Read It and Weep!

by P. J. Night

  Charrrrrrrrloooooooote!

  She burst out of the woods and onto the baseball field, panting and whimpering.

  And almost ran smack into Lauren.

  “Charlotte? What’s up? What’s the matter? You look awful!”

  “Lauren!” said Charlotte, relief flooding through her. “I just—I thought—” She stopped herself. She couldn’t tell Lauren what had just happened. The last thing she needed was for her new friend to think she was hearing voices. “Nothing,” she said. “I just forgot—”

  “A Midsummer Night’s Dream?” Lauren interrupted, holding the book up. “I know. You left it on your desk in social studies. I just finished play rehearsal and was on my way to bring it to you. And to pick up that card you wanted me to show to my aunt.”

  Charlotte smiled. Her heartbeat was slowing to a normal pace now. She must have imagined the voice in the woods. “Thank you so much. That’s awesome.” She took the book, dug the card out of her bag, and handed it to Lauren.

  Lauren shoved the card into her bag and tilted her head to the side, scrutinizing Charlotte closely. “You sure you’re okay? You look really pale and freaked out.”

  “I’m fine,” said Charlotte. “Thanks again for the book.”

  The twins were sitting at the kitchen table, doing homework, when Charlotte walked in.

  “Charlotte! Can you help us with integers?” asked Thomas, before Charlotte had even closed the door.

  “Hello, yourself,” said Charlotte, swinging her heavy backpack off her shoulders and plunking it into an empty chair.

  Their mom came bustling into the kitchen, her head down as she finished tying the waistband of her nursing scrubs. She looked up and almost collided with Charlotte.

  “Oh! Hi, honey!” She turned toward the twins. “Jonathan, Thomas, run up and get changed. The Kenersons will be here in a half hour to bring you to the game. I’ve got sandwiches and waters on the counter.”

  “Mom, can I have a smartphone?” asked John, sliding back from the table and heading for the door.

  Their mother let out a guffaw. “Yeah, sure. As if.”

  Thomas rolled his eyes at his brother. “Dude, nice try!”

  Their mom picked up her pocketbook. “I have to get back to the hospital. Good luck in your game, you two. I’ll be home late, so Char’s in charge.”

  She gave Charlotte a quick kiss on the cheek and grabbed her keys.

  “Hey,” said Charlotte. “Any word from Daddy?”

  Her mother paused with her hand on the knob. She turned to Charlotte and shook her head quickly.

  “It’s been three days,” said Charlotte, as though her mother didn’t know that. She could tell the boys were listening too, by the way they’d stopped at the door.

  “I know. But he did tell us it might be hard to communicate for a few days, remember?”

  Charlotte nodded, regarding her mother carefully. She was getting good at assessing her mother’s face to see just how worried, or not worried, she was. She didn’t seem unusually worried, Charlotte noted with relief. And it wasn’t like her dad was in combat. He just fixed stuff, like things inside of airplanes. Of course he was fine.

  “He’ll be home soon,” said her mother with a determinedly cheerful smile. “Bye, guys.”

  Three minutes later, Charlotte heard a howl from upstairs, followed by a second howl.

  “They’re pink!” yelled Jon.

  “Bright pink!” added Thomas.

  Charlotte groaned. The soccer uniforms. She’d forgotten about turning them pink. Her mom must have forgotten too.

  The twins came stomping into the kitchen. Charlotte had to acknowledge that there was a definite pink tint to their white uniforms, and their socks were even pinker.

  “You guys look fine,” said Charlotte brightly. “No one will notice. Mom can bleach them this weekend. It’s only one game.”

  Charlotte and the boys worked on their homework for a few minutes before Charlotte heard a toot from a car horn in the driveway.

  “They’re here,” she said, and, shoving the twins’ bags into their hands, she propelled them out the door.

  As soon as her brothers had left, Charlotte called Lauren. “Hey,” Charlotte said. “Thanks again for bringing me the book.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Lauren, not sounding like her usual enthusiastic self. “Now you can return the favor. What are the pages of social studies that we’re supposed to read tonight?”

