by Meg Cabot
If Caroline’s sacrifice – because that’s what it was. Caroline had no more interest in going with a boy than any of the rest of us did – was supposed to make Sophie want to be friends with her again, it didn’t work. Because all Sophie did when she heard that Caroline was going with Lenny was turn around and walk to her seat with her nose in the air, looking about as prissy as she could.
And Sophie was pretty good at looking prissy, another thing she’d learned from Jill in The Silver Chair.
When Caroline saw this, she didn’t start crying or anything. Her mouth just got all small, the way it always did when she was mad. Who knows what she would have done, if Mrs Hunter hadn’t gone up to the front of the room and told us all to get out our English books?
I was pretty sure things couldn’t get much worse after that. Much worse than two of my best friends being in such a bad fight that they weren’t even speaking to each other. Oh, and both of them going with boys. One of them with a boy she didn’t even like.
But I was wrong.
Because by Wednesday, almost every girl in Mrs Hunter’s class was going with a boy except for me, Rosemary and Erica.
But even then, Cheyenne wasn’t happy. Cheyenne was determined to make every boy and every girl in our class go together.
Because, Cheyenne said, that was how mature people acted.
So I guess it shouldn’t have been such a shock to me when I heard the news that Erica – my best friend Erica – was going with Stuart Maxwell.
Except for that part where hearing that news was like being stabbed in the heart with a knife. Erica didn’t even like Stuart Maxwell! Erica was totally grossed out by Stuart Maxwell, because of his disgusting zombie drawings!
‘Erica,’ I said, the first chance I got as soon as I got Erica alone after I found out the news. We were in the girls’ room, the only place Erica and I could talk any more without one of Cheyenne’s spies finding us, it seemed, or Caroline or Sophie hanging around, talking bad about the other person. Caroline and Sophie still weren’t speaking. Well, Sophie wasn’t speaking to Caroline, and Caroline was so mad about it she had decided to stop speaking to Sophie in retaliation. Things had gotten so bad, the four or us hadn’t played queens in nearly a week, and forget walking to and from school together. Everyone was taking a different route – except Erica and me.
But Erica hadn’t said a word to me about Stuart. No doubt because she just wanted us all to get along and knew I’d be upset. But still!
‘What is Stuart talking about, that you and he are going together?’ I demanded.
Erica looked so miserable I couldn’t even yell at her, even though I wanted to. Erica and I have a tradition of yelling at each other when we’re excited. But I wasn’t excited about this. More like almost throwing up.
‘I couldn’t help it,’ Erica said. ‘Marianne passed me a note during math. She passed it from Dominique, who passed it from Cheyenne, who passed it from Stuart asking me. I had to say yes! I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.’
I practically yelled. But only practically, ‘Stuart doesn’t have any feelings! He’s Stuart! He likes to draw maggots crawling out of eye sockets. For fun!’
‘He does too have feelings,’ Erica said, giving me a reproachful look. ‘Just because you think he’s gross doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have made him feel bad if I said no.’
‘Erica,’ I said. I couldn’t believe this. I wanted to throw something. But there was nothing in the girls’ room to throw. Except toilet paper, ‘you don’t understand. Stuart didn’t ask you to go with him because he likes you. No offence. But he only asked you because Cheyenne told him to. And all the boys in our class are absolutely so dumb, they’ll do whatever Cheyenne says.’
Erica looked sad. ‘How do you know he doesn’t like me?’
I stared at her in disbelief. ‘Do you want him to like you?’
‘Well.’ Erica looked uncomfortable. ‘No. Not really. But I don’t want him not to like me. I don’t want anyone not to like me.’
‘All Stuart likes is zombies,’ I explained to her. I couldn’t believe I had to spell it out to her like this. I couldn’t believe one of my own best friends was so dumb about boys. On the other hand, Erica didn’t have to sit next to boys all day, like I did. ‘And making disgusting noises. Do you like zombies and making disgusting noises? No, Erica, you do not. You like gymnastics and cats and playing with your doll-house. I’m sorry, but you and Stuart do not have a whole lot in common. I fail to see how the two of you make a perfect couple.’
