by Kami Kinard
My mane still looked pretty scary even after I washed and dried it! And I still smelled like an appetizer for an elephant.
Seriously, I may never eat a Reese’s cup again.
But the next day Mom took me to Fabien’s Divine Hair so Fabien could “work his magic.” (His magic includes keeping Mom blond, BTW.)
Fabien ooohed and ahhhed over my butchered hair, calling it thick and glossy. (Saying stuff like that probably works like an imaginary hand — reaching out to collect bigger tips!)
“Honey, this child is sooooo luuuuuuCKY!” He told my mom as he scissor-sculpted my hair. “Not many girls her age have a face cute enough to pull off a pixie.”
When Fabien was finished snipping, even I had to admit that he was a hair magician. But after that, I went home and sat in front of the mirror for, like, two hours. Despite the fact that my short hair looked fab, I was totally freaked out about seeing my friends (and my enemies) at school the next morning.
I decided the best thing to do was to face the day with confidence and act like I’d cut my hair off because I wanted it that way.
And now that I’m writing about it, I have to admit everything turned out okay. I ended up liking my short hair so much that I never went back to long hair. So that jet tub accident must have been a sign — signaling me to change my hairstyle.
Whew. I feel a lot better now. I just need to face the new school year with confidence! If I never meet the guy I saw in the pizza cheese, I can always take James back. He’ll jump at the chance, and at least I won’t have to be an everlasting third wheel.
Man, does it feel good to have a PLAN B!
On a scale of one to ten, I give today a four. Not that today was all bad — it wasn’t. It’s just that I found out something unbelievably horrible this morning, and the horrible thing is winning the tug-of-war against the good things.
Let me get the horrible stuff over with. James has a new girlfriend! She’s one of two new girls in our grade: Kaitlin. The prettier one! She looks like she’s cool, too, in the soon-to-be-popular way. Man, I thought he’d be the one feeling awkward, since he seemed so upset when I broke up with him, but NOPE! I get to keep that awkward feeling all to myself. Seeing him and Kaitlin look so happy together made me wonder why I broke up with him. I mean … if he’s good enough for her …
Oh well. So much for Plan B.
What really stinks is that I can’t even avoid James, because he’s in my algebra class. Unfortunately, so is Priyanka Gupta. Ugh.
I noticed Priyanka as soon as I stepped through the doorway. She immediately began waving madly at me from across the room. She was wearing lime-green knee socks with cupcakes printed on them, a pink T-shirt that said Keep Calm and Eat a Cupcake, and she had a cupcake pencil topper on her pink pencil.
Physically, Priyanka’s a tiny person, about two inches shorter than me, and I’m not tall. But even though she’s tiny, everything about her is big. She has a big voice — loud, like her clothes! Her hair is extremely long and very black. Her smile seems too big for her face. Her large brown-black eyes have ridiculously long eyelashes that are the secret envy of every girl at Spring Valley Middle. When she talks, she makes sweeping movements with her arms — as in, you have to stand about three feet back from her to keep from being hit by the sweeping! One thing about her is obvious: Priyanka Gupta isn’t going to let her small size keep her from being noticed.
I don’t know why, but Priyanka’s enthusiasm for everything kind of annoys me, so I gave her a quick wave back and took a seat near the doorway, which was as far away from her as I could sit. It’s not like I really know Priyanka that well or anything. Still, I kind of had to wave back, but I didn’t have to sit by her.
Unfortunately I’d been so busy trying to avoid Priyanka that the seat I took was smack in front of James. My butt had hardly hit the chair when he said, “Couldn’t stay away, could you, Tabbi? Too bad for you. I’m taken.”
I turned around and gave him my signature couldn’t care less glare. “Yeah, I know. I wish she’d take you to another country.”
That seemed to shut him up, so I settled back into my chair and waited for the torture to begin. Since schools can’t offer classes in torture, they give this painful experience the name algebra to try to fool unsuspecting students.
But things turned out not to be so torturous after all.
I’d been dreading algebra because Kara told me Mr. DeLacey, the algebra teacher, was a real jerk. But apparently, Mr. D has left the school! So we have a new teacher.
His name is Mr. Gheary. He is tall and skinny and seems to embrace his nerdiness. Here’s how I’d sum him up:
Mr. Gheary stood in front of the class with his hands in his pockets and said, “Class.” Then he waited. “Class,” he said again, a little louder. We got quiet, but Mr. Gheary still looked at us without saying anything. I guess he’s big on the dramatic pause. You know, getting everyone’s attention, then NOT talking.
Still not talking, Mr. G pulled a quarter out of his pocket and started flipping it. He did this over and over, each time catching it in his right hand, then slapping it down on the back of his left. He called out heads or tails after each flip.
I didn’t know what the man was thinking — like we didn’t have anything better to do than watch him flip a coin! Okay: I really didn’t have anything better to do than to watch him flip a coin! Because if I weren’t doing that, I’d probably be stuck doing algebra problems from the book or something.
After he flipped Washington’s head about a zillion times, he said, “Each time I flip this coin, there are two possible outcomes.”
