Daddy's Little Angel

by Shani Petroff

  I stalled. How was I going to answer that one? My dad is the devil, and he hooked me up?

  Luckily, I was saved by the sound of a shrieking banshee. “Jaydin, Lana, get over here now.” Courtney was standing outside of Mrs. Torin’s classroom with one hand over her eyes and the other pointing to a piece of paper taped to the wall.

  Gabi gripped my arm as the color drained from her face. She looked more nervous than when she met Lou. “They must have put up the cast list for Charlie Brown.”

  “Let’s go find out.” I practically had to drag Gabi over to look at the list.

  “Read it to me,” Courtney called out. “Wait.” She took a deep overdramatic breath. “Now.”

  Lana ran up to the list and stared screaming. “You got it, you got it, you got it!”

  I walked up to the sheet to check for myself. Ugh. Lana was right. Gabi didn’t get the part of Lucy. Courtney did. I went back to Gabi. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. I felt awful. I wanted to do something, but there wasn’t anything I could do.

  Gabi gave me a tight smile. I could tell she was holding back tears. “No big deal. I didn’t want it that much, anyway.”

  I searched inside my bag to find her a tissue. There had to be one in there. Why was I such a slob? My phone, iPod, and social studies book fell to the floor as I dug through my junk. Both Gabi and I reached down to pick them up.

  “Mrs. Torin doesn’t know what she’s doing,” I told her. “You would have made a much better Lucy.”

  “Puh-lease,” a voice cackled.

  I looked up to see Courtney looming over me. I hadn’t meant for her to hear that. I bit my lip and cringed. So much for my newfound fame. Courtney would make sure no one ever spoke to me again.

  Only she didn’t ream me out. Instead she smiled. “You’ve obviously never heard me sing,” she said, “but I’m just as good as your friends.”

  I quickly stood up. “Well, Gabi is—”

  “I said friendzzz, not friend,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I meant Mara’s Daughters.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut. It had to be better than saying the wrong thing to Courtney. She had many talents in addition to singing. She was a genius at being mean, and also a gifted mimic. Her routines were pretty funny—as long as you, or your friends, weren’t at the butt of them. Poor Max was one of her favorite “characters.” Gabi was a close second.

  Thankfully the bell rang, saving me once again from my tied tongue. Courtney smirked at Gabi and then looked at me. “You’ll sit at my table for lunch. We’ll celebrate my part.”

  There was no way I could leave Gabi. Especially not right after she found out that she wasn’t in the musical. And it wasn’t like she’d want to sit with Courtney or that Courtney would let her anyway. “I can’t—” I started to say. But Courtney was already halfway down the hall.

  Mrs. Torin popped her head out the door. She told me to get to homeroom and asked Gabi to stick around a minute. She wanted to ask her something. I was dying to follow Gabi into the room, but I didn’t want to get in trouble for being where I wasn’t supposed to be, so I left. As I made my way to class, I couldn’t even keep track of all the people who said hi to me.

  School was certainly getting a lot more interesting.

  chapter 14

  Everyone turned to look at me as I walked into homeroom. Even Cole. I swear it was just like I dreamed it. He stopped working on whatever homework he didn’t bother finishing last night and watched me as I made my way to my seat. Okay, it wasn’t quite as good as my fantasy, where he gave me a Gerber daisy and one of his big, crooked smiles when I reached my desk, but this was a close second.

  “Hey, Angel,” Dana Ellers said as I passed by her.

  “You were awesome at the concert,” Tracy Fine added. Marc Gomez and Rick Drager nodded in agreement. “But I knew you would be. You’ve always had that cool vibe thing going. I want to hear all about everything later,” Tracy continued.

  Tracy never even acknowledged my existence before. Not even when I was her Secret Santa last year. Now she was calling me cool and acting like we were actual friends. This was so weird. “Sure,” I said, trying to mask my nerves. No one other than Gabi and the teacher ever spoke to me in homeroom.

  I rushed to my desk and ended up tripping over my chair. I expected the class to point and laugh, but no one even snickered. Instead there were a few gasps and Dana even rushed over to check on me.

