“You’ll work in your groups after lunch today when you’ll receive your assigned novel section. But before that, I think it’s time for a pop quiz.”
My stomach felt nervous. We rarely had those. And I hated it when we did.
“Let’s see what you remember about New Mexico’s water resources.”
That didn’t seem like a fair thing to do on a Monday. Because, like most normal sixth graders, I was busy doing a bunch of stuff over the weekend that had nothing to do with remembering my state’s water resources.
“I am so glad I reviewed this last night,” Mint said as Mr. Guzman picked up a stack of quizzes from his desk.
“What a brownnoser,” a voice said.
I flipped around to see who it was. Tuma! I nodded at him, but he didn’t look at me.
I felt one more note land next to me. It was from Todd.
Maybe I’ll get to come to your house to work with Mint.
I was almost happy to read that note. Except Todd should not have been coming over to my house to work with Mint. He should be coming over to my house to see me.
I couldn’t wait for Angelina Mint Taravel to return to bear-infested Eagle River, Alaska, because that was exactly where she belonged.
13
Lunch started out reasonably well that day, because as soon as we entered the cafeteria Mint told me that she wanted to take this time to get to know Kimmie a little bit better.
“Since we’re going to be working together in this group, I think it makes sense to break bread with her,” Mint said. She sounded as if she was forty.
“Wait! Did I read the menu wrong?” Rachel asked. “I thought they served vegetable flatbread sandwiches tomorrow. Did I miss it?”
For some unknown reason, that was Rachel’s favorite lunch item at our school.
“Relax. ‘Break bread’ is a saying,” Ava explained. “It means you share a meal.”
“You know everything,” Mint said, and there was a small ounce of sarcasm in her voice.
I saw a red color creep into Ava’s cheeks. That was a mean thing to say, because Ava had just gotten a very low score on her pop quiz, whereas Mint had received a perfect one.
“I know the things that matter,” Ava replied.
“Awesome,” Mint chirped. “See you back in class.”
“Later,” I said, sounding a tad more insincere than I intended.
Mint flipped back around so fast that her hair lightly slapped her in the face. “I forgot. I hope the class captains like your cookies. They look so much better than your last batch.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled. It was a huge relief that she wanted to spend lunch with Kimmie.
Ava, Rachel, Lucia, and I all went and collected our bagels and returned to our regular table. I kept my cookies on the bench beside me, because I was worried that if I set them on the table that people seated near me would think that I had a bunch to share. Because I’d only made enough for the cookie basket.
“I’m so lucky that I passed that quiz,” Lucia said. “Who knew my parents’ love of visiting reservoirs would pay off one day?”
“That quiz was lame,” Ava said. “Let’s not talk about it.”
There was a little bit of silence while we chewed our bagels.
“I’m really happy we’re together,” Rachel said to me.
“Yeah,” I said. It was a relief to have one friend in my group.
“I’m actually a little bit worried about my group,” Lucia said. “I don’t want to get stuck doing all the work.”
“Jasmine will help you,” I said. “Both of her parents are doctors. She knows how to work hard on a team.” I didn’t mention her other team member’s pork-chop scent.
Ava snorted. “I think it’s pretty clear that I got the worst group of all.”
There was no way to object to that observation. Because it was true.
“Paulette? Tuma? Bobby?” Ava shook her head. She was so upset I thought I could see tears welling up in her eyes.
“Bobby is smart,” Rachel said. “He plays chess.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “How is that going to help me write a wolf play?”
Then the table shook a little. Because Jagger and Todd arrived and put their trays down next to us with a lot of enthusiasm. It was a shocking and fantastic development. They never ate lunch with us. They always sat at the boy tables.
“Yo, guess who got a perfect score on the pop quiz?” Jagger asked. He stuck a fish stick in his mouth and bit it in half.
Nobody answered. We didn’t want to say Mint’s name.
“I did!” Jagger said.
That was news. He never scored well on quizzes or tests or art projects.