“Heads or tails!” shouted Priyanka, throwing her arms in the air excitedly.
Mr. G gave a quick nod in her direction, as if the rest of us couldn’t have come up with this very obvious answer.
“Did anyone notice how many times I said heads, versus how many times I said tails?” he asked.
There was a pause, but not a dramatic pause. More like a someone else please answer before he calls on me pause.
Luckily, Mr. G continued. “Can anyone guess, then, whether the amount of times the coin landed on heads was greater than, less than, or equal to the number of times it landed on tails?”
“Equal to!” shouted Priyanka, almost jumping out of her seat. Mr. G gave her a little smile this time. “Correct,” he said. Priyanka’s huge smile threatened to take over her entire face. Then Mr. G added, “In theory.” Good-bye, huge smile. See ya!
Mr. Gheary went on to explain that because there are only two sides to the coin, the probability of a coin landing on heads is equal to its landing on tails. But that doesn’t mean it happens that way every time, in practice.
To prove this, he handed out coins and told us to pick a partner. I grabbed LaTisha Jeffers before anyone worse could grab me. Our assignment was to flip the coin a hundred times and record whether it landed on heads or tails. In the end, our tally sheet looked like this:
It was soooooo NOT fifty-fifty! But then Mr. G had all of the teams come up and write their totals on the board. There were twelve pairs of us, so that’s one thousand two hundred coin flips. When you added everyone’s totals together, it was a lot closer to a fifty-fifty split.
Mr. G explained that probability isn’t so reliable in predicting an individual flip, but it can predict the expected results for a large number of flips.
Before I knew it, the bell was ringing. How did algebra go by so fast?
GTG! I was supposed to be at Kara’s house ten minutes ago!
Every year, Kara and I compare first-day-of-school report cards, where we rank our teachers and predict how we’re going to like our classes. Mine looks like this:
Kara’s report card, though, was 100 percent positive. She thinks every class is going to be interesting and every teacher is going to be nice. She’s my BFF and all, but she was getting on my NERVES gushing about how great her day was.
Let’s see … why does Kara’s year look all
And my year look all
Oh yeah, because she has a boyfriend and I don’t! School schedules just look better when you have a boyfriend.
* * *
My prediction: Her year isn’t going to be as great as she thinks. Nobody’s is!
I didn’t have anything better to do after dinner, so I took out the completely useless list of guys with boyfriend potential — in other words, the blank sheet of paper.
Truthfully, there were three new guys in my classes. But I’m not adding their names to the list. It’s hard for me to imagine that any of them have potential when two are a foot shorter than I am and the other one carries a SpongeBob backpack. Come on!
When I was walking to first period, though, I actually saw a very cute guy with dark, curly hair. I was too far away to get a really good look at him, but it only took a glimpse to see that HE had potential! I hadn’t seen him around last year, so I hoped he was a cute new transfer student who I’d soon get to know in one of my classes. But no. Before I got to English, I saw him turn onto the sixth grade hall. Too bad! He might have potential for someone (a sixth grader) but not for me!
Anyway, I started absentmindedly folding the useless list into a cootie catcher. You know, those little origami squares that some people call fortune-tellers. I made tons of those back in fourth grade, so it only took me fifteen seconds to create one.
I flicked my fingers back and forth, watching it open and close like the beak of a hungry baby bird. I wondered how many possible outcomes there are for a cootie catcher. When he was flipping that quarter today, Mr. G made a big point that there were only two possible outcomes. Heads or tails.
With a normal cootie catcher, all choices lead to the same four squares. So basically, it would have twice as many outcomes as flipping a coin.
But if you used each section of the cootie catcher to tell part of a fortune, instead of putting all of the information in the last four sections, there would be all kinds of possible outcomes!
That gave me an idea … a way to solve my boy problem … a way to be what Kara calls proactive.
I grabbed a pencil and created the best, the most amazing cootie catcher ever. One that was sure to CHANGE MY LIFE! Or at least change the rest of the school year. Here’s what it looked like:
I, Tabitha Reddy, have invented the love-predictor cootie catcher!
I decided to be my own first customer, so I tried it out.
Cootie catcher prediction: An instrument-playing, brown-haired, green-eyed guy with a nice smile will like me.
* * *
I can’t think of anyone who fits that description, but hey — there’s always a chance someone new will show up for band tomorrow.
* * *
My prediction: Love success!
I showed Kara my love-predictor cootie catcher before school and she totally dissed it! She says there’s no way I can predict who my next crush will be using a “toy” that I made myself.
* * *
My prediction: Kara is wrong.
I can sum up most of the school day with this phrase: Blah, blah, blah.
Except for band. That’s when things got exciting. At least for me.
Mr. Waldorf started us off with a piece from last year’s spring concert to warm us up. I was pretty much able to play it from memory, which allowed my eyes to wander around the band room. I was looking for two things:
Brown hair
Green eyes
I’d worry about the nice smile later, since almost everyone’s lips were too busy playing instruments to smile.
It didn’t take me long to figure out that there was only one guy in the room who fit the love-predictor cootie catcher’s prediction.
And I wasn’t even sure about him because I HAD NO CLUE WHAT COLOR HIS EYES WERE!
