by Cat Clarke
Mamma was happy to meet Jacob, and she didn’t even try to hide it. She let him try the cheeses before he bought them, and she said he should come over to our house for dinner one day soon. Jacob thanked her and said he would like that. He was clearly much better at talking to adults than I was because he knew all of the right things to say, and it didn’t even come across as fake.
I could tell that Enzo liked Jacob. He kept asking him questions about basketball, skateboarding, and gaming. Jacob didn’t seem to mind at all.
“Your family’s really nice,” Jacob said as I walked him to the door. Mamma and Enzo were having a “discussion” about whether Enzo would be allowed to go to the skate park this weekend. Jacob had wisely taken the opportunity to make his getaway.
“Weird, you mean.”
Jacob shrugged. “Everybody’s weird. My mom’s obsessed with One Direction.”
“OK, that is definitely weird.” I followed Jacob outside. “Anyway, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I guess you will. And tell your mom I’ll keep an eye out for Enzo at the skate park if he wants to come down on Sunday.”
“I call her ‘Mamma’ because she’s Italian.”
Jacob nodded. “And what do you call your other mom?”
“You’ll never guess,” I said with a smile. Then I decided to put him out of his misery and tell him that she’s just Mom.
“Will she give me free samples of cheese too?” Jacob grinned.
“Probably. I bet she’ll take pity on you when I tell her your mom is in love with Harry Styles.”
He guffawed at that. “How do you know she likes Harry?”
I laughed. “Just a hunch.”
When Jacob walked away, I noticed that the sidewalk was wet and that he was walking very, very slowly. Halfway down the street, he looked back over his shoulder. He gave a quick wave then set off again, a little faster this time.
=
Mamma told Mom all about Jacob at dinner. We were having chicken cacciatore—one of my favorites. Poor Mom was only having a glass of water because her mouth was still numb from the dentist; we laughed every time she tried to talk.
Between the two of them (with added input from Enzo), they decided that I should invite Jacob over for dinner on Saturday.
“But that’s only two days away!”
“So what?” The moms said in unison.
I was just about coming to terms with the idea when Mom had to go and ruin it. “It will be nice for you to have a friend over.” At least that’s what I think she said. It sounded more like, “Ih wih bih ice fuh ou ou ah a hwend oha.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mom shrugged and Mamma took over. “I don’t think it’s supposed to mean anything, Liv. It’s just that you haven’t had anyone over in a while. It’s good that you’ve made friends with Jacob. He seems like a really nice boy.”
“He’s OK, I suppose.”
The moms shared a smile when I said that. Mamma helped herself to some more salad and suggested I invite Maisie to come too.
“No!” I said, a little more forceful than I’d intended. I figured it was time to tell them that Maisie wouldn’t be coming over again—ever. That Maisie and I hadn’t made up, and never would. I didn’t tell the whole story, obviously. I just said that she’d found some new friends who weren’t very nice. Mamma asked if they weren’t very nice to me, or just in general. I admitted that sometimes they were a little mean to me. When you’re trying to cover something up (like the fact that you’re being bullied because you have two moms), it’s better to tell some of the truth (that some girls are being slightly mean to you, but you don’t know why).
Mom wanted to call the school to get the girls to stop, and Mamma agreed with her. Enzo was too busy licking his plate to care, and Garibaldi was too busy politely waiting for someone to throw him some chicken. Gari would have cared though—if only he could have understood. I’m sure of it.
I wiped my mouth with my napkin and took a sip of water. In my calmest, most grown-up voice, I said that I would prefer to handle the situation on my own. I said that it was nothing to worry about because they were just a bunch of silly, immature little kids, and I really didn’t care whether they liked me or not.
It took a while for me to convince the moms, and they made me promise to come and talk to them if things got any worse, or if I changed my mind. Mamma said that I should think very hard about whether I wanted them to do anything about it. She said that I might be strong enough to deal with the mean girls, but what if they picked on someone who wasn’t? Marion popped into my mind when she said that. She never talked back when Jade said mean things to her. I told Mamma I’d think about it.
