I see Third heading toward me and I jerk my chin again. Third isn’t his real name, of course. His real name is Cranfield Bartlett III, but who’d want to be known as that? As he walks past, he hipchecks me. Or tries to. Third is on the short side, and I’m pretty tall. Even taller, these days. I grew a bunch over the summer.
“Eight more weeks, Sloane!” he crows.
I slap him a high five. “Counting the days, dude!” Like Third, I live for hockey season. I like baseball, too, but hockey is my life.
But right now I could care less about hockey, or baseball, or anything else. Right now all I can think about is my mother’s new boyfriend, Stanley Kinkaid. Stan the man. The man who doesn’t belong in our life.
My mother met him at the Coffee Connection a few weeks ago when she stopped for a latte after yoga class. They got to talking and he asked her out and she said okay. At least that’s the way she explained it to my older sister Courtney and me. I couldn’t believe my eyes when he showed up at the door to pick her up. He’s shorter than my mom, for one thing. Of course, most people are—my mother is six feet tall, and used to be a model—but besides being short, he’s also bald except for about a two-inch fringe of dark hair. I mean bald bald, too, not peach-fuzz bald. The top of his head is as shiny as a bowling ball. Plus, he’s kind of soft around the middle. I could tell just by looking at him that he’d probably never played a sport in his life. And my mother was going to go out with him?
Courtney said he has nice eyes, but I didn’t notice. She said we couldn’t expect Mom to stay a widow forever, and I said it hadn’t even been two years yet and I couldn’t believe she was being so disloyal to Dad. We got into a big fight about it, and now she’s not talking to me.
I’m still ticked off about Stan the man when I get to pre-algebra class.
“Hey, Cassidy.”
“Hey, Emma,” I reply, sliding into the seat beside her. Emma stinks at math too. Jess tutors us both, which helps Emma, but I’m pretty much a lost cause.
“Guess what?” says Emma. Her brown eyes are shining behind her glasses. She’s excited about something. I sigh. That makes one of us. It’s hard for me to feel excited about anything at the moment.
“What?”
“I just saw Ms. Nielson in the hallway, and she told me they’re going to start a school newspaper, and she wants me to be on it!”
“Cool,” I reply, without enthusiasm.
Emma shoots me a look. “What’s the matter?”
I shrug.
“Are you still bugged about that Stanley guy?”
“What do you think?” I snap.
Emma’s face turns red, and I instantly regret barking at her. Emma Hawthorne is one of my closest friends in the whole world. Before I can apologize, though, the Fab Three flounce in. The Fab Three are Becca Chadwick, Jen Webster, and Ashley Sanborn. They used to be the Fab Four, before Megan Wong wised up and ditched them for us. They’re the three most popular girls in the seventh grade, although why anybody besides them thinks so is beyond me.
They head for desks on the far side of the classroom, carefully avoiding us. Well, avoiding me. They know better than to mess with me. Emma’s another story. One of these days, though, she’ll grow a backbone and tell that snooty Becca to go jump in the lake.
As soon as they’re seated, they immediately start whispering. I can tell they’re talking about Emma and me, because they keep looking over at us and laughing. I ignore them. Emma’s face flames again.
I give her a nudge with my elbow and pass her a stick of gum as an apology for being crabby a minute ago. “Buzz buzz buzz,” I remind her. Emma’s the one who explained to me about queen bees. They’re the girls who think they’re better than everyone else, and who like to boss everybody else around. Queen bees are nothing new. They’ve always been around. They even had them over a hundred years ago. I know this because we read Little Women last year in our mother-daughter book club. The author, Louisa May Alcott, lived right here in Concord when she wrote it in the 1800s, and she put a queen bee in the story—Jenny Snow. Jenny was stuck-up and mean to Amy March, just like Becca Chadwick is to all of us.
“Did you hear they’re starting a school newspaper?” Becca says to Jen and Ashley, talking extra loud so that Emma and I and everybody else can hear. “Ms. Nielson wants me to be in charge of the social calendar. She says she’s asking all the school’s best writers to help out.” Becca looks over at Emma and smirks. I notice she’s careful to keep her lips together. Becca got braces over the summer, and she’s still a little sensitive about them.
