by Carol Gorman
“How about that guy standing next to the water fountain?” she said.
“Matt Ryerson,” I said impatiently. “Ginger, I’m trying to get this locker open, okay?”
“Gee,” she said, “this is great. You must know every cute boy in this school.”
“I played on the metro baseball and football teams,” I said. “Just let me work on this lock now, okay?”
“So you’re a jock!” she exclaimed. “What a super way to meet boys!”
I looked up at her. Ginger was some piece of work.
I tried the combination one more time.
She poked me in the back. “How about that boy with the reddish-blond hair over there?” she said.
I jerked around angrily and looked. “Yeah,” I said. “That’s my brother, Sam.”
Her eyes practically bugged out of her head. “Your brother? Oh, wow, that’s fantastic! He’s a hottie!”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.
“Hey,” she said, “I wouldn’t kid you about a cute boy. Put in a good word for me, okay?”
I stared at her. “I don’t even know you.”
“So?” she said. “We’re locker partners!”
“Ginger,” I said, “we were thrown together because of the first two letters of our last names. I’ve known you for two minutes.”
“No, it’s fate! Don’t you see?” she said, beaming. “When we were born into our families—people whose names began with FL—we were destined to be put together. We’re supposed to be friends. Isn’t that great?”
What could I say to that? “Just great.”
I went back to the combination.
Ms. Embers strolled by. She had big glasses and very long legs. She stood about twelve feet tall.
“Ms. Embers,” I called out over the noise of lockers slamming and kids talking. “I can’t get this locker open.”
She strode over to me in two gigantic steps. “Go ahead and try it again,” she said.
I did and, like magic, it opened.
I felt my face heat up. Boy, did I feel dumb.
“See? No problem,” said Ms. Embers. She strolled away.
The rest of the day wasn’t much better. Most of the sixth-grade girls hung around in groups from their old schools, staring at and talking about kids from the other elementary schools. The boys hung around together, too, but they were quieter.
My classes, except for phys. ed., looked as if they were going to be pretty boring, even science, which is one of my better subjects. Language arts is my worst subject—all that reading and writing—but my teacher, Ms. Yeck (that’s really her name; I wouldn’t kid you) seemed kind of entertaining. Mary Ann said that her older sister told her that Ms. Yeck’s name is Pearl, and the kids call her Squirrely Pearly, but not to her face. The word was that she was a fun teacher but you didn’t learn a whole lot.
Anyway, Squirrely Pearly had each of us go up to the board and write our name. She said that you can learn a lot about people from the way they write their signatures. After she’d said that, all the girls tried to write in their most flowery handwriting. Heather Parks had the most rounded letters you ever saw, and Bonnie Wilson dotted her i’s with little hearts. I almost laughed out loud at that.
The guys wrote in messy scrawls on purpose. Even Adam Matthews, whose handwriting usually looks like an electric typewriter, scratched his name in an unreadable scribble. I printed, as usual—I hate writing in cursive—and, as usual, you could read it, but you had to look close.
Ed Mechtensteimer, who sat two seats away from me, grinned as I walked back to my seat and gave me a thumbs-up sign. “Says a lot about your character,” he said.
“Oh, yeah? What does it say?” I asked him.
“That you’re almost as smart as I am.”
I grinned and rolled my eyes. “You wish, Mechtenstupid.”
Nathan Morgan, sitting between us, cracked up at that. “If I have to look at someone’s paper during a test,” he said, “I’m looking at Lizard’s.”
“I heard that, Nathan,” Squirrely Pearly said. “We move our desks around the room during a test. You’ll be right next to me.”
Everybody laughed, even Nathan, who got a red face.
It was kind of hard to sit there in class and breathe normally. Chris Mulray, a fun girl who had started a great food fight in the cafeteria last year, was sitting next to me. Chris was wearing even more perfume than my aunt Amanda, and you can tell that my aunt’s been in a room a day after she’s gone home.
