I knew Q was just avoiding my question about her doctors, but her message was loud and clear: whatever she was doing in her quest to help her mom, she was going to do it whether I thought she should or not.
“Beanpole,” I said. “Get your phone.”
“Got it,” she said, whipping out her cellie. “Why, Mo?”
“Just make sure you’ve got 9-1-1 on speed dial,” I told her, gazing at Q. “For more immediate medical attention, that is.”
Q reached into her backpack, took out a bag of peanuts, and popped one into her mouth, just to show me what she thought of my commentary. She washed it down with her new brown-sludge drink. “Cheers,” she said.
Once again, I found myself watching the liquid travel up, down, and around the roller coaster before hitting her mouth.
“Come on, let’s go, guys,” Beanpole said. “Your mom’s gonna be here any minute, Alice.”
With only a few weeks to go before the competition, we exited the Civic Center. I was entirely confident that we held a supreme and unchallenged hold.
On ninth place.
The next day at 2:15, the six of us gathered in the public library, since the school was closed. Teacher workday.
“So, when we tackle the history section,” Kiki began, “I’ll go first, then Brit, then—”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Who put you in charge?”
“Look, the rules say we need a captain in case any important decisions come up,” Kiki answered. “And clearly, I’m the most fit.”
“You mean you’re the most self-absorbed,” I replied.
“She’s not my captain,” Q said. “Maureen should be our leader.”
“Me?”
Q nodded and took a swirly sip of magic nut juice.
“No way,” Brattany answered. “I’m not following anyone who wears plus-size jeans. My father says it shows weak character.”
Ouch. I’m not sure if people who don’t struggle with their weight understand how much comments like that hurt.
“And he should know, ’cause he’s a lawyer,” Brattany added.
Just. So. Mean.
“You ever think that maybe it’s people who judge other people by the size of their jeans who have the weak character?” Q asked, coming to my defense. She must have seen the sting of Brattany’s words on my face.
Brattany considered it. “Nope. Fat kids are pretty much lame. And by the way, what’s in that thing, anyway?” she asked, pointing at Q’s scuba tank. “Alien particles that allow you to breathe our air?”
“Stop it,” Beanpole said. “We’ve got to put aside our differences and become a team. The universe is all about oneness.” She rose to her feet to give a General Patton–like victory cry. “Now, are we Aardvarks or not?”
Q and I crossed our arms and scowled. Why was Beanpole so thick about this stuff? Didn’t she know oil and water did not mix?
“I said, are we Aardvarks or not? Come on, chant it with me.
“We’re the Aardvarks,
The mighty, mighty Aardvarks!
We’re the Aardvarks,
The mighty, mighty Aardvarks!”
At the end of the cheer, to really drive her point home, Beanpole leaped high in the air and cheered a big YAY!
But she smashed her knee into the table on the way up.
“Ouch!” she yelped. That one sounded like it hit marrow. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’m okay.”
“Do you know how stupid that sounds?” Kiki said as she watched Beanpole hop up and down on one foot. “I mean, who on this green earth would actually want to be an Aardvark?” She popped an Oreo into her mouth. Every time we met, she’d eat a sleeve of those things, but the girl never put on an ounce of weight. What I wouldn’t have given for her metabolism.
“I’m an Aardvark,” Sofes said.
“What?” Kiki said, in the midst of another Oreo.
“I’m an Aardvark,” Sofes repeated. “And you are too, Keeks. When you really think about it, we’re all Aardvarks.”
Beanpole, rubbing her knee, smiled.
Kiki contemplated the idea for a moment; then, after finishing her cookie, she took a tube of lip gloss out of her purse. Slowly, she applied a fresh coat of shine.
“Indeed, that might be true, Sofes. But let me tell you something about being an Aardvark,” she said in an I know something that you don’t know way. “I’m not brainless enough to like it.”
“Yeah,” Brattany confirmed. “Neither am I.”
Sofes, quiet, hung her head.
“I need to pee,” I said, rising to my feet, disgusted by pretty much everything I was seeing.
“But you just went,” Kiki replied. “And we’ve got work to do.”
“I’m hydrating,” I said, pointing to my liter-size water bottle. Now that I knew I was going to be on TV, the idea of shrinking my tonnage consumed me, and drinking gallons of water was always rule number one for any diet. After all, the last thing I wanted was to look like a mama sea otter for my very first time on television.
“Hydrating?” Brattany said. “Looks more like you’re bloating to me.”
“Yeah, whatever you’re doing, I think it’s backfiring,” Kiki added with a laugh.
“Actually, I don’t need to pee, Kiki,” I said matter-of-factly. “I just really need to get away from you for a few minutes.”
“The feeling’s mutual, skinny-chubby,” Kiki replied. “Take your time.”
Oh, how I wished she and I could switch body shapes for the rest of the year. Wouldn’t that teach her a lesson?
“I’m coming with you,” Q said, standing up.
Beanpole, unsure of what to do, took a moment to consider whether or not she should stay at the table or join us.
