“Sea!” I say brightly.
“Hey, Tori,” Sea replies. “I was just telling Lauren and Anica about the facial you gave me on Friday night.”
“Yeah, I can’t believe you put ketchup on her face,” Lauren says, making an ick face.
I shrug. “It seemed like a good idea. Though Sienna sure doesn’t need facials anyway. Her skin is so naturally radiant all the time, don’t you think?”
Lauren looks at Sea’s face and then back to me and shrugs. “I guess.”
“Wow. Thanks, Tori.” Sea giggles nervously.
“Don’t thank me. It’s your skin. It’s almost as glowing as your personality. Which is really super by the way. You’re so nice and fun and great to be around. A really fantastic person.” I pat Sea on the shoulder.
She raises her eyebrows in this slightly horrified way. Like how someone might look if their mom picked them up from school sporting hair rollers. That happened to me once in the fourth grade. I shudder even thinking about it.
Lauren and Anica shift uncomfortably.
“Um, well, we’ll see you guys later,” Anica says.
“Yeah, bye,” Lauren adds, and the two walk quickly down the hall.
“What’s with you?” Sienna asks, once the girls are out of earshot.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I counter.
“You’re acting kind of weird,” she says. “That stuff you said was totally embarrassing in front of Lauren and Anica.”
“It was? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to be.” I was only trying to let her know that she was okay.
Sienna frowns. “Hmm. Well, all right then. Let’s get to homeroom before we’re late.”
We arrive in homeroom seconds before the bell rings and slide into our seats. Natalie and Avery are already in their seats, talking about their horrible morning bus ride. It seems the bus driver had to pull over three times to talk to some rowdy sixth graders.
We listen for a minute, and then Avery turns to Sienna. “So, how was your weekend? More late-night IMing with Antonio?” she asks, singing Antonio’s name.
Sea grins. “Oh yeah. We IMed so late last night that I actually fell asleep on my laptop. The last thing I sent was ‘t6y6ht6y.’ ” The girls laugh.
I slip the paper with the OSSFH list out of my pocket and eye number two. Make her feel safe.
“Hey, Sea,” I say.
She turns her head toward me. “Yeah?”
I keep my voice low so Avery and Natalie can’t hear me. “You know that you can tell me anything, absolutely anything, and I promise I won’t get angry. I’ll always be your friend no matter what.” I take a deep breath. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
Sienna gives me the crazy eye. “No thanks, Dr. Phil.” She looks a little irritated. “Sheesh, what’s your deal today, Tori? Stop being such a weirdo.” She turns around to face Avery and Natalie.
“No deal,” I say to her back. “I just want you to feel safe . . .” Oh, man. I’m not supposed to tell her what I’m doing! “I mean, uh, nothing. I didn’t mean anything. Go on with your story.”
Okay, I’m going to have to be a lot more careful or this isn’t going to work. If she knows what I’m doing, she’ll get mad and I won’t help her at all.
In the hallway between third and fourth period, I spot Sea at the water fountain getting a drink. I figure it’s as good a time as any to try to relate to her (number three on the list). I race over to her side as she’s wiping some water off her chin.
“Hey, what’s up?” I say, leaning against the wall.
Sienna straightens and narrows her eyes at me, like she’s trying to figure out what I’m up to. “Nothing. Getting a drink.”
“I love your shoes.”
Sienna looks down at her black ankle boots. “You do? Gee, thanks.”
I nod. “Actually, they make me think of this one time when I was ten and there were these beautiful sparkly ballet flats that I wanted; I had to have them. My mom said that I already had a pair of nice dress shoes and didn’t need another. I hid the left shoe of my pair in the garage on the morning of a fancy party we were going to and told my mom I couldn’t find it so that she’d have to buy me new shoes, and it worked. We had to stop at the shoe store on the way to the party and I got my sparkly flats.”
I clear my throat and lean in a little closer. “So,” I go on, “did you ever do something like that? You know, tell a lie to get something that you wanted?”
Sienna stares at me for at least twenty seconds, mouth hanging open. Then, in a really slow and condescending voice she says, “If you are done tripping down memory lane, I have an English class to get to.”
So much for relating to her.
After history class I head for the cafeteria to grab some lunch and to put the last number on my list, number five (encouragement whenever Sea does tell the truth), into action. It’s not that I skipped over number four. I tried helping her avoid the situations that she tended to lie in the entire morning. But that was just about everything, let me tell you. The only times she didn’t tell Antonio stories were when she was in the bathroom or the library (we’re not allowed to talk in the library). I had to fake stomach troubles to get her to come with me to the bathroom so many times this morning. And I tried to get her to meet me in the library during study hall, but she refused. She suggested I go lie down in the nurse’s office instead.
