It worked! My pulse was faster when I said Zachary’s name!!! I was in love! I knew it! I got up and danced around the room singing into my hairbrush, “I’m so totally in love! I’m so totally in lo-o-o-ve!”
The next morning before homeroom, I ran to the art room. “Mrs. V! Mrs. V! I have to show you my journal!” After she read my journal entries, I told her that I was definitely in love with Zachary because of the heartbeat test.
Mrs. V looked like she was really thinking about something.
She said, “These are some interesting answers, Kate. You’ve done a good job with the assignment. Now let’s do another test, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
“What’s your favorite food?” she asked.
That’s easy. “My mom’s Crunchy Mexican Casserole.”
“Okay. Put your hand over your heart and say ‘Crunchy Mexican Casserole.’”
I thought that was pretty strange but I did it anyway.
“Is anything happening, Kate?” Mrs. V asked.
I dropped my hand down to my side and quietly said, “Yeah. My heart started beating faster. I guess Danika’s test isn’t a good way of telling what true love is.”
Major bummer.
She put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Do you want another journal assignment?”
“Sure. Why not?” I sighed.
“The first part of the assignment is to write a list of the five most important things in your life. I’ll give you the second part when you’re done with the list,” she said.
I didn’t see how a list was going to help me figure things out with Zachary, but what did I have to lose?
CHAPTER 6
Muffins, Pom-Poms, and Barking Seals
That night I put on my striped hoodie and headed out to the garage. My dad was under the car fixing something.
I flipped a bucket upside down and sat on it. “Dad?” I said. “Can you hear me?”
“Sure! Just keep talking loud,” he called out from under the car. “What’s on your mind?”
“Did you ever make a list of what’s most important to you?” I said.
“I don’t know as I’ve ever made an official list or anything, but I’ve thought about it,” he said.
“So, if you had to make a list, what would be on it?”
“Well, I always try to keep God as my first priority. After that would come your mom and you kids. Then there would be things like my job, my hobbies, my friends … things like that.”
I couldn’t believe what he just said. “You have friends?!”
Dad laughed. “Of course I have friends, Katie! Who do you think I golf with or play pool with?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just thought you did that kind of stuff because you had to, not because you had fun,” I said.
Dad scooted out from under the car and smiled at me. He has a really big smile where all his teeth show and his greenish-gold eyes crinkle up. “You know, just because I’m an adult doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy life.”
He patted me on the head and started digging in his toolbox.
Dear Diary,
Mrs. V gave me another journal assignment. I guess since the last one didn’t work, she wants to try again.
ASSIGNMENT: Make a list of the 5 most important things to me.
That’s easy.
School
Books
TV
Family
My cat, Sharkey
Reading over my list, I had some thoughts. School was not the most important thing in my life, and TV’s not more important than my family. Sharkey’s the best, but not as important to me as becoming a horse trainer or president of the United States or going to Australia.
I scribbled it out. Maybe this was going to be harder than I thought.
Friday morning I woke up to the sound of my alarm and the scent of freshly baked blueberry muffins. Every once in a while, Mom likes to get up before everyone else and do things like that. I don’t ever like getting up, even if it’s after everyone else.
I started working on my list again while I ate my muffin.
1. My family and friends
2. My dreams: horse trainer, president, going to Australia
Throughout the day at school I tried to notice what I talked about the most. I figured that would be a good way to find out what’s important to me.
Yuzi and I spent like twenty minutes talking about clothes and what we’re allowed to wear and where we like to buy stuff. We also talked about our hair. She has a huge puff of black curly hair on the top of her head. She’s super nice and so cute with her chocolatey-brown skin and dark eyes.
Another thing I talked about a lot is the new Alayna Rayne CD that’s coming out soon. Alayna Rayne is a totally fab singer and an amazing actress. I’m dying to see her in concert sometime. My mom and dad are trying to get me tickets to her concert in Cleveland that’s coming up, but it’s not going too well. There’s all these rumors going around that people are paying like thousands of dollars just to get a ticket, but I’m not sure I believe it.
I spent the rest of the day talking to myself about Zachary Donaldson. I went into the bathroom and stared at the space where I had written his name. Today was my last day of detention.
While I waited for the dismissal bell to ring, I finished my list.
1. My family and friends
2. My dreams: horse trainer, president, going to Australia
3. Zachary Donaldson
4. Hair and clothes
5. TV and music
Since all of the girls in detention are Secret Keeper Girls, Mrs. V said we should use detention as club time, even though our official meetings will begin next Wednesday. I decided to read my list out loud in detention so everyone could hear it. After I read it, I asked, “Well, is it good?”
Toni, Yuzi, and Danika all smiled and nodded their heads. Mrs. V smiled too and said, “Good job, Kate. Did you learn anything while you were doing this assignment?”
“I learned that my dad actually has friends,” I said.
“Okay. Did you learn anything about yourself?” she asked.
“No. I don’t think so. Was I supposed to?”
“Maybe and maybe not. Are you ready for the second part of this assignment?” Mrs. V asked.
“Yeah, but is this one gonna make more sense than the last two?” I said.