Anyway, when Chris got up and walked to the blackboard, she stirred up the air as she walked by, and I nearly passed out. I looked at Ed, grabbed my throat, and stuck out my tongue. He and Nathan grinned and started coughing loudly.
I looked at the raised window next to the pencil sharpener and put up my hand.
“Yes, Elizabeth?” said Squirrely Pearly.
Ed stopped coughing, looked at me and snickered.
“Can I sharpen my pencil?” I asked.
“You won’t be needing your pencil today,” Squirrely said.
“Then can I stick my head out the window? I need some fresh air.”
Some of the kids laughed, and Chris turned around from the blackboard. She’d just written Christine in big, loopy letters.
Squirrel Pearly tried not to smile. “Okay, but just for a minute.”
I walked to the window and took a deep breath of air.
Ed put up his hand. “Me, too?”
“How about a gas mask?” Tom Luther said from across the room.
Everybody cracked up except Chris, who glared at me and hurried back to her chair.
“Christine?” said Nathan, reading her name off the board. “You’re Christine this year?”
“Yeah,” Chris snapped. “You have a problem with that, Nathan?”
I looked at Chris. Last year she’d aimed a spoonful of mashed potatoes halfway across the cafeteria and scored a direct hit on Tiffany Brady. Now she was almost acting like Tiffany. Why would Chris start dowsing herself with perfume and want to be called Christine? Normally, she would’ve decked Nathan Morgan for teasing her. And what was this Nathan stuff? Last year he was Morgan. She sure had changed over the summer.
“Ready for lunch?” Ed asked me after class.
“Yeah,” I said. “You too?”
“Yeah. Man, I’m hungry!”
I grinned at him. “You’re always hungry, Mechtensteimer.”
We walked down the crowded hall, getting jostled on all sides. A bright-red poster welcoming everyone back to school was on the wall near the entrance to the cafeteria. Next to it was another poster announcing a Welcome to Truman Middle School dance for sixth graders. It seemed as if there were posters everywhere. I’d already seen them advertising the chess club, the math club, and tryouts for the fall play.
“Hey, Lizard!” Zach was standing with Stinky at the cafeteria door. He grinned at me. “You guys eat now?”
“Yeah.”
“Great.”
“At least we have lunch together,” I said.
We left our books on a table in the middle of the room and got in line behind Mike Herman and Andy Walinsky.
“So who’s going to win the World Series?” Mike said.
“Atlanta,” Andy said.
“The Cardinals,” said Stinky.
“It doesn’t matter who’s going to win the World Series,” I said. “What’s important is who the best team is.”
“Uh-oh,” Ed said. “Don’t get Lizard started on baseball. She’s obsessed with the Cubs.”
I ignored him. “The Chicago Cubs aren’t getting to the World Series, but they’re still the best all-around team in the country.”
Stinky snorted. “Yeah, right! If the Cubs are so good, why haven’t they been in the top of their division for the last hundred years? If a team is good, they’ll get to the World Series at some point.”
“You’re full of it, Stinky,” I said. “Look at their long-term record. Look at Edwin
Jackson. His fastball averages 95 miles an hour! And Starlin Castro’s always a crowd favorite. In his very first game he set a record for RBIs in a major league debut!”
“Yeah,” Zach said. “The World Series doesn’t take underdog victories into account, either. Lizard’s right. You’ve got to look at the long-term record of the team.”
“What are we eating today?” I asked her.
“Your choice,” she said. “Sloppy joes, pizza, or macaroni and cheese.”
“My brother told me the only good food here is the pizza,” Stinky said.
The woman scowled at him.
I took a yellow tray and walked down the line while the women behind the counter served up my food. They handed me the plate at the end of the line, and I went back to our lunch table.
“The Yankees are my team,” Ed said. “If you want to talk long-term record, look at CC Sabathia.”
I turned to him. “Sabathia has had physical problems, though. And his velocity has decreased.”
“So what?”