“And I have your cousin to thank for that,” Jagger said.
“Did she let you cheat off her?” Rachel asked.
“No,” Jagger said with a frown. “She sent me quiz texts last night.”
Ava’s eyes grew very big. I thought Mint had hijacked Jagger at my pajama party. But that was nothing compared to sending him quiz texts on a Sunday night.
“That’s interesting,” Lucia said.
“I did so bad,” Todd said. “I wish Mint would have sent me some quiz texts.”
I felt my heart beat very fast inside my chest, like a fluttery bird had gotten trapped where my heart used to be.
“Let’s talk about something else,” Ava said.
I took a bite of bagel and tried to think of another topic. Crunch. Crunch.
“So where’s Mint?” Jagger asked.
Oh no. This was a horrible development. Jagger shouldn’t ask for Mint in front of Ava. That was cruel. Lucia tried to save things.
“What do you think of the group assignment?” she asked.
Todd shrugged. “I hope we get a good part.”
Ava pounced. She did not want anybody asking about Mint again. “What part would you want?”
Todd looked at the ceiling as if he was thinking really hard. “Remember the part where the girl was starving and so she ate raw meat after one of wolves chewed it for her and threw it up back up? Maybe something like that.”
Gross.
“I forgot all about that,” Jagger said.
Me too. My mind tries to forget gross stuff as soon as possible.
“Lane!” a voice called. It was a guy. My friends and I all started looking around.
“Derek is calling for you,” Jagger said.
I felt my cheeks turn red. “It’s about the cookies I brought.”
“You brought cookies today?” Rachel asked excitedly.
“For the basket,” I explained. “My vegan cookies.”
Everybody looked a lot less excited once I’d said that. I was relieved when Derek stopped calling for me. He had bad timing. I was busy talking to Todd and Jagger.
“Let’s talk about something besides our groups,” Ava said. “Because I got the worst one.”
We all looked at Ava in a pitying way. Except for Todd. Because he didn’t know about the Ava/Jagger crush. So he missed out on the deeper meaning of what was being said with our eyes.
“But Bobby is smart,” Jagger said. “He reads comic books from the seventies.”
“And he plays chess,” Rachel repeated.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Ava said. “What about Tuma? And Paulette?”
Ava didn’t call them losers in front of Jagger, but that was exactly what she thought of them.
“It’ll be okay,” Lucia said.
“I want to switch groups,” Ava said. Then she looked up at Jagger and blinked several times.
It’s as if I could read Ava’s mind. She wanted Jagger to drop Mint from his group and invite Ava. But that couldn’t happen for two reasons. First, Jagger didn’t have the authority to do that. Second, Jagger obviously wanted Mint in his group. Ava kept blinking and blinking. The only reason she stopped was because Mint showed up to our table. With Kimmie.
“Jagger and Todd,” Mint gushed. “Kimmie has some of the
best ideas ever.”
Ava’s mouth dropped open.
“About our play?” Jagger asked.
“I don’t think my ideas are that great,” Kimmie said. She chewed on her lip a little and adjusted her glasses so they weren’t slipping down her nose.
“Don’t sell yourself short, Kimmie,” Mint said. “Your strategy for building a wolf den that’s fully functioning and yet still viewable for the audience is amazing. I mean, ah-maze-zing.”
“Cool,” Todd said.
It hurt my fluttery bird heart to hear that Todd thought her idea was cool.
“She sketched a diagram of it right here on this napkin,” Mint said, thrusting a white rectangle inked with elaborate markings in front of Jagger.
“But you don’t even know which scene you’re getting,” Ava said. “You might not even get a wolf den scene.”
Kimmie looked down at the cafeteria floor as if she was super bummed to realize this.
“They might get a wolf den scene,” Lucia said. “The main character spends a ton of the story in the wolf den.”
Ava rolled her eyes.
“We’ve sketched some other stuff on napkins too,” Mint said. “Possible ways to create the tundra using common household items: sheets, pillows, shower curtains.”