  I took my seat behind Cole and thought I was going to go into cardiac arrest when he turned around to face me. “You okay?” he asked.

  He was talking to me! Cole Daniels was talking to me! “Yeah,” I said. I considered pulling out my phone so I could snap a picture and document the moment forever, but I thought better of it.

  “Sweet concert,” he said, and ran his hand through his dark brown waves. He had the best hair I’d ever seen. Shiny, kind of floppy on the top, with the occasional golden highlight. I wondered what it felt like. Probably supersoft. I wanted to reach out and touch it, too. My hand would be in hair heaven, until he smacked it away for being some sort of freakish hair perv.

  I had to focus. I needed to answer him, to say something. This was not the time to have a brain freeze. “Yeah,” was the best I could do. On the inside, though, I was psyched. I hadn’t seen him at the concert so I wasn’t sure if he made it there. It’s a good thing, too, because if ever in my life I was crushworthy, it was at that concert all right. I was all prepped to ask him what his favorite song of the night was when Mrs. Laurel, my homeroom/science teacher, started talking, and he turned back around. But before he did, he smiled at me. An honest to goodness real smile. Just. For. Me.

  “Hi,” Gabi whispered to me. I hadn’t noticed her come in. She raised an eyebrow and looked toward Cole.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I know!” I whispered. I really had no clue what was going on. But whatever it was, it was good. “Hey, what happened with Mrs. To—”

  “Angel, since you seem to be a little chatterbox today, why don’t you read us the morning announcements?” Mrs. Laurel interrupted. She walked over and handed me a piece of paper.

  This I could handle. “The cast list for You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown is posted outside Mrs. Torin’s classroom,” I began. “Everyone who auditioned did a wonderful job. Congratulations to the new cast.”

  I couldn’t read anymore. And not because I didn’t want to. All the text on the page started spinning. What was going on? Was I about to pass out? I closed my eyes.

  “Is there a problem, dear?” Mrs. Laurel asked.

  “No,” I said, looking back down at the paper. But there was a problem. A big one. And it had Lou written all over it. The words on the page had changed. In place of the school announcements was a brief note that repeated itself over and over again. It said, “Angel, please reconsider. Talk to me—Love, Dad.”

  “We don’t have all day, dear. Keep reading,” Mrs. Laurel chirped.

  How was I supposed to do that? “Actually, I’m not feeling too well. Can I skip this today?”

  “Fine.” Mrs. Laurel’s gigantic smile seemed to crack a little, which meant she was getting frustrated, but at least she wasn’t going to make me continue with the announcements. “Bring the paper up to me.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  I couldn’t let her have it. It had my name on it. There was no way I’d be able to explain how all the words changed. “Sorry. Just feeling dizzy.”

  She shook her head and walked over to me. “Maybe you should go see the nurse.”

  “That’s okay. I’m sure I’ll be fine in a minute.”

  Mrs. Laurel held out her hand. I just looked at her. “The announcements,” she said.

  I didn’t know what to do. But I didn’t have much choice. I handed her the paper and slunk as far down in my chair as possible. What if she read my dad’s note out loud? My life was about to end.

  Gabi gave me a questioning stare and then spoke
up. “I’ll read it,” she offered.

  “Helping out a friend. Very nice. One extra credit point for you,” Mrs. Laurel said, beaming like Gabi just helped a dozen old ladies cross the street.

  I wanted to grab the paper back and tear it up into a million little pieces. This was going to be my undoing, and it was all in the hands of my best friend. I prayed she’d make up the announcements or give Mrs. Laurel some crazy excuse for why she couldn’t read them either. But Gabi was an awful liar. She had a huge guilt complex, so I waited for the worst.

  “Exciting news from our swim team,” Gabi read. “They beat the Dillon Ducks to make it to the quarter-finals.”

  I let out a small sigh of relief. The paper had turned back into the real announcements. That or Gabi was the best actress in all of Pennsylvania. Either way it didn’t matter. I was in the clear.