I get in the lunch line behind Sienna, completely motivated to encourage her so darn much that she’ll never lie again. “Hi, Sea,” I say cheerfully.
She glances over her shoulder at me. “Oh. Hi,” she says flatly.
This isn’t a normal Sea response to me, but I’ve kind of put her through the truth-inducing ringer today. I don’t think she knows that I’m trying to help her stop her compulsive lying, but she can tell I’m up to something. I’ll have to be sneakier, that’s all.
“Was this tuna packed in oil or water?” Sienna asks the lunch lady.
“What’s it matter?” the lunch lady slings back.
Sea scoffs. “It matters quite a bit actually. The tuna packed in oil has extra fat.”
“She’s right,” I pipe in with my sparkly positive reinforcement.
Sienna nods at me, appreciating my backing her up.
Pssh. This is so easy.
The lunch lady sighs. “Sweetie, take your lunch and move it along, okay?”
“I will,” Sienna says in a huff. She pointedly steps past the tuna and picks up a plain salad.
We pay for our lunches and head for the table. “Could you believe that?” Sienna asks me.
I hesitate. Could I believe it? Do I say yes, I believe that it happened, or no, I can’t believe it happened? Though it did. I was just there. Oh boy, I’m confused. I smile as encouragingly as I can for my answer.
Sienna sits down at the table, and I take the empty seat next to her.
“I have a completely obscene amount of math homework to do tonight,” Natalie moans.
“Tell me about it,” Sea says. “I have an insane amount of homework tonight too.”
I nod. “That’s right! You do.”
Sienna cocks her head and gives me a look. I shove my apple into my mouth so I don’t have to say anything.
Yum. Fuji.
“Well, I have to get all A’s this quarter to fund my winter wardrobe,” Natalie says.
I raise my eyebrows, and Avery explains. “Her mom pays her for each A.”
“Oh,” I say. Wish my mom and dad paid me for A’s.
“I bought this outfit over the weekend,” Natalie says. She looks down at her clothes.
“I was going to mention it,” Sienna says. “Your skirt is so cute. I have one in blue.”
I clap my hands and yell out, “Yes, you do, Sea! Good one!”
No one says a word. Sienna isn’t the only one giving me the crazy eye now. The whole table is looking at me. Maybe my truth cheerleading is a bit too much. It seemed to be working at first. I think I need to tone down m
y enthusiasm a little and not be so vocal about reinforcing her good behavior.
I turn around like I need to check the clock on the wall. Really I’m hoping that when I turn back around the conversation will have moved on to something else.
It works and the girls switch topics and I try to do more listening than talking. I busy myself unwrapping my giant chocolate chip cookie.
“My mom grounded me from the Internet for the day,” Avery says, “because I didn’t have time to clean up my room last night. I mean, it’s my room anyway. I don’t know why she is so harsh.”
“My mom gets like that too,” Sienna says.
That’s true. I break off a tiny piece of my cookie and slide it over to Sea. She pops it in her mouth.
“I can’t leave for school without my bed being made every morning,” Sienna continues.
I’ve heard her say this before. I slide another piece of cookie over to Sea, and she picks it up and eats it.
“And if I leave a wet towel in my room for even five minutes, the woman explodes,” Sea says.
Oh yeah. I’ve seen Mrs. Baker turn purple over a wet towel on the floor. I push a third piece of cookie at Sea, and she eats it without even looking at it.
“To keep the peace I just do a five-minute quick clean of my room every night. It’s worth it to avoid the fight if I don’t,” Sienna concludes.
Yeah. She’s been doing the five-minute cleanup thing for years. I slide another piece of cookie toward her.
She whirls around to face me, anger in her eyes.
Uh-oh.
“What are you doing?” she snarls at me.
I try to giggle. “What do you mean?”
“The cookies,” she says. “What’s the deal with the cookies? Are you rewarding me with treats like a dog or something?”
I feel the blood drain from my face. Busted. “Gosh no,” I say, “I would never give a dog chocolate.”
Yeah. Not the totally right thing to say.
Sienna jumps to her feet, slapping her hands on the table. “Tori, I’ve had it! Until you start behaving like a normal person again, don’t talk to me!” With that, she turns and stomps off.
Well, that was a big ol’ bust. Positive reinforcement? Not so positive.
To be honest, I guess my list sort of sucked. I don’t know why I thought any of these things would work. There’ll be no Tori’s Truth-Telling Tips seminars for me to teach anywhere in the near future, that’s for sure.