What? I hoped Kimmie planned to let her group use her family’s household items. Because I sure wasn’t going to let Mint take our shower curtain.
“Let’s go check it out,” Jagger said. He picked up his tray and stood next to Mint. “And I’ve got some questions about the slime caves and the magic rock.”
“But you haven’t even been given your novel section yet,” Ava tried again.
Mint let out a big sigh and looked up at the ceiling. “This suspense is brutal. I wonder if I went and asked Mr. Guzman for our parts if he’d give them to me right now.”
“I highly doubt that,” Ava said. “Highly.”
“He said we’d get them after lunch,” Rachel said.
“It doesn’t hurt to ask,” Mint said.
Ava snorted a little bit while she drank her milk.
“Hmm,” Mint said. “We should totally take a few minutes right now and brainstorm.”
“I bet whatever we get we’ll need some tundra,” Kimmie said.
“Okay,” Jagger said.
“So how long have you been playing Dwarf Massacre?” Todd asked. “Jagger says you’ve conquered every level.”
“Yeah,” Mint said. “That game is awesome.”
Ava looked down at her last bite of bagel and scowled while they all left in an excited clump.
“Your cousin is rotten,” Ava said. “She just stole Jagger and Todd on purpose. Nobody is that excited about a transformational genre assignment.”
“I can’t believe she plays Dwarf Massacre,” Lucia said.
“That is pretty unbelievable,” I said.
“Did she get really good grades in Alaska? Is she worried about keeping up her GPA?” Lucia asked.
I shrugged. I did not want to have to lie about this. “Probably.”
“Do you think that Mint likes Jagger?” Rachel asked. “I mean, as more than friends?”
Ava’s eyes narrowed.
“He must,” Lucia said. “I mean, he’s texting her about New Mexico’s water resources.”
“Yeah,” Rachel said.
Ava looked so miserable. It made me feel miserable too. Since my cousin was the source of her pain, I felt as if it was my job to say something to cheer her up. So I did my best to try to head off the drama.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said. But even though I wanted to believe those words, deep down I had no idea whether or not they were true.
“What makes you say that?” Ava asked.
I glanced around the table at all the staring faces. And then I just started saying random things.
“I don’t think she’s interested in Jagger,” I said. “She’s just social.”
Ava looked a tiny bit happier.
“She is very social,” Rachel said. “She basically talks to anything with a face.”
“True,” Lucia said. “But she talks to Jagger a lot. Plus, they text.”
Ava looked devastated again.
“Good point,” Rachel said.
I watched Ava stare at her empty milk carton. She didn’t deserve to have her feelings hurt. So I just kept saying random things.
“I think Mint has a crush on somebody back in Alaska,” I blurted out, even though I had no idea. We’d barely talked about her life there.
“Really?” Ava asked. “Why do you think that?”
Hmm. That was a good question.
“Does she talk about him?” Rachel asked.
I really didn’t want to lie. So I thought of a way to avoid doing that. “She writes in her diary every night like a fiend. And she’s very secretive about it. She’s probably writing about the guy she likes.”
Lucia finished her bagel and then licked a crumb from her bottom lip. “Most people are secretive when they write in their diaries. It’s where people put their most private thoughts. She might not be writing about a guy.”
“Well,” I said. “I think his name is Diego.”
What was I doing? Why had the name of her cabdriver popped into my head? And why did I say it? It didn’t matter. Ava looked almost happy. “You never told me that Mint kept a diary.”
We heard Jagger’s laugh echo through the cafeteria. Followed by Todd’s. It was a painful sound to hear.
“I wonder what Mint writes about in her diary. Do you think she writes about us?” Rachel asked.
“Probably,” Ava said. “We’re very interesting. We would make a great reality show.”
Jagger’s laugh bounced through the lunchroom again. And then Mint zoomed out of the cafeteria.