When we were clearing the table, Mamma said that it was a shame about Maisie. “She always seemed like such a nice girl.” Mom muttered something that I couldn’t hear because the kettle was starting to boil. From the look on Mamma’s face, I don’t think it was anything good.
If my suspicions were right (and I think they were), it was sort of reassuring that Mom had said something mean about Maisie. It reminded me that Maisie was the one with the problem, not me. She was the one who’d changed all of a sudden. I’d stayed exactly the same—as far as she knew, anyway.
Chapter 19
Jacob seemed excited about coming over for dinner. He asked if we always ate pizza and pasta in our house, and I told him that Italian cooking wasn’t all about pizza and pasta. Then I had to admit that we were in fact having pizza for dinner on Saturday, which made him laugh.
He stopped laughing when Jade and Chelsea walked into the classroom, closely followed by another girl. I almost didn’t recognize Maisie. She was blond, for one thing, and wearing a lot of makeup.
She looked bizarre, but she clearly didn’t think so. She sauntered into the room with her back straight and her head held high. When she noticed me staring, her shoulders slumped a little and she hurried the rest of the way to her table.
You’re not allowed to wear “excessive makeup” at Bankridge, but none of the teachers ever enforce that rule. No one seems to care. In fact, girls who don’t wear makeup are definitely in the minority. If I’m being honest, Maisie’s hair didn’t look that bad. It sort of suited her. Maybe. A little bit. The makeup was stupid, though. Her eyelashes were all clumped together, like spiders trapped in an oil slick. She should have asked Jade for some lessons instead of just trying to copy her and hoping for the best.
Jacob raised his eyebrows at me and whispered, “Looks like Jade’s tried to clone herself. She must have gotten someone else to do the tricky DNA stuff.”
He started drawing right away. He drew a conveyor belt coming out of a huge machine with lots of buttons and levers on it. Three boxes housing identical dolls sat on top of the conveyor belt. Each box had a name written on it: Jade, Chelsea, and Maisie. Maisie’s box was the last one on the belt, just emerging from the machine. I watched as Jacob wrote “new and improved?” on the box with the Maisie doll inside.
=
Friday was a big day. It was time for phase three of the Pants Project—the petition.
I’d had the petition brainwave when Mom mentioned some online petition she’d signed against cruelty to animals. She said the government would have to do something, now that there were so many signatures. I thought that a petition seemed like the perfect way to drum up some support for my cause and force Mr. Lynch to take action.
For the past few days, I’d been sitting with Jacob and his friends at lunch. It had started with Jacob bringing his tray over to where I sat, alone in the corner. Then a couple of his friends sat with us a few minutes later. Things seemed to be so much simpler with boys. They accepted me because Jacob accepted me. They knew all about the moms (I don’t think there was anyone in the entire school who didn’t know by then), but they didn’t seem to care. On Thursday, Miguel had w
hispered to me that his older brother is gay. I didn’t quite know what to say to that, so I just said, “Cool,” in what I hoped was a friendly way.
While Alex, Sav, and Miguel were busy talking about something (apparently) hilarious that had happened in their PE class (something to do with a wedgie, I think?), I showed Jacob the petition. I’d already told him about the Pants Project and how annoying Mr. Lynch had been. He was impressed that I hadn’t backed down in Lynch’s office.
He looked carefully at the petition and nodded his approval. “Nice job on the lettering.”
I was proud of it. I’d copied it from my favorite comic book. It looked big, bold, and important. I asked Jacob if he thought it would be better if I did the whole thing on the computer and printed it out.
“Nah, it’s better this way. More personal. People are more likely to sign it if they can see that it really matters to you.” While I was thinking that over, he signed his name. “There. One down, a few hundred to go.”
“Do you think I should sign it too?”
