101 Ways to Bug Your Friends and Enemies

by Lee Wardlaw

  My heart skipped. Tripped.

  In love? Hayley? Could this mean she . . . ? Me . . . ? We . . . ? “Goldie, are you absolutely positive about this?” I asked.

  “Because if I find out you’re messing with my head, I swear I’ll—”

  “Sneeze, I don’t care if you believe me or not. I get paid either way!”

  “Hayley paid you?”

  “She will. With . . . information.” I could almost hear Goldie’s smug smile curling. “So where’s this you know where Hayley asked you to meet her?”

  “None of your business,” I said. “Thanks for the message. In return, you’ll get your exclusive about the convention. But that’s all. Understand?”

  “Hmph!” Goldie replied, and clicked off.

  Chapter Nine

  Tuesday. Seven a.m. Gadabout Golf.

  Hole #13, the Great Pyramid, rose before me. Steep. Silent. Solid.

  Only Hayley and I knew what secret lay within.

  At the base of the giant triangle, my fingers searched the rough, rectangular blocks for what my eyes couldn’t find in the fog: a smooth metal bump poking through the jagged cement.

  Where . . .?

  Here!

  I pressed it. The bump clicked. A nearly invisible door sprung open.

  I crouched. Ducked inside. Scuffle-crawled through the dark tunnel, scraping my knees on the gritty floor. I conked my head twice, zigging where I should’ve zagged. Ahead, I spotted an ocher glow.

  I scuffled faster.

  “Sneeze? That you?”

  “Yep!” I emerged in the Tomb Room, squinting against the glare of a camping lantern. “Unless you’ve told someone else—”

  Hayley snorted. “Never.” She plunked the lantern on a rickety table. An old teddy bear, missing one eye, toppled to the floor. “I wasn’t sure Goldie would give you the message. Or that you’d show up.”

  My heart flip-flopped. The room seemed smaller, stuffier than I remembered. “Why wouldn’t I show up?”

  Hayley didn’t answer. Instead, she plunked onto a cushion, her back resting against the wall. She arranged her skirt to cover her legs.

  Wait—Hayley was wearing a skirt.

  And a blouse.

  And sandals with teeny-tiny doo-dads on them.

  Never, ever, had I seen her wear anything except jeans or shorts, tees, and sneakers. (And her dangling golf ball earrings, of course.)

  “Whoa,” I said.

  “Wow,” I said. “You look—”

  Her SOS zeroed in on my face. “I look what?”

  “Nice,” I managed to gasp.

  “Huh. I don’t usually look nice?”

  “No. Yes! I mean, today it’s a—nicer nice.”

  She plucked at a ruffle. “Goldie helped me shop for this stuff. It’s the first day of school, so I thought I should look—nice.”

  “That’s—nice,” I said.

  She tossed the Cyclops bear at me. It smacked my face and I giggled.

  Gaaa! I just giggled!

  I found another cushion to sit on. “Why didn’t you think I’d show up?”

  Hayley kept plucking at her skirt. “I was rude to you the other day. For not writing to me this summer.”

  “I should’ve sent a postcard.”

  “Yes, you should have.”

  “I saw one that made me think of you, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” My memory traveled to a funky roadside diner. Redwood grizzlies, carved by chain saw, guarded a cobwebby rack of faded postcards. One pictured a mini-golf course called Wacky Woods.

  “With a Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, just like yours here at Gadabout,” I said. “Except their Babe has more bird poop.”

  Hayley laughed.

  Omigosh she’s beautiful when she laughs.

  Omigosh she’s beautiful, period.

  No matter what I’d vowed to the contrary, I had to tell her. I had to tell her how I felt. IHADTOTELLHER-HOWIFELTRIGHTTHISVERYINSTANT!

  Both of us blurted: “I have something to tell you!”

  She laughed again. “Mine’s important!”

  “Mine too!”

  “I wasn’t sure I should tell you. But it concerns you.”

  “Mine too! I mean, mine concerns you.”

  Hayley rose to her knees, the skirt pooling around her like a blue pond. “You go first.”

  My heart thumped so hard my lungs felt squished. “No. You. First.”

