The Summer I Became a Nerd

by Leah Rae Miller

  I internally roll my eyes. It’s not that I don’t like Rayann… Okay, I don’t like her. She’s a drama pirate. I always picture her standing at the bow of a boat with one of those telescopes that stretch out. “Thar she blows! Looks like so-and-so has been seeing someone else behind her boyfriend’s back, me matey.” I’ve had this exact conversation with her at least three times this past school year, minus the pirate-isms.

  “Did you get extra glue sticks?” Terra asks, her super-curly hair bouncing as she takes some bags from me.

  “Yep.”

  “And glitter?”

  “Yep,” I say again as we go inside. I wave to Terra’s mom as we cross through the living room.

  “What about sparkles for the shirts?”

  “Yep, I got everything on your list, and yes, I have my money for the ticket.”

  “Great, I’ll put it in my account so I can be ready to clicky, clicky on the tour website and buy our tickets. Oh my God, this is going to be so amazing. Can you believe it? We are going to actually see Allison. In person. Hear her. With our own ears.” Terra dumps the contents of the bags on the floor of her room.

  I hold in the little comment I want to make about how we’ve always heard Allison with our own ears. “Yeah, it’s going to be great.” I’m trying to sound enthusiastic, but it just comes out kind of flat. “So when exactly is the concert? I keep forgetting.”

  She dives for the markers. “I’ve told you like a million times, Mad. It’s not this Saturday or the next, the one after that. Only like two weeks away.”

  I nod slowly. Why does Saturday throw a switch in my head? It’s no one’s birthday, I don’t think—

  The room gets all swirly when it hits me. Oh crap. Double, triple, quadruple crap to the nth degree! The comic convention is in two weeks. And Logan only has a day pass for Saturday.

  I’m the worst person ever. Which way do I go? On one side, I see my best friend all dressed up in her Allison Blair T-shirt and glitter on her eyelids. Rayann stands behind her looking like an extra from The Pirates of the Caribbean, taunting me with the knife she’s about to plunge into Terra’s back. On the other side is Logan, wearing his old black and white chucks and his Power Girl T-shirt, the V.I.P. Day Pass hanging around his neck. There’s a showdown moment where Terra brandishes her Allison CDs like throwing stars and Logan whips out a Captain America shield.

  That’s when Rayann whispers something in Terra’s ear. My best friend looks at me, eyes wide and shimmering with the tears that are about to fall. She knows. She knows I’m about to abandon her. For a guy, no less.

  A disgusted shiver runs through me at the thought. I can’t believe I’m even contemplating blowing her off to go with Logan. She’s the sweetest person in the world, like a sister to me. It sucks, but I have to back out of NerdCon. I promised Terra I’d go with her, so I’m going. End of story.

  “Did you hear Allison’s dating that guy who dated Sandra Bullock?” Rayann asks as she opens the package of T-shirts.

  Terra looks at her with big, glossy eyes. “No way, she’s dating Ewan Cooper. They’re perfect for each other.”

  “Well, that’s what it said on SmashTalk.com,” Rayann says smugly.

  I pat Terra on the shoulder. “You know SmashTalk can never be believed. I mean, isn’t that the same site that said Allison was really a terrorist using her music to brainwash teenagers with hidden messages?”

  “Whatever.” Rayann shrugs. “But they were seen canoodling last weekend.”

  Canoodling? Seriously? Terra just stares at the floor like it’s about to drop out from under her.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I tell her. “I’m sure it’s just a rumor. Ewan Cooper will probably be at the concert. We’ll have to keep an eye on the side of the stage.” I open the glitter pens and hand her the pink one. “So, what’s your shirt going to say?”

  “I’m putting ‘Number one Allison Fan,’” Rayann says.

  When Terra’s face falls even further, I want to smack Rayann. Terra flattens out a sheet of poster board, then pencils in some big bubble letters. Her brow furrows, and I’m pretty sure it’s not because she’s concentrating on drawing.

  “Why don’t we all put our favorite lyric on the front and ‘I heart Allison’ on the back?” I ask.