“Yes, eventually. I want you to write down what you don’t like about Zachary Donaldson,” she said.
I laughed right out loud. “Well that’s going to be a blank page because I like everything about him!”
“That may be true, but I just want you to think about it the next time he comes over to hang out with your brother. If anything pops out at you, write it down, okay?”
“All right, but it seems kind of pointless.”
“We’ll see,” she said.
Tonight Mom, Dad, and I went to Pete and Zachary’s football game. The Sharks were playing some team that wore red and white. For halftime, the cheerleaders made a really tall pyramid with one girl on the very top. Once she got up there she started the S-H-A-R-K-S cheer. Out of nowhere, a huge black bird started flying in circles around the pyramid and landed on top of the girl’s head. She went crazy and tried to shoo it away, but its claws were caught in her long blonde hair. It was so-o-o funny! The whole crowd was in tears laughing at all of the pecking, swatting, squawking, and screaming. Eventually the whole pyramid fell down into a huge pile of pom-poms, ribbons, and sneakers. In the midst of everything, the bird got untangled and flew away with a hair ribbon in its beak.
By the time we all got home after the game, someone had already posted a video of the whole thing online, so we brought it up and played it over and over. Zachary and Pete were in the locker room during halftime, so they totally cracked up when they saw the video.
It was then that I first realized something about Zachary that I don’t like: His barking seal laugh.
“Arf! Arf! Arf! That’s craziness
, dude! Arf! Arf!” He kept laughing and talking. Every time he barked out another laugh the hair on my arms would stick up. It was suddenly the most annoying noise I’ve ever heard.
I escaped to my room and wrote in my journal.
Dear Diary,
Mrs. V gave me another special mission.
ASSIGNMENT: Write down things I DON’T like about Zachary Donaldson.
I totally, completely, majorly HATE his laugh! He sounds like he belongs in a zoo or something! I can’t believe I used to think it was cute, because it’s the exact opposite of cute! It makes me want to run out of the house screaming! Mrs. V said she wanted to laugh with her husband for the rest of her life. Zachary’s laugh is the very LAST thing I would want to listen to for the rest of my life!
Wow. That’s weird. Maybe Zachary isn’t as perfect as I thought he was.
CHAPTER 7
Reality Check
Over the weekend, I did my best not to make Zachary laugh.
I wanted to see if there was anything else about him that I didn’t like. I used the Favorite Things list from my journal to ask him some questions. I felt like a detective.
“Zachary, did you hear that a horse in Bellevue had a baby with two heads?” I asked.
“Little dudette, horses are something I un-like. When I was a tyke, my aunt’s horse stomped on my toe and broke it. I freaked out and haven’t gone near a horse since,” he said.
I dropped my carrot stick. “You mean, you don’t like horses?”
“Totally not. In fact, there’s maybe only one thing I hate more than horses,” he said.
“Really? What’s that?”
“Australia.”
I almost fell off the barstool.
“How could you possibly hate a whole country?” I asked, trying to be calm.
“Yo, the way they talk makes my head flip,” he said, moving his head to make it look like it was flipping. “And did you know most of the poisonous snakes in the world are in Australia? I really hate snakes. I wouldn’t go to the Down Under if you gave me a million bucks!”
I felt like a balloon that was slowly losing its air. Did he really just say that?
This didn’t look good, but I wanted to give Zachary one more chance.
“Your eighteenth birthday is coming up … have you thought about who you’re gonna vote for?” I asked hopefully.
“I don’t know, Kate-ster. I’ll probably just do the eenie meenie minie moe thing and push whatever button I land on. I don’t really care who our prez is. As long as the dude never makes football illegal, I’m cool! Hey, toss me a veggie, will ya?” he said.
I was suddenly filled with a desire to lunge across the counter, grab Zachary’s neck, and start shaking him. Could this really be happening? Could he really hate all of the things I loved the most?
I slowly slid the carrots over to him and practically crawled to my room. This was major, so I hung my “Do Not Disturb” sign on the doorknob. I needed some serious time to write and think about what had just happened.
Dear Diary,
I feel like I’m on Mars and Zachary Donaldson is the alien. I found out that he hates horses and Australia! AND he totally doesn’t care about the president of America! I can’t believe I never knew this about him. I was so caught up in how he looked and how nice he is to me that I didn’t know we don’t even like the same things. Maybe it doesn’t really matter, though. I mean, if we were exactly alike, that would be boring, right?
Our first official Secret Keeper Girl Club meeting was Wednesday. Danika is the club leader since the whole thing was her idea. She had us start a list of club rules. So far we have:
1. Always keep each other’s secrets.
(We did say that we could tell our moms if we wanted to.)
2. No boys allowed.
3. We only wear banana berry flavored lip gloss.
Mrs. V basically just did her own work while we had our meeting. She offered advice a few times, but we didn’t mind. It was great to be able to gab about all the stuff going on in our lives.
Yuzi’s trying to figure out who really did pull the fire alarm last week. It’s kind of fun trying to find clues and stuff … like a mystery.
Toni wants to play football with the boys but her parents are against it, so she’s trying other things like band and stuff. I don’t think that’s going very well.
