by Rachel Hruza
I decided I didn’t need to agree with him on this, since every girl he knew didn’t either. So I sighed, deciding I’d have to let Brendan in on a secret of the female heart.
“Only a handful of girls get love songs written about them,” I told him. “So the rest of us have to settle for the idea that a guy might at least think about us that way.”
“Oh,” he said.
I smiled, happy I’d gotten through to at least one stubborn boy.
“I still think it’s a lame song.”
I shoved his shoulder playfully. “Get outta here!” I said.
Brendan chuckled. “Yeah, I’ll go before your terrible taste in music rubs off on me.”
“Is Truth Trendon going to have to beat up a star quarterback?” I threw up my dukes and chased him down the steps to the sidewalk, swinging my fists at the air.
“You can’t punch this face,” he said, throwing his hands over his glorious visage. “Your will power isn’t that strong.”
“You’re right,” I said, without thinking. “I can’t ruin such a perfect thing.”
Brendan didn’t say anything for a moment, but before I could try to explain my crush-induced word-vomiting, he leaned in. His lips brushed against my cheek, and then he was off, jogging in the direction of his house.
“See you tomorrow!” he called over his shoulder.
I attempted to wave, but I don’t think my hand moved. I couldn’t move anything. I was stuck in the ground as if Cupid himself had planted me there; a tree of love, unabashed hope, and stomach-swirling embarrassment.
“Okay, missy, get in the house! It’s past your bedtime.”
Harold stood at the door with his hands on his hips. My mother’s laughter waterfalled behind him as she grabbed his shoulders. I saw her eyes sparkle in the dimming light.
“Better listen to him, Tru,” she said. “He means business.”
I walked in the door with an incredible bounce in my step. Isaac Newton: one. Truth Trendon: one million.
Even in my brace, I was winning.
CHAPTER 7
Something Fishy
The next morning before classes started, Megan met me in the locker room. Sure enough, when I opened my locker, about a gallon of sand puddled onto the floor. Another gallon remained inside. Yeesh. At least it wasn’t a surprise!
Megan took a few pictures with her phone for proof, just in case, and then we started to clean up the mess. That was irksome enough for me to start begging for Megan to hurry up and complete step one of our plan.
Megan could pick any lock with a bobby pin; a pure master of the art of doorknob keyholes. She’d often helped me break into the bathroom when Charity was taking forever. She’d scrunch her brow, pull out a bobby pin from somewhere behind her ear, and bend it to slide into the tiny hole in the doorknob. In a matter of seconds, the door would be open, and she’d kiss her fingertips.
“Delicious,” she’d say.
I tried to do it myself once, but it took me over half an hour, and Charity opened the door before I managed to pop the lock. She popped me on the head instead.
Now, at Jennifer’s locker, Megan was visibly shaking and kept glancing over her shoulder.
“I’m only picking the lock,” she whispered. I could barely hear her. “Then, I’m out of here. I refuse to get caught in this horrendously ripe revenge.”
“Don’t worry. I’m the one holding the fish, Megs,” I said.
“Don’t say my name! Someone might be listening!”
I rolled my eyes. “Just hurry up. I don’t want to get caught either.”
Megan had a stick pin with her, just in case the bobby pin was too thick. It wasn’t. She pulled out the bobby pin, and in less than a minute, Jennifer’s locker was open.
We stopped for a second, just to see what she kept in there. “Hey!” Megan set down her phone and grabbed a perfume bottle. “I’ve wanted this scent for weeks!”
She was about to spritz herself when I stopped her. “You don’t want people to know you’re involved, and yet you don’t think Jennifer will find it fishy if you smell like her perfume?”
Megan sighed. “She’ll find something fishy.”
I laughed and held up the bag of tuna I’d commandeered that morning from a can at home.
Megan worriedly put the bottle back in the locker.
“We’re lucky tuna sandwich is an option for lunch today,” I said. “She won’t suspect a thing.”