  “I’m not sure how to begin,” she began. She gazed at the ceiling as if it held the answer. “I’ve never felt like this before. Filled to the brim with—I don’t know what, but I’ll explode if I don’t say it quick, so here goes: Ilikesomeone!”

  “What?”

  She repeated slower, louder: “I. Like. Some. One.”

  My breath caught. “Me too.”

  “Someone who doesn’t know.”

  “Me too.”

  “But I want that someone to know.”

  “Me too.”

  “Today.”

  “Me too.”

  “I feel so much better talking to you about this!”

  “Me too!”

  We grinned at each other. Breathed at each other.

  What should I do now? Move closer? Hold her hand? Or just sit here grinning and breathing for the next forty years?

  I would do that—if I could do it while looking at Hayley.

  “Tell me all about him,” I said.

  “You really want to know?” she asked with a shy smile.

  Shy was not a word found in Hayley’s smile dictionary. I felt a rush of pure, sure confidence, like the first time I tested the Nice Alarm—and it worked.

  “Absolutely!” I scooted closer to better hear.

  “Well . . .” Hayley peeped at me through her lashes. “. . . from what I hear, he’s very smart.”

  “Oh?”

  “And clever.”

  “Oh!”

  “And funny.”

  “Ho-ho!”

  “He has an inventive way with words.”

  “Yo-ho!”

  “He just changed schools. He’s never attended Patrick Henry before.”

  “Oh no?”

  “He’s actually in one of your classes.”

  “Oh-ho!”

  “And he’s so handsome!”

  Uh-oh.

  “His last name is Hanson, but Goldie says his nickname is—”

  My voice came out flat. “Cullen Fu Handsome.”

  “You know him?” Hayley looked as if she didn’t remember we’d all been at Gadabout the other day, as if no one had been at Gadabout except her and . . .

  An icy hand plunged into my chest and ripped out my heart.

  I jerked to my feet. I had the urge to fling my cushion at the wall, to fling Cullen at the wall. Seemed fitting, as that’s where my heart had been flung.

  SPLAT.

  Funny how a heart can keep beating despite its squashedness.

  In my coolest, calmest imitation of Ace, I pinched a lint speck from my shirt. “I was there too, you know. He’s that Hawaiian guy on the golf team. The team that was gonna whomp me. How could I forget the guy who insulted you and Gadabout by calling mini-golf jungle ball.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” Hayley said. “And he stopped the team from whomping you, remember?”

  “No, your dad did that.”

  Get out now, Steve. Quick—before you start blubbering.

  I pretended to gasp at my watch. “Yikes, I’ve gotta go! Mr. Handsome isn’t the only guy starting his first day at Patrick Henry.”

  Hayley caught my arm.

  I froze. Afraid if I moved, she’d let go of my arm. Afraid if I moved, she wouldn’t let go of my arm.

  “That’s the other reason I wanted to talk to you this morning,” she said. “I have a couple of favors to ask.”

  “What kind of favors?”

  “Goldie did a little investigative journalism for me—”


  “You mean snooping?”

  “—and found out Cullen’s got a computer class with you. Since you’re such a computer whiz, I was hoping you might help him—if he needs help, that is. Goldie says he got into some nasty trouble when he lived in Hawaii, so he’s on academic probation here. If he doesn’t get a B in every class, the coach will kick him off the golf team.”

  “We wouldn’t want that,” I said under my breath.

  “What?”

  “I said, what’s the other favor?”

  She tucked her bangs behind one ear. The golf ball earrings quivered. “I’m embarrassed to ask. But you’re my best friend. I don’t trust anyone else . . .”

  “Ask what?”

  “Would you ask him . . . ask Cullen . . . if he likes me?”

  SPLAT.

  I didn’t know I had a second heart. But there it was, oozing to the floor, joining its mate in a gory gelatinous puddle.

  “I’m late,” I said.

  I dove into the tunnel. Scrambled gopher-like through the black. Welcomed the whimpers of my shredded knees. That was pain I understood.

  “Steve, wait!”

  Hayley scrambled out behind me, hair mussed, skirt dusty.

