I cleared my throat. “So how come you haven’t told Mom and Dad about your girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Chad said shortly. “We’ve just gone out a few times, that’s all.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “Got it. Not your girlfriend. Just a girl you go on dates with, who calls you babe and gives you free ice cream.”
“You’re one to talk,” Chad retorted. “You haven’t told them about this boyfriend of yours, either.”
I shook my head. “Because he’s really not my boyfriend. And besides, Mom and Dad have met Owen tons of times. Hey, I bet Mom would love to go to Maggie Moo’s to meet Amy tomorrow! She could tell Amy that story about when you threw a tantrum in the shoe store when you were four.” I twisted in my chair to face Gabby. “He stripped naked and ran out into the mall wearing nothing but cowboy boots. He got all the way to the food court.”
Gabby burst out laughing. When we slowed to stop at a red light, Chad glared at me.
“You’re dead.”
“Yeah?” I shrugged. “What are you gonna do?”
Flipping on the turn signal, Chad raised an eyebrow. “I know you like this Owen guy, even if you keep saying you don’t. Does he know you framed that goofy drawing of his and hung it up in your room? ’Cause I might have to tell him.”
“What drawing?” Gabby asked immediately, and I sighed.
“Owen drew a picture of me at the zoo in New Orleans.” I glanced in the rearview mirror. Gabby was grinning.
“And you framed it?”
“Yes. Hey, it’s really good,” I said defensively. “You’ve seen his drawings.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Reaching behind my seat, I pinched Gabby on the leg. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
She giggled, swatting my hand away. “Does Owen know you hung it up in your room?”
“No.”
“He’s about to find out,” Chad said as we passed the entrance into Owen’s neighborhood.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine, tell him. I’m not embarrassed about appreciating good art.”
“Are you embarrassed about kissing it every morning before you go to school?” Chad asked innocently, and Gabby laughed so hard she snorted.
“I do not!” I cried, staring at him in horror.
Chad smirked. “I didn’t ask if you did it, I just asked if it would embarrass you if he thought you did. Obviously, the answer is yes.”
Okay. This was officially war.
“You are not telling Owen that,” I said firmly.
“Watch me.”
“Then I’m telling Mom your girlfriend works at Maggie Moo’s so we can all go visit her.”
“Whatever.”
We slowed to a stop in front of Owen’s house, where Owen and Trevor were sitting on the front steps. Chad turned to me, squinting like he does when he gets confused.
“Hang on. How’d you know where Amy works?”
I smiled sweetly at him. “Lucky guess.”
Gabby caught my eye in the rearview mirror and winked as the back door opened. Trevor slid in first, followed by Owen. In the rearview mirror, I saw his gray eyes widen in panic when Chad turned to face him.
“Owen, right?” Chad was trying so hard to sound menacing, it came off kind of cheesy. Gabby started sniggering again.
“Yes. Hi,” Owen said nervously.
“And that’s Trevor,” I added. “Trevor, this is my brother, Chad. Chad Mead.”
Trevor gave me a weird look. “Uh, I know your last name, Holly.”
He didn’t seem to recognize Chad, at all. Maybe Amy hadn’t told her family about Chad, either. Not that I could blame her.
We pulled away from the curb, and Chad cleared his throat. “So, Owen. Are you—”
“Chad, you go to Ridgewood, right?” Gabby interrupted.
Chad’s brow furrowed again. “Yeah.”
“Maybe you know Trevor’s sister!” Gabby was practically bouncing in her seat with glee. “She goes to Ridgewood, too. Right, Trevor?”
Trevor leaned away from her, looking slightly alarmed. “Um, yeah.”
“Really?” I smiled at Trevor, which only seemed to confuse him more. “What’s her name?”
“Amy.”
Chad pressed a little too hard on the brakes, and we lurched to a halt at a stop sign. Owen and Trevor looked completely lost, probably because Chad was shooting me a death glare while Gabby pretty much cackled.