“Um, yeah!” he laughed. So I signed my name underneath his.
Jacob managed to get the boys to shut up, and I told them about the petition. Sav said that he liked that the girls wore skirts, but a steely glare from me shut him up. They all signed it, bringing the count up to five signatures. Five signatures in less than five minutes seemed pretty good to me. Annoyingly, the bell rang signaling the end of lunch before I had a chance to try for more signatures.
I’d decided that I probably needed to get at least half of the students to sign the petition in order to get Mr. Lynch to take it seriously. Five hundred total students meant that I needed more than 250 signatures on my petition. It wasn’t going to be easy, that was for sure.
=
We had Mrs. McCready last period on Friday. She reminded us that Back-to-School Night was coming up and asked for volunteers to help out.
Jacob’s hand shot up. “We’ll do it, Mrs. M!” Now you’d have to know Jacob to know just how un-Jacob-like this was, so you’re going to have to trust me when I say that. Even Mrs. McCready was shocked. “Er, okay, lovely! Thank you, Jacob. And thank you, Olivia. I take it you’re willing to lend a hand too?”
I nodded—anything to get the attention away from me.
“I’ll help too, Mrs. McCready,” said a syrupy voice from the back of the room.
“And me!”
Excellent. Jade and Chelsea. The only thing worse than that would be…
“I’m sure Maisie would like to volunteer too!” said Jade. I turned around to see Maisie nodding, trying to look enthusiastic.
“Why did you do that?” I hissed at Jacob.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No!”
“We need her.”
“Who?”
“McCready!”
I had no idea what he was talking about, so he whispered an explanation. For the Pants Project to succeed, we would need allies (powerful allies, according to Jacob). If we got some teachers on our side, it would put extra pressure on Mr. Lynch, and what better way to get Mrs. McCready on our side than being helpful on Back-to-School Night?
It was a decent plan, I had to admit. It hadn’t crossed my mind to try to get teachers on our side. I’d just assumed they’d be on Mr. Lynch’s side. But Mrs. McCready never wore skirts, so surely she would sympathize, even if she hadn’t exactly been thrilled with my attempted pants-skirt combo.
It was starting to feel like Jacob and I were a team, like the whole pants mission wasn’t just my crusade anymore. It was really cool, considering there was nothing in it for him. I ignored the tiny voice in the back of my head whispering that it would be better just to tackle it on my own. The only person you can trust is yourself. I didn’t really believe that. There were three people I trusted 100 percent: Mom, Mamma, and Enzo. Gram too (sometimes). So that made four (maybe three and a half?). And I trusted Garibaldi, which goes without saying. But family and dogs don’t really count, do they? You kind of take it for granted that you can trust your family and your dog. Finding other people to trust is tricky. I’d trusted Maisie and look at how that had turned out.
Chapter 20
Jacob’s mom dropped him off at our house late on Saturday afternoon. She waved from the car. She certainly looked normal enough. There was nothing about her to suggest she was a crazed One Direction superfan. She had curly hair, cool glasses, and a friendly smile.
“So this is the famous Garibaldi! Man, you’re like three times the size of my dog. Oh, yes you are.” I liked that Jacob talked to my dog. I hate it when people ignore him.
Jacob kneeled down to let Gari give him a good sniff. Gari’s tail thumped a rapid drumbeat on the floor, and when Jacob held out his hand with the palm facing up, Gari brought up his paw for a high five. Jacob had somehow managed to pick the only trick that my dog knows how to do.
Enzo was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement about Jacob being here. He dragged him up to his room to show off the Lego spaceship he’d built that morning. I kept quiet about the fact that I’d actually built most of the spaceship after Enzo had a total meltdown when he got stuck and didn’t understand the instructions. I am awesome at building with Legos. My Lego collection is probably my most prized possession. Enzo asks at least once a week if he can have it when I die. Each and every time, I tell him that my Legos will be buried with me. Enzo thinks that a coffin made of Legos would be the best thing ever.