I can see the excitement drain out of Emma, like air leaking out of a soccer ball. I don’t blame her. Who’d want to work on the newspaper with Becca Chadwick?
“Don’t worry,” I whisper to her. “Nobody cares about the stupid social calendar. That’s not real writing.”
Emma musters a smile, but I can tell she’s not convinced.
Math class is endless. I struggle my way through a fraction-review worksheet and make a complete mess of two word problems. Then, while Ms. Santiago blathers on about the joys of the metric system, I draw a cartoon of Becca, giving her hairy legs and enormous buck teeth with braces. I pass the picture to Emma, which makes her giggle. Out in the hall afterward we say good-bye. Emma’s in higher groups for all of our other classes. Jess is in a different league altogether, but my mother would turn cartwheels if I got Emma’s grades. Or even Megan’s.
“See you at lunch,” I tell her. “Don’t let Becca spoil your day. The newspaper’s gonna be great, you’ll see.”
It’s funny how your own problems kind of fade when you have a friend who’s in trouble. I suddenly realize that I’ve been so busy cheering Emma up, I’ve hardly thought about Stanley Kinkaid for the past hour. I start thinking about him again now, though, and by the time I get to English I’m all bent out of shape again. The class period limps by with me slumped in the back row biting my nails and worrying about Stan the man. Fortunately, we’re not doing much yet since it’s just the second day of school, and Ms. Nielson only yells at me once for not paying attention.
Science class is pretty much the same, except a little more fun. Ethan and Third are in the same lab group with me, and the three of us goof off when the teacher’s not looking. I actually like science okay. The experiments can be fun, and sometimes we get to do stuff outdoors.
Mr. Doolittle dismisses class a little early, and since I get to the cafeteria ahead of everybody else I save seats for Emma and Megan and Jess. Our table is a weird mix of Mother-Daughter Book Club members and jocks. And Kevin Mullins, who Emma says defies classification. It’s so stupid how middle school cafeterias work. Every group has its own table. There are the drama kids, the band kids, the brainiacs, the popular kids, the nerds, the jocks, the artists—the list is endless. Jess calls our table “the hybrid.” I don’t care what anybody wants to call it, I just like sitting with my friends.
Emma is the first to arrive, followed by Zach Norton and Third. Emma slides in beside me and smiles shyly at Zach, who sets his tray down across from us. Zach is playing fall ball this year with me, and even though Emma has been telling Jess and Megan and me for weeks now that she doesn’t have a crush on him anymore, that he’s “so yesterday,” as the Fab Three would put it, I’m not completely blind. I can tell by the way she gets all quiet and tongue-tied when he’s around that she still likes him.
I take a bite of burger and give Zach a sideways look. I still don’t see what the big deal is. Light brown hair with blondish streaks, blue eyes, big deal. So he got a lot taller this summer, so what? I did too, and nobody’s falling all over themselves to have a crush on me. Not that I’d want them to. I don’t like all this boy/girl stuff.
Ethan MacDonald slouches over and plops down beside Zach, emptying his lunch bag onto the table. He makes a face. “Peanut butter and jelly, as usual.” He looks over at Emma’s tray. “Can I have your French fries? It’s not like you need them or anything.”
Em
ma’s face flames again.
“Shut up, Ethan,” I tell him, kicking him under the table. “Last time I checked, you were still shopping in the husky section.” I hate it when people make fun of Emma. It’s not like she’s fat, anyway, only a little chubby.
“Yeah, lay off, Tater,” adds Zach.
Third starts to laugh. So does Emma.
I look at them, mystified. “Who’s Tater?”
Zach grins at Ethan, who scowls and punches him in the arm. “Too bad you weren’t here in first grade,” he tells me. “Every time they’d serve Tater Tots for lunch, we’d find Ethan under the table, hunting for the ones that kids dropped.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” says Third. “To eat them, of course.”
“Off the floor?”
“Yup.”
“Dude, that is gross,” I say to Ethan. I flick him a French fry. “Here. Out of pity.”