I scooped up a spoonful of apple salad and glanced over at the next table. Ginger Flush sat with the beautiful blonde girl who’d stared at Zach before school. Some other squealers were there, too. They were looking at us and whispering. Ginger’s face lit up like fireworks in a summer sky when she saw me looking at her, and she waved. I nodded to her.
I turned back to Zach. He was talking about the fishing trip he’d taken last week with his dad to the boundary waters in northeastern Minnesota.
“The mosquitoes grow as big as hummingbirds up there,” he was saying. “You lie in your tent at night and you can hear millions of them buzzing all around you in the woods.”
“Big as hummingbirds?” Stinky sneered.
“Really,” Zach said. “A man stripped naked would be drained of all his blood in two hours.”
“I bet.” Stinky was still skeptical.
“From the mosquitoes?” Ed said. “No way.”
All the guys were listening with their mouths open. “Zach’s right,” I said. “My family went camping once in Canada. We rubbed insect repellent all over us, even under our clothes, but that didn’t stop the mosquitoes. They bit us right through our clothes. We had welts all over us the size of quarters.”
“Oh, man, that’s disgusting,” Mike said. Now they were all looking at me.
“Sam and I tried sleeping in the car, but the mosquitoes came through the vents to get us.”
The guys shivered at the thought.
I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Oh, Liz,” said Ginger Flush, who had appeared suddenly at my side. “This is my friend, Lisa St. George.” She turned to the girl standing next to her. “Lisa, this is Liz Flanagan, my locker partner.” She said those last two words as if I were a celebrity or something.
“It’s Lizard,” I said. “Not Liz.”
Ginger giggled. “Whatever,” she said, smiling. “‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet!’ That’s Shakespeare.” No one said anything, but Lisa looked at her and rolled her eyes. “Well, I just wanted you two to meet.”
Lisa was a living Barbie doll. Her hair was blond and flowing, and her eyes were big and swimming-pool blue. Even her teeth were straight and white. It was irritating just looking at her.
There were three other girls with Ginger, but she didn’t bother to introduce them. They stood there with little smiles on their faces, looking around at the guys sitting at the table. One girl was chomping on a big wad of gum. She snapped it, and it sounded like a pistol shot.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw three figures approach. I turned just in time to see one of the girls stumble into Lisa, nearly knocking her over.
Lisa glared at the girl and said under her breath, “Get out of my sight, you geek.” Only Ginger and I—and the girl she’d said it to—heard her.
The girl’s face turned red; she looked both angry and embarrassed.
“Come on, Shannon,” said one of her friends.
Shannon glowered at Lisa, then hurried off with the two girls.
Ginger looked at me. “Those girls really get on Lisa’s nerves,” she whispered. “Especially Shannon.”
“How come?”
She shrugged. “Probably just because they exist. All three—Shannon, Angie, and Cheryl—are from our old school. Shannon used to be Lisa’s best friend, but Lisa’s really cool now and doesn’t like Shannon anymore.”
I looked over to see Lisa staring at Zach across the table. Her mouth was partly open in a tiny smile.
I looked over at Zach. He glanced self-consciously over at Lisa, then down at his sloppy joe.
The other guys at the table were acting as weird as Zach, shifting back and forth in their seats as if they had ants in their pants.
Ginger went on talking. “Liz, after school—”
“Lizard,” I said.
“Oh, yeah. Anyway, after school we’re all going to go to the mall. Stylers is having a humongous back-to-school sale. You want to come with us?”
I’d never been in Stylers, but I’d heard the girls in my class talk about it. It sells expensive clothes—the kind you see on models on TV. I prefer the Gap and the sportswear department at Sears, myself.
“No,” I said. “Thanks, but I’m going over to Zach’s house after school.” I heard the girls, all together, take in a quick breath. “He’s going to show me the stuff he got for his birthday.”
“Ohhh,” said Lisa. She beamed a megawatt smile at Zach. “You just had a birthday?”
Zach’s ears turned pink and he said, “Yeah,” so softly I could hardly hear him. Stinky snorted and elbowed him in the ribs. Zach elbowed him back and glanced all around him, everywhere but at the girls.
