Yeah, right.
“He’d better not,” Audrey said, frowning like her life was destroyed, not mine. Technically, though, if word got out, Karen would make good on her threat.
I could see it now. Michael would tell the entire junior varsity football team. By the time school started in August, the rumor would morph into me wanting to have Xavier’s baby. I had to do something. Maybe I could start an alternate rumor to counteract this one. I’d tell everyone I went out with a hot boy on vacation. It would be in Audrey’s best interest to support the fib, so she wouldn’t call me out on it.
“I know,” Suzanne said. “Ride your scooter over there and roll his house.”
“But . . . ” Claire began. She knew what I did, that if I tp’d Supergeek’s house, everyone would take it as a sign that I liked him back—especially since Tina had told blabbermouth Michael that Xavier had the hots for me.
However, compared to what Audrey’d asked Tina, this was easy. “No problem, hand me a roll.”
“But Dad said we couldn’t leave,” Claire reminded.
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Audrey said, surprising me. Shouldn’t she come up with something not involving Xavier?
Unless, she’d weighed everything and figured if she dared me to leave, and I did, then I’d get caught before I got to Xavier’s house, and Dad would ground me for the rest of the summer so I couldn’t embarrass her. No way was I going to let her get away with that. “Yeah, we promised Dad, so I guess you’ll have to figure out another dare.”
Audrey tapped her finger against her chin, next to the spot where a pimple was forming, probably from meanness. An evil glint lit in her beady brown eyes, or maybe it was just the way the candlelight was hitting her face. “Something else, something else. . . Maybe I should give you several choices, all of which don’t break Dad’s rules, and you can pick the one most appealing to you.”
My heart thrummed with apprehension, but I feigned nonchalance. “Whatever.”
“Choice one: call Xavier and tell him you think he’s hot,” Suzanne said with a laugh. “Ooh, even better, tell him that you just woke up from a sexy dream about him. Then at the end of the conversation, you say, ‘Psych.’”
Pass. As annoying as his crush on me was, I wasn’t going to hurt him again.
Tina jumped in. “Choice two: Take a random selection of your Grandmother’s medicine and see how messed up you can get.”
Nada. Stupid and possibly deadly.
Audrey gave Tina the constipated look for that. There was some small comfort in knowing she at least didn’t want me o.d.ing. “Choice three: French Kiss Tina.”
Eew. Not gonna go there. “Is there a fourth?”
“Sure. You can go down to the basement and get a bottle of wine for all of us to share.”
Dad hadn’t said no alcohol, so technically I wasn’t breaking a rule. I’d seen Mom and Dad split an entire bottle between them, and they never seemed to get drunk. We’d be sharing it five ways. Dad wouldn’t miss one little bottle of wine.
No problem. I could do this. I could deal . . . especially if it helped Audrey work out her anger so we could move on to some sort of truce-like state. Plus, Suzanne might think I was cool if I succeeded.
Amy flitted back and forth in front of me, pinafore rustling. “Not uh. You can’t.”
“Dad’s still awake,” Claire warned. “He’ll hear you.”
“I know how to handle Dad,” I said with bravado that surprised even me as I tiptoed out of Grandma’s suite. I heard the water running upstairs and figured he was getting ready for bed. If he heard the door to the basement open, he’d come down to investigate, so I’d have to be really quiet. Midway through the darkened family room, I narrowly avoided the snoring, dark lump otherwise known as Roquefort. I couldn’t let her down into the basement with me. She’d make too much noise.
I gave Amy the universal finger to puckered lips sign, which hopefully translated to “Shh” for ghosts, too.
She must not have understood. “You ain’t supposed to drink spirits.”
“We aren’t,” I whispered as I reached the basement door. “We’re having wine, which Jesus approved of or he wouldn’t have turned water into it.”
I twisted the dead bolt, which made a quiet click. Upstairs, the water stopped. Holding my breath, I waited for Dad to stomp into his bedroom. Carefully, I turned the knob, then pulled the door that sometimes swelled in the summer. It opened with the tiniest squeak.
Shutting the door softly behind me, I stole down the wooden stairs, which creaked. Roquefort, who was now awake, started snorting, sniffing, and whining on the other side of the door at the top of the stairs. Hurry, Heather.
