The unspoken rules of life were so bizarre, when I really thought about them. I wondered, was I the only one who wasted brain waves thinking about this kind of stuff?
Q, Beanpole, and I sat down. People showed up for the giant end-of-the-year Graduation Groove Down or the Love Is in the Air Valentine’s Day soirée. But no one on campus really gave two scoops of a poop about the Academic Septathlon. And for sure, not a soul at Grover Park planned on coming out to support us at the Civic Center. I didn’t blame them, though. Heck, if I hadn’t had to be there, I would have stayed home and twiddled my thumbs, too.
The talk of the town we were not.
“All right, let’s draw numbers for the order we’ll appear in,” Kiki said, taking out a pen and a sheet of paper. “I mean, it’s ridiculous we haven’t figured this out already,” she added, with a disapproving look at me.
“Ooh,” Sofes asked. “Can I pick first?”
“You can’t pick at all,” Brattany said. “She’s only writing down five numbers, not six.”
“Yeah, Sofes,” Kiki told her. “We already decided that you’re going last, remember?”
“But I thought that was a joke,” Sofes said.
“The only joke is that you’re even going to be onstage with us.” Kiki wrote down the numbers one through five down on a sheet of paper. “Hopefully, by going last, you’ll get less questions than the rest of us. Every point could count.”
Beanpole, Q, and I didn’t say anything on behalf of Sofes, as Kiki, having written down the numbers, began tearing the sheet of paper into five little strips to be folded over. Clearly, Sofes’s feelings were hurt. Clearer still, though, was the fact that Kiki and Brattany really didn’t give a hoot.
“All right,” Kiki said, mixing up the numbers. “Pick, dorks.”
She held out her cupped hands with the five pieces of paper that would determine our order of appearance. Once this was decided, it would be set, no changes. In a world of rules, rules, rules, everything in the Academic Septathlon was predetermined.
We picked. The order in which we would appear turned out to be:
Beanpole
Brattany
Me
Kiki
Q
Sofes
“There. Now for the captain,” Kiki said, giving me another look. “I guess we’ll just have to flip a coin.”
“Or you could just let—” Q paused to cough. She looked even paler today. “You could just let Maureen be captain.”
“Is the Alien Answer Machine even going to live to see the end of this?” Brattany asked.
“Yeah,” Kiki said. “She looks like her home planet is calling.”
“You know, I think it’d be nice if we stopped calling one another names,” Beanpole interjected. “After all, we’re teammates. We need to embrace our oneness.”
“All I’m saying is that I better not catch something from her,” Brattany replied. “My dad’s a lawyer.”
“Just flip the coin,” I said, thanking the heavens this would end soon enough.
Brattany took a quarter out of her purse. Q inspected it to make sure that it actually had two sides and wasn’t one of those rigged thingamajiggies that allowed the coin flipper to cheat. Knowing the ThreePees, I wouldn’t have put it past them.
Satisfied that everything was legit, Q passed the coin back to Brattany, who got ready to make the toss.
“Call it in the air, Kiki.”
“Why does Kiki get to”—Cough-cough—“call it?” Q asked.
“It’s okay,” I said, not really caring either way. “Let’s just get this over with.” I didn’t want to mention it, but I had to pee.
“Kiki…call it.” Brattany flipped. The coin sailed high in the air.
“Heads!” Kiki cried. We stared as the coin hit the ground.
“Tails. Maureen is”—Cough-cough—“captain.”
Kiki slammed her hand down on the table.
“Two out of three,” Brattany suddenly said.
“No way,” Q exclaimed. “That’s such bunk.”
“It’s always two out of three on planet Earth, allergy girl,” Brattany replied.
“Then you should have”—Cough-cough—“said that,” Q replied.
“Whatever,” I said to Q. “Just let’s finish this, already. G’head, flip it again.”
Brattany smiled at Kiki with a kind of Don’t worry, I got your back look in her eyes as she got ready to flip the coin a second time.
“Kiki, call it in the air.”
“Again, she gets to call it?” Q asked.