“You turned twelve, Zach?” Lisa asked.
“Yeah,” Zach said.
“You’re older than we are!” Ginger said. “I don’t have my birthday until January. I’m a Capricorn.”
No one commented on that bit of trivia, but the guys all looked at one another and grinned more idiotically than before.
“My birthday is in March,” Lisa offered.
“She’s an Aries,” Ginger added.
No one said anything. I couldn’t think of anything to say either, so I nodded and said, “Great.”
“Well, we’ll see you guys later,” Ginger said. “Don’t worry about not coming with us, Liz—ard. We’ll get together later.”
“I’m not worried,” I said. The girls left. I turned to the guys. “Why would she think I’d be worried?”
They ignored my question. Ed turned to Zach and punched him on the arm. “You see Lisa gawking at you, Walters? I think she’s in love!”
“Shut up, Mechtensteimer!” Zach’s ears were bright red by now, and the rest of the face was catching up.
“She’s beautiful, Walters,” Stinky teased. “I think you should go for it!”
“Hey, did you see the poster for the dance?” Ed said. “It’s a Welcome to Truman Middle School dance for sixth graders next Friday after school. You could take Lisa.”
“You could dance with her,” Stinky said. “Real close. Maybe even kiss her!”
“What are you guys talking about?” I said, suddenly irritable. “Zach isn’t interested in her!”
“I think he is,” Ed said, grinning. “You see how red his face is?”
Andy leaned over and batted his eyelashes and made loud kissing noises.
Ed laughed. “Let’s call Lisa back and tell her.” He stood up, looking for Lisa.
Zach lunged at Ed and knocked him on the floor. He scrambled over and put a headlock on him. “Yeah?” Zach said. “Well, you can stick it in your ear, Mechtensteimer!”
“Geez, let go, will you?” Ed said. His face was turning purple from lack of air.
Mr. Sanders, the lunchroom supervisor (you can translate that as warden), saw Zach and Ed on the floor and charged toward them. Zach saw him coming and let go of Ed.
“No more of that!” Mr. Sanders said, pointing
at Zach.
“I was only kidding, Walters,” Ed said, rubbing his neck. Then he grinned. “But I still think you should go for it.”
“You guys weren’t any better than Zach was in front of those girls!” I said to Ed and Stinky and Mike and Andy. “You squirmed around, grinning like idiots the whole time they were standing here!”
“They were starin’ right at us!” Stinky said.
“So what?” I said. “Haven’t you ever seen girls before?”
There was a little silence before Ed said with awe, “Not like them.”
I didn’t like his tone of voice.
I looked over at Zach, who was staring into space wearing a dumb expression.
What’s the matter with these bozos? I thought. They were all acting subhuman—like strangers.
I didn’t know it yet, but that’s exactly what they were turning into.
My closest friends were starting through The Change.
3
“I gotta talk to you!”
Even over the noise of banging lockers in the hall, I heard Ginger yell. It was the end of the day and everybody was dumping their school stuff and heading for home.
Ginger rushed up, stopped right in front of me, and pushed her face into mine. “I gotta talk to you!” she said again. I noticed that she still had a little apple salad from lunch stuck in her braces. I backed up a step.
“What about?” I asked her.
“How did you do it?” she asked breathlessly.
“Do what?”
“How did you get yourself invited to Zach Walters’s house?” Ginger’s eyes bored into mine.
I took another step back. “I didn’t do anything to get myself invited,” I said. “He just asked me to come over.”
Ginger collapsed against the locker next to ours.
“He’s so gorgeous, I just can’t believe it,” she said.
I was about to say, “So what?” but she didn’t stop jabbering long enough to give me the chance.
“You’re going to his house right now?”
“Yeah—” I said.
“You’re so lucky to be his girlfriend,” Ginger said.
“I’m not his girlfriend. I mean, I’m a girl and I’m his friend, but—”
“You’re not his girlfriend?”