I flipped on the light switch at the base of the stairs and glanced at the wall-o-wine in Dad’s tasting room. Grabbing a bottle from the bottom left side where there were already a few empty spaces, I sneezed from the dust. I nabbed one of the corkscrews Dad left laying on the table and booked it back up to the top of the stairs.
“You’d best not open that wine,” Amy said like she’d somehow become the boss of me.
“It’ll be okay,” I reassured her. “Dad’ll think he drank it.”
“And what’ll you do with the bottle?”
“Hide it under Grandma’s bed, then when the coast is clear, like when everyone’s asleep, I’ll put it under all the rest of the recycling. Mom and Dad will never know.”
“What you’re doing is plain wrong,” Amy said, hovering close enough to make me wish for thick flannel pajamas and a fluffy bathrobe. She blocked my reach for the doorknob. “Your father won’t like it when he finds out. And he will.” She shook her finger at me. “You can’t trick him any sooner than you can catch a weasel asleep.”
Roquefort whimpered on the other side of the door. “It’s just me, girl. Shh.”
Amy’s whole Jiminy Cricket thing was really annoying me. “You’re wasting my time. Move.”
She walked through the door and was waiting on the other side when I opened it. I patted Roquefort. “Good girl.” Now for a distraction. “Where’s your pork chop? Where’s your pork chop?”
The dog ran toward her bed in the laundry room where she often hid her squeaky toys.
I thought I was home free.
“What are you doing?” Audrey, or should I say Benedict Arnold, called down from the top of the back staircase. “I hear you sneaking around, Heather. Da-ad!”
“See? I told you,” Amy said in her best country twang.
I could ignore Amy, but I had no clue how to handle Audrey’s trap. I had no money to bribe her with. I’d spent my allowance on the movies and the shirt I had to buy her. “Hey, dish duty for a week hangs in the balance, Audrey. Your call.”
Audrey sneered. “Da-ad!”
“Come on, you dared me to do it.”
Roquefort pranced up to me, squeaky pork chop in mouth. Then she looked up at the back staircase, where Audrey was contemplating whether to follow through with her dastardly plan or let me go.
I wasn’t risking getting caught red-handed. I had to stash the evidence. I ran for Grandma’s room, and the dog chased me and barked like we were playing some game.
As soon as I was in Grandma’s suite, I kicked the door closed behind me. “Lock it!” I said to Claire, then lifted the bottle and corkscrew.
Everyone but Amy clapped, even Suzanne. Yes, triumph is sweet, even if it’s short-lived.
Roquefort jumped up on the bed to sniff everyone’s stuff, then she ran over to lick Tina’s hand. All of a sudden, she stopped and cocked her head to the side, her loving beagle eyes gazing worriedly at the locked door.
“Heather!” Audrey pounded. “What were you doing in the basement?”
“She should know what you were doing, right?” Tina said, scratching her head in confusion.
“What? I can’t hear you!” I yelled back, searching the room for a hiding spot, then I lowered my voice to answer Tina. “Audrey’s pretending she didn’t send m
e to the basement on a dare. I guess it was all part of some plan of hers to get me in big trouble. And in this light, I don’t know if I’d trust what she said about being popular, either.”
“Good point,” Suzanne said. “No offense, Heather, but Audrey makes me glad I’m an only child.”
Roquefort clawed and whined at the door.
“Should I let her out?” Claire asked.
“No!” Tina, Suzanne, and I all yelled in unison.
Amy materialized in front of me. “You’re gonna get a whoopin’.”
“Not yet.” I had to find a hiding spot. Then it would just be my word against Audrey’s. With no evidence, I wouldn’t be in trouble.
Under the bed? No. Too obvious. The linen closet in the bathroom! I sped toward the bathroom, but slammed into a pocket of cold that stopped me in my tracks. That’s when Amy jumped into my body with such force I got a brain freeze worse than any ice cream could create. She made me turn around and plod back toward the fireplace. The next thing I knew I was lobbing the bottle, narrowly missing the series of framed photographs in different colors and sizes displayed along the mantel. The bottle smashed into shards like champagne against the prow of a ship. Wine permeated the air.
