“Well, he’s definitely introducing himself,” I say. “But why? I’m not sure.”
“Maybe that’s what people do wherever he comes from,” Phoebe suggests.
“And where’s that? Uranus? ” Joey adds, but it doesn’t matter, because just then Mandy whispers, “Shhh. He’s coming!”
He approaches our table with not so much a smile but a look of contentment. “Hi there, sorry to interrupt, I just wanted to—” He cocks his head to the side, looking directly at me. “I know you, don’t I?”
I look down at the table and find a nice grape-juice stain to study, just as Phoebe says, very quickly, “It’s not true, whatever you heard.”
My jaw clenches, but I keep my gaze on the stain. I am starting to think I should maybe look for the face of Jesus or his mother or something else that proves that miracles just might exist, but all I see is an ordinary splat. I finally take a quick breath and look up. “We met in the hallway the other day.”
“Oh. right.” And then he doesn’t laugh, which not only makes him polite but so very thoughtful. “It’s Olivia, isn’t it?”
My name. He remembers my name! My eyes jump up from the juice stain and practically leap into his. And then. He smiles. My heart is doing so many ridiculous little dances in my chest that I feel like it could short-circuit.
While I’m busy accepting the fact that I am probably having a heart attack, and actually happy enough at this very moment to be okay with that, he introduces himself to the rest of my friends. “Well, for those of you who I haven’t already met, I’m Caleb Austin.” He pauses, so Phoebe jumps in and starts rattling off everyone’s names.
“Where are you from, anyway?” Joey asks—or actually, accuses.
“Saudi Arabia,” he tells us.
Joey gives us a very smug smile, like, What did I tell you?
“Then why don’t you have some kind of accent?” It’s Delia and her wary herder gene again.
So he tells us about his dad being some kind of diplomat, and how they were in Saudi Arabia for two years, and how he went to American schools, and how before that, they lived in California. By the time he gets to that, Delia’s paranoia has disappeared, and she, too, is practically scooting over to make him room and offering him some of her (unsweetened green) tea, courtesy of her granola mother. That is, until he tells us why he’s introducing himself—which we’ve forgotten even mattered.
“Well, it’s been really nice to meet you all,” he says. “And I hope you’ll think of me on October seventeenth.”
And this is how off track we’ve gotten. How utterly, completely, ridiculously off track. Mandy picks at her eyebrow scab between sips of her smoothie. Phoebe is barely there, her gaze focused across the cafeteria on Brant. Joey is making strange shapes with cheese that he’s stolen from the distracted Phoebe. And Delia’s guard is down by her ankles, which is proven when she asks, through a mouth full of sunflower seeds, “Oh, why? Is it your birthday?”
“Oh, no.” He laughs. “It’s election day.” And as my dumb little overactive heart slams into a rib, he adds, “And I’m running for president.”
IT’S FRIDAY after school. I step onto the bus and make my way to the back, passing by Brynne and her sidekick Carolyn, who barely glance up at me. Brynne sits slumped in the seat, her knees raised to rest against the seat in front of her, where Danny sits. Tamberlin is nearby—though she chews her gum with a wide and open mouth, she is silent. I brush by their clump, surprised and relieved by their unusual quiet.
I sit down in a seat by myself and pull out A Wrinkle in Time. I’m only halfway down the page when I hear my name being called. I look up. The entire population of the bus looks back at me.
“Does your grandmother drive a pickup truck?” Tamberlin asks.
I have that sinking feeling again in my stomach. I’m sure they’re setting me up for some sort of joke, like they used to do with the granny panties. Just when I thought we were really getting somewhere! I push my gaze back into my book. It’s too late for a distraction, so I will try to read. I will try to ignore it.
“Olivia!” I hear my name again. It’s Carolyn this time, and she sounds exasperated. “Isn’t that your grandma?”
A horn sounds. I look out the window. It is my grandmother. She’s pulled the pickup truck up next to the bus, and is waving wildly. Although I’m majorly embarrassed, I’m even more relieved. For once I’m not the butt of some sort of joke. “Thanks,” I say to Carolyn as I squeeze past her.