  Terra perks up. “Oh, I like that! Or maybe, on the back, you could have ‘I’, Rayann could have a heart, and I could have ‘Allison’. So when we stand next to each other it’ll—”

  Rayann cuts her off. “I want to be the ‘Allison’ part.”

  Terra narrows her eyes at her. “Fine. I’ll be the heart.”

  “That’ll work,” I say, nodding like this is the best idea ever. “That way you can wear your shirt again.”

  Terra pulls out the masking tape, a little bit of her sparkle coming back. “How about we tape a bunch of poster boards together so we have this big, long sign we can all hold up?”

  I ignore Rayann’s scowl and keep going. “And we could make a cheer that involves the signs. Maybe Allison will hear it if we do it during a break in the music. We could ask someone to film us, too.”

  “Hello, YouTube gold! Perfect!” A happy grin on her face, Terra starts taping the boards together.

  I should be happy I’ve managed to thwart the drama pirate and return my best friend to her happy place. And I am. But I can’t stop a deep sigh from escaping as I reach for the bright blue rhinestones. Oh, NerdCon, your awesomeness will be missed.

  Terra pops up. “I’m going to get my phone so we can listen to Allison while we do this. Maybe the chant can have the same beat as one of her songs?”

  I smile big and give her two thumbs up.

  As soon as Terra leaves, Rayann turns on me. “What’s going on with you? There’s no way you’re as excited about this concert as you’re pretending to be. I’ve seen how bored you look when Terra starts talking about Allison. Just because she’s not paying attention doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t.”

  “Nothing’s going on with me,” I say maybe a little more cheerful than I normally would. The last thing I need is for her to think something is going on with me, and she just pulled out her telescope, I can feel it. “I’m just really excited about going to a live concert. And hanging out with you and Terra. Summer gets boring, you know?”

  “If you say so,” she says just before Terra returns and sits back down.

  We all craft our hearts for a while until Terra asks, “So, where have you been, Maddie? Every time I text, you don’t answer until it’s too late to do anything.”

  “Yeah, Maddie,” Rayann says. “If summer’s been so boring, why haven’t you been hanging out with us?”

  I’m pretty sure I just became the big X on the treasure map. I have to come up with an excuse quick, and in the end, the one I come up with is pretty darn lame. “I’ve been helping my mom around the house, and the battery on my phone is really sucky so I have to leave it plugged in all the time. By the time she lets me hang out in my room, it’s usually pretty late.”

  Terra looks thoughtful. “I could always just try your home phone. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.”

  “No!” What if she calls when I’m using her as an excuse to go be a geek with Logan? “I mean, Dad is always waiting on calls about new jobs. I can’t even pick up the home phone without him telling me to put it back.” I shrug and try to laugh again, but it just comes out as a wobbly flutter of sound.

  Rayann smiles like I’m about to walk the plank, waiting for that moment I plummet to my death. Terra just looks kind of confused and goes back to her bubble letters.

  Once my T-shirt looks only slightly better than the one I made in fourth grade during a Brownies meeting, I ask Terra, “Can I leave this here to dry? Mom would kill me if I got this glitter pen gel stuff all over the inside of my car.”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks. Well, I have to head out. Mom probably has half a million things waiting for—”

  Terra sits back
on her heels, a frown on her face. “But what about the cheer? We haven’t even started working on it yet.”

  I edge toward the door, wishing Rayann would stop with her smug looks. Could she just stop with her stupid face all together? “Later, I promise. I mean, how much help can my mom really need?”

  “Okay,” Terra says sadly, but when she stands, she turns back into giddy, hand-talking Terra. “This is going to be awesome. I can’t wait! You’re the best ever.” She gives me a tight hug.

  Oh yeah, I’m the best, all right. More like the girl who is so buried in lies she can’t see through them enough to realize she almost broke her best friend’s heart.

  Rayann puts on a fake smile and holds her arms open for a hug, too. “Maybe your mom will let you hang out with us again soon,” she whispers in my ear. Her tone isn’t hopeful—it’s freaking sinister. Like she can’t wait for the next opportunity to catch me in a lie I can’t talk my way out of.