Erica blinked at me tearfully. ‘Cheyenne says if you don’t say yes when a boy asks you to go with him, then you’re immature.’
‘So?’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘Who cares what Cheyenne thinks? She doesn’t know everything.’
‘But Caroline and Sophie—’
‘Do they seem happy to you right now?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Erica admitted. Then she sniffled. ‘But there’s nothing I can do now, Allie. I can’t stop going with him when he never even did anything mean to me.’
I thought it was pretty unlikely Stuart would even notice if Erica stopped going with him. When I’d left him, he’d been drawing a picture of a jet accident, in which most of the passengers had had their heads cut off, and their guts were spewing out of their necks, and birds were swooping down out of the sky to eat the guts.
He’d asked if I had a red marker I could loan him so he could colour in the blood.
But I knew Erica was too tender-hearted to believe that Stuart wasn’t the type to be overly sensitive about a woman’s love.
‘This is all Cheyenne’s fault,’ I said as we made our way back to the art room. ‘She has to be stopped. Do you hear me, Erica? She has to be stopped!’
‘But how are you going to do that, Allie?’ Erica asked, looking bewildered. ‘Marianne and Dominique – all the other girls, really – do exactly what she says. She’s got those boots . . . and she’s from Canada.’
I knew Erica was right. I also knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But somehow, someway, I knew I had to make everyone realize that what Cheyenne was doing was taking all the fun out of fourth grade. Room 209 was turning from the best classroom I had ever been in into the worst one.
And I was going to change all that. Now.
I just had no idea how.
Rule #10
You’re Only a Big Baby If You Let Yourself Think You’re a Big Baby
My opportunity to stand up to Cheyenne and prove to all the girls in the fourth grade that you didn’t have to go with boys to have fun came sooner than I thought it would.
The very next day, at afternoon recess, Cheyenne came up to me while I was playing outfield in Rosemary’s kickball game (now that we weren’t playing queens any more, Erica and I had taken up kickball, even though the truth was, Erica wasn’t all that good at it. Except the kicking part. She was more of a gymnastics kind of girl).
‘Allie,’ Cheyenne said, ‘I need to talk to you.’
‘So talk,’ I said to Cheyenne. I noticed she had her usual gang behind her: M and D and also Shamira, Rosie, Elizabeth, and just about every other girl in the fourth grade except Caroline, Sophie, Erica and Rosemary. Rosemary because she was playing first base, Erica because she was playing outfield right next to me, and Caroline and Sophie because they were at opposite sides of the playground, reading books and ignoring each other.
‘Joey Fields is going to ask you to go with him,’ Cheyenne said, getting right down to business. ‘And you’re going to say yes.’
Cheyenne pointed over at Joey, who was sitting on one of the swings, peering over at us. When he saw Cheyenne pointing at him, he straightened up and turned his head away, like he wanted to pretend he didn’t know what we were talking about. Then he started swinging furiously. And barking.
I glared at Cheyenne.
‘No,’ I said to her.
Behind Cheyenne, a lot of girls gasped.
‘What did you say?’ Cheyenne narrow
ed her eyes at me.
‘I said no.’ I put my mittened hands on my hips. ‘I am not going to go with Joey Fields. Now get out of my way.’
There were some more gasps.
But Cheyenne took the news pretty calmly. You could tell she’d sort of been expecting my reaction.
‘Allie,’ she said, ‘you have to go with Joey. He’s the only boy left in the fourth grade who isn’t going with anybody. And you’re the only girl left. Well, except for Rosemary. But Joey doesn’t want to go with Rosemary. Joey is afraid of Rosemary.’
‘Well,’ I said, folding my arms across my chest, ‘that’s too bad. Because I don’t want to go with Joey.’
For a second Cheyenne looked as if she wasn’t quite sure she’d heard me correctly. She cocked her head to the side the way Marvin, our family dog, does when Mark whistles really loud.