“We’re lucky I always know what’s for lunch,” Megan replied. But she still looked nervous. To be honest, I was nervous too. Megan and I were not rule-breakers, let alone personal space violators. If we got caught, I didn’t know if either of us would be able to handle the guilt.
Taking a deep breath, I opened the plastic baggie. “Where should I put it?” I asked, suddenly feeling less confident in my revengefulness.
“I don’t know. Her shirt, or something.”
I grimaced and dumped some tuna onto the collar of her shirt and left it there. The guilt was overwhelming, but then I thought of how I’d be slipping and sliding on the gym floor in my sand-covered shoes. I added another clump of fish for good measure.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Megan said, plugging her nose. “Let’s go.”
I smiled to myself. Stay away from the Truth and Megan: Bully Beaters.
“Fighting for justice and the American wa—” I said, just as the locker room door opened with its telltale hinge squeak. I slammed the locker shut and slid the padlock back into place. We headed for the door, just as Nora turned the corner.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hey, Nora,” Megan said.
“Ugh, it kinda smells in here, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” we both agreed. Megan nudged me, because I was smiling.
Nora went to her locker, and after fiddling with the lock for a few minutes, reached in and grabbed a hair tie. She pulled her hair into a high ponytail before sniffing once more. “Gross. Well, see you in English.”
She left and we followed a few seconds later, relaxing immediately now that we were out in the open.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” Megan said.
“Are you kidding? It was a rush!”
I threw up my hands; I felt invincible. Together, Megan and I could do anything—defeat any foe, defend any friend, eliminate crime and torture.
We walked over to Band. Just as we were parting ways to get our instruments out, I stopped. “Oh no,” I said.
Megan turned toward me. “What?”
“Your phone. Did you leave it in the locker?”
“No.” She fumbled in her pockets and then in her backpack. “No, no, no! I did!” Megan grabbed both of my shoulders, and hissed, “What am I going to do?! She’s going to find it!”
I winced. “Maybe she won’t know whose phone it is?”
“Are you kidding me? We’re dead! I need my phone back!”
The bell rang, and we gave each other a final panicked look before heading to our seats.
All through Band, I felt a huge ball of guilt and dread building in my gut. I forced myself to smile at Brendan when he waved at me. I refused to make eye contact with Jennifer, though I knew she followed Brendan’s every move, even just a shift in one of his facial features. The worst guilt was that I’d led happy, conscientious Megan astray down a bad, can’t-go-back-to-the-innocent-life kind of road.
Jennifer would discover the phone in third period, after Algebra. We’d be excommunicated. Poor Megan would be banished as a social pariah from all school functions, and I would be the evil monster that ruined her future. No sleepovers, no dates, maybe only dances where we could lurk in dark corners as we solemnly watched the girl who had forced our hand: Jennifer Henderson. She’d probably be crowned homecoming queen and everyone would worship her and she’d date Brendan Matthews … I wanted to puke.
Then a miracle occurred. Jennifer left Band early. According to whispers down the trumpet line, she was going home sick.
“I’ve had enough of this, Truth. We should have just cleaned up the sand and acted like it never happened.”
“No! She’s going home sick! We can get your phone out without her ever knowing!”
Megan’s eyes flashed with surprise. “Fine. Meet me there during my study hall. But after all this, you owe me two horror movies.”
Wasn’t the horror of the junior high girls’ locker room enough for her? I also wanted to remind her I hadn’t left my phone in someone else’s locker, but I didn’t want to upset her more.
“Deal!” I agreed.
We went to Algebra, where I sat with bated breath waiting for the bell to ring. I even found myself ignoring Brendan altogether. Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice. Megan held his attention for most of the class period anyway. I could tell she was annoyed with me over this whole tuna fiasco, and she was trying to punish me by ignoring me.
Worse than her ignoring me, however, was her extra buddy-buddy-ness with Brendan.