  “I can check,” said Charlotte. Cradling the phone under her chin, she pulled out her planner. “Pages 167 to 172,” she said. “How come you don’t have your planner?”

  “Forgot it,” said Lauren. “Must have left it in my locker. I never leave stuff in my locker.”

  “Yeah. You never leave stuff in your locker. I’m the one who usually leaves stuff lying around and calls you,” agreed Charlotte.

  “Yes, it’s been quite the exciting afternoon since I last saw you,” said Lauren. “My dad got a speeding ticket. And the whole reason he was speeding, even though he was barely speeding, was that he was late for a meeting for some grant thing he applied for. So he missed the meeting. And now he’s worried he’s not going to get the grant. And as I was walking home from school today, a guy walking his dog suddenly decided to stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk to send a text, and I smacked right into him and we both went flying.”

  “Oh no!” said Charlotte. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” said Lauren shortly. “Just feel stupid is all. And while I was lying on the ground, the stupid dog slobbered all over me. I’ve washed my face three times. Honestly, there should be a law against texting on the sidewalk.”

  Charlotte told Lauren about her brothers’ pink uniforms.

  “That’s bad,” agreed Lauren. “They’re pretty much never going to live that one down. Which means they’ll probably never forgive you.”

  “Thanks for being so uplifting,” said Charlotte drily. “So did you have a chance to ask your aunt about that card?”

  “No, I couldn’t today. I called her just as she was going off somewhere for the evening. She said she won’t be back until late. I’ll head over there tomorrow after rehearsal.”

  “Okay—watch out for texting dog walkers!” joked Charlotte. She clicked off her phone.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning Lauren woke up having trouble breathing. She felt intense pressure on her chest. What was happening? Her mind was still groggy with sleep. Her eyes opened.

  Teddy, her dog, was sitting on her stomach, panting cheerfully.

  She groaned and rolled over, causing him to scrabble to regain his footing on top of her hip. She peered at the clock. It was only five fifteen!

  “Teddy! It’s too early!” She tried to shove him off the bed, but he jumped right back up again. This was his way of saying he needed to go outside.

  Why hadn’t he bothered her dad? He usually walked Teddy in the morning. That was the arrangement they had. Her dad kept odd hours, but he almost always woke up early. Lauren walked Teddy in the late afternoon, when she got home from play rehearsal. Lauren also made dinner most nights. She was probably the only middle schooler on the planet who’d actually gotten sick of pizza. Because her dad couldn’t cook anything except scrambled eggs, she’d learned to make quite a few things. She was getting pretty good. She wasn’t ready to be a TV chef yet, but she wasn’t bad.

  She rolled out of bed, scooped Teddy up in her arms, and padded toward her dad’s room. His bed was empty and looked like he hadn’t slept in it at all.

  She found him downstairs at his desk. The desk lamp was still on, and he was asleep, his unshaven cheek resting on his arm, which was draped across his notebook.

  “Dad?” she said, shaking him gently by the arm.

  He woke up almost at once, massaging his face with his open palms
as though trying to get the circulation going again.

  “Lauren! What time is it?” he asked.

  “Too early for me to get up,” she said, dumping Teddy on the desk in front of him. “He wants to go outside.”

  Her dad stood up. He was still fully dressed from the night before. “Okay, honey, I’ll take him,” he mumbled. He pulled his sport coat off the back of his chair, shrugged his arms into it, and headed out with Teddy.

  As Lauren trudged back upstairs for a couple more hours of sleep, she wished, for perhaps the thousandth time, that her father didn’t work so much. Maybe then he’d have time to meet someone who would make sure he didn’t sleep in his clothes at his desk all night. It was just a little too much responsibility for her.

  Lauren ended up oversleeping. She woke up to the sound of her iPod playing and wondered how long she’d been listening to it in her dreams. With one eye she saw that it was nearly seven thirty. Ten minutes to get to the bus.

