by Joanne Levy
“What’s that?” Mom said in that tone, which meant she’d heard every word.
“Ugh! Nothing!” Laura said, and stormed out of the room.
Mom just stared after her.
“Teenagers, huh?” I said.
Mom looked at me and gave me a little smile. “I am sorry, but . . .” She sighed again. “He should be home any minute.”
I nodded, although I wasn’t sure even she believed it. Because he was late every night. I understood he was busy and worked hard, but I also saw where Laura was coming from, because we were hungry. And sometimes it felt like when Dad did come home, he just complained about the vet office. The food reps this; the surgical supplier that; the vet tech called in sick; the photocopier broke. Blah. Blah. Blah.
I was about to turn back to my drawing when my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out.
Tyler: You coming over?
Shoot. At this rate it would be bedtime before we ate, which meant I wasn’t going to be able to hang out with him. Although I was kind of relieved about that, I had promised Olivia I would feel him out about the dance.
I turned to Mom. “How long, do you think?”
She shrugged. “Ten minutes, maybe?”
I got up out of the chair. “I promised Tyler I’d come over tonight to play Zombie Slashers, but I guess that’s not going to happen. I’ll just run over and tell him. I’ll be right back.”
She looked at me sideways. “You’re not going to start the game and disappear are you? I want you here when we’re ready to eat.”
My stomach growled like it wanted to answer her. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay. If Dad happens to pull up before you’re back, I’ll text you.”
I nodded as I patted the pocket that held my phone and jogged toward the door.
Chapter 3
MRS. LOT OPENED THE DOOR AND smiled at me. “Hi, Kat,” she said. “He’s down in the basement.”
“Thanks,” I said, returning her smile. I went down the hallway and made the three turns that took me to the stairs to the basement. I could hear he was playing already, but I needed a second to prepare myself. Why was my gastrointestinal system having so much trouble with the idea of being around Tyler? Is it possible to have a stomach flu just from being around one particular person?
Stop being ridiculous, Kat, I told myself. I took a few deep breaths and started down the stairs.
Halfway down, I was able to see him sitting there on the sofa, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He was so focused on the screen that he didn’t notice me. It gave me a second to look him over, which confirmed what my internal plumbing had already figured out: I had it for this guy. My best guy friend who I’d known forever. The guy who had gone away for the summer and had come back so cute that it almost hurt to look at him.
The guy who was currently beheading a zombie.
Yeah, I had it for him bad.
But as I looked at him, I thought about Olivia and how she had it for him too. Olivia the gazelle. Kat the warthog.
He would never go for me in a million years. Sure, I was his friend, and obviously that hadn’t changed over the summer, but he would never look at me that way. No one wants to date the warthog. Better to just get him and Olivia together, and I’d lose this stupid crush on him, which didn’t even make sense to begin with.
Taking another deep breath, I got to the bottom of the stairs and waited for a break in the action.
“Hey,” I said after he had completed his move. I didn’t want him to get killed by a zombie simply because I’d distracted him at the wrong time.
He paused the game and looked over, grinning. “Hey! About time.”
“I can’t stay,” I said, walking over to the chair beside him, suddenly too nervous to even think about sitting on the couch next to him.
His smile faltered a little. “Oh. How come?”
“My dad’s not home yet. We haven’t even eaten dinner.”
“Wow. That kind of stinks.”
I nodded.
He glanced back at the TV and started up the game again. “You could have just texted me.”
“I know. But I wanted to talk to you about something.”
He paused the game and looked at me. “Sounds serious.” He frowned. “Is something wrong?”
Yes. It’s wrong that I’m sort of freaking out and feel like I don’t know how to talk to you anymore. “No, no,” I said, hoping I sounded more normal to him than I did in my head. “I just wanted to ask you . . . uh . . . are you going to the dance?”
He blinked a few times, his head sort of rolling back as though that was about the last thing he’d expected me to say. I might as well have just asked him about his next trip to Mars. “I wasn’t planning on it. Why?”
“Uh, no,” I said, waving off the idea and laughing. “Of course you wouldn’t go. Um . . . so. What do you think of Olivia? She got really tall over the summer, huh?”
He did some more blinking and frowned. “Yeah. I guess.”
“It makes her a really good dancer. Being so tall, I mean. Like a gazelle,” I said. Because I couldn’t seem to stop babbling. This was exactly why I hadn’t come over since he’d returned from camp—ugh, could I be any lamer?
“Like a what?”
“A gazelle. You know, like an antelope? We learned about them in that unit on African savannahs? Oh, wait, you weren’t at school last year, so maybe you don’t know about savannahs. I have a book on them, if you want to borrow it. Really interesting stuff. Gazelles, I mean. And savannahs.”
He scrunched up his nose. “Kat, is something wrong?”
Yes. I like you and I can’t stop talking. “No, why?”
“Because you’re acting weird, your face is red, and your voice is kind of . . . screechy.”
“Is not!” I screeched.
Sigh. I tried again. “It’s not. And I’m fine. I’m just wondering what you think of Olivia, that’s all.”
He shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”
“Well, think!”