  I hurry out the door while I still can, chills skittering down my spine.

  #12

  “Mom, Terra and Rayann want to go to a late movie tonight. Can I go?” I call from my bedroom door.

  Logan’s show is almost over, and we’re supposed to go to the LARP of Ages game tonight once he’s finished. I told him I’d meet him at the radio station at around 9:30 so he could help me with my costume.

  “What time is it over?” Mom yells back at me from downstairs.

  “Supposed to be 11:30.”

  “Okay, just call when you’re on your way home.”

  Geez, I hate lying to her, but the last thing I need is Mom chatting with her friends about my “new hobby.” Plus, it’s just a little white lie. No biggie. But if that’s the case, why do I have to constantly tell myself to stop thinking about it?

  I check myself in the mirror. I’ve decided to wear a cute full skirt that stops at my knees and a sheer blouse with a chemise underneath. My hair has been painstakingly curled to create a wavy mass. It’s funny how it takes so much time and so many steps to make one’s hair look effortless.

  When I get to the radio station, I check the supplies I bought earlier along with the Allison Blair fan craft stuff. There are fake flowers, super glue, ribbon, ping-pong balls, blue face paint, crazy false eyelashes, and blue tights.

  Sitting in my parked car, I fashion a choker out of the ribbon and glue some fake sunflowers onto it. I put another flower ribbon on my wrist. Another flower goes in my hair. I’m almost an elven princess.

  As always, the second I start to feel happy about something and like everything might be okay after all, things I don’t want to think about pop into my head. Things like I just straight up lied to Mom, which makes me a horrible daughter. And worse, I have to tell Logan I can’t go to the convention.

  And when I tell him why, there’s a really good chance he’ll say, “Screw you and the Lumina you rode in on.” Or he might just put on some big, puppy-dog eyes and talk about all the things I’m going to miss. Good-bye, cosplay contest. Good-bye, having #400 signed by the author and the artist. Good-bye, getting my picture taken with Logan and Stan Lee. But I have to be up front with him.

  So much for a fun, relaxing night of LARP.

  The security light over the door to the college recording studio clicks on when Logan and another guy, I assume the mysterious Ben, step outside. I check my makeup in my rearview mirror. I’m going to have to redo it after the face paint, and yet, I still throw on some extra lip gloss.

  I wait for Ben to get into his Jeep and drive off before I get out of the car. Logan stops midstep when he sees me. This shouldn’t make me as happy as it does, especially not when I’m planning to give back my NerdCon pass as soon as he gets into my car.

  “Wow, you are definitely elven royalty material,” he says.

  Maybe the NerdCon pass can wait a few more minutes.

  “I can’t believe I’m actually going to do this.”

  “You’re going to love it, don’t worry.” We climb into my car, and he turns to me. “Thanks for the ride, by the way. Vera had swim lessons, Jonah wanted a ride to the library, Mom had grocery shopping to do, and Dad had the van at the shop, so it was just easier to let Mom take my car.”

  He’s rambling again. I make a mental note to put a voice recording app on my phone so I can catch that brand of adorkableness next time.

  “It’s no problem at all.”

  On the drive to his house, the thought hits me I’m about to do one of the nerdiest things anyone can do. Dressing up as an elf princess so I can go frolic with other people pretending to be fantastical beasts? It’s crazy, right?

  But then it occurs to me I might not actually get to do this craziness because of the NerdCon thing. Might as well get that over with before I get too attached to my new life as an elf.

  I take a deep breath and start rummaging in my purse while trying to also keep an eye on the road.

  Then Logan starts going off about the game. “There was this one time when we had to go up against a gargoyle, which is one of the most powerful beings in the game, and I had to track him down because I was the only one who had this aura-identifying power,” and on and on. He’s so into it, it just makes me wish I could be that free. Free to talk about something other than Allison Blair without my friends looking at me like I screwed up the halftime dance routine. He finishes the story with lots of flailing and sound effects, and all I can do is grin, my fingertips grazing the VIP pass.