Then she said, as if she finally understood, ‘But, Allie. You and Joey would make such a cute couple.’
I just stared at her.
‘For real,’ Cheyenne said. ‘You both like those same books. Those what-do-you-call-them books.’
‘Boxcar Children,’ someone called from the crowd behind Cheyenne.
‘Yeah,’ Cheyenne said. ‘Joey likes them. I see him reading them all the time. And I see you reading them too. So you guys have to be like made for each other. So go over there and tell him you’ll go with him.’
I stared at her. ‘Cheyenne,’ I said, ‘I sit next to Joey Fields all day long. Yeah, I like the same books as he does. But that does not mean I want to go with him. I don’t like him. I don’t like any boys.’ I could hear my voice getting kind of high-pitched. Also, my knees were starting to shake like they had that day I’d first had to introduce myself to Mrs Hunter’s fourth-grade class. A lot of the same faces that had stared at me that day were staring at me now.
But just like then, I knew I had to keep talking. I couldn’t back down.
Because just like on that day, this was too important.
‘I don’t want to go with any boys,’ I went on. I was practically yelling now. But I didn’t care. I just wanted to make sure Cheyenne heard me. ‘I don’t like any boys that way. OK?’
I’m pretty sure Cheyenne heard me. I mean, she was standing right in front of me. Almost every girl in the entire fourth grade at Pine Heights Elementary was. I even saw Caroline and Sophie come from their opposite corners of the playground, having seen the crowd and I guess wondering what was going on. Most of the kids on the kickball field were looking over. Rosemary was annoyed at the interruption of the game, as were most of the boys. My own brother Mark yelled, ‘Are we gonna play ball here or what?’
Cheyenne heard me, all right.
But that didn’t mean she was listening.
‘Only immature babies don’t like boys,’ she said to me in a very patient voice like the one I’ve heard Kevin’s kindergarten teacher use. ‘Do you really want to be that much of a baby, Allie? I mean, you are in fourth grade now, after all. It’s really time to grow up. I’ve put up with you and all your silly games – pretending you’re a queen, and playing Dance Party America, and wearing those stupid snow boots instead of real zip-up boots like the rest of us. But the fact is, if you want to be accepted in the adult world, you’re going to have to stop acting like a child sometime. Failure to do so could have extreme consequences. Are you ready to accept those consequences?’
What was she even talking about?
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I accept the consequences of not going with Joey. Whatever they are.’
‘Fine,’ Cheyenne said. She looked very, very disapproving and sounded more like Kevin’s teacher than ever. ‘The first consequence is that you have to go over and tell Joey that you won’t go with him. And also why you won’t go with him.’
I glanced over at Joey on his swing. The minute he saw me look in his direction, he turned his head away and pretended he wasn’t paying any attention to what we were doing. When the truth is, it was so obvious he was paying attention.
Suddenly I understood what Erica had meant when she’d said she’d HAD to say yes to Stuart’s note. If you’re a nice person, you don’t want to hurt another person’s feelings on purpose. That would just be mean. It stinks to know you’re going to hurt someone’s feelings.
I didn’t like Joey – not that way.
But I didn’t want to make him feel bad (well, not that bad).
The sad thing was, I knew I was going to have to. And it was all Cheyenne’s fault.
I rolled my eyes. ‘Whatever.’
‘Cover my position,’ I said to Erica. She nodded, looking worried. Not about covering my position either.
And I started stomping over to where Joey was sitting.
The truth was, even though I’d said Whatever and rolled my eyes, I didn’t feel like this was nothing. The whole time I was walking over to Joey, I felt a little sick to my stomach, remembering how sad he had been when none of the girls had wanted to chase him during the Kissing Game.
By the time I got to the swings where Joey was sitting, I was really, really wishing I could go back through time to that first day of the new semester and, instead of Caroline having big news about a new student starting at Pine Heights, her big news could have been that she’d gotten a horse instead.
