to her. I was headed to the kitchen to intentionally miss their kiss goodbye.