  I relaxed in my chair and went back to my favorite hobby, studying the back of Cole’s head. As I tried to spell out my name in Cole’s curls, I noticed something swinging off a strand. I moved in a little closer for a better look. I prayed I wasn’t seeing clearly. But I was. Lou, in miniature form, was attached to my crush. He was moving like Tarzan from lock to lock while waving at me with his free hand.

  “Go away,” I said in a harsh whisper.

  Cole started to turn around. “What?”

  “Not you,” I squeaked, stopping him. A few people looked over at me. I hoped they didn’t think I was talking to myself. That would certainly counteract any positive effects the Mara’s Daughters concert had on my popularity.

  Lou continued to wave at me.

  “Go,” I mouthed.

  “Sure. When you agree to give me a chance,” he whispered.

  I jumped up. Did Cole hear that? Did he think it was me? Lou was practically inside his ear. I had to stop this. I reached out to grab Lou. But, suddenly, he disappeared. I was left standing there clutching onto Cole’s hair.

  He reached back and grabbed his head. “What the . . . ?”

  I let go and looked over to Gabi. Her hand was over her mouth. Yeah. This was disastrous. Humiliating. Mortifying.

  All of the above and then some.

  “Bee,” I said meekly, sliding back into my seat. “I didn’t want you to get stung.”

  He was still rubbing the back of his head.

  “Sorry.” I looked down at the loose strand of hair in my hand. “Do you want this back?”

  Did I really just ask that? Do you want this back? What was wrong with me? I swear I wasn’t usually this demented on most days. I stammered. “I mean . . . ” How did I make this better? I couldn’t. It was impossible.

  I glanced at the class out of the corner of my eye. Everybody was watching me. I needed to make them—and Cole—understand. “I’ve seen a ton of bees buzzing around here lately. It’s probably the forsythia bush outside the window. I have one just like it at my house, and there’s always a whole swarm of bees.” I couldn’t keep the words from tumbling out of my mouth. “There might even be a nest. I’m really glad no one got stung,” I continued to babble. Nothing could stop my mouth. I just kept spewing bee facts. “Their bites are awful. I got one a couple of years ago, and—”

  “Okay,” Mrs. Laurel said from the front of the class, unknowingly coming to my rescue. “Let’s focus up here, everyone.”

  The scene played over and over in my head until the bell rang. I felt so stupid. I had never been more thankful for the end of class in my life. “Sorry,” I said to the back of Cole’s head, and booked toward the door before he had a chance to respond. I bumped into two of my classmates in the process, but I didn’t care. I had to get out.

  My forehead was practically glued to my locker by the time Gabi caught up to me.

  “What happened?”

  I didn’t turn around. “Just the devil at work, making me mutilate the cutest boy in the whole school.”

  She leaned in close. “It was your dad?”

  I let out a sigh. “Yep.”

  “That stinks,” she said.

  “Tell me about it.” I knew Lou wanted to convince me to let him into my life, but that was so not the way. It was like blackmail, and I wasn’t going to reward that.

  Gabi put her hand on my back. “On the upside, you finally got to touch Cole’s hair.”

  That was a slight consolation prize, but not enough to undo the image of me lunging forward at Cole. “What about you? What did Mrs. Torin want?”

  “She offered me the assistant director position for Charlie Brown.” Gabi rested her back against the locker. “I’m going to do it. I never thought about directing before, but it sounds fun. I’ll get to help make decisions about the show and be second in command after Mrs. Torin.”

  “Congratulations, that’s great,” I said. But I worried she was just putting on a brave face. I wasn’t the only one getting stuck with a consolation prize today.

  chapter 15

  With my head down, I rushed over to my usual lunch table in the back, right-hand corner of the cafeteria and dropped down my tray. Gabi was already there. She had a seat with her back to the room. I sat down next to her.

  Gabi scrunched up her nose. “Why are you sitting on this side?”

  I couldn’t tell her the truth. That I didn’t want Courtney to see me and think I was snubbing her lunch invitation. Gabi just wouldn’t understand. She didn’t want to be a part of Courtney’s circle the way I did. “Everyone’s been watching me because of the whole Mara’s Daughters thing,” I said. “And after that whole homeroom fiasco, I’m paranoid about doing something else stupid.” It wasn’t a complete lie. I was nervous about humiliating myself again.