  She leaped out of bed, threw on some clothes, and hastily packed up her stuff. As she passed into the kitchen to grab a bagel, she saw that her father had fallen back asleep, this time on the living room couch. Teddy was curled up next to him. He stirred, just as she had her hand on the front door.

  “Have a good day, honey,” he said, his words still slurred with sleepiness.

  “Thanks,” she said. “How come you fell asleep at your desk?”

  He sat up, dumping Teddy to the floor. “I got turned down for my grant proposal, so I’m working on revising it and trying for another one,” he admitted. “The deadline’s looming, and I haven’t been able to replicate my results. I still have a lot of data to analyze.”

  Lauren nodded. “Sorry about that, Daddy,” she said. “I’ll be home tonight to take Teddy out and make supper.”

  As she trudged to the bus stop, she pondered her father’s situation. The week before, he’d been so excited, telling her he was on the verge of a breakthrough. And now he looked so disappointed. What bad luck.

  She looked both ways before turning onto the sidewalk from her front walkway. She never knew if some skateboarder would be bearing down on her from any direction in this neighborhood. Or if a dog walker might happen along who was texting and not looking where he was going.

  It started raining when she was halfway to the bus stop. Too late to turn around and go home for an umbrella. Great.

  This was not just a drizzle. Fat, heavy drops immediately darkened the pavement. It was promising to be a downpour. She swiveled her backpack around to the front and put her arms through the straps backward, trying to keep it more or less dry under her cardigan sweater. She wondered if it would occur to her dad to notice that it was raining and give her a ride to school so she wouldn’t have to wait for the bus. Doubtful. He tended not to notice stuff like rain when he was in the middle of a big project.

  Luckily the bus arrived pretty quickly, and she sank gratefully into a seat in the middle. She usually sat by herself for two stops before Gwen got on and joined her. Gwen Drayton was in her English and Spanish classes. Last year when Lauren had been the new kid, Gwen had gone out of her way to be friendly, even inviting Lauren to join her at the smart kids’ table in the cafeteria. And even though Gwen was the kind of annoying smart kid who always moaned about how she was sure she’d failed every test they took and then later sheepishly admitted to acing it, Lauren had to admit that Gwen was pretty great. She had also been super-welcoming to Charlotte when Lauren had introduced her to the smart-kid group this year.

  Still, for two stops before Gwen got on, Lauren had to endure the nonstop chatter behind her, coming from stuck-up Stacy and her stuck-up friends, Ava and Maddy, and their incessant giggling and gossiping and squealing.

  Lauren remembered, happily, that she’d packed her iPod. That was just the thing to drown out the girls behind her. She was rummaging through her backpack looking for it, when she felt something light, but disconcertingly ticklish, drop from above onto her neck and then skitter down the inside of her shirt.

  She shot up from her seat, plucking her shirt out and away from her body with two fingers and shaking it frantically in order to dislodge what had fallen inside it. This was one of those rare times when she was glad she didn’t yet need to wear a bra, because the insect, or whatever it was, came right out of the bottom of her shirt and plopped onto the seat next to her.

  It turned out to be a large, hairy, disgusting spider. She shrieked twice—two terrified, high-pitched squeaks.

  And then realized the thing was made of rubber.

  The bus driver remained oblivious to what was going on, because Lauren’s squeaks had coincided almost perfectly with the screech of the bus’s brakes as it slowed down for the next stop. Lauren sat back down quickly.

  Peals of giggles erupted behind her. Lauren felt rage boil up inside, but she managed to contain it, barely. She picked up the spider between two fingers. Even though she knew it was made of rubber, the thing was pretty realistic and still loathsome to the touch.

  “Really funny,” she said to the three girls, who were all holding their stomachs and pointing and laughing.

  “Got ya!” taunted Stacy.

  “Did you see her jump?” Maddy asked Ava.

  “I totally saw her jump,” answered Ava.

  “I wasn’t scared,” said Lauren stiffly. “Just startled.”

  “As if,” scoffed Stacy, tossing her hair. “You’ve been scared of spiders ever since Playland Camp days.”