“Just flip it,” I said. I didn’t even want to be captain. The only reason I was putting up a stink about it was that Kiki did want to be captain, and any wrench I could throw into her life seemed like a good wrench for me to throw.
Come to think of it, throwing a wrench at her head didn’t seem like a bad idea, either.
“Come on, Keeks,” Sofes cheered. “You can do it.”
“I can do what?” Kiki asked.
“You can win it!” Sofes replied exuberantly.
Kiki flashed her a look of scorn. “You do realize that there is nothing I can actually do right now, don’t you, Sofes? I mean, the coin gets tossed in the air and then we watch to see how it lands. There really is no doing.”
“Well,” Sofes replied. “If there was doing, you could do it.”
“Whut-ever,” Kiki said dismissively.
“Call it, Kiki.”
“This is such bunk,” Q grumbled. “It was never supposed to be two out of three.”
“Put a sock in it, nerd. Here we go.” Brattany flipped the coin. Kiki’s eyes grew wide with hope.
“Tails!” she bellowed. The coin landed.
“Heads. Maureen’s our captain,” Q announced.
Kiki slammed the table again.
“Unless you want to go three out of five. Or maybe five out of sev—” Q began to cough, unable to finish her sentence. She reached for a swirly-straw sip of her brown sludge, but not even that seemed to help.
“You sure you’re not going to flurb out on us, freako?” Kiki snipped. “I mean, that would be such a nerdwad thing to do.”
Q, because of her coughing, couldn’t respond.
Brattany shook her head as Q struggled to catch her breath. “I’m warning you,” Brattany said, pointing at Q. “My dad’s a lawyer.”
“I’ll”—Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh—“be there,” Q finally answered after a slurp on her inhaler. “Bet on it.”
“You know, we’d be a much better team if we actually supported one another in our oneness.”
“Just do us a favor and worry about yourself, Beanpole,” Kiki replied. “And be on time tonight. TV shows always start on time.”
“Yeah,” Brattany added. “Six o’clock on the boob tube, which means officially signing in by five thirty, or we’re automatically disqualified.”
“Don’t you think we should meet at least thirty minutes earlier than that, like by five?” Beanpole asked. “For the uniforms and stuff.”
“Fine,” Kiki replied. “But my advice,” she said, staring at Q, “is bring a stretcher for the creature. She looks like she’s going to need an ambulance to get her to the stage.”
“Keep talking, witch, and I’ll—” Alice stopped, coughing and wheezing harder.
“So dismal,” Kiki scoffed.
Our business in the prime real estate section done, Beanpole and I led Q back to our usual lunchtime spot.
“Are you okay?” I asked Q, when we finally got to our table.
“Fine,” she answered, pushing me away.
“But maybe you should—”
“I’m fine, Mom,” she replied sarcastically. Clearly, Q was sick and tired of the way people were always asking about her health. “Don’t you gotta”—Cough-cough—“go pee or something?”
“Actually—”
“Then don’t let me”—Cough-cough—“keep you.”
I turned to Beanpole for sup
port. “You don’t see any cause for concern here?”
Beanpole shrugged. “She’s got a doctor. I mean, it probably just looks worse than it is.”
“Looks worse than it is. She looks like a zombie.” I turned to Q. “No offense, of course.”
She stuck her tongue out at me.
Q was chilled yet sweating, her hair damp, sticking to the sides of her neck. A part of me felt like I should call her mom right away, but another part of me knew that if I did, Q wouldn’t speak to me for the next two hundred years.
If even then.
I shook my head, picked up my backpack, and got ready to head to the restroom.
“For the record, I think you should go to the school nurse,” I told her.
“And for the record, I think you should go to—” Her cough prevented her from finishing her thought, but I had a feeling I knew what she had been about to say.
I walked away. Sheesh, she is so hardheaded. I mean, being stubborn is one thing, but being an absolute—oomff, I bumped into somebody before I could finish my thought.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“Hey, Maureen.”
I looked up at the person I’d just crashed into. It was Logan Meyers, the blond-haired, blue-eyed Greek god of middle school.