  “I feel rotten,” she said. “I shouldn’t have made you come here this morning. I shouldn’t have bugged you with favors. I’m sorry! That was inconsiderate of me. This is your first day of high school! You must have other stuff—important stuff—on your mind. Forget I asked. It’s lame to think that he . . . that I . . . we only saw each other once, anyway. Love at first sight! Huh. It’s crazy. It doesn’t exist, right?”

  The fog swirled around Hayley’s head like a halo. Wet diamonds clung to her cheeks, her lashes.

  In a voice I didn’t recognize, I said, “All right. I’ll ask him.”

  “What? Really? Are you sure you don’t mind? Oh, thank you.” Hayley scrunched me in a hug. I smelled sun-warmed peaches. A silken thread of her hair caught on my upper lip.

  Then she was skipping backward to Gadabout’s gates. “Meet me for lunch! Our usual spot, under the pine tree, behind Jefferson gym. You can tell me everything then. Not just what Cullen says, but about your first morning as a high-schooler. And who it is you like! We didn’t have time to talk about that. And I want to hear about the convention!”

  “Sure.”

  Hayley halted mid-skip. Her SOS powered up. Locked on target.

  Yep, she knew. She knew me well, Hayley did. Kind of . . .

  “Mr. Patterson doesn’t want to buy the Nice Alarm, does he,” she said.

  I shoved my hands into my pockets. “Nope.”

  “Huh. What does he know.” Defiance blazed in her eyes. “You’ll keep inventing anyway. The Nice Alarm will get built. No. Matter. What. Right?”

  “Right.”

  Hayley placed a hand over her heart, eyes still ablaze. “This is gonna sound corny, Steve, but you—you’re the bravest person I know. Attending that convention alone, taking the risk to show Mr. Patterson the alarm, putting yourself and your dreams out there. That. Was. So. Brave.”

  She turned and, tripping a little on her new skirt, raced through the gates.

  “I’ve been braver,” I whispered into the fog.

  Chapter Ten

  I caught the school bus around the corner from Gadabout, diving through the doors a nanosecond before they clamped shut. I thudded into the last half-empty seat. The guy snoring at the window snapped awake, hugging his skateboard like a baby blankie. “’Lo,” he said groggily, emitting raspberry Pop-Tart fumes. He smacked his lips and slumped back to sleep.

  I don’t remember the rest of that ride. Only that my heart beat in funny jerks. My brain chanted along: Don’t. Think about. Her. Don’t think. About. Her. Don’t. Think . . .

  Airbrakes hissed. The bus lurched to a stop. We’d arrived. A human tsunami roared down the aisle, spewing students into the parking lot. Pop-Tart nudged me with his skateboard. “End of the road.”

  “Eep.” I sneezed six times, fumbled in my pack for my official Patrick Henry High School student ID card (in case anyone challenged my right to be there), and stumbled down the stairs. Pop-Tart nudged harder and a bazooka blast of adrenaline panicked me into the fog and through the main doors of my first morning at PHHS.

  Surprisingly, high school wasn’t that different from middle school. Everyone still rushed around, overwrought, clanging lockers, lugging books, hunting for classes, racing to beat bells. Yeah, at first I felt like I’d crashed into the Land of the Giants. Bodies were bigger. Voices, deeper. Faces, hairier. (I’m talking guys here.) Otherwise, it was déjà vu all over again.

  Especially when I heard two familiar squeals:

  “Is that who I think it is?

  “I think it is!”

  Rats. The Amys.

  The Amys are inseparable best friends, both named you know what, who had morphed into inseparable identities. I’d met them last spring when I joined Jefferson Middle’s Inventor’s Club. At the time, their idol, the aforementioned July Smith, was prez and the Amys served as her minions-turned-veeps. Their reign ended when July attempted to pass off the Nice Alarm as her own creation.

  Due to that minor (her word) patent infringement, the school district banned July from all future student invention activities. She also lost her scholarship to an elite private high school. That meant that if the Amys were here, July was holding court close by. And since she blamed me for her plummet from grace, well, let’s just say the last thing I needed today was her royal wrath.

  “Are you positive it’s him?” I heard the Amys say.

  “Pretty positive!”

  “We could ask him!”

  “Yes! Let’s ask him!”