Malcolm Maxwell has this cool longish hair. It’s great, really. It makes him look like he belongs in a band — not the Spring Valley Middle School band, but the kind of band that makes the covers of magazines like Astroteen and Drama Tween. The only problem with his hair is that his long bangs cover his eyes. Trying to get a glimpse of them is like trying to see the rocks behind a waterfall.
Kara used to say there was something mysterious about Malcolm. Now I see what she means. But if Malcolm is a mystery, how do I crack the case? How can I get a view of his eyes?
A word that Kara uses WAY too much floated into my brain and drifted up to the top of my mind like a cube of ice in a glass of lemonade.
If I wanted information, I needed to be a detective. When Mr. Waldorf stopped directing and started talking, I turned around and checked out my suspect again. He was looking down, which gave me a chance to notice that his eyelashes were very long. Nice.
He was absentmindedly twirling a drumstick in his right hand. Very nice. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to what Mr. Waldorf was saying. Normal.
Malcolm had grown taller over the summer, and his face was more angular. I watched him twirl that drumstick for a long time. He never looked up, so it was easy to watch him undetected.
Or so I thought.
Unfortunately, I was detected.
By Mr. Waldorf.
He called me out in front of the entire band! (I guess this doesn’t say much for my detecting skills.)
“Tabbi Reddy, what’s so interesting in the back of the room?” Mr. Waldorf yelled. Everyone in the class was suddenly looking at me.
In that same instant — BAM — so was Malcolm. The humiliation of being yelled at turned out to be worth it. Yep. Eye contact.
Then I wheeled around in my seat and looked apologetically at Mr. Waldorf, who did not look apologetically back at me, even though he’d just embarrassed me in front of the entire band! Rude!
I couldn’t risk turning back around again, but my flute didn’t play another note for the rest of the period. I just kinda held it in front of my lips and moved my fingers around. How could I be expected to produce music when all I could think about were those eyes? Those beautiful eyes that looked into mine for a millisecond before I turned around. Those eyes that can be described with one word: green.
* * *
Cootie catcher prediction: Malcolm Maxwell will be my next boyfriend.
* * *
My prediction: Band will be my favorite class!
Just got off of the phone with Kara. Our conversation went something like this:
Me: The cootie catcher worked! It predicted who my next boyfriend will be. I mean, I haven’t checked out his smile yet, but I’m sure it’s great.
Kara: Wait — are you saying you have a new boyfriend?
Me: Not yet. But I know who it’s gonna be.
Kara: Unless it’s official, you never really know.
Me: Gah! Why do you have to be so logical about everything? Want to know who it is?
Kara: Sure.
Me (determined to be positive about this even though Kara’s response wasn’t exactly encouraging): Malcolm Maxwell.
Kara:
Me: Well…. say something.
Kara: Sorry. Just thinking.
Me: I guess that’s better than your saying it will never work.
Kara: It’ll never work.
Me: Gee. Thanks.
Kara: Well, I can see why you’re interested….
Me: He’s cute, isn’t he?
Kara: In a mysterious kind of way.
Me: I know, right?
Kara: But …
Me: What?
Kara: He’s so … different. Like, how would you get a chance to talk to him? And even if you did find a chance, how would you get him to talk to you?”
I didn’t know the answer to that one. You couldn’t exactly make someone talk. I knew that. But I also knew something else. You could sure try.
* * *
My prediction: I’ll be talking to Malcolm by the end of the week.
I refuse to think about Malcolm today, since I don’t have band and it’s unlikely that our paths will cross anyway.
I can
’t stop thinking about Malcolm! How do you NOT think about the person you are destined to be with? The cootie catcher predicted it! If I see him at lunch or something I’m going to go up to him and see if I can get him to smile. Not that I need to prove that he has a nice smile. I’m sure he does.
I can’t go up to Malcolm and try to get him to talk. I can’t! I will look obvious, desperate, or BOTH — thanks to Mr. Waldorf calling attention to the fact that I was staring at him. Oh, cootie catcher, why didn’t you give me an easier target?
Tomorrow will be the day. The day I find out if Malcolm is the one. I’m determined to talk to him.
I told this to Kara and she said, “Good luck. You know I observed him last year, and I only ever got to hear him say something like eighteen words. That’s all year long.”
I asked her if she’d ever really tried to talk to him. She had to admit that the longest “conversation” she’d ever had with him was when she was hiding out in a stall in the boys’ room (long story), and she was trying NOT to talk to him at that point. So I don’t think Kara’s experience with Malcolm is a reliable prediction of what mine will be at all. I WILL talk to him until I catch a smile. I’m not backing down.
Kara’s prediction: Malcolm won’t talk.
* * *
My prediction: Yes, he will.
Oh. Yes. I. Did!
I walked right up to Malcolm and said, “You do an awesome job on the drums.” (It sounds like a stupid thing to say now that I write it down, but trust me, it sounded better when I said it. I’m pretty sure it did, anyway.)
He said, “Thanks.” But he didn’t smile!
So I said, “I’m Tabbi, I’m in the flute section.”