Recently, Megan had been acting like she didn’t understand new assignments in math. It bothered me. It drove me nuts, in fact. She was better with quadratic equations than I was, but she’d rarely get through more than three problems in class because she’d talk the whole time (mostly to Brendan) about how it didn’t make sense. Then, in study hall, she’d fly through the assignment and just sit there, bored.
My mood was beginning to be as rotten as day-old tuna fish, and I was glad to get away from Megan’s overly chipper voice. A guilty conscience does not a good Truth make—I was itching to get Megan’s phone out of the locker and be free of this situation.
In third period, I faked a cramp during Gym. Mrs. Tomjack was in her sixties and was one of the kindest women in the whole school. Unfortunately, we took advantage of that whenever there was a game of kickball we didn’t want to play or when we wanted to get out of jumping rope. This was another one of those times.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“Yes. A cramp,” I winced, holding my stomach.
“Do you need to be excused?”
“I think so,” I said, weakly.
She nodded, and I limped away. Once I was out of sight, I ran like I was on fire (which I would never do—I would stop, drop, and roll until the fire was out. But maybe the body’s instinct is to run; luckily, I don’t know for sure). Better yet, I ran like I was trying to keep the friend I loved from being caught in a terrible act of reverse bullying.
I ran into the locker room, turning the corner to slide several feet across the slick tiles on my sandy shoe bottoms.
Megan was already there, in tears. “What’s wrong, Megs?” I asked her. “Break a nail?”
She looked at me with hatred in her overfilled eyes, more sparkling tears spilling over her bottom lids every time she blinked.
“The janitor caught me trying to break into Jennifer’s locker,” she said, anger spewing at me in specks of spit from her lips. “She went to get the principal. She said if I left, she’d make sure I was expelled.”
“Oh no!” I said, sincerely worried for her. “Did you get your phone?”
“No, I didn’t get my phone, Truth!”
I sighed. “Now Jennifer’s going to make both of us look stupid—”
“That’s all you care about, isn’t it? How you’re going to look in front of everyone. In front of stupid Brendan Matthews!”
“You seem pretty intent on impressing him with your own stupidity,” I muttered.
“What?” Megan almost screamed.
I was being a horrible friend. I felt ugly and mean and downright pathetic. Before-Brace Truth Trendon would never have stooped so low as to involve a friend in an act of breaking and entering, let alone commit revenge in the first place. Before-Brace Truth was a peaceful person.
“Nothing. I’m just trying to fix this.”
“You don’t even care that I could get detention or—or—suspended. People are going to think I’m a thief!” She threw up her hands.
“That’s not true.” I grabbed her arm and, with a burst of heroic pride (and my attempt at saving our dangling friendship), I said, “Get out of here. It was me the whole time.”
“No. They’ll know.”
“How? The janitor doesn’t know your name. I’ll take care of this. It’s my problem.”
Megan wiped her eyes and considered my offer.
“Thanks, Tru,” she said. Then she ran out the back door of the locker room, avoiding the main entryway.
Immediately, I regretted my decision. Alone in that big gray cement room, my world was going to end. I knew Brendan Matthews would hear about this. Everyone would. I would be the thief, and I didn’t even know how to pick a lock.
I took a deep breath and then wrinkled my nose. The smell was pretty bad.
I waited a full minute before I considered leaving the crime scene, and the moment I gathered enough courage, the principal entered the locker room with the janitor right behind her.
“What do you know. She did stay here,” said the principal, Ms. Eastin.
“I knew I’d scared her,” the janitor said. She grinned wickedly, and chuckled a deep, throaty laugh. She was a short, stout woman, and she had long dark hairs sprouting above the edges of her lips. Her eyes were beady and narrowed as she glowered at me. I understood how she’d made Megan cry.
When her gaze met mine, I saw a flash of confusion play across her face.
I smiled, trying to act like this was all a misunderstanding. “Hi,” I said.
“Hey, did you change clothes?” the janitor asked me.
“Nope,” I said.