  Let’s not and say you did.

  I about-faced and escaped by plunging into another student tsunami. I washed up in homeroom barely in time for attendance.

  My first two periods that morning featured “tree” classes: chemistry. trigonometry. I regretted not taking basketry. My parents had decided I should skip eighth grade because most of the courses at Jefferson didn’t challenge me enough. No chance of that here. “Master the material and be ready for an overkill,” my chem teacher announced as she distributed our textbooks. My trig teacher began: “Trigonometry comes from the Greek words treis, meaning three; gonia, angle; and metron, meaning measure.” The remainder of his lecture was, well, all Greek to me.

  Third period, at last! Computer-aided design. Now that was a language I could understand.

  I clutched my campus map and jostled giants to the second floor, my book pack thumping against my thigh. What a relief Mom and Dad okayed Hic’s suggestion that I take hapkido instead of PE. I couldn’t wait for this class to begin, couldn’t wait to tackle the animation modeling software, to “draw” the virtual model of the alarm.

  The CAD room greeted me with three long rows of gleaming white, state-of-the-art computer stations, each with flat-screen monitors and ergonomically correct chairs. A chemical odor emanated from the new electric-blue carpet. The computers hummed.

  I grabbed a chair next to the wall, slung my pack under the desk, sank into the cushy seat, twirled twice in excitement, and gave the keyboard a flick. It glided into position.

  Atlantis . . . Shangri-la . . . Utopia . . .

  Cullen the Bear shambled in and overtook the seat beside me. My stomach lurched, colliding with my heart.

  Hades . . . Purgatory . . .

  I shrank in Cullen’s shadow, practically diving to the bottom of my pack, pretending to search for a pencil.

  “Howzit,” he said, not unfriendly.

  “Mmpf,” mmpfed my pack-covered head.

  Students streamed in and chose seats. The bell rang, the door closed, and class began.

  I came up for air. Slumped lower in my seat. I felt sick. Dizzy.

  You can do this, Steve. You will do this. You promised Hayley, remember?

  Half an hour later, the teacher finished her lesson and suggested we experiment
with the software. Since I hadn’t heard a word of her lecture, I tippy-tapped random keys while sneaking peeks at Mr. Handsome.

  He wore shorts and a faded yellow tank top with a drawing of a sno-cone on it. The tank read Haleiwa Shave Ice. His wide, dark brown fingers capered across the keyboard like he was playing jazz piano.

  What the golf tees did Hayley see in this guy, anyway? Sure, he was tall. Muscle-y. Handsome . . .

  Oh. Right.

  Okay, so I wasn’t tall. And my muscles were as rubbery as overcooked spaghetti. And my nose looked liked it had barely survived a nasty altercation with a garlic press. But I had something Cullen didn’t have: B-R-A-I-N-S.

  I emerged from Cullen’s shadow and, before I could change my mind, blurted, “Hi! Hello! Need any help?”

  “No tanks, brah,” he answered. “Got it wired.”

  Great. Just great. The guy has computer smarts too.

  Well, at least I could tell Hayley I offered to help and Cullen declined. One favor down, one to go. And I had an entire semester to get around to number two. I mean, I promised only to ask if he liked Hayley. I hadn’t specified when I’d ask . . .

  A carpet fluff snuffed up my nose.

  “AH-CHOO!”

  “Eh, don’t I know you, brah?” Cullen’s keen, blackish eyes regarded me and my wad of tissues.

  I shifted closer to the wall. “Nope. Yep. We sorta met a couple of days ago at Gadabout Golf.”

  Cullen grinned. “You da keiki wen gave Marcos da metaphorical bloody nose!”

  “Marcos?”

  “Yellow rat bite. Wen threaten you wit one whoosha.”

  He must mean Scarecrow. But I didn’t recall any rodent nibbles.

  “You got koa, junior boy,” Cullen continued. “But keep clear of Marcos, eh? No like talk stink, but from what I seen, dat moke make pilikia.”

  I stared at Cullen’s shark-tooth necklace. It glistened bone-white and sharp under the fluorescent lights.

  “I really, really, really don’t want to offend you,” I told him. “But—I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”