  He sort of pushes my leg. “I’m just saying it’s fun. You’re going to love it.” A goofy, endearing smile takes over his face as we pull into his driveway. He jumps out of the car and starts doing the robot with my low beams as his spotlight.

  I can wait to tell him, I decide when he robot dances to my door to open it for me. He’s too excited about this. Too sweet. If I can’t go to the convention, I want to at least have this night with him. And I want it to be unmarred by my stupid lies and my all-around life suckiness.

  I tuck the VIP pass deeper in my purse and force myself to forget it.

  When we get inside, Martha is doing the dishes.

  “Oh, Maddie, you look great. Give me a twirl.” She swishes her finger in a circle, flinging soap bubbles onto the kitchen floor. I spin, and she applauds. “You must be from the Trulu race, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you have blue paint?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How about some black eyeliner for the ceremonial face tattoos?”

  “Well, I have some in my purse I could—”

  “Oh, honey, don’t use your good stuff. I have some I put aside just for this kind of thing. It’s in the drawer by the sink in the upstairs bathroom.” She points at the ceiling.

  Logan shows me to the upstairs bathroom and leaves to put on his own outfit. I put on the blue tights, stretching and yanking until they feel comfortable. The face paint isn’t like a Smurf blue, thank goodness. It’s more like a muted baby blue. It should be enough of a disguise so no one knows who I really am, especially since I’m adding these monstrous eyelashes and the ceremonial tattoos. It probably doesn’t matter anyway. Logan said the majority of the players are college students.

  I’m just finishing up drawing my tattoos, pretty swirls that seem to flow from my eyes, when Logan appears in the doorway over my shoulder in the mirror. I stop midswirly.

  He’s wearing black jeans and an amazingly hot black biker jacket over a white T-shirt. His normally casual bedhead hair is now perfectly styled bedhead hair. He also has light blue skin, but his tattoos are understated, just dots in a straight line that go from ear to ear crossing the bridge of his nose. He props himself against the door frame, and my mind goes blank.

  “I like the viney things you have going on there.”

  I clear my throat because it has suddenly gone dry. “Thanks. You look very…” I trail off because I almost said elf-a-licious. “Very believable.”

  “I have done this more than a few times.” He grins.
I feel a twinge of anger at myself for missing all those more than a few times.

  “You never told me you were a Trulu, too.”

  He steps into the bathroom, which is pretty small, so he’s only about a foot and a half behind me. There goes my heart again, thrumming inside my chest so hard I can feel it in my ears.

  “I just made the character today. I figured it would make more sense if we were of the same race because I’ll probably be around you a lot.”

  “My hero,” I say in a breathy voice.

  “Not that you wouldn’t be able to handle yourself, but…” He rolls his eyes. “You ready?”

  …

  We decide to ride together in his car because he’s trying to be a gentleman. We turn down a street lined with big, beautiful houses all with enormous doors and topiaries that guard the driveways.

  “I told Dan he could ride with us. I hope that’s okay?”

  “Of course.” The guy has already heard me belch. I don’t think him seeing me in elf garb could be any more embarrassing than that, even if he thought it was Logan belching and not me.

  As we pull up to one of the biggest houses I’ve ever seen this close, I try to list all the people who know about my double life in my head. I can only think of three: Logan, Dan, and Martha who, let’s face it, doesn’t seem like the type to go around gossiping about the activities of the girl who’s hanging out with her son. This is good. This is manageable. If I can keep it down to only these few people, who knows how long I can continue to indulge in being nerdy-me and all the perks that come with it.

  Dan barrels out of his front door carrying two twelve packs of sodas and what looks like a tree limb tucked under his arm. He’s kind of chunky, but he has a nice face. I bet he’s going to be one of those guys that just gets better looking as time goes by. It’s his vocabulary that needs work.

  “Can I get some help with this shit?” he yells.

  I get out of the car and take one of the cases of sodas. Logan pops the trunk so we can stash them back there. That’s when I realize what the tree limb actually is. Dan props the tip of his gigantor foam sword wrapped in duct tape on the ground. His hand is wrapped around the hilt which is next to his cheek. Dan is only an inch or two shorter than me, so, yeah, that’s a really, really long sword.