She gives me a puzzled look back. “Okay. Whatever,” I hear her say just before I step off the bus.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Corny as I climb into the passenger’s side. But as soon as I sniff the meaty, yeasty smell of homemade dog biscuits, I know. “We’re going to see Kisses?”
She nods. “You’re doing such a good job with her.”
I sigh. I’m tired and hungry, and I’d rather be home watching Full House. But I manage to give her a smile.
She smiles back. “She’s one of the toughest cases we’ve had, and I think you deserve this.” She hands me a root beer Slurpee. It’s sweet and cool, and even though I know it’s just mostly sugar and ice, it makes her words feel almost true.
So. Yeah.
Turns out I’m supposed to use the bone-shaped dog biscuits to “reward” Kisses the same way Corny used the Slurpee to “reward” me. Not that she’s put it that way, but it’s pretty obvious. Nice.
“It’s not like I’m a dog, Grandma,” I remind her.
“I know. But I don’t care—I love you anyway.”
This time, not only does Kisses not attack the car, but she seems almost happy to see me and my good posture. She wags her little stalk of a tail, and I start to notice how cute she actually is when she’s not acting like an assassin.
We go back around to the patio, and Corny sets out the sod again—this time four pieces together to make a larger square. I walk Kisses in circles around the little lawn squares for several minutes, and then I start to walk her right up to them. When her head lowers, I tug gently up on the leash. She raises her head and takes another two steps forward before stopping just in front of the sod.
“Sit,” I say, and she does. I’m tempted to give her a piece of the biscuit, but Corny tells me not yet. So I just say “Good girl” and take a step backward. I’m standing on the sod.
We do it again. She takes a step forward, and then hesitates. And then another. Her front paw is standing on top of a grass square. “Good girl!” I practically squeal. Corny gives me permission to give her a small piece of the biscuit. But I have to place it in the center of the sod, surrounded by the grass blades.
You can tell she’s torn. She wants to pull back and go forward at the same time. Her teeny neck stretches ahead, she takes a couple of steps and sniffs the biscuit. Then, lightning-bolt fast, she dips her head into the grass to grab the treat, and runs away from the sod as far as her leash will allow.
Corny clasps her hands together and smiles. Mr. Dewey brings his palms together like a prayer. And then Kisses comes back toward me. “Another step farther,” Corny coaches me. I plant a piece of biscuit in the far end of the grass. Kisses slowly steps onto the sod, her little twig legs shaking as she advances. She dips into the grass, grabs the biscuit, and tries to run away again. This time I hang on to her leash so she has to chew while standing on the sod.
Now I’ve got to get her to sit down. I give her the sit command and she moves around on the sod in a semi- squatting motion, her rear end grazing the grass and then popping back up again. I tug upward on her leash and push gently down on her back, and then finally, believe it or not, she officially sits down on the sod. I feel the thrilling rush of success as I give her the full biscuit. She lowers onto her belly, holding the bone-shaped treat up between her two front paws to better gnaw on it. We all cheer.
I’m finding this reward thing pretty rewarding all by itself.
When I get home, I have a letter from my dad. It’s a card
with a black-and-white picture of a sleeping cat on it. It looks just like a skinnier version of Grey, my old cat. My dad kind of spoils her. Sometimes I think my mom replaced me with her new life, and my dad replaced me with Grey. I give him a little more slack—he was both father and mother to me for a while, so he’s got to do something with those parental instincts now that I’ve moved away.
I open the card and a check falls out. It’s forty dollars I wasn’t expecting, which should make me pretty happy since it means another pair of delightfully normal jeans, or maybe a decent shirt. But his note leaves me feeling a little sad.
Liv—
We might as well enjoy the unfortunate success!
Miss you and love you—
oxoxoxox Dad oxoxoxox
I guess this shows how powerful a reward can be. In this case, money. It’s the whole reason my dad is staying in Valleyhead, where he has no life outside of work.
It’s just another example of how people aren’t that different from dogs at all.
IT’S MONDAY AFTERNOON. Phoebe and Joey have wasted the first five minutes of Bored Game Club arguing over whether to play Yahtzee or Boggle, when Delia walks into the room, practically glowing.