“Oh hey, Logan. Sorry, I was just thinking about something.”
“Watchya doin’?” he asked.
“Um, going to the restroom,” I responded.
“Restrooms are stupid.”
“Uh, yeah…” I said, at a loss for words. “Excuse me.” I began to walk past him.
“I was gonna come tonight.”
I stopped.
“To the Civic Center?” I said.
“Yeah,” he answered. “I mean, Civic Centers are stupid, but I wanted to, you know, support you.”
“You did?”
“Actually, I’ll probably fall asleep,” he confessed. “Unless they let me play video games on my phone. Video games are not stupid, you know.”
“Wait,” I said, uncertain. “Like, you bought a ticket?”
“Uh-huh.” He smiled, his blue eyes shimmering like the Pacific Ocean. “But I gotta say, fund-raisers are stupid.”
Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice from over my shoulder. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t one of the proud members of our Grover Park Academic Septathlon team.” There was no need to turn and see who it was. The tone was too recognizable. “So, are we excited about tonight?” asked Mr. Piddles.
“Uh, yes, sir,” I said. What part of this whole experience hasn’t been a unique and memorable joy? I thought.
“Funny,” Mr. Piddles commented, looking around. “I haven’t seen much of your coach lately.”
“Really?” I said, as if this were the craziest comment I’d ever heard. “Oh, he’s been working us so hard.”
“Has he, now?” Mr. Piddles asked, his teacher eyes lasering in on me. Those eyes, they were like truth beams, the kind that could read my soul. I got flustered and decided to hightail it out of there.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have to use the restroom.”
“Of course, shirking one’s professional duties would not be what I’d call very just, now, would it, Maureen?”
Gulp. I knew I was about to get trapped into revealing something if I dared to open my yapper, so I lowered my head, pretended the comment didn’t require any response, and got ready to make a beeline for the girls’ bathroom.
But, of course, not talking was almost the same as talking, because it told Mr. Piddles I was hiding something. That was all he needed to confirm his suspicions.
“When you are done, Maureen, I’d like to see you in my classroom, please,” Mr. Piddles said. “And don’t worry about attending your next class. I’ll write you a pass once we are through with our discussion.”
Ah, jeez, I thought, I can’t win for losing. I moped off to the bathroom.
“Like, see you tonight, Maureen!” Logan excitedly called out.
“See ya, Logan.”
“Perhaps one day you’ll try out for an academic club, Mr. Meyers?” Mr. Piddles said to Logan as I walked off.
“No offense, sir,” Logan replied, “but putting me on a team like that, well, it would be kind of stupid.”
I could tell by the fact that Mr. Piddles didn’t answer that he might have actually agreed with Logan on that one.
I pushed open the door to the girls’ restroom, a bunch of thoughts swimming through my mind. Logan was coming to support me? I was being summoned to Mr. Piddles’s room to talk about the coach who wasn’t really our coach? Q wanted me not to get involved in doing anything about the fact she looked ready to hurl up her endocrine system? Sheesh, couldn’t a kid just take a pee without so much drama?
I disappeared into the stall, feeling as if my bladder were about to burst. But when I finally sat down, nothing happened.
I tried to concentrate. Oh, come on, come on, I said to myself. I had to pee so bad I couldn’t even do anything. Sheesh, I hated when that happened.
Then, a moment later…Ahhhhh.
What gives more relief than a good tinkle?
By 4:15, Beanpole and I had shown up at Q’s house dressed in our Aardvark uniforms, ready to head out to the Civic Center. Q, however, was locked in the bathroom.
“She’s not feeling well,” Mrs. Applebee informed us. “And she’s not going.”
Not going?
The door flew open. “I’m fine!” If Q hadn’t been sporting the complexion of a seasick earthworm, I might have agreed with her. “And I am going. Be ready in a sec.”
“You are going nowhere, young lady.”
“Mom, I’m healthier than you think.” Q pushed her way past the three of us. “Everyone is counting on me,” she said as she zipped into the bedroom. “Dressed in a minute.”