“What was that?” Audrey shouted from the other side of the closed door.
You’re gonna open that door, Amy said from inside me.
Not in this lifetime, I thought back.
Amy whirled me like a dervish toward the door I wasn’t opening. The pizza, coke, and handful of M&M’s I’d snacked on rose in my throat. I thought I would vomit.
Pizza crusts flew, half-drunk cans of soda spilled in my wake, nail polish remover poured off the coffee table and onto the carpet as I fought to stay away from the door and any chance she might have to force me to open it.
“Stop it!” I yelled, over Claire, Tina, and Suzanne’s screams. “Get out!”
You’ve gotta listen, Heather.
Kind of hard when I’m about to spew everything I’ve consumed over the past few hours.
You’ve gotta stop and open the door.
Oh, how I wanted the tug-of-war to stop, but I wasn’t letting Audrey in. I’d be as dead as Amy when Mom saw this.
I reached for the loveseat and clung to the pillow-backed cushion. Amy fought to get me up. I squeezed my eyes shut and tightened my grip. That’s when I heard a loud rip, and Amy released her hold on my body.
Knowing I’d regret it, but unable to stop myself, I opened my eyes to feathers released from the torn loveseat being lifted up and scattered by the ceiling fan to land on the furniture surfaces like a dusting of snow.
Heavier pounding started on the door. “Heather. Open up, now!”
Dad! Crappola!
Suzanne unlocked the door, letting Roquefort out and my Dad and a very pleased looking Audrey in. Suzanne pulled out the cell phone she’d tarted up with bling. “You’re not just weird, like everyone says, Heather, you’re crazy. I’m calling my mom.”
“See Dad,” Audrey said, pointing to the wine-stained brick. “She can’t be trusted.”
“Please tell me it wasn’t my 2001,” he groaned, then walked through the feathers, which floated up briefly as he passed, to reach the shards, which he lovingly cupped in his hand. “Tina, I think you’d better call your parents, too. Tell them I’ll be driving you and Suzanne home. You won’t be seeing Heather for a while.”
“Do they have to go?” I asked.
“Did Tina try to stop you?” Dad countered. “Did Suzanne? How about you, Claire? Did you try to stop your sister?”
Claire hung her head, and I felt even worse. “It’s not Claire’s fault. She didn’t make me get the wine.” Or toss it, or dare me. I glared at ratfink Audrey.
Tina gathered her sleeping bag and overnighter. “We were playing Truth or Dare, Mr. Tildy, and it got a little out of hand. Audrey’s the one who dared Heather to get the bottle of wine.”
Audrey had the decency to blush. “So? That didn’t mean she had to do it.”
“Come on, Tina,” Suzanne called out from the relative safety of the family room. “My mom said you can stay over at my house.”
Eyes downcast, Tina shrugged. “Okay.”
I wanted to hear her say she’d rather go to her house than stay at Suzanne’s. I wanted her to make Suzanne pinky swear to keep my apparent mental breakdown on the down low. Was Tina even my friend anymore?
“Thanks,” I said, imbuing the one word with as much sarcasm as it could hold.
Pout firmly in place, Amy hovered near the ceiling fan. She was supposed to have the time of her un-life tonight and move on, like she’d promised. But apparently, as with everything else about this evening, I was wrong.
Could my life possibly get any worse?
The answer? A resounding yes.
Arms loaded down with pillows and a large overnight and duffel bag, Tina stopped just inside the threshold and turned back to face me. Her brow furrowed. “You didn’t take your Grandmother’s medicine, like I suggested for a dare, did you?”
“Oh, my, God!” Audrey shouted. “Dad! Dad, they dared her to take Grandma’s prescription medicine, just like that article in Seventeen magazine. And she stupidly took it. That’s why she went berserk.”
Just shoot me now.
Chapter Eleven
“You’ll stay in here the rest of the night cleaning this room if that’s what it takes,” Dad said, pinching the bridge of his nose like he had a massive headache, which technically would have been Audrey’s fault, not mine. If the snitch hadn’t gotten him out of bed, the room would have been cleaned up without anyone ever knowing. Except for the white spot on the carpet . . . and maybe the wine splotch on the brick fireplace.