“Oh, good,” Mandy says. “Now we outnumber them. Who’s up for Upwords?” She raises her own hand and looks expectantly at Delia and me.
“Yeah, sure, that’s fine,” Delia says, still smiling.
“You hate Upwords,” Joey says, eyeing her suspiciously.
“Yeah, and why are you smiling like that, anyway?” Phoebe adds.
“Okay, I know this shouldn’t be a big deal,” Delia says, as she sits down between Mandy and me. “But just now, Carolyn came up and started talking to me about the math test. And I was totally ready with my distraction—”
“Which was?” I ask. Delia’s “distractions” have been, to be honest, pretty bizarre. Her most famous one at this point was when Tamberlin came up to her in the hall, totally cueing with the beady-eyed fake smile that we’ve come to expect. So Delia asked her how many teeth humans are supposed to have. And Tamberlin actually stood there, stuck her fingers into her mouth, and counted them.
“Oh. I was going to ask her for a pad. With wings.”
“Ew,” Phoebe says.
“Gross,” Joey says. “Wings,” he repeats under his breath.
I look at Delia. “Really?”
“I thought it would definitely get her off the subject of my face, and who knows? Maybe she’d even feel a little sisterly bond.”
“Wait. What are wings?” Joey asks, more quietly than usual, but no one seems to be paying much attention to him. We’re all caught up in Delia’s moment.
“That’s so brave,” Mandy says.
“Thanks. But the good news is I didn’t even have to ask her. She actually just wanted to talk about the math test—she was worried she got half the answers wrong! Not one single mention of my zits. I mean, she didn’t even look at me strange!” She smiles. “It seems like it’s working.”
I feel myself grinning along with Delia.
“I know, Dee, it’s awesome,” Mandy says.
“Sounds promising,” Phoebe adds.
“Your mom has wings.” That’s all Joey.
“You know what?” Usually I like to let the room air out a little after his comments, but today I jump right in. I can’t help myself. I’m excited. “I think we’re ready for the next step. Rewarding good behavior.”
“Yeah, but,” Mandy says, “at this point I’m lucky if Glass Eye just ignores me when I see him in the hall, or if Corbin walks by with just a weird stare. It’s not like either one of them is like, asking to carry my backpack, or like, helping me to get to class when I lose a clog or something.”
I swallow. I always hoped the fact that we were considered dorks was really just a case of bad packaging. Now I’m starting to wonder if this dorkiness thing we’ve got going on really is more than skin-deep. Am I the only one making an effort here? “That was yours?” I ask.
“Well, technically it was my mom’s, who, by the way, almost killed me when I came home without it.” She eyes me. “Don’t you remember me having to wear my ugly gym shoes that day?”
Well, no, I didn’t, because one, I was too busy not thinking about Young Uncle Jesse, and two, Mandy wears her ugly gym shoes four out of five days of the week. But a clog—that’s just bad judgment. I make a mental note to talk to her about this later.
“Okay, well, here’s the thing,” I say. “Garrett or Corbin just walking by without saying something mean is good behavior.”
“I’m not really understanding how this will work, Olivia,” Phoebe says.
“Once you start to see good behavior—and this could be your tormentor just treating you like any other person, or it could be something more—then you can reward it. Candy, gum, all that stuff works,” I say. “For example, next time Carolyn wants to talk to you, Delia, about anything other than your complexion, you give her a piece of gum.”
“Isn’t that going to seem weird?” Delia asks quietly.
“Seriously, guys, who doesn’t want gum? Or candy?” I ask. “I mean, has anyone ever stopped and asked why you’re offering them a piece of gum? No! They just grab it and stick it in their mouth like it’s going to explode if they don’t.”
“I guess you’re right,” Delia says.
“But gum? Candy?” Phoebe, whose diet-obsessed mother doesn’t allow any sort of refined sugar in the house, acts inconvenienced. “What am I supposed to give for a reward? Molasses chews?”
“That’s so Amish,” Joey tells her.