The popular girls have totally kicked Danika out of their group. It stinks to see how mean they are to her. Yuzi thought we could figure out a way to put something in their shampoo bottles that would make all their hair fall out. It would be hard to be a popular Mean Girl if you’re bald!
I filled them in on my discoveries about Zachary. They all thought it was crazy that someone could hate horses as much as he does.
Toni even said, “Sounds like your Dude is actually a Dud.”
That kind of hurt my feelings, but I knew she was kind of right. It’s beginning to feel like Zachary uses his head more for tackling than for thinking.
After school, I wrote in my journal again.
Dear Diary,
Our first SKG Club meeting was the best! It’s so great to have a place to say anything you want and know that no one’s going to blab it to anyone else. At the end of the meeting Mrs. V gave me another journal assignment.
ASSIGNMENT: What is great about my family?
So far every time I try to do her assignments right away, it ends up being totally wrong, so this time I’m gonna watch my family, figure out why they’re great, and THEN write it down.
When I went downstairs to watch TV, Mom and Dad were in the kitchen. Dad had his arms around Mom and she was giggling like a little kid or something. When I saw them, I immediately covered my eyes and said, “Oh, disgusting! Why do you guys have to do that?”
Mom said, “Oh, Katie, it’s good that your dad and I hug each other.”
“Whatever,” I said. “It still makes me sick to my stomach.”
I grabbed a banana on my way to the basement. There was a show on with a husband and wife talking. The woman said, “Why don’t you hold my hand anymore?” The dude was like, “What’s the big deal?” She was all like, “It makes me feel special when you hold my hand.” Her guy obviously didn’t get it.
That’s pretty lame, I thought.
Before I went to bed I wrote in my journal:
One cool thing about my family is that my parents still hold hands and stuff, even though it totally grosses me out.
I looked at Sharkey and said, “I wonder if Zachary would ever let go of a football long enough to hold someone’s hand.”
CHAPTER 8
Family Ties
Laney Douglas is one of the meanest, snobbiest people on the entire planet!
She’s the most popular girl in school and she has decided to hate me. I think it’s because Danika hangs out with me now. When I walked by Laney and her friends, they all pointed at me and started laughing. I went into the bathroom right away to see if my jeans were unzipped or something, but nothing was wrong. They were just trying to make me feel stupid.
Then she had Evan Lingle (who is cute I guess, but he’s nothing compared to Zachary) come up to me and say, “Hey, Kate. Wanna be my girlfriend?” Then he waited a sec and said, “Oh, that’s right! You’re going to marry Zachary Donaldson!” and laughed. Laney and her Mean Girls were laughing, too.
But the worst thing Laney did was at lunch. It was tomato soup day. I was carrying my tray to the table and she walked by and “accidentally” stuck her foot out and tripped me. I fell completely flat on the floor and my tray shot up in the air, soup flying everywhere. It was really embarrassing, almost as bad as Zachary seeing me surrounded by training bras. But Danika, Yuzi, and Toni came over right away and helped me up. I love my Secret Keeper Girl sisters! I think Toni wanted to punch Laney right in the face. When I stood up, we all looked at Laney. She was crying her eyes out, because most of my tomato soup had splashed onto her expensive white capris! Even though I was still upset,
I laughed pretty hard.
At dinner I was kind of bummed out and I guess everyone noticed, including Zachary, who seemed to be at our house more and more.
“Katie … um, I mean, Kate, do you want some more roast beef?” Mom asked.
“No, thanks,” I said as I poked my fork in and out of my mashed potatoes.
“Honey, is everything okay?” Dad said.
My lip started to quiver and I burst into tears. I told them everything that happened with Laney, but I left out the part where Evan made fun of me for liking Zachary. “And I didn’t even do anything except be friends with Danika!” I sobbed.
Pete was really miffed about it. “So this Laney person is being uncool to you and you didn’t even do anything to her?!”
“Yeah,” I said.
Zachary spoke up, “How could anyone be mean to the Kate-meister? Maybe she confused you with some crazy person.”
I blushed to hear Zachary compliment me. He’s so amazing.
“Zachary! Let’s take the football team over to that chick’s house just to scare her a little!” Pete said.
Zachary high-fived Pete and said, “Word up, my man! Let’s do it!”
“Definitely not, boys,” Dad said in his “I mean business” voice.
My parents then started telling me that I needed to keep doing the right thing and just try to ignore Laney. They also said I shouldn’t be afraid to tell a teacher, but I don’t want to do that. Then I would be a tattletale, which is not good for a sixth grader’s reputation.
Just then the phone rang. Mom answered it and said, “Katie, it’s for you.”
“Hello?” I said.
“Roses are red, carnations are pink. You’ll never get Zachary because you stink!” It was Laney’s nasal, whiny voice.
I got mad. “What’s your deal?! What did I ever do to you?! Leave me alone!”
She started yelling, “What makes you think you can be friends with someone like Danika McAllister? She’s only using you to get back at us. You’re too much of a loser to hang out with her!” I could hear girls laughing in the background.
Secret Keeper Girl Fiction Series Page 3