After a moment of, I assume, debating oneness with the universe, Beanpole sighed and rose from her chair. Clearly, she wished things were going more hunky-dory between all of us. But clear, too, was the sense that a homicide might occur at any moment. Slowly, and without saying a word, Beanpole walked with us to the bathroom. For the first time in my life, I kept my sarcastic comments to myself. This whole thing was getting way too intense for humor.
My phone buzzed. I looked at the screen.
“Figures,” I said, when I saw it was my father calling. “I mean, who in the world would have ever thought that speaking to him might actually be a more pleasant conversation than the one I was just having?”
“You’re going to answer?” Beanpole asked. I looked at Kiki across the library. She glared.
“Of course not,” I said. “I mean, it’s all his fault, anyway.”
“What does that mean?” Beanpole asked, looking at me like I was nuts.
“Nothing,” I said as I pushed the mute button. “Just drop it, okay? With my caloric intake this greatly diminished, I can’t really be held responsible for what comes out of my mouth right now. It’s hard enough to monitor what goes in.”
Five seconds later, my phone buzzed again, notifying me that I had a new voice-mail message. I put my cellie back in my pocket, telling myself I’d delete it later.
After school let out the next day, being gluttons for punishment, my crew and I met with the wenches in the library again. We knew that we had no choice but to work together so that we could at least scratch our way into fourth place in three weeks. If this was Mr. Piddles’s idea of justice, justice was a mighty cruel beast.
“Okay,” Kiki said, taking the lead once again. “The subject is math.”
“Did you say math?” I asked.
“Yes, I said math,” Kiki replied, exasperated. “I am not saying I am the captain; I am simply saying we are going to study a key area of the test right now—unless, of course, you have a problem with that, Maureen?”
“Nope, no problem,” I answered. “I just want to be ready.”
Q, Beanpole, and I reached into our backpacks and took out our calculators. The ThreePees stared.
“Um, what are you doing?” Brattany asked.
&n
bsp; Q took a sip from her swirly-strawed container of cashew-flavored almond mud, opened her binder, and began to read.
“‘Competitors are permitted to use basic four-function calculators, provided that they supply their own, as they will not be’”—Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh—“‘given on site to contestants who fail to bring one, and should a calculator fail, the student must’”—Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh—“‘continue with the contest, as replacements are prohibited and will not be provided.’”
“Just getting our calculators,” I said to the snoots across the table. “I mean, if we’re allowed to use them, we should, right?”
Brattany, Kiki, and Sofes exchanged confused looks. Clearly, they hadn’t known this rule.
And clearer still was the fact that they hadn’t brought calculators to the study session.
“Well, well, well, it seems the Dorkasaurus Mafia actually knows something, now, doesn’t it?” I said, gloating.
“Don’t get carried away, Nerd Girl,” Kiki responded. “Come test day, we’ll be sure to have calculators.”
“There’s other stuff, too,” Beanpole said perkily. “Other strategies and stuff you should know.”
“Like what?” Brattany asked in a snippy but curious tone.
“Don’t tell them,” Q said. “Those witches already—” She began to cough. It took a moment for her to catch her breath and finish her sentence. “They already know everything. Let them”—Cough-cough—“suffer.”
“No,” Beanpole said. “We should tell them. We’re a team.”
Q and I rolled our eyes. We knew Beanpole was right, but still, I didn’t want to share anything with these snots, much less the key ins and outs of the rules we’d spent so much time learning.
Beanpole, however, saw this as an opportunity to have some real group-bonding time, and she leaped at the chance.
She told them about the no-penalty-for-guessing rule, so that no matter what, we should always take a stab at a question, because points would be subtracted only for rule violations and not incorrect answers. She also told them about using the process of elimination to find right answers, because each question offered more wrong answers than right ones, so that if you looked for what was wrong as opposed to what was right, you could up your chances of success that way. And she taught them about trusting your instincts.
“Because research has proven,” she said with extra perk, “that a student’s first guess is most often the correct guess.”
Kiki and Brattany might have had sneers on their faces as they listened, but they paid attention, because Beanpole was relaying all sorts of critical information that solid Septathlon contestants needed to know.
Essentially, Beanpole became an open book about sharing everything, and before the week was over, the six of us were actually studying together.
And improving.
Except for Sofes. She couldn’t get an answer right if her life depended on it.
“The subject is science,” Kiki began.
Sofes turned to Beanpole. “That’s my worst one.”
“You can do it, Sofes. You’ve been studying hard. Trust your instincts.” Kiki began to read:
“According to modern science, a change in allele frequencies in a population is called
evolution
directed selection
Neo-Darwinism
recombination
gene flow”
Sofes contemplated the question. “None of the above.”
“That’s not an option, Sofes.” Kiki waited for a new response.
“Nope, I say that it’s none of the above,” Sofes replied, her confidence growing. “I don’t think any of those answers are right, and my instincts tell me that they are using inverse psychiatry.”
Kiki took a deep breath. “So, let me get this straight. In an A/B/C/D/E question, you are claiming that the correct answer is none of the above, like perhaps F is the answer choice?”
“Exactly,” Sofes said. “I’m going off the board, and I’m gonna take answer choice F.”
“I like her spirit,” Beanpole said.
“You would,” I replied.