“See?” Phoebe turns to me, actually agreeing with Joey.
“It doesn’t have to be something you eat. Just bring in something tomorrow, Pheeb. I’m sure you have something people would be happy to get,” I say, although I’m secretly wondering what that might be.
THE NEXT MORNING I raid Corny’s purse and find a nearly full pack of spearmint Freedent. It may not be Bubble Yum, but it’s about all you have on hand when you live with a sixty-year-old.
When I get to school, Phoebe’s waiting for me at my locker, looking impatient but excited.
“You found something, Pheeb?” I ask.
She nods. “It’s not a traditional reward, but I think it might work. Instead of handing out sugar for positive behavior, I’m going to hand out office supplies.” She says this like she’s proud, so even though it sounds a little ridiculous, I hold back my laugh.
“Like what?”
She looks at me like I’m the weirdo.
“Like refillable lead pencils. Tiny staplers. That sort of thing. Stuff from my mom’s shop.” As funny as it sounds, I know she’s got a point. Those lead pencils are probably more popular than candy. Now my Freedent really seems stupid.
I try to stuff it into my pocket and turn away. But she sees it and coos. “Oooh, Freedent! Perfect for orthodontia! Can I have a piece?”
“Sure. Only a couple more weeks, right?” I ask. Phoebe’s finally getting her braces removed.
“Right. Just in time for the dance.” But before it gets awkward, she asks, “Want a pencil?”
“Oh, God, yes,” I say, very quickly. I laugh, and she gives me one of her strained little smiles that shows that somewhere, maybe buried under the layers of her very big brain, she does have some hint of a sense of humor.
“You think—” she starts, then stops.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says, and shakes her head.
“Phoebe, what?”
She looks at me, blushing. “You think—I mean, since my braces will be off, you think Brant might try to, you know”—her eyebrows raise—“kiss me?”
“Uhhhh,” is all I can say.
Then there’s a little squeak of a sound coming from her. It stops just as soon as it starts. She’s red, but her eyes are wide with excitement. And then she says, “J.K.”
But my mouth still hangs open.
“J.K.,” she says again. “Ju
st. Kidding? ”
Okay, so it’s a totally wack sense of humor, but yes, it does exist. It might just need a little tweaking. But then, really, what doesn’t?
“So,” Delia asks at lunch, “anyone have anything interesting to report?” She’s gloating over the cranberry-applesauce oatmeal-butter cookies that her mother made and she’s brought in for rewards. Carolyn called them “The Best Cookies On The Face Of The Planet,” and now everyone seems to want one.
“I’m working on it,” I say, and sigh.
Mandy sniffs the air with a slightly puzzled look on her face. “You smell like my great-grandfather. Is that Dentyne?”
“No,” Phoebe says, shaming me with her look. “That’s Freedent. And she’s supposed to be saving it for her rewards.”
“It’s not what you think,” I tell them. The truth is that I’ve been jamming the gum into my mouth between every single class since I ran into Caleb on my way to first period. Yes, I like, literally ran into him. I was walking and reading, trying to review my periodic table, and the crown of my head slammed right into his very firm chest. He said, “Ouch?” like it was a question. I stepped away and knew I should have been feeling pain, but all I felt was a lingering warmth in my scalp. I think I apologized, but he just gave me that adorably lazy smile and said, “Be careful with that head of yours. It’s practically a weapon.” And even though he’s new at school, everyone within earshot laughed good-naturedly because he’s the kind of person that doesn’t have to train people to like him—they just naturally do. So the gum, well, it’s just in case this happens again. The last thing I want to be accused of is having fart-breath like Danny Pritchard.
“Well, I’m sure it’ll get better,” Phoebe says. Then she empties her stash onto the lunch table; there are only three pencils left and a foldable ruler.
“Cool,” Mandy says. “So who got the goods?”
“Let’s see. Peyton Randall, for one. I had some toilet paper stuck on my shoe, and she offered to step on it so it would come off. Earned herself some number seven lead refills.” She takes a bite of her tuna sandwich. “Who else? Oh! I gave a packet of colored paper clips to Morgan Askren because she said hi to me.”
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