This makes him laugh in spite of himself, and then we all laugh and start throwing French fries at one another until the lunch monitor comes over and tells us to cut it out.
Megan and Jess and Kevin show up with their trays, and Emma and I squish together to make room for them.
“Hey, Beauty,” says Zach.
Jess flashes him a smile. “Hey, Beast.”
The two of them were the leads in last year’s school musical. They’ve called each other “Beauty” and “Beast” ever since.
“Awwwww,” says Ethan. “Isn’t that adorable!”
Zach wings another French fry at him, then turns back to Jess. “How’s high school math?”
She shrugs, glancing quickly around the table at the other boys and then down at her tray. Jess is still a bit shy. Not as bad as when I first met her, though, and only around people she doesn’t know all that well. I thought maybe she was a mute or something when we first moved here from California. “It’s okay, I guess. Hard. Right, Kevin?”
Kevin doesn’t reply. He rarely does. Not because he’s shy, but because every time he opens his mouth somebody calls him “twerp” or stuffs him in a locker. When you’re Kevin Mullins, it’s safer just to keep quiet.
“So, Emma, did Ms. Nielson talk to you?” Zach asks.
Emma nods.
“Yeah, me too. Sounds like fun.”
A little smile hovers on Emma’s lips. Her cheeks get pink—not embarrassed pink this time but happy pink. I look over at Jess and mouth the words I told you so.
“What sounds like fun?” says Third.
“They’re starting a school newspaper,” Zach explains. “Ms. Nielson asked a few of us if we’d like to work on it. She wants me to cover sports.”
First Becca, now Zach—for half a second I’m offended that Ms. Nielson didn’t ask me. Then I remember that I don’t like to write.
“She’s still looking for a couple of photographers,” Zach continues. “Any of you guys interested?”
Ethan and Third both shake their heads. So do Megan and Jess and Kevin.
“Yeah, maybe,” I say, the words popping out before I can even think about them.
“Since when do you know how to use a camera?” asks Third.
Since my dad taught me, I think, but aloud I just say, “Since California.”
“Cool,” says Zach. “I’ll tell Ms. Nielson.”
As he and Ethan and Third start trying to gross everybody else out by sticking French fries up their noses, I think back to the last time I took a picture. Dad and I used to go shooting together around Laguna Beach, just the two of us. He taught me about light, and composition, and all that stuff. A couple of weeks before the car accident, he gave me a new digital camera for my birthday. That afternoon we went down to Crystal Cove, right before what he used to call “magic hour”—that time toward the end of the day when the light goes all golden. We took pictures for a while, and then he said he wanted a shot of the two of us. He put his arm around me and pulled me close, and I held my new camera out as far as I could from our faces and snapped. The picture turned out perfectly. The wind is blowing my hair across my face, and the setting sun is sparkling on the ocean behind us, and we’re both laughing. I still remember how happy I was.
Thinking about it now just makes me sad, though. I push the memory away, just like I pushed my camera away after the accident. I shoved it into my bottom drawer under the jeans I’d gotten too tall for. I take it out and look at that picture once in a while, but I’ve never printed it and I’ve never shown it to anyone. Not even to Mom or Courtney. Some things are just meant to be private.
Beside me, I feel Emma stiffen. I don’t even have to look up to see who’s coming.
When the Fab Three reach our table, Becca stops and puts her hand on her hip. She’s always striking poses, like maybe the paparazzi are lurking nearby ready to spring out and snap her picture for Seventeen or something. Becca doesn’t look too pleased to see us sitting with Zach Norton. For some reason she thinks he’s her private property.
“So, Megan,” she says, “my mother told me you’re going to be in some new teen fashion magazine.”
Megan wants to be a fashion designer someday, and she’s already really good at sewing clothes and stuff. Our book club went to New York last summer, and one of the editors my mom knows at Flash, from back when she used to model for the magazine, spotted Megan’s sketchbook. Now he’s planning to feature her in this new spin-off magazine called Flashlite.
Megan shrugs and tries to look modest, but she can’t keep the smile off her face, and it’s easy to tell she’s pretty thrilled. “Um, yeah, that’s right.”