  “Why? What happened at Playland Camp?” asked Ava eagerly.

  “Remember, Laur-Laur?” coaxed Stacy.

  Lauren gave her a huge fake smile, then she swiveled back around in her seat. She could hear the three girls whispering to one another, no doubt having a big guffaw over what had happened so many years ago. What were the chances that she and Stacy would have known each other for one brief summer, so many years ago? Lauren and her dad had been living in California at the time, but that one summer Lauren had come to Nebraska to stay with her aunt Marina and uncle Jack while her father was off on a research trip to Costa Rica. That was the summer she had her brush with the spider’s nest, and Stacy had been there to witness the whole thing. Aunt Marina had been really sweet about it. She’d held her and soothed her just like her mother might have, and that had been the beginning of the special bond between the two of them, which they’d had ever since. But still. The experience had traumatized her. That was six years ago. Why did Stacy have to be a part of that awful incident? Of all people.

  Suddenly someone slid into the seat next to her. It was Stacy.

  “Guess what, Laur-Laur?” said Stacy in that same fake-sweet, mocking voice. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I got the whole thing on my phone.” She held up her phone, which displayed a paused video. The still shot showed Lauren bending over her backpack. Stacy must have slid into the empty seat across from Lauren without Lauren’s being aware of it and filmed the whole spider thing.

  “So what?” said Lauren with a shrug, acting as hard as she possibly could to pretend she didn’t care when, in fact, she really cared a lot. What would Stacy do with such a video? The possibilities for evil were vast.

  “Yeah, there is no need to worry about this video. I promise, pinky-swear, not to send it to everyone in the middle school.”

  “Good,” said Lauren, and she meant it.

  “Although it is tempting, considering the pink undies with the blue butterflies you have on today.”

  Lauren’s blood ran cold. How did Stacy know?

  “You could totally see the tops of them when you were hollering and tugging at your shirt just a minute ago,” said Stacy, still in that sweet tone.

  Of course today had to be the day she’d worn her oldest and ugliest pair of underwear. She hadn’t done laundry in forever because of how busy she’d been with play rehearsals. These had been the last pair in
her drawer.

  She knew as well as anyone in middle school that if her classmates saw this video she would never, ever hear the end of it.

  “Yep, I won’t show the video around at all,” Stacy continued. “Provided of course that you help me with this week’s lab report.”

  Lauren blinked at her. “The lab report,” she echoed.

  “Mmm-hmm. Actually, you can help me with all the science labs from now on,” said Stacy.

  So it was blackmail.

  The bus hissed to a stop and Gwen clomped up the steps, decked out head to toe in matching raincoat, rain hat, rain boots, and umbrella.

  “Here comes your friend, Paddington Bear,” said Stacy. “I’ll leave you two alone. Think about what I said, Laur-Laur.” She slid out of the seat and resumed her place at the back of the bus, where Lauren heard a round of fresh giggling. With one eyebrow raised in curiosity, Gwen slid into the seat next to Lauren.

  “What was that about?” she asked Lauren curiously.

  Lauren shrugged. “Nothing. Just Stacy being her usual charming self.”

  Chapter 6

  The rest of school that day was pretty uneventful. Lauren had several periods with Charlotte—homeroom, math, and social studies—but Charlotte had to work the student council bake sale during lunch, so they didn’t have a chance to talk much until social studies, just before the second bell rang.

  “I’m going to Aunt Marina’s after rehearsal today,” Lauren said to Charlotte. “I told her I have something ‘weird and mystical’ to show her.” She made air quotes with her fingers to show she didn’t really buy into all that stuff surrounding the card.

  Charlotte had a weird look on her face. Kind of uneasy. She gave a forced laugh. “I don’t believe the card is anything special,” she said. “But it might just be cool to find out more about it.”

  By the time rehearsal was over, the rain had mostly stopped. Aunt Marina texted Lauren to see whether she wanted a ride, but as she lived close to school, Lauren told her she would walk.