by Megan Linski
“No you weren’t,” she replies. “My bullshit meter is flawless, Raz. I can tell when people are lying, because I’ve done it enough myself.”
She leans forward even more, until she’s sitting on the chair on her knees. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
I freeze. Out of everyone, Makeout Maymee is the one person in the school who can see right through me.
Probably (I guess) because she knows what it’s like to put up an act herself.
“I don’t know,” I say cautiously. “I don’t really want to tell anyone.”
“I bet you told her,” Maymee pouts. I know she means Puppy.
“No. She doesn’t know anything.”
“So will you tell me then?” Maymee said.
“Why should I tell you?” I ask. “You insulted me about it in front of the whole class!”
“I didn’t really it,” she says quickly. “I was just saying that to piss your friend off. I’ll do anything to get under Carmen’s skin.”
“That’s not exactly a way to get on my good side, either,” I protest. “What exactly happened between you two, anyway?”
“I kissed some boy she liked in kindergarten,” she says, waving her hand. “She still hasn’t let it go. We’ve been doing shitty stuff to each other every year since.”
“You’re a gossip queen, from what I’ve heard,” I say. “If I tell you anything you’ll go spreading it to the entire school.”
“I just want to know what happened,” she says, slower this time. “I don’t believe half of what people are saying about you, and I want to know the truth. You can’t be the person everybody is saying you are.”
I keep quiet. She sees the wary look on my face and says, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. I’m a better secret keeper than most people think.”
I cock my head. She leans forward, onto my desk, and asks, “So how did you and Bethany even meet? I know she’s not your cousin’s friend. You made that up.”
I wonder if I can trust her. Makeout Maymee, head of the gossip grapevine. Puppy won’t be happy if I tell her, let alone if she finds out that I talked to her. But does Puppy have to know?
There’s a nagging voice in the back of my head telling me to shut up, but at the same time, I really want to let my guard down. I just want to tell one person what happened, and get it off my chest. I had no choice in telling my family… but I do Maymee.
She’s leaning forward with the utmost sincerity. As far as I can tell, she’s not lying.
I take a deep breath. “All right, since we’ve got nothing better to do in here, I might as well. But you’d better not tell anyone.”
“Your secrets are safe with me,” she says. “Trust me.”
“Okay, well, I’m trusting you.” I look her in the eyes. “Pay attention, because I’m only going to tell the story once…”
* * *
Tinyork Park is as boring as ever. Little kids play on the brand new equipment that the town hall just installed, equipment that moves too slow and never creaks.
The old equipment that I had played on was gone, burned, or missing in the woods. It’s really too bad. Those things were dangerous, but they had been fun.
I lean against a bench and sigh. There’s nothing to do here. Tinyork is so boring.
Thoughts whirl around my head, thoughts of college and moving away. What’s the possibility of getting away from here? Just buying a van and taking off to California after I graduated, to become an actor?
Forget college. I knew what I wanted to be, where I wanted to be. It was Hollywood.
I just didn’t know how to get there.
“What are you so quiet about?” Bethany asks. She’s hanging upside down from some monkey bars.
“I don’t know.” I kick a rock. “I’m just thinking about the day when I’m finally going to get out of here.”
“Ha! I think about that, like, every second.” She flips down from the monkey bars and starts walking toward a crowd of houses.
“Where are you going?” I call.
“To play Ding Dong Ditch,” she says.
“What? Are you crazy?” I ask. “You’re a prankster?”
“That’s a light way of putting it,” she murmurs. She pushes me down into a bush and says, “Stay here and watch.”
I haven’t hung out with Bethany much yet. I don’t know her well, but I know she likes to cause trouble.
She creeps up to a house, then runs up and presses the doorbell. Within seconds she’s away from the door and by my side again.
We both have to suppress our laughter as we see an old man come to the door, shaking his fist. “You damn kids, always ringing my doorbell! I’m tired of your dubstep, Disney channel shit!”
He screams some more nonsense before he hobbles inside and shakes his head.
“That was funny. Do it again!” I demand.
I watch, house after house, as Bethany rings almost every doorbell, never getting caught. I take note of how she does it, the way she moves like a ghost from door to door.
“Now you try,” she says, poking me in the arm.
“Me?” I say. “I don’t like to mess with stuff like that. It’s sort of rude.”
“But it’s funny, right? Just once,” she insists.
There’s a large brick house across the street. “What about there?” I ask.
She nods eagerly. I snicker as I sneak to the house, but I’m nowhere as good as Bethany. I’m making a lot of noise. She nearly gives me away when I fall over a garden gnome, because her laugh is so loud.
But I manage to make it to the front door and waste no time ringing it. I run back to the bushes with Bethany and wait.
Another old man comes to the front door. I nearly bust a gut. He’s wearing a short red bathrobe that barely covers his knees, fuzzy slippers and a towel wrapped around his head. Confused, he goes back inside as Bethany and I chuckle.
“He left the door unlocked,” I say.
Bethany has a wicked look in her eyes. “Come on.” She grabs my hand and starts pulling me toward the house. I don’t understand what we’re doing until she opens the door.