“Sofes, I want you to go home, fall off your roof, and not heal until we can find a replacement,” Kiki said to her.
“Really, we could bring a kangaroo to the Civic Center next week and I bet they’d get more answers right,” Brattany added.
“So the answer’s not ‘none of the above’?” Sofes asked.
Brattany rubbed her temples as if this whole thing were giving her a migraine.
“Make sure the roof is at least four stories,” Kiki said, pointing upward. “And lobby level doesn’t count.”
Sofes turned to Beanpole. “But it seemed like a trick question.”
“Don’t worry,” Beanpole replied. “Lots of them do.”
If Sofes was bad, Q was the exact opposite. It was like she had turned into a virtual answering machine. Ever since she’d shifted from learning the rules to learning the actual material, she was knocking out answer after answer.
“Wow,” I said, after she aced a particularly challenging question on the Middle Ages.
“Yeah,” she said, with a smile. “I guess I’ve just kind of got a knack for this.”
“Well, they do say that alien life is supposed to be intelligent,” Kiki sniffed.
“Whatever,” I said. Of course, I knew that Q had been really cranking on the studying, because feeling prepared was her way of dealing with the stress of appearing on television. Every moment she intensely studied was one less moment she would spend worrying about stage fright. Brainiacism had become her antidote for nerves.
Well, that and a gallon of sludge every day. I swear she was gulping down that mystery mud like a fiend.
“Time for a break,” I said, rising from my chair. “I need to—”
“We know, we know,” Kiki said, filling in the rest of my sentence for me. “You need to pee.”
“It’s called biology, Kiki,” I said, and then I whipped my head around to hit Beanpole with a pop quiz in order to keep her sharp. “Quick, name a species of bird where the male, the father, is the caretaker of the eggs.”
“Your father.”
“I just said it’s the father, Beanpole. But name the species of bird.”
“No, your father, Mo.” She pointed toward the front. “He just walked into the library.”
I turned. “OMG.”
“That’s your dad?” Kiki said. “I would have thought he’d be heavier.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t have time to launch a verbal missile in Kiki’s direction, because once my father located me, he started walking over, and I knew I had to intercept him right away. I mean, the last thing I wanted was for him to actually meet anyone.
“Excuse me,” I said, rushing up to him. “Like, what are you doing here?”
“Well…” he said as I pulled him toward the nonfiction section, “can I just say that it sort of feels like you’re avoiding me?”
“And can I just say that it feels like you keep popping up out of nowhere?” I backed up so that we were between the stacks. “Like, literally Out. Of. Nowhere.” I made no attempt to hide my irritation.
“Um, okay…communication,” he replied. “This is good.”
I didn’t respond. We stood there for a long, tense moment.
“Um, okay…no communication,” he said. “Not so good.”
I poked my head around the bookshelves and glanced over at the Septathlon team, feeling embarrassed. After all, what could be more hideous than your long-lost, wanna-fill-some-holes father showing up at school just because he wanted to, like, get to know you?
So lame.
Kiki and Brattany tapped their wrists as if they were wearing watches, to let me know I should hurry. Sofes ran her fingers through her hair, checking the strands for split ends. Q and Beanpole, however, gazed at me with concern written all over their faces.
“Why are you here?” I asked, turn
ing around to face my father.
“I wanted to see your school,” he answered. “I’ve never been here before. It’s, uh…nice.”
He surveyed the library. I noticed he was wearing one of those stupid school name tags on his green shirt. The front office secretary must have made him stick it on after he showed some ID. His badge said, GROVER PARK MIDDLE SCHOOL VISITOR: MICHAEL ANDREW SAUNDERS.
That’s when I realized that his initials were M.A.S. My initials are M.A.S., too, my middle name being Alexandra. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever known that before.
“I gotta go,” I said, shaking my head. We shared the same initials? This was just way too much.
“Wait,” he replied, grabbing my arm. I lowered my eyes to the spot where his hand held on to me. He let go. “Can I ask you a question?”
“What?”
“Do we, you know…have a chance?”
Why did he have to do this now? I stared at my shoes, avoiding eye contact. It was a long time before I answered.
“I dunno.”
He waited for more. There was no more, that was it.
“But that’s not a no, is it?” he asked hopefully.
“It’s not a yes, either,” I said as I began to walk away.
“Wait,” he said, grabbing my arm again.
I sighed. “What?”
“Will you see me?”
He let go.
“Huh?”
“A specific time. A specific place. Can you make a definite commitment to that, like a date?”
A date? I felt my jaw clench. What to do, what to do?
I guess it was inevitable that it would one day come to this, even though I had really hoped it wouldn’t. I had grown up with a mom, not a dad. I loved my mom. Of course. But did I hate my dad? Not really. I’d just never really thought about him all that much. I’d never thought much about the fact that our family didn’t own a pet parakeet, either. I mean, when you don’t really have something in your life, you don’t really miss it; but when you get what you never had, are you supposed to be happy about it? Or sad that you are just now getting what you should have had all along?
This whole hole-filling thing of his confused me. And I didn’t want to find out if it would eventually make any sense, either.
A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions Page 11