Best Kept Secret

by Debra Moffitt

  PINK LOCKER SOCIETY IN DANGER!

  The big angry-looking headline screamed at us from a thirty-year-old copy of The Pink Paper. We found this shred of evidence at the library, but it tells us nothing. At some point in history, someone took a black marker and blotted out all the words of the article. Only the headline remains readable on the copy we made from the archives. Long ago, the Pink Locker Ladies cranked out The Pink Paper using typewriters and some old-timey printing method. Today, we carry on their mission, but we use a Web site called www.pinklockersociety.org. Now (as then), our specialty is answering questions about the PBBs (periods, bras, and boys).

  Back in the Pink Paper days, something strange happened and the Pink Locker Society ceased to exist. We don’t know exactly what happened—and the not knowing eats at us. Well, mostly me. I like to know what I’m getting into. And I definitely didn’t know what I was getting into on the first day of school, when I found that peculiar pink locker door on the inside of my regular locker. Piper, Kate, Bet, and I stepped inside, and we learned that we had been inducted into the new and improved Pink Locker Society. It was now our job to give girl-to-girl advice.

  We loved it—delivering answers on all kinds of questions girls have, especially the ones they’re too shy to ask their moms or even their older sisters. For a time, we were a phenomenal success. But then Taylor Mayweather decided to hack into the site and made all kinds of rude comments about the girls we were trying to help. (Yes, the very same Taylor Mayweather who is dating my lifelong crush, Forrest McCann.)

  So the school principal shut down our Web site, our parents were aghast, and it seemed like everyone just wanted us to forget the Pink Locker Society ever existed. But then the principal returned our pink laptop, thinking we might “put it to good use.” He was thinking schoolwork, but a tiny butterfly of an idea flew into our heads: Kate, Piper, and I decided to restart the PLS ourselves. And we have. Too many girls need answers. We, your faithful members of the Pink Locker Society, will not let you down.

  Think pink!

  Jemma, Kate, and Piper

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Pink Locker Society in Danger!

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Ask the PLS

  Girls Can Do It!

  KidsHealth

  About the Author

  Also by Debra Moffitt

  Copyright

  One

  By eighth grade, your bike can take you almost anywhere you want to go, even to the street where your biggest crush lives. Mention a bike ride and your parents are likely to say, “Sure, go ahead,” since it is a healthy and low-tech (or is it no-tech?) activity. Not that I would ever go 1.3 miles out of my way just to glimpse the gray-green two-story colonial that my crush, Forrest McCann, calls home.

  OK, I’ve done it. More than once. Did it today, in fact, under a cloudy November sky. And what I saw when I pedaled past Forrest’s house nearly knocked me off my two wheels—a For Sale sign poking out from the lawn.

  This was monumental. Forrest had always been part of my plan. I know it’s a little weird for me to think we have a chance, since Forrest is still with Taylor Mayweather. But we’ve known each other forever—since preschool—and we might be destined to end up together.

  We’ve had our moments, you know. Already, this year, there was that time on the bus, the other time when we were scrunched together inside the same locker (a long story), and most recently, we had a laundry room moment that gave me plenty to think about, but no real answers. Before I fall asleep at night, I turn that moment over and over in my head, like a lucky penny.

  But when I see him at school, I totally clam up. I can’t even spit out a hi or hey when I see him in the halls. I just nod awkwardly in his direction. He usually nods back, but sometimes he doesn’t see my nod and I wonder if people are wondering who I’m nodding at. Or maybe they are laughing at how I’m the victim of an unreturned nod.

  Those times when FCM gives me a nod, I’m reminded that Forrest and I share a secret. A big one. Forrest Charles McCann knows about the pink locker. And he knows I’m in the Pink Locker Society. In fact, thanks to me, he was interrogated about the PLS by Principal Finklestein. It was just before Principal F. pulled the plug on our secret group. I had been dying to tell Forrest that Kate, Piper, and I have restarted the PLS without anyone’s permission.

  But before I could get up the nerve to have that conversation, the For Sale sign changed everything.

  * * *

  “KATE!”

  I nearly shrieked my best friend’s name into the phone as I explained what I just saw. At this point, I had biked my way around the corner from Forrest’s house. I was shielded from the autumn sun by a stand of old gnarled trees. In the trunk of one of them was a plum-sized hole, like the kind you see in cartoons. I might have wondered what was in that hole if I wasn’t so desperately worried that Forrest McCann was about to leave my life forever.

  “Calm down,” Kate said in her yoga voice. “Try to take cleansing breaths. Watch your stomach rise and fall.”

  “Kate Parker, I don’t have time to find my inner peace. This is the end of my life!”

  Kate is my best friend—but sometimes she just does not get it. It must have to do with the fact that she always has a boyfriend. She used to be with Paul, but now she’s going out with Brett.

  “Kate, if Forrest moves away, how am I going to follow through on my two-year-plan to make him like me and finally dump Taylor?”

  “Well, maybe you’ll have to speed up your plan.”

  Kate is always saying things like that, but I have my own way of doing things. Forrest and I go way back, which complicates the situation. I can’t just walk up to him and declare my love. There are rules here and I’m following them.