After a few seconds of stony silence, Chad stepped on the gas. “You’re so dead,” he said in a low voice, before glancing at Owen in the rearview mirror. “So you’re the artist or whatever, yeah?”
Owen blinked. “Um . . . I guess so.”
“He went to an animation workshop in San Antonio right before spring break,” I told Chad. “He can make actual cartoons and stuff.”
“You can, seriously?” Gabby grinned at Owen. “That is so cool!”
“Thanks.” Owen looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole.
“I know Holly thinks it’s cool,” Chad said pointedly. “You know that picture you—”
“Hey, Trevor!” I swiveled around in my seat. “Did I ever tell you about the time my brother went streaking through the mall wearing nothing but cowboy boots?”
Trevor’s expression of confusion quickly changed to panic. “I—no—” he sputtered. “Why would I want to know that?”
“Holly, I swear to . . .” Gripping the steering wheel, Chad made a sharp turn into the theater parking lot. When he came to a stop in front of the box office, Owen and Trevor scrambled out like the car was on fire. Gabby followed slowly, still wiping away tears of laughter.
I smiled at Chad. “Truce?”
“Truce?”
“You agree not to tease me and Owen when you pick us up,” I said. “And I won’t tell Amy’s brother any more embarrassing stories about you tonight. Unless she really isn’t your girlfriend, and you really don’t care what she hears. Because I’ve got lots of good stuff. Like the time you—”
“Okay, fine,” Chad interrupted. “Truce.”
I beamed. “Thanks! See you at nine. Try not to mess up the car too much,” I added. “I bet Amy will appreciate how nice it looks now.”
Rolling his eyes, Chad shoved me out the door. “Whatever. Have fun with your boyfriend,” he yelled right before I shut the door.
I waved at him as the clean Trash Mobile tore out of the parking lot, then turned around and saw Owen not far from the curb, watching me. Gabby and Trevor were already standing in line (and arguing about something, judging from Trevor’s flailing arms).
I hurried over to Owen, torn between feeling flattered that he’d waited for me, and panic at the realization that he’d probably heard Chad call him my boyfriend.
“Sorry,” I said, not sure why I was even apologizing. Owen just smiled.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Ready?”
“Yup!”
As we joined the others in line, I kept glancing at Owen. There was no way he hadn’t heard what Chad had said. He didn’t look like he minded, though.
I felt a little flutter in my chest as I realized Gabby might have been right. Maybe this was a date after all.
After getting our tickets, Gabby made a beeline for the concession stand. Owen and I hung back while she and Trevor bickered over whether popcorn was better than nachos.
“Sorry we got stuck with my brother driving,” I told Owen. “My parents were busy.”
“It’s okay,” Owen said. “He seemed kind of mad at you, though.”
I grinned. “Yeah, he was trying to embarrass me. But I found out he’s dating Trevor’s sister, so . . . you know. Blackmail.”
“Oh.” Owen laughed. “So that’s why you told Trevor about the streaking?”
“Yup.”
After getting our drinks, we followed Gabby and Trevor up the escalator. They were still arguing about something, but I secretly thought they both looked like they were having fun. Not that they’d ever admit it.
“So what was Chad trying to embarrass you with?” Owen asked.
“What?”
Owen blinked. “In the car. Didn’t you say he was trying to embarrass you?”
“Oh right.” Way to go, Holly. I chewed my popcorn several seconds longer than necessary. “It’s not a big deal,” I said at last. “You know that picture you gave me, the one with the alligators from the zoo? I framed it and hung it in my room. He thought I’d be embarrassed if he told you, but I’m not.” I tried to keep my voice light, but the theater suddenly felt twenty degrees warmer.
“You framed it?”