“And she’s probably writing about Diego,” I added.
Everybody nodded. Which felt good. And bad.
“Do you know what would be fun to do this weekend?” Ava asked.
“What?” Rachel asked. “Work on our wolf plays?”
“No,” Ava said. “Have another sleepover.”
“Ooh! Maybe Jagger and Todd will bring donuts again,” Rachel said.
“So fun!” Lucia said. “Let’s do it.”
“Yeah!” Rachel said.
“I’ll ask my mom,” I said. But I wasn’t sure she’d let me have another sleepover so close to my last one. When it came to slumber parties, my mom believed in pacing.
When Mint and her huge smile came racing into the cafeteria holding a piece of paper, she looked like a happiness bomb had gone off inside her.
“I have our assignments!” she said, panting like a crazy person.
I couldn’t believe that Mr. Guzman had given them to Mint.
“They are so great!” Mint said.
Within seconds, Kimmie and Jagger and Todd were clumped around us.
“Okay. Okay. Okay,” Mint said. “This is the best assignment of our lives.”
“Do you have everybody’s parts?” Ava asked with a bunch of skepticism in her voice.
“Oh yeah,” Mint gushed. “This piece of paper lists E-V-E-R-Y S-I-N-G-L-E P-A-R-T.
“Lane,” Mint cheered, pointing an annoyingly happy finger at me. “You, Rachel, Kevin, and Felipe have the opening scene where she meets all the wolves.”
“Ooh,” Rachel said. “We could have done much worse.”
“Lucia!” Mint said, her voice breaking with enthusiasm. “You, Jasmine, Thad, and Lexy got a crazy awesome scene!”
“What is it?” Lucia asked. Her eyes looked bigger than I’d ever seen them.
“It’s, like, a double scene,” Mint explained. “It’s the part where Julie is starving to death and hunts the owlet and then watches the wolves take down the caribou.”
Lucia licked her bottom lip and mulled over the idea. “That’s a decent section,” she said.
“Decent? I loved that scene! It reeks of survival,” Kimmie said. “What did w
e get?”
Mint dramatically cleared her throat. “We have the section where the plane shows up and shoots at Julie from the air, because, dressed in her furs, she looks like a bear.”
This news hit Kimmie like a birthday present. She was so thrilled she couldn’t speak.
“I’d forgotten about that part,” Jagger said. “It sounds good.”
“We’ll probably need an oil drum or something that looks like an oil drum,” Todd said. “The moment when she tried to protect herself by crawling underneath it had a ton of suspense.”
I was sort of surprised that Todd had read the book close enough to remember that part. He must have really liked Julie’s story. Did he read other books like that? Maybe he liked the gunfire part because he liked stories with life-or-death drama. Maybe I should have talked about this with him. Maybe discussing the novel and all its conflict would have been a good way to further our relationship.
“Did Wren get a good part?” Rachel asked.
Mint lit up. “Wren, Wyatt, Coral, and Isaac have the flashback.”
“The flashback?” Lucia said. “I don’t remember the flashback.”
Mint rushed to explain. “The second section of the book where Julie goes back in time to the life she had before the wolves. Not the part with her dad so much, but the part with her in-laws, Naka and Nusan, and Julie’s terrible husband, Daniel.”
I had forgotten that Julie had a terrible husband named Daniel.
“It was rotten when Julie was forced to make parkas for all the tourists,” Rachel said.
“It was rotten when Naka turned out to be an alcoholic,” I added.
“That book had a ton of themes,” Lucia added. The bell banged through the cafeteria and I started to stand up.
“What about me?” Ava asked.
Her voice sounded a tiny bit worried. It sounded so unlike Ava. So we all looked at her.
“Are you ready for this?” Mint asked, throwing her hands up over her head.
“Yes,” Ava said.
“You guys have the awesome part where she meets the Eskimo family,” Mint said.
Ava blinked. I guess she didn’t think it was an awesome part.
Too Cool for This School Page 10