  I hung up with Kate, who promised to call me later. Sometimes I get the feeling that she’s tired of me talking about Forrest. I guess I don’t blame her, but talking about him is one of my favorite things to do. So I quickly pressed speed dial 3 and got Piper.

  “Come onnnn, Jem. Why don’t you just talk to him? And ask what the deal is with the For Sale sign. I mean, that’s what I’d do. It’s not that hard.”

  Easy for Piper to say. She attracts boys everywhere she goes. Once, she got a new boyfriend during a trip to the grocery store with her mom. They met in produce and by the time they reached the dairy aisle, they were a couple.

  “I can’t just talk to Forrest.”

  “Why not? I talk to him all the time. He’s really into his guitar these days. He’s even talking about not playing football next year to have more time for his band.”

  Forrest has a band? Where have I been? And why does Piper know so much about him?

  Piper knows me well. When I didn’t respond to her, she jumped in with more of her Piperesque straight talk.

  “You should just go for him. Actually, you should have gone for him ages ago. But especiall
y after everyone found out Taylor was the one who hacked the Pink Locker Society Web site,” Piper said.

  Oh, Piper, you are right, but I just can’t admit that you are right.

  “Jem, I’m just saying you can’t wait forever.”

  I knew this was technically true, but I couldn’t imagine doing anything more than I was currently doing—thinking about making a move. I suddenly felt a buzz of suspicion about Piper. Then I heard it—an actual buzz.

  But it wasn’t in my head. The loud buzzing was headed straight for me, from that funny tree with the hole in its trunk. It was home to a very angry family of bees. Angry at me, apparently. They spilled furiously out of that hole in a straight line—a real “beeline.” I flapped my arms like a bird and started running. They filled the air in front of me, and I felt them ping-pong off of me as I darted and dashed. Some collided with my face. I squeezed my eyes shut and ran. But where could I go? I opened my eyes, crossed the street in a sprint, and lunged at the only familiar house in sight.

  Two

  This must be a dream. This must be a dream.

  I found myself, of all places, in Forrest’s backyard. Like a prowler. What was I thinking, running here—that I’d outsmart the bees? But it seemed to work. They were finally gone. It was only when I stood still, on Forrest’s back porch, that I felt the pain—stings, and more than one. I had one on each arm, which I didn’t think was so bad, considering. Before I could collect my thoughts, Forrest’s mother saw me out back. It was then that I felt the third sting, right above my lip.

  “Jemma, honey! What in heaven’s name?”

  Vera McCann could be my future mother in-law, and Forrest could have been anywhere, but right then I was just glad to see anyone who knew what to do. I was sweating and out of breath, so it was hard to explain what I was doing there.

  “Bee stings. I was riding my bike and, and…”

  As I trailed off, Mrs. McCann swept into action. She took me inside, pulled a premade ice pack out of the freezer, and carefully pulled out the stingers. With that taken care of, we sat down in awkward silence at her kitchen table. I could feel my lip puffing up.

  “Let me see.”

  When I lifted the ice to show her, she winced, so I knew it wasn’t good.

  “Keep the ice on it. I’ll call your mom.”

  She went to find the phone, I guess, and left me alone in the kitchen. I was alone in Forrest McCann’s kitchen. Even in my bee-stung state, I wanted to open the pantry and see which kind of cereal he ate for breakfast. It had been a long time since I’d been in their house. Our parents are friends, but our families don’t get together like we used to when we were little. Too shy to snoop, I stared at the cabinetry and started thinking of my bike and how I just left it on the side of the road, by the buzzing tree. I should go get it, I thought.

  I got up, still a little shaky, and looked for Mrs. McCann. I took a slow step into the living room, calling her name, and then I heard loud footsteps—boom, boom, boom. Forrest McCann was in the house. It was as if he dropped a barbell on each step as he pounded his way down from the second floor. He landed at my feet.

  “Hey,” he said, giving me an understandably confused look that said Why are you in my living room?

  “Hey,” I said, still holding the ice to my lip.

  “What happened to you? Did someone punch you?”

  “No. I was riding my bike,” I said, a completely incomplete explanation.

  “You fell?”

  “Bees,” is all I could say before I was rescued by Mrs. McCann, who was holding her car keys.

  “I told your mom I’d run you home. Forrest, can you go get Jemma’s bike? Where is it, honey?”

  “Around the corner, by the Cavannas’ house,” I said.

  But Forrest just stood there, his expression sending the message that he would need more information.

  “Bees,” Mrs. McCann called out to him as she pulled me out the front door. “The poor girl was stung by a hive of bees.”

  “Be careful,” I said, through my puffed-up lip.

  Some days, life will surprise you, my mom always says. Yeah, right. I just got swarmed by a bunch of angry bees for no good reason. Maybe they sniffed my desperate feelings for Forrest? And just when I thought things couldn’t get any crazier, Forrest loaded my bike into the trunk and slid into the backseat right next to me.

  “Forrest’s coming along for the ride,” Mrs. McCann said. “I’m taking him to get his retainer fitted.”