But I can’t give up. I’m down but I’m so not out. There is one more thing I can do. I really didn’t want to do this though. It’s a total last resort. It didn’t even make my list, that’s how last resort it is.
I have to hypnotize her.
15
There’s this thing I stumbled upon online when I was doing my research the other day—it’s called covert hypnosis. Supposedly it’s a way that you can secretly hypnotize another person and get them to do what you want without them ever knowing. How amazing is that? You would think people everywhere would be capitalizing on this. According to the Web site, I have to have a good rapport with her (easy since we’re best friends), then I have to captivate her attention (I can be captivating when I want to be), and make some suggestions (or in this case, one specific suggestion: Stop lying, Sea!). We’ll see if it works.
The final school bell rings and I race to get to Sienna’s locker before she does. I see her coming, and when she notices me she stops and looks around. She’s probably trying to find a way out without talking to me, but I’m not budging and I know she needs her things. Sea realizes this too and slowly trudges toward me. Before she can say a word I say, “Sea, I’m really really sorry about how goofy I was acting today. I don’t know what got into me, but it was a really weird day. I think maybe I was just thrown off, you know? I got in this horrible fight with my mom this morning and it has made the whole day a mess.” Sea and her mom fight a lot, so I know this will get her.
Sienna pops open her locker and begins to load her backpack with books and notebooks. “Oh, I know how that is. Don’t worry about it, Tori. I’m over it,” she replies. She finishes gathering her stuff and zips her bag closed.
“Really?” Wow. I completely expected begging to be involved. I’m getting off easy. “Thanks, Sea. You’re such a great friend.”
“No prob. I’d better get going. My mom is waiting outside.” She turns to go, but I reach out a hand to stop her.
“Your mom is so nice picking you up from school every day. I wish mine would. But she’s always too busy for me.” I try to look sad. “I hate going home to an empty house,” I add.
Sienna shifts from one leg to another. “Um, well, do you want to come over for a while or something?”
“Could I? That would be great!” Omigod, omigod, omigod! This stuff actually works. I totally just made her invite me over. This is so freakin’ cool.
“Yeah, let’s go,” she says, and I follow her out to her car.
Ten minutes later we’re standing in front of Sienna’s new tan leather couch in her family room. I haven’t been over to her house since she got back from vacation, and it looks fantastic. Her mom has been busily remodeling everything. There is this sort of beachy spa resort vibe going on—lots of marble and rock sculptures with water dribbling down them, big palm trees and wicker baskets and bamboo tables strategically placed about. And, if I’m not mistaken, there is one of those soothing ocean sounds CDs being piped through some kind of surround sound speaker system. That, or I’m losing my mind, because I swear I just heard a seagull overhead.
“Mrs. Baker, everything looks so beautiful,” I say. Sea rolls her eyes, but her mom’s face lights up.
“Really?” She puts her hands on her hips and surveys the room like she’s looking at it for the first time. I can tell she’s pleased with her work. “It’s coming along. At least I got rid of that old couch, huh?”
She’s talking about the plaid pullout sofa bed they had forever. I think Sienna’s dad even had it in college. It was definitely worn in but it still had charm if you ask me. Sea and I had countless sleepovers on that old thing. It held great memories. Last winter during one of our sleepovers we were messing around with the bed—jumping on the head of the pullout bed so the foot flew up in the air. I jumped a little too hard one time and fell down in between the sofa cushions and the bed. It didn’t hurt and actually turned out in a happy ending. I found my Strawberry Shortcake doll I had lost when I was seven while stuck down there. I’d always thought Mom got rid of it in a donation pile or something, but nope, it was sitting under Sea’s couch for five years. I probably should have asked Mrs. Baker to look through the couch before ditching it to see if I’d lost anything else.
“Would you girls like some fresh-baked cookies?” Mrs. Baker asks.
I nod vigorously and Sea rolls her eyes again.
“Be right back,” her mom calls, walking out of the room.
“She didn’t freshly bake anything,” Sea mutters after her mom is out of earshot. “All she does is shop.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I return.
Sienna shrugs. “I just don’t see why she’s pretending to bake when she probably bought them from some fancy bakery.”
“Homemade, store-made, it doesn’t matter to me. They’re all little circles of bliss in my belly.” I pat my stomach.
Sea smiles. Because she knows it’s true.
I study Sea’s face and though she looks like she’s okay, I can still see irritation in her eyes. It’s interesting that she gets this upset with her mom for pretending when she’s doing the