“And laminated it.” But I swear I do not kiss it every morning before school. I popped another piece of popcorn into my mouth, willing my face to cool down. “I figured I should preserve it for when you’re famous,” I added before glancing up. Owen was blushing furiously, too, but he looked flattered. We smiled at each other. Then the escalator reached the top and I tripped a little, sloshing soda everywhere.
Stellar.
I was still wiping soda off my hoodie when we walked into the theater. “I like sitting at the top,” Gabby said, pointing with her giant box of Skittles. We climbed the stairs, but I was so distracted trying to get the stain off my sleeve that I didn’t notice Owen head down the row first. Trevor started after him, but Gabby grabbed his elbow.
“Hey!” Trevor yelped. “What?”
“Ladies first,” Gabby said pointedly. “Geez, Trevor. Be chivalrous.” She gave me an expectant look, so I followed Owen. “You owe me again,” Gabby whispered behind me. “Trevor probably thinks I did that because I want to sit next to him or something.”
“Do you? Ow!” Giggling, I rubbed my back where she’d jabbed me with her box of candy. Although the lights were already dimming as we sat down, that didn’t stop Gabby and Trevor from arguing quietly through most of the previews. But even they stopped talking for the last one: Mutant Clowns from Planet Z. It was a mix of sci-fi, horror, and comedy, with the vibe of a cheesy B movie but really cool special effects. I made a mental note to warn Julia and Natasha about it. They hated clowns—even just the poster for this movie would probably be enough to give them nightmares for a month.
When the preview finished, Owen leaned closer.
“That looks awesome.”
I nodded, trying to ignore the flutter in my chest. “We’ve got to see it.”
It was hard to tell in the dark, but I was pretty sure his face was pink again. And when he leaned away, it was just a little bit, so our shoulders still touched.
We were still sitting like that when the movie started. But after about twenty minutes, my stomach was flipping for a very different reason. House of the Wicked was great, but the sequel was amazing.
“Best. Movie. Ever,” I whispered, watching as a little girl poured sugar on the kitchen table. The sugar slowly formed an outline of a handprint with unnaturally long fingers, as if something invisible was pressing its hand on the table right next to her. (Which, of course, it probably was.)
I kept count of how many times the others jumped at the scary parts. Really good horror movies throw a scare at you when you’re least expecting it, so I was always ready for the lights to go out or a character to look in a mirror and realize something was behind her. So far, Owen had jumped twice and Gabby had jumped three times. It was harder for me to tell with Trevor since I wasn’t next to him, but I was pretty sure his total was five.
Not that it was a competition or anything. But if it was, I’d totally win—I hadn’t jumped once yet.
I was so into the movie that it was a while before I realized me and Owen both had our arms on the armrest between us. My eyes flickered back and forth between our hands, which were just an inch apart, and the screen, where the girl watched her father slowly approach the pantry. There was no music, just this weird, low humming sort of sound.
The father touched the doorknob.
Owen’s hand moved a tiny bit closer to mine.
My heart pounded in my ears. But before I could find out if Owen was about to hold my hand, the father pulled open the pantry door and was enveloped in a massive swarm of locusts.
“Oh my God!” screamed Gabby. Everyone jumped, including me. Not because of the locusts—I saw that coming a mile away. But because Gabby had accidentally tossed her giant Skittles box in the air, showering us with candy.
And not just us.
“Bees! Bees!” yelled a guy in front of Gabby, leaping to his feet and swatting frantically around his head. His two friends were standing, too, but they figured out it was just Skittles a few seconds before the bees guy. All of them turned to stare at Gabby, who’d just picked up the box.
“Sorry,” she whispered, pressing her hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle. After a second, the guy on the left snorted.
“Bees!” he cried. Then we all started cracking up, including the guy who’d yelled it in the first place, and an usher had to come tell us to keep it down. The three guys sat back down, still laughing.
For the rest of the movie, any time a character started opening a door or drawer, someone would hiss “bees!” and send us all into another silent fit of giggles. And in the car on the way home, we probably yelled it a hundred times before Chad hollered at us to stop. It was one of those things that seemed funnier the more we did it, I guess, because we laughed harder every time.