  In the car, I kept the ice on my lip, mostly to hide my deformity from Forrest. Ask about the For Sale sign, I told myself. But I just couldn’t. Anytime I was this close to him, I felt strange. But it was good, too, because I often came away with evidence that he was just an actual guy, not a movie-star-perfect guy like I sometimes made him out to be in my head. For one thing, in the car, I noticed he had a crusty scab on his knee. And for another, he smelled a little like wet dog. He was still hot as ever, of course, but I was definitely getting a “dog-after-a-rainstorm” odor.

  I tried to form any kind of sentence, to think of anything worth saying, but failed. The one time I was brave enough to look at him, he was smirking.

  “Are you laughing at me?” I said.

  “No … but it is a little funny. A swarm of bees? Like in a cartoon?”

  “Forrest,” his mom said, trying to cut him off.

  I smiled a little in response—as much as I could smile, seeing that one of my lips was the size of a snow tire.

  “You know, I’m giving everyone at school nicknames,” Forrest said. “So I’m thinking of one for you.”

  Please, please don’t let it be dork or doofus or Fatty McFat Lip or Flatty McFlat Chest. Forrest looked thoughtful and then turned toward me. I braced myself.

  “I think I’ll call you … ‘Buzzy.’ ”

  Three

  In all, the Pink Locker Web site was out of business for five weeks. When we restarted, we wished we could have a grand reopening celebration, but we needed to keep it a secret. No one knew, except us—and all the girls who wrote into us with questions. (Bless them for continuing to send in questions, even when the site looked totally closed!)

  But even our most devoted fans didn’t know who the members of the PLS were. That was—and is—super secret. And no one seemed to notice that Kate, Piper, and I disappeared during study hall. But we were no longer hiding behind our pink locker doors in our plush office.

  We didn’t know if Principal Finklestein knew about the office hidden away behind our lockers, but we didn’t want to risk it. Plus, we were afraid of what we might find in there! Of course, we wondered what Edith—our main point of contact and a former “Pinky”—was up to. We didn’t know how much she knew or if she had somehow been told that the school had shut us down. I assumed she knew something, because she once told us there were other former Pinkies “on the inside” at our school. Edith sounded old enough to be someone’s grandma. Back when school first started, she set everything up for us—the Web site and our beautiful office.

  We felt we had no choice, so we found an alternate location. It’s … unglamorous, to say the least. Our old office had super comfy chairs, a big glass meeting table, monogrammed towels, and snacks. This one, the old bomb shelter in the school basement, lacks a decorator’s touch. But it’s quiet, and we knew no one would come down here.

  So in this dingy setting, we’re secretly researching questions and answering them on our Web site. For instance:

  • How do you open a locker? I try to follow the instructions but I always end up late for class.

  • Do I have to wear a sports bra when I play sports?

  • I like my BFF’s crush. What should I do?

  Curiously, we continue to get a few questions from boys. They don’t write as often as girls do, and they usually aren’t as descriptive, but I guess they need help, too. I wonder if they feel weird writing into the Pink Locker Society. It’s something I wanted to ask Forrest about, but I didn’t. I
could have asked Jake, the other boy on my radar, but I didn’t ask him either. I knew Jake sorta liked me, so I avoided too many just-me-and-him talks. Do you wonder what questions boys ask? Some of their questions were:

  • I like this girl, but she only wants to be friends. How can I change her mind?

  • How can I grow taller and get a six-pack?

  • Can I go to a school dance if I can’t dance?

  I suggested we put up a notice that said “Only Girls Allowed.” But Piper and Kate said we should try to help boys, too, when possible. So the vote was two to one. We have a fourth member, Bet, but she wasn’t there to vote.

  We hadn’t told Bet what we were up to yet, but I knew she had suspicions. In my opinion, she didn’t have time for the PLS after she won the honor of hosting a show on Margaret Simon Middle School TV. Bet’s show was broadcast on our school’s in-house channel, MSTV, every Friday afternoon.

  Her first show revealed Forrest McCann’s girlfriend, Taylor Mayweather, as a hacker. She’s the one who made all those mean comments about the girls who wrote in to the PLS site looking for answers. Taylor called the girls “la-ha-losers” and told them to give up if they, let’s say, had too many freckles or liked their older brother’s best friend. Ugh! She made me so angry. Let me count the reasons:

  1. Because she liked to embarrass people (especially me!);

  2. Because she never got punished for hacking into our site;

  3. Because after all that, she was still Forrest’s girlfriend.

  Now that we were up and running again, I wasn’t worried about Taylor hacking in again. She said she’d “been there, done that.” But I was worried instead about other unknowns.

  Like, would Principal Finklestein discover us? He had sent a letter home to our parents saying we should “put this whole business behind us.” His letter, which he told us to destroy after reading, also said that the PLS Web site contained “potentially offensive material.”

  Other than Principal F., I worried that just operating the PLS put us in potential danger. The PLS closed down in 1976 under suspicious circumstances. No one seemed to know why. Was someone out to get the PLS, and would they come after us, too?