Bam! The door slammed shut, the hallway silent.
“She doesn’t look so good,” I said softly.
“She’s a tiger,” her mom explained, a look of great concern on her face. “Takes after her dad that way.” Mrs. Applebee checked her watch. “And once she gets fixated on something, there’s just no talking to her.”
Uh, hello, welcome to my world, I thought.
Neither Beanpole nor I said anything as Q’s mom debated what to do. “We’ve been fighting for the past several…I don’t even know how long now,” she informed us. “She thinks I hover too much, but she’s not well.” She checked her watch again, then picked up her purse. “I’ll get the car started and meet you girls out front. If I know Alice, she’s going to be there tonight even if she has to swim through a lake of alligators to do so.”
Shaking her head with a look of I must be nuts to permit this, Mrs. Applebee went out the door that led to the garage. I turned to Beanpole with a Should we do something? look in my eyes. No, Q wouldn’t listen to her mom, but she might listen to us.
Beanpole looked up from her cell phone, where she’d been tapping away, and shrugged. “You know there’s no way that Alice is not going to prove to her mom that she’s capable of taking care of herself.”
“But where’d she get this crazy idea from, anyway?” I asked.
“From you.”
“From me?” I said.
“Uh-huh,” Beanpole replied. “When you started to believe in her earlier in the year, she started to believe in herself.”
What?
“Oh, great,” I said. “Now I’m inspiring people. Tell me, has this world become so pathetic that I’m some sort of shining light?”
“Guess so, Captain,” Beanpole said with a smile.
“Don’t call me that,” I said. “I mean, it’s not like any real responsibility comes with the title, anyway.”
The door to the bedroom flew open, and Q appeared, blazing with strength in her Aardvark uniform, her facial features looking as if she’d just been exposed to nuclear radiation.
“Ah, my prize pupil,” I said.
“Come on,” she responded matter-of-factly. “Let�
�s go.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to bring some peanuts for the road?” I asked. “Or perhaps gulp down another jug of cashew sludge? What about an almond butter–macadamia nut milk shake covered with pecans, walnuts, and pistachios? I mean, it seems only fitting, doesn’t it?” My sarcasm was too clear for her to miss.
“Oh, there is one thing,” she said.
“Yeah?” I asked. “What’s that, Q?”
“There are no definitions provided in the Academic Septathlon, so no need to ask.”
“There aren’t?” Beanpole replied, rattled by the news.
“Don’t worr—” Q began to cough. “Don’t worry, Barbara. You’ll be fine.”
“Wait,” I said. “When did you find this out?”
“The first day,” Q answered.
“You mean to tell me that for the past few weeks you’ve known that a contestant can’t ask for a definition, and yet you’re just telling us this now?” I asked. “Why?”
“It made you funny like a cartoon.” She grinned and raised her inhaler. Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh.
“Okay, so if what you’re eating doesn’t poison you, just know that after this whole thing is over, I am going to make you a nice warm bowl of rattlesnake-venom soup.” Q’s grin grew larger. “I can’t believe that this whole time you’ve just been messing with me.”
“Aardvark. Seventeenth time.”
“Come on, guys,” Beanpole said, looking at her phone. “We’d better go. There’s traffic.”
The three of us exited the house. I shook my head in disbelief. “You’re like the nerdwad of the century,” I said, but the truth was, I felt better. I mean, if Q’s sense of humor was still intact, that sort of meant she wasn’t going to croak, didn’t it? Of course, I wanted to murdalize her, but how was that different from almost any other day?
Q jumped into the front seat, Beanpole and I jumped into the back, and we all clicked our seat belts shut.
The look of disapproval on Mrs. Applebee’s face was too obvious to miss.
“Nerd Mobile, onward,” Q directed.
Mrs. Applebee glared at her daughter. Q didn’t make eye contact with her, though. Instead, she stared straight ahead, prepared for another standoff.
“Um, Mrs. Applebee,” Beanpole said, staring at her phone, “I don’t think you should take Highway 4 to the Civic Center.”
A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions Page 14