Her forehead furrowed and her chin jutted forward—she clearly didn’t believe me. But Ms. Eastin quickly took charge of the situation.
“Hello,” she greeted me. “What is your name?”
She asked the question like she might know the answer, but didn’t want to be wrong and suffer the embarrassment.
It was a small school, so I was a little miffed she didn’t remember me. I was memorable, wasn’t I? I liked to think that what Ms. Eastin did all day was sit and stare at pictures of students, memorizing their names so she could go out in the hall and yell at the misbehaving and miscreant during class breaks. That’s what I would do if I were principal. I’d yell at everyone; no one would be safe from my reign of authority and rule. No child left behind. Imagining being able to terrorize my fellow students: that’s the kind of mood I was in.
“Truth Trendon,” I said.
“Trendon. That’s it. Your sister is Charity, right?”
“Yes.” Of course she’d remember Charity’s name.
My brain zapped with an idea. They didn’t know who I was. They didn’t know this wasn’t my locker. “I’m sorry. I forgot my key at home, and I really need …” glanced at the janitor and then at Ms. Eastin. “You know, a girl thing. I was just too embarrassed to say it before.”
Ms. Eastin smiled. “Oh good grief. Let her into her locker so she can get back to class, Patty.”
“Thank you,” I said, relieved. I hoped Jennifer had a tampon or something I could grab so I didn’t look like the liar I was.
The janitor (or “Patty,” as I would forever know her from then on) pulled a small key from the ring on her belt and unlocked Jennifer’s locker. She glanced at me once more, shook her head, and looked away as Ms. Eastin asked her about her plans for the weekend.
While they were busy talking, I was able to grab Megan’s phone and put it into my right pocket. I also saw I’d left the bag of tuna. My conscience took over, and, hiding behind the locker door, I tried to scrape out the large hunks of fish from Jennifer’s shirt (though I didn’t try that hard) and put them back into the bag. Then I slipped the bag into the left pocket of my mesh gym shorts.
“Thanks again,” I said.
I smiled politely and headed for the hallway. Sin
ce I’d already broken so many rules that day, I left the locker room to walk past the open study hall, which was also the cafeteria. The hallway was quiet, and my sand-covered shoes were even more slippery on the hard tile floor than the gym floor. I spied Megan sitting forlornly at the end of a table, her books closed and her head propped up by her hand.
Look up, I thought urgently. Look at me, you sad angel.
As if reading my mind, she glanced up and we made eye contact. I pulled her phone out of my pocket and waved it around, smiling. Her eyes widened and she smiled, relief washing over her troubled face and tense shoulders.
“Can I see a hall pass, Truth?” Mr. Landers asked, looking up from the front table.
I’d forgotten there were other people there.
“I—um, forgot it. I’ll go get it,” I lied. As I turned around, the bell rang, and I walked back to the locker room to change clothes. But when I got there, I saw two eighth-grade girls on the side where I usually changed by myself. The locker I had shoved my brace into was now open, and they were standing in front of it. I quickly sat down on a bench on the other side.
“What is that?” one of them, a girl named Katrina, asked.
“It looks like a cast or something,” Brandy, the other girl, said.
“Should we tell Mrs. Tomjack?”
“Naw, she probably stored it there herself. Probably something we’ll talk about in health class,” Brandy said.
She kicked the brace’s plastic hip with her shoe, and they laughed as it shook against the metal of the locker.
They finally left. “Hey, Truth,” Brandy said as they passed.
“Hello, goodbye,” I said, and they laughed.
The warning bell rang. I had a minute to get to class. I looked at myself. Girls wore athletic shorts and t-shirts all the time, and my clothes were fresh from home that day. And I liked the idea of not wearing my brace for the rest of the day. If nothing else, I could blame Jennifer and my immature volleyball teammates (myself included) for not being able to wear it.
I slammed the open locker door and put my school clothes in my designated locker a few rows down, now sans sand. Happy, I practically skipped to lunch. My torso was free for the afternoon.