He turned his wide eyes back to me. “What?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I meant, she’s so beautiful, don’t you think?”
“I guess so,” he said, shrugging again. He turned back to the TV and started up the game. Not a good sign, but I pressed on.
“And she is sooooo popular this year already.”
“So?” he asked as he stabbed a zombie in the eye with his broadsword.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just thought you’d be into her.”
“She’s not really my type.”
My heart lurched at that. He had a type? More than that, he’d thought about his type enough to know she wasn’t it? “What’s your type?”
He glanced at me for half a second and then back at the TV. “I don’t know. Someone with a brain, I guess. Someone who doesn’t obsess over which ‘boy-band hottie’ she wants to kiss most.”
Uh-oh, time to do damage control. “When she did that speech in homeroom about her band boyfriend, she was doing it ironically,” I said, hoping I was using the word right. “She didn’t really mean it. She was being funny. She has a really good sense of humor.”
He looked at me, and I knew he wasn’t buying it.
“Anyway, she’s definitely the girl you want to be with at the dance, if you know what I mean. . . .”
He paused the game again and looked at me. “What’s going on here, Kat?”
I swallowed as a million thoughts whirled around in my brain and I scrambled to sort out something to say. “Nothing, just, uh . . .”
Thanks a lot, brain.
“And I thought we were going to do a scavenger hunt this past weekend,” he said, scrunching up his face into a frown. “I miss those.”
I cringed and looked down at my hands. We used to do these goofy scavenger hunts where I’d climb up the tree that went right to his window and we’d exchange lists of t
en items to gather—things like werewolf hair (which Hector “donated”), a hawk master’s gauntlet (one of Mrs. Lot’s rubber kitchen gloves), dragon’s blood (hummingbird-feeder nectar), and even fairy dust (Laura was not happy when I made it out of one of her sparkly eye shadows). Whoever collected all the items first won. The prize was usually something dumb—like getting knighted or having the loser be the winner’s servant for the day—but it never mattered. It was more about the game.
On Saturday, Tyler had texted me that he had a list ready for our first hunt of the school year, but I’d bailed, too nervous to spend that much time with him. Even though, at the same time, I really missed doing the hunts too. We always had so much fun and laughed like crazy at what we’d come up with for the items.
I just wanted things to get back to how they were. But how could that happen when I felt like barfing every time I was around him?
“I had to do a bunch of chores,” I said, still not looking at him.
“Really?” he asked, and I could tell he didn’t believe me.
I hated lying to him, but what could I say? You’re too cute now and I don’t know how to be your friend anymore without it being weird?
I nodded and changed the subject. “Anyway, I just thought you’d want to talk about Olivia. You don’t know her all that well, but since you’re at school with us now, you’re going to be spending a lot more time with her.”
“Not if I can help it,” he muttered as he started up the game again.
Ugh. Not a good sign.
Before I could say anything to that, my phone buzzed in my pocket. “I’ve got to go,” I said.
“See you tomorrow,” he said as he stabbed another zombie in the heart.
Which was exactly what I was going to do to Olivia.
Chapter 4
I HAD HOPED TO EASE Olivia into the whole Tyler-isn’t-into-you conversation, which means I was kind of chicken and hoped she’d forgotten about it. But the second she saw me in the hall the next morning, she used her superlong legs to glide up to me immediately.
“So? How did it go?” she asked. Her eyes were wide and hopeful, which just made me feel worse.
I stepped around her so I could get to my locker. “How did what go?” I asked as if I had no clue what she was talking about.
She didn’t buy it and rolled her eyes. “With Tyler. About him asking me to the dance.”
I didn’t remember promising that he would actually ask her to the dance, but I knew bringing that up wasn’t going to do any good. So I busied myself with opening my locker, trying to figure out how to tell her it wasn’t going to work between her and Tyler.
“Kat?” she barked loudly, startling me enough that I almost banged my head into the locker.
I swiveled toward her. “What?”
She looked at me like I’d lost my marbles. “Hello? Tyler? Dance?”
Fighting the urge to sigh, I turned back to the locker so I wouldn’t have to look into her eyes. I really didn’t want to hurt her feelings but . . . “I just . . . I don’t think he’s the right guy for you.”
“Why not?”
Not wanting to give away what he’d said, because I knew it would hurt her, I figured I’d focus on their differences. “Like I said, he’s really into games and comics and stuff. He’s kind of a nerd like that. He doesn’t know all the words to every 5Style song or have their posters plastered all over his bedroom walls.”
She was silent for so long that I had to turn and look at her, scared I’d totally offended her. She was staring at me with a look on her face I couldn’t figure out. I brought my thumb to my mouth and nibbled on my fingernail, waiting.
She blinked five times (yes, I counted) before she said, “He’s a really cute nerd. And I don’t care what music he listens to.”
Ugh. So that hadn’t worked. “He reads a lot and plays Xbox all the time he’s not reading. I don’t even know if he has time for, like, a girlfriend.”
“I won’t hold the reading and the gaming things against him,” she assured me. Then she cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “Wait. Do you not want me to go to the dance with him?”