Although a small part of me couldn’t help wondering if Owen was going to hold my hand before the whole bees thing.
By the end of the first week of April, I wished I was still at the lake for some boring relaxation. I’d turned in a revision of my research paper on Eleanor Roosevelt for English class, only to get it back covered in more corrections. The illustrated timeline I did for history class turned out to be just the first step in a huge group project on post–Civil War Reconstruction in Texas. I’d done well on my math test, but then we started a new unit on data analysis and I kept mixing up the definitions of mean, median, and mode.
I spent half the weekend working on my research paper, and the other half finishing up the descriptions for Alien Park, which Owen and I were supposed to present to Mrs. Driscoll that Friday as kind of a practice run-through for the science fair. So I didn’t really feel like I’d had a weekend at all.
On Wednesday, Mr. Dante announced that our next chair test would be the week after UIL. And for the seventh-graders, it would also count as our audition for band next year. Usually our chair tests were over exercises or sections from our music, but this time he handed out actual audition pieces, kind of like all-region.
“The seventh-graders in symphonic band will be tested over the same études,” Mr. Dante explained. “The sixth-graders, too. I’ll have the results posted before the spring concert.”
Studying the étude, I wondered how good the sixth-grade French horn players were. Brooke would be a freshman in high school next year, but Natasha, Owen, and I would all be here. If the three of us were in advanced band again, plus a really good seventh-grader or an eighth-grader from symphonic band, our section would be pretty stellar.
With UIL coming up, we were working on sight-reading every day. And despite what Mr. Dante had said about how we might not see improvement while it was happening, I couldn’t help thinking we weren’t getting better at all. Sometimes Mr. Dante handed out music so simple, we probably could’ve sight-read it in beginner band. But this time, he gave us a song that didn’t look too much easier than “Labyrinthine Dances.”
“The sight-reading piece last year was about this hard,” Brooke said in a low voice. Owen made a face, while Natasha and I winced. “We still got Sweepstakes, though!” Brooke added reassuringly. “We were one of the only middle
schools in the district who did. And we didn’t play it perfectly, either—we made a few little mistakes.”
I tried to smile, but knowing last year’s advanced band had gotten Sweepstakes even when the sight-reading music had been especially difficult somehow made me even more nervous.
“There are rules about how difficult a sight-reading piece can be for UIL,” Mr. Dante explained. Apparently he’d noticed our looks of terror. “For our level, there can only be certain keys, time signatures, rhythms—things like that. I chose this because it’s pretty much the most challenging type of piece they could throw at us.”
I swallowed hard. UIL was sounding scarier and scarier. In beginner band, we’d gone to a competition, but it was at a little amusement park. All the bands had gotten trophies, and there was definitely no sight-reading. But Millican was one of the only middle-school bands in the whole district who’d gotten Sweepstakes last year. It was like we had a reputation to uphold.
Mr. Dante set his timer and talked us through the music, a song called “Triumphant Fanfare.” And it wasn’t nearly enough instruction time for music this hard. The first four measures started with just French horn and trumpet, and I wasn’t quite sure I understood the rhythm. The key and the time signature changed in the same measure halfway through, and the form was kind of complicated. But before I knew it, the timer went off and it was time to play.
Lifting his hands, Mr. Dante looked expectantly at the horns and trumpets. He began conducting, and we played the fanfare introduction.
It definitely was not triumphant.
Out of both sections, the only two people who played with any confidence were Aaron and Victoria. Natasha and I played completely different rhythms, and I guess we each thought the other was right, because we both tried to change and it sounded all muddled. Owen and Brooke might have played it right, but their tone was kind of shaky so it was hard to tell. And the trumpet players who had the harmony parts were seriously out of tune.
Crushes, Codas, and Corsages #4 Page 4