Mom arrived home from Monty’s and got to work on the tomato sauce for the pizzas. I could tell straightaway that she liked Jacob. He kept asking if there was anything he could do to help. Parents love that.
Mamma had made the pizza dough earlier and left it to proof. Jacob and I got started on the toppings. I sliced the salami while he sliced the onions. His eyes started watering and I teased him about crying. He played along and pretended that he was overcome with emotion because he was so happy to be here.
It was really nice, actually. The five of us all together in the kitchen. It didn’t feel weird adding Jacob into the mix. He seemed to know the right thing to do or say at the right time, and he was excited about pizza. Apparently, his dad had tried to make pizza once, but the base had turned out more like a cookie. I let him tear up the balls of mozzarella even though it’s usually my job. Jacob had never even seen real mozzarella before. Of course, that started Mamma off on a looong rant about food in this country, which ended with, “And pizza with slices of canned pineapple! What is wrong with you people?”
Jacob was brave enough to say that he actually liked ham and pineapple pizza. Mamma frowned and shook her head. “And here I was starting to like you. Such a shame!” She smiled to let him know that she was only joking—sort of. Mamma said that once he’d tasted our pizza, he would never go back to his “heathen ham and pineapple ways.”
One bite was all it took. Jacob’s eyes widened and he started nodding. That bite was quickly followed by two more. “OK, this is definitely the best pizza I have ever had in my entire life.”
Mamma patted his shoulder and smiled smugly. “Of course it is.”
Jacob ate loads. He sat back in his chair and patted his stomach. “I don’t think I could eat another thing.”
Mom said, “Not even ice cream?”
“Well, there’s always room for ice cream. Different stomach, isn’t it? Dessert stomach. Can I come for dinner every day, please?” Jacob smiled winningly.
The moms laughed. “I’m sure your mom would have something to say about that!”
“Nah, she’d be grateful. She hates cooking. Dad’s not bad, but he’s usually too tired by the time he gets home.”
“So why don’t you cook then?” I asked.
“I’m a little clumsy with a knife. My hands…” Jacob’s words drifted off into nothing.
“What about your hands?” I asked.
&nb
sp; He shook his head. “Nothing. I tell you what. I’ll make dinner for my folks once a week, but only if you promise to give me the recipe for that pizza. The sauce was epic.”
It might seem like Jacob was sucking up to them, but he wasn’t, or at least I didn’t think so. He seemed genuinely happy to spend time with us. It made me wonder what it would be like if Jade and Chelsea came over for dinner. How could they think there was anything wrong or weird about my family? We were so normal it was boring. Of course, there was no way on earth I would ever invite those two over to my house. I would rather stick chili peppers up my nose and sniff.
I was scraping the last of my ice cream out of the bowl when Jacob said he thought it was awesome that I’d started the petition. I’d forgotten to tell him not to say anything.
I was worried the moms would think that I was causing trouble. More than anything in the world, I didn’t want them to say that it wasn’t important. I was scared that they wouldn’t understand just how much it meant to me. I didn’t think I’d be able to cope if the moms didn’t get it. Plus, I didn’t want them to ask any awkward questions about exactly why it meant so much to me.
Jacob explained all about it and how Mr. Lynch had said no to changing the uniform policy. “But we’re not going to let him win, are we, Liv?”
The moms listened as Jacob told them all about the petition and how many signatures we were hoping to get. He didn’t say anything about us helping with Back-to-School Night in order to butter up Mrs. McCready.
When he was finished, Mom reached across the table and put her hand on mine. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Why?” I asked quietly.
“You’re standing up for what you believe in, and that’s important.” I should have known Mom would say something like that.
Mamma said, “I can call Mr. Lynch on Monday, Liv. I’ve been meaning to. It’s just with everything going on with my father…I… It’s no excuse, though. I’m sorry.”