“No allowance until you’ve paid back the money it takes to fix the carpet,” Mom added, her hair surprisingly in place for the middle of the night. The dark puffy circles under her eyes made me feel more than a wee bit guilty. Not that I’d let them see it.
Standing before them, I crossed my arms over my chest, which was all the defiance I could muster and still live. “Can’t we just put a plant on the spot to cover it, or maybe buy a bigger end table that looks like a trunk? I’m just saying that’d be less expensive, and you’d get your money back faster.”
“Unbelievable.” Dad turned to Mom. “She’s not taking any of this seriously, is she?”
Yes, I was. Geez. My whole reputation heading into high school was hanging by a precarious thread, and he was talking carpet stains. He was the unbelievable one. Plus, my haint friend was no closer to departing my world. But I was going to come up with a new plan.
As I knew he would, Dad continued his lecture. “When I was your age …”
Mom stood next to him nodding like the politicians’ wives on TV, and occasionally adding in a word or two or twenty. Stuff about taking responsibility for my actions, about how I wasn’t a kid anymore, blah, blah, blah, yawn. The only thing that could make this moment any worse would be to have Audrey in here enjoying my misery. Thank God, Mom told her to take Roquefort out for a potty break. I guess I could also take comfort in the fact that they believed me when I literally swore on Grandma’s bible that I hadn’t taken any medicine. Not that Suzanne and Tina heard it.
With great reluctance, when Dad got back from dropping Tina and Suzanne at Suzanne’s house, he’d thought he’d reassure me that my friends didn’t hate me by telling me Suzanne and Tina didn’t say a word in the car. Yeah, he’s clueless. Their not speaking meant only one thing—the text messages were already flying. The news of my break with sanity would be all over Pecan Hills by noon tomorrow. Suzanne would add juicy details via phone as soon as the sun rose, and I’d never break free of the weirdo label.
Dad regained my attention when he started on a string of questions starting with “What were you thinking?” to which Amy sang “Amen” every time he paused for breath.
“See, I told you,” Amy added for good measure during a particularly long pause, stabbing the end of
her braid at me. “I knew you’d get yourself in trouble, and you sure enough did.”
Thanks to her. Why in the world was she ragging on me? And would someone here recognize that I had been dared to get the wine by my own, sixteen-year-old, pain-in-the-butt sister, who should be the one on trial, not me!
“Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Heather?” Dad asked.
Oops. I had no idea. “Yes, sir,” I said, mostly because my ‘yes-sirs’ shorten lectures. Not this time. My legs were starting to cramp from standing for so long.
New verse—how I was setting a poor example for Claire. Again, I wanted to interject, what about Audrey?
I tried not to zone out, but every time Dad made a new point, he repeated it a jillion times like he was stuck on a verbal treadmill and couldn’t get off. “Got it. Yeah, I understand. I promise I’ll never do it again. I will keep Claire in my thoughts always. Can I sit?”
He nodded, so I slumped down onto the cushions of the loveseat that wasn’t torn and watched him pace back and forth in front of the hearth as he droned on about taking something that wasn’t his when he was a teenager and the consequences. Not sure how that related, but if I asked I might be here until the sun rose.
He took an even deeper breath, which signaled a change of some sort, possibly the end to the lecture. Please? But no, he moved on to the evils of under age drinking.
“Come on, Dad. I didn’t have a single sip of the wine, which technically means I didn’t do any under age drinking. At the most, you can chastise me for under age spilling or intent of a minor to drink wine.”
The lines bracketing his mouth deepened. “And what did you plan to do with the wine once you brought it back here?”
Okay, so my attempt at humor wasn’t working. How about some logic? “Well, you and Mom have emptied a whole bottle during dinner, and there were five of us, so, like, I don’t really see how that is any big deal.”
“She doesn’t see how it’s any big deal,” He repeated to Mom, who shook her head sadly. “What about the little thing we call the law? What you attempted is illegal. Did it ever occur to you that I could be arrested for serving alcohol to a minor?”
Haint Misbehavin' Page 13