My mouth went dry as I thought about my answer. I shoved my hands in my pockets and had to clear my throat before I could speak. “It’s not that, Livvy. I just . . . you two don’t have anything in common.”
“My parents have nothing in common, and they’ve been married almost twenty years.”
Yes, but Tyler thinks you’re only about makeup and boy bands.
I had nothing I could actually say to her, so I turned back to my locker, unloaded my lunch, and took out my books for first period.
She sighed. “What do I have to do to make him notice me? I did my best flirting yesterday at lunch, but he seemed more interested in your hard-boiled egg.”
That should have been your first clue, I thought. “Are you sure you want him, Livvy?”
Honestly, with the way she looked and her being on the dance team, she could have any guy. Maybe even eighth-graders. “What about TJ Stevens or—”
“I don’t care about TJ Stevens. I like Tyler,” she said, cutting me off midsentence. I could tell by that determined look in her eye and the way her arms were crossed and her back was super straight that she wasn’t going to let up. “He’s cute and everyone likes him.”
As I stood there and thought about how she was my cousin and friend and how much I really did love her, I realized maybe I sort of owed it to her to make it happen for her and Tyler. I mean, Tyler would never in a million years go for me, so why wouldn’t I want him with my best cousin? Once he got to really know her, of course he’d change his mind about her. Right?
I closed my locker door and turned back toward her. “Fine. I am going to shelve books in the library at lunch today, but why don’t you come over after school and we’ll figure it out.”
Before the words were even out of my mouth, Olivia was bouncing on her toes and clapping her hands. “Thank you so much, Kat!” she squealed.
“Okay, so this right here?” I said, gesturing toward her bouncing body. “It’s going to have to go. You can’t be all squealy and fangirly around him.”
She stopped the bouncing, and her smile dissolved. “Oh. Right.” But then she grinned at me and resumed the bouncing, although not quite as high. “But I can do it around you, can’t I? Because I’m so excited I can’t help it!”
I smiled at her. I kind of loved how enthusiastic she was sometimes, though I’d never admit that to her. “Yeah, sure, Livvy. You can bounce around me all you like.”
But I couldn’t help thinking that, boy, did I have a job ahead of me.
Chapter 5
TYLER HAD SAID HE WANTED a girl with a brain. Someone who didn’t obsess over boy bands. Those were two big things I was going to have to help Olivia with. I mean, she does have a brain; it’s just normally occupied with things like . . . boy bands.
Sigh.
Realizing we would need more time, in gym I had asked if she wanted to stay for dinner. Dad was at some sort of seminar and wouldn’t be home until late, so I knew we’d be eating at a reasonable hour because we wouldn’t have to wait for him. Of course she’d said yes, and Mom had said it was okay when I texted her to ask, so that would give us a few hours to work on what I was calling Project Ty-Livia.
“So here’s the thing,” I said to her as I closed my bedroom door. Olivia plopped down on my bed, keeping a safe distance between herself and the sleeping Hector. “You’re going to have to show him your inner nerd.”
“What inner nerd?” she said, looking at me suspiciously.
I came over and sat on the bed, absently petting Hector. “The inner nerd who is interested in the kinds of things he likes. And like I said before, you can’t do the over-the-top stuff. No squealing, no clapping, no hair tossing.”
She frowned at me. “But what if I’m excited about something?”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t like drama. Just be . . . you know, chill
.”
She seemed to think about that for a minute and then nodded. “Right, chill,” she said in a calm, low voice.
“Yeah, like that,” I said, glad she was catching on. “You can start by talking to him about books. He’s a big reader.”
She scrunched up her nose.
“What?”
“You know I don’t read. Not unless I have to for school.”
I got up off the bed and stepped over to my bookshelf, grabbing my worn copy of Knights at Sunrise, the first of the Blackwood Knights series. I turned and held out the book toward her.
“What’s that?” she asked, looking at it as though it were a snake or something. She made no movement to take it from me.
“Tyler’s favorite book.”
“It’s huge.”
I shrugged.
“There’s a dragon on the cover.”
“It’s about dragons,” I told her. “And knights, of course.”
She looked from the book up to my eyes. “You expect me to read that? It has to be a thousand pages.”
Actually, more like five hundred, but it wasn’t something I needed to point out. “Do you want Tyler to connect with you? He loves nothing more than talking about this book and the ones that come after.”
“There are more?” she whined.
“Yes, seven more. But start with this one.”
She huffed but took the book finally. “Can’t you just tell me what it’s about?”
“It’s actually a really good book, Livvy. It’s about these eight knights that meet as children and grow up to become . . .” I stopped talking when she stuck out her tongue and rolled her eyes so hard all I could see was the whites. I laughed. “Okay so you don’t have to love the book, but at least give it a try. If you can talk to him about it, I guarantee he will be impressed.”
She huffed again but nodded. “Fine. What else?”
“Are you willing to play video games?”
Her eyes lit up. “Like the ones where you dance?”
I couldn’t imagine Tyler dancing at all, let alone in a video game. “Uh, no. I’m thinking more like Zombie Slashers.”