“What? Bethany, no,” I say, and I pull my hand away.
“Just go!” She shoves me inside, jumps in herself and shuts the door behind us.
It’s the kind of house that has classical music playing, with marble floors and expensive paintings lining the walls. Bethany beckons for me to follow. I tiptoe after her, feeling like this is a bad idea.
Bethany walks up to a dresser. Several diamond rings are glistening back at us.
“Ooh. Shiny,” She grabs the biggest one and pockets it.
“Bethany, that’s not ours. Put it back,” I tell her.
“You’re going to tell me these rich assholes are going to miss it? Please.” She rolls her eyes and pockets another diamond ring.
“Hey!” a sharp voice snaps. We turn to see the old man standing in the doorway. “Get out of my house!”
The old man starts for us. Though he looks so stupid with the tiny robe and all, he also looks menacing. Bethany pulls me around, and we escape through the side window just before the old man grabs the back of my shirt.
We don’t stop running until we reach the playground again. We collapse in the grass, laughing.
“You’re all right, kid,” she chuckles. “For a Razberry, anyway.”
My laughter slows. “We have to return those rings, you know. I know it was a joke that you stole them or whatever, but we can’t keep them.”
“Sure,” Bethany says. She gets to her feet and helps me up. “Yeah, we will. Tomorrow.”
Bethany and I didn’t hang out the next day, but the day after that she had both diamond rings on, one for each hand.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to make her mad, and besides… it was like she said. It wasn’t like those people would even notice they were gone, right?
* * *
“Hold on a minute,” Maymee says. I’m cut off as I take another breath. “Do yo
u mean to say you and Bethany stole two diamond rings?”
“I didn’t take them. She did. I just… didn’t stop her,” I say.
Maymee and I both shut up as we see a shadow outside the door. Goose comes in and story time is cut short.
He looks at me, and I look at him. An invisible passage of mutual dislike passes between us. I’ve only been here for a week at Limesville High, but already, I don’t like him.
“Time’s up,” he says. “Meet me back in this room same time next Wednesday.”
Maymee and I gather our things. She grabs my arm and says, “Next week, will you tell me the rest?”
“I don’t know if we’ll have enough time,” I say. “It’s still a long story, and I’ve only just started.”
“Please?” she begs.
I can’t resist those eyes. They remind me of Puppy’s. “Sure, whatever. I’ll try, at least.”
Maymee nods. “You can be sure I won’t tell. I’m not exactly a saint, but I do keep secrets.”
Before I can ask what she means, she’s out the door and gone.
Chapter 4 - Mood Swings
The day of the football game we decide that just outside the field would be the perfect place to hold our next scene, a complicated argument between my character and Puppy’s.
We bump into several couples kissing under the rafters, including Maymee. She gives me a halfhearted wave. Puppy snorts and tosses her ponytail behind her head. This time it’s just us, Zoar, and Pepper filming.
Our team, the Limesville Lemons (yes, I know… Limesville Lemons… I nearly cried when I found out our mascot name), are losing. Our school couldn’t be less enthusiastic about our team if you shut them in a morgue. It’s more pathetic than Tinyork, and that’s saying something.
Even so, we miscalculated how many people are here. It’s a few games before playoffs, so I guess we should’ve expected it. The only problem we’re going to have is to make sure that nobody gets caught in the film accidentally.
Goose is chatting with somebody at the corner of the field. I’m surprised he’s even here. I heard he usually doesn’t come to games. Goose narrows his eyes as I pass by, but he looks too busy to harass me right now.
I’m glad. I’m not exactly sure if we’re allowed to film here, and I know that if I ask Goose will say no regardless of what the rules say.
“Let’s move over here, guys,” Puppy says, pointing to a section of unoccupied sidewalk. “No one will bother us.”
Pepper takes her spot as director. “Okay, guys, you ready?”
“We rehearsed it all hour today. We’re ready,” I say.
“Yeah, whatever. Get it over with.” Puppy rolls her eyes.
Zoar positions the camera. “Three… two… one… rolling.”
I turn toward Puppy as the film comes into action. Suddenly, I become my character. Passionate, worried, concerned about my friend in danger.
It feels so good to slip out of Razberry Sweet, to slip out of my own life, and become someone else.
“Theophania, you have to love me. Take my hand and I’m sure we can beat all the zombies. It’ll just be you and me girl, forever.”
I hold out my hand, trying not to feel annoyed with Perry and Ola. They made all of my lines so overdramatic and cheesy. I have to overact just to compensate.
Puppy blinks her eyes a few times. “I don’t know, John, it’s all so sudden…”
I raise my hand to stroke her cheek. When I touch her skin my hand tingles, and I’m trying hard not to smile.
Things are going so well just before Pepper yells, “Cut!”
We turn to her. “That was okay,” Pepper says. “But I’m not getting enough emotion from Puppy. Come on, girl, this is your long lost lover here, offering to run away with you. Get it together.”
“Why don’t I just push him down and start going at it right now, then?” Puppy asks, and she crosses her arms. Zoar bends over laughing. I blush.
“If you’d like to do that, fine. It’ll give the film more emotion,” Pepper says.