Because then I wouldn’t have been in this terrible situation. Horses are way better than boys who want to go with you.
Which is a rule. I just decided.
‘Hi, Allie,’ Joey said as I plunked myself down on the swing next to his.
‘Hi, Joey,’ I said. I tried not to pay attention to the fact that almost every fourth-grade girl was standing clustered on the edge of the playground, watching us.
‘Do you having something you want to tell me?’ Joey asked.
I noticed that Joey had taken his woolly hat off, I guess so that I could see he’d combed his hair especially for the occasion of asking me to go with him. His ears were bright red on account of this. You should never take your hat off when the temperature is freezing or below. That’s because you lose eighty per cent of your body heat through your head. Sophie told me this once.
‘Yes,’ I said. I figured I better just say it fast to get it over with. Like taking a plaster off. It hurts less if you do it fast. I took a deep breath. ‘Joey,’ I said, ‘the truth is, I don’t want to go with you.’
Joey had been smiling a little, I guess thinking that I was going to say I would go with him. I was, after all, the only girl in the whole fourth grade who wasn’t going with anyone (besides Rosemary, who’d made her position on not wanting to go with anyone very public). I guess to a boy like Joey, who was a bit of a romantic person (you could tell by his reading of the Boxcar Children books), the idea of my not wanting to go with him (since I loved the Boxcar Children too) was completely inconceivable, which means he couldn’t even dream of it.
So when I said I didn’t want to go with him, it came as a complete shock to him. He stopped smiling. Also, he grabbed hold of the chains on either side of his swing and started pumping.
He wouldn’t even look at me.
‘It’s not that I don’t like you,’ I said, remembering that I was going to have to sit next to him every day, and it was going to be kind of awkward if he hated my guts and all. ‘It’s just that I don’t like you in that way. That . . . going-with-you way.’
The truth was, I didn’t even know what I was talking about. I was just saying some stuff I remembered Caroline and Sophie and Erica and I had said when we’d dressed up in Missy’s clothes and pretended to be teenagers. It was stuff I’d seen teenagers say on TV. It sounded good to me.
It must have sounded good to Joey, because he stopped swinging so hard and looked at me. There were tears going down his face, but I knew from experience that they were tears from swinging in the cold.
At least, I really hoped that’s all they were.
Joey Fields couldn’t possibly be crying because he was in love with me.
Becau
se that would just be way too weird!
‘What does that mean?’ he wanted to know. Only he didn’t ask it in a mean way. ‘You don’t like me in a going-with-me kind of way?’
‘It just means,’ I said, wondering myself what it meant, ‘that I just want to be friends with you. I mean, we’re in the fourth grade. No one in the fourth grade goes with anybody. At least in America. Come on. You read the Boxcar Children books. Do any of them go with anybody?’
‘No,’ Joey admitted.
‘That’s why I like those books,’ I said. ‘Sometimes I just want to go live in a boxcar, and not have to deal with all this other stuff. Even if it would mean my parents would have to be murdered, and I’d have to worry about starving to death. At least things wouldn’t be as . . . complicated as they are now.’
Joey had stopped swinging entirely. I couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t once, in our entire conversation, barked. Or even growled.
‘That’s why I like those books too,’ he said, staring at me. ‘Because they’re about a simpler time.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘then you should be nicer about sharing Mrs Hunter’s copies with the whole class and not hoarding them all in your desk.’
‘Is that why you won’t go with me?’ Joey asked, lowering his head. ‘Because I do that?’
‘No!’ I yelled in frustration. ‘That’s not it at all! Didn’t you hear a word I just said?’
Joey looked alarmed. ‘OK, OK,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to yell. Jeez.’
‘Put the books back!’ I yelled. ‘Just take them out one at a time. They’re for everyone, not just you!’
‘I said OK!’ Joey yelled back. ‘Stop yelling! Ruff!’
‘And stop barking. It’s really weird.’
‘I can’t help it,’ Joey said. ‘I just do it sometimes.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I sit right next to you. Remember?’