  My answer must have made sense to Gabi because she got up and moved to the other side of the table to face me. But a couple of times during our conversation, I couldn’t help but glance backward toward Courtney’s table.

  “What are you looking at?” Gabi asked the fifth time I turned around.

  “Nothing,” I said, picking at my fish sticks.

  Gabi dropped her grilled chicken sandwich back onto her lunch bag, crossed her arms, and stared at me. “If you want to sit with her, you should just go.”

  “I don’t. I want to sit with you. Really.”

  “Right.” She started eating her sandwich again, but I knew she was annoyed. She barely spoke for the next ten minutes, which was so not her. Gabi giving the silent treatment was the equivalent of a hyper baseball fan passing up World Series tickets so she could get a good night of sleep instead. It just wasn’t natural. I tried to get her to talk, but she only gave me one- or two-word answers. I didn’t know what to do.

  Gabi picked up her organic apple juice box, but froze just before it hit her lips. The only part of her that was moving was her eyes. They were following something. Or as it turned out—someone—three someones. Courtney, Jaydin, and Lana were now standing at the end of our table.

  “Thought you were going to sit with us today,” Courtney said to me. Her hands were on her hips and she did not look pleased.

  “I wasn’t sure where you were sitting,” I said, giving her a small smile. She had to know that wasn’t true. Everyone knew where she ate lunch. At the table right at the center of the room, and no one was allowed to sit there without her permission.

  “Well, I guess we’ll just have to show you. Come on.” Courtney took a few steps away and looked back at me. “Are you coming or not? I’m not going to ask you again.”

  I really wanted to go. But I looked at Gabi who was pretending to study the ingredients label on her juice, and I knew I couldn’t. “Gabi too, right?” I was hoping for a miracle.

  Instead I got a snort. “What do you think?” Lana asked.

  My three seconds of membership to the middle school elite was about to come to an end. “I, it’s just, umm,” I stuttered. “There’s—”

  Gabi stopped me. “It’s okay. I have to go anyway. I’m supposed to meet with Mrs. Torin about the show.”

  “Why would you need to k
now anything about it? You didn’t get in,” Courtney gloated.

  “Because I’m going to be the assistant director,” Gabi said, her face looking stony. She stood up and collected her trash. “The person who tells you what to do.”

  “Never gonna happen,” Courtney snapped back.

  Gabi just walked away. My heart was beating fast. I felt awful.

  “Let’s go,” Courtney said.

  I nodded and followed her to the table, but the whole way I watched Gabi head for the exit. A good friend would have seen that she only left because she was afraid I would ditch her. A good friend would have run after her and stopped her. A good friend would have told Courtney to get lost. But I wasn’t a good friend. I was the devil’s daughter.

  chapter 16

  Courtney made everyone push over so I could sit right next to her. Lana did not look happy about losing her spot, but she didn’t say a word.

  I took my seat and scanned the table. Everyone there was completely A-list. In addition to Courtney and Lana, Jaydin was there; Brooke Baum, who once modeled for the Macy’s catalog and was even in a Colgate commercial; Allison Cheng, star of the school’s volleyball team and head cheerleader; and Bronwyn Jinkins, who got the part of Sally in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. And that was just the girls. The guys were just as impressive. I was completely intimidated. Even though it was Courtney herself who’d invited me to the table, I still felt like I was being judged. Like I was in the elimination round on a reality TV show, and these were the people who could vote me off.

  As if all that wasn’t enough pressure, Cole came over and joined us. “Hey, everyone,” he said, then gave me a half-nod and sat down right next to me.

  I should have been overjoyed but it was all so nerve-racking. I tried to stay engrossed as Courtney chatted away about how Charlie Brown was going to launch her acting career. After all, she was the head judge and the one I needed to impress—but it was difficult to concentrate with Cole sitting so close by, talking to Reid. Especially since he sounded as if he was upset with someone.