Zoar laughs harder. I try hard not to look at Puppy.
“Why do we have to have this gushy stupid love story?” Puppy moans.
“Because Maymee asked for it, and we’re trying to involve everybody, It’s a class effort,” Pepper protests. “One more time.”
Puppy taps her fingers against her arms and sighs, then turns back to me. I get ready to say my lines, but everything I’ve memorized falls out of my head as I stare into those puppy brown eyes, getting completely lost in them…
God… she’s beautiful… I wonder what she’d do if I just leaned down and—
“OUT OF MY WAY!” a voice screams in my ear. Before I know who said that some kid jars us both apart. We stare in amazement as some guy from the soccer team runs completely nude past the crowd and onto the field, obviously very drunk and screaming his head off.
“Oh my gosh,” Pepper whispers. “Goose is going to lay an egg when he sees him.”
“If they catch him,” I say, feeling amused. I always thought streaking was something people talked about but never actually never had the guts to do. I’m beginning to like Limesville.
We watch as the student is chased around the field by players, referees, and teachers. Nobody wants to touch him. Some football player throws him a towel and the drunk student is carted off the field by none other than Maximum Goose.
The only sound we can hear is the laughter of the crowd. I turn around to face my friends, who are red faced with both embarrassment and laughter.
“Please tell me you didn’t get that,” I ask Zoar.
He gives me a weirded out look. “I’ll delete it as soon as I can, Raz.”
“Delete it now, before Goose catches us with it!” I hiss. “He saw us walk in with a camera!”
“Let’s just go,” Pepper says. “We’ll do the scene somewhere else another day.”
The four of us head for the exit. The streaker must’ve distracted the other team really badly, because our school is actually winning now.
“That was crazy,” Puppy says. She’s driving us home in her car and shaking her head as Zoar replays the footage we have over and over. “That’s never happened here. Things have gotten weird ever since you’ve shown up, Raz.”
“What can I say?” I ask. “People lose their minds when they’re around my artistic genius.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Pepper says sarcastically. “I’m actually really pleased with the scenes we’ve done so far. Maybe we can enter it in a contest and stand a chance of winning something.”
“As long as there aren’t any streakers in it,” Zoar chips in.
* * *
Another week passes. I’m so involved in the movie making that I don’t realize I have another detention coming up until it’s here. No doubt Maymee is going to bug the heck out of me for more details about Bethany.
Sure enough, she’s leaning forward on her desk in the empty classroom when I arrive, hands clasped and looking like a reporter about to embark on a juicy new story. She hasn’t told anybody anything as far as I know, which impresses me. I was certain she was going to blab the whole thing to her friends the instant we left.
Once I take my seat and Goose goes out the door, she prods me for info. “Come on, details! You promised me that you would tell me more!”
I roll my eyes. “Relax, Maymee! I said I would. Okay, so, after she stole the rings, Bethany and I started hanging out a lot. She would come over to my house every day, and we would walk around town…”
* * *
Bethany and I took the bus from Tinyork to hang out at the mall. We’re lounging outside of the building casually, watching shoppers pass us by. They give us suspicious looks.
I know we look like the definition of delinquents. I don’t have it in me to give a shit.
Bethany is puffing on another cigarette. I don’t know where she got the things, and I’m not about to ask her. It’s a bad habit, but there’s no arguing with her. I’ve trie
d to get her to stop before and no matter what I say, she won’t give the things up.
She can tell that I’m upset. She pulls the cigarette out of her mouth and asks, “Raz, what’s wrong?”
“Another fight with my parents.” My voice is blank and flat. “It’s like the same thing every day.”
“What about?”
I shake my head. “Everybody’s trying to tell me what to do with my life, my future. I should be able to decide what I want to do.”
“What do you want to do, Raz?”
I can’t help the way my heart jumps when I say it. “I want to be an actor.”
“Then you’re going to have to make a lot of sacrifices,” she says. “It takes a lot to be famous.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You have to do whatever it takes to push your way to the top,” she says simply. “Even if it means hurting people.”
I look down at the sidewalk. “That’s not what I was taught.”
“You think you’re going to make it big by being honest? This world spits on the good guy and makes the liars into gods. Cheaters prosper here… as long as they don’t get caught.” She taps some ash off the tip of her cigarette.
I change the subject. “You know you can get sick from those things,” I say.
“So?” she asks. She takes a long drag and asks, “Want one?”
“No thanks. The smoke gives me a headache.”
“Your choice,” she says. She smokes a little while longer before throwing the thing away. “Come on. Let’s go do something.”
A pit of dread fills my stomach. Hanging with Bethany is sort of dangerous. She’s always looking for some sort of temporary high.
We go inside the mall and walk into a department store. She browses hungrily, her eyes scanning over the various items.
I see a shiny pair of black Ray Bans. I take them off the shelf just to look at them. I’m dying to have them. My parents buy me whatever I need, but I don’t really get a voice in what I want.
I check the price, wince, and put them back.
“Want them?” Bethany asks.
“Yeah,” I say. Really badly.
“Then why don’t you get them?” she says.