“Awesome,” says Becca, giving it her stamp of approval. As if Megan needed that. Jen and Ashley immediately start gushing about it too. I swear the two of them are like robots or something. Becca probably keeps a remote control for them in her purse. “Maybe we can hang out at the mall sometime and check out the new clothes and get ideas for you,” she adds.
Megan looks like she’s not sure what to say. “Uh, yeah, maybe.”
Emma and Jess are both looking like they wish the cafeteria floor would open up and swallow the Fab Three.
“Why don’t you go polish your braces or something,” I tell Becca.
Kevin lets out a little snicker at this. Big mistake.
Becca swivels around and glares at him. “Shut up, dwarf,” she snaps. “Shouldn’t you be off playing with Sleepy or Sneezy or something?”
Ethan and Third both laugh at this, which is mean of them, and Kevin shrinks down in his chair. Jess gives him a sympathetic glance. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size, Grumpy?” she fires back at Becca.
“Oooooo, score one for Delaney,” I crow.
Ignoring me, Becca pulls out her lip gloss and makes a great show of smearing it on her mouth. She glances over the top of her mirror at Zach, who is too busy throwing French fries again at Ethan—make that Tater—to notice. Becca thinks she knows everything about boys, but she is so clueless. If she really wanted them to notice her, she’d put down the lip gloss and pick up a hockey stick or a baseball glove or something.
The bell rings and we all gather up our trays and start to scatter.
“See you tonight!” Emma says.
Tonight is our first book club meeting of seventh grade. It’s at the Wongs’. It was supposed to be at our house, but my mother is swamped right now taping the first few episodes of her new TV show, Cooking with Clementine. Our house has been a complete wreck for weeks, with camera crews and set designers and all sorts of people from the Cooking Channel underfoot. I had no idea a TV show took so much work. But it does have its benefits. The food, mostly. I can hardly wait to get home from school every day to see what they’ve been whipping up in the kitchen.
Unfortunately, I don’t feel that way about tonight. Mrs. Wong is a terrible cook. She doesn’t believe in sugar, for one thing, which I personally think should be one of the four major food groups. Snacks are an important part of book club. At least for me.
Megan and Jess and I
all trade “good-byes” and “see you laters” and head off to our afternoon classes. I spend the rest of the day worrying about Stan the man—and about the horrible vegan zucchini cookies or brown rice muffins or some equally awful snacks that are probably being baked right now in the Wongs’ kitchen. Plus, I have something new to worry about too. Why did I ever tell Zach Norton that I might be interested in being a photographer for the school newspaper?
I’m still regretting that particular slip-up several hours later when Mom and I head up Strawberry Hill and pull into the Wongs’ driveway.
“Wait, honey, take this in with you,” says my mother as I start to climb out of the car. She reaches into the backseat and produces a plastic container. “Leftovers from today’s taping,” she says, winking at me. “Just in case.”
I lift up a corner of the lid and peek inside. Brownies! I inhale their deliciousness and smile, filled with a sudden rush of love for my mother. Her brownies are the best. They’re so good, in fact, that I am almost ready to forgive her for dating Stanley Kinkaid. Almost.
“For heaven’s sake, Cassidy, you’d think I never feed you!” my mother protests as I snatch one and cram it in my mouth.
I give her a chocolate-coated grin and she shakes her head and laughs. “Just try and leave a few for everyone else, okay?”
Inside, I deposit the container on the glass coffee table in the living room and head down the hall to Megan’s room. Jess and Emma are already there, and the four of us hang out, talking, while our mothers get everything set up.
A few minutes later the intercom on the wall crackles. The Wongs’ house is so big they need an intercom system to talk to each other. Megan’s dad invented some computer gadget, and they’re really rich.
“Girls, we’re about ready to start,” Mrs. Wong announces.
Megan presses the button under the speaker. “Okay.”
“Race you,” I call, charging out her door. You could practically run a marathon in the hallways in this place. Megan and Jess and Emma chase me back to the living room, and we burst in, breathless and giggling, to find our moms all discussing something in low voices. They look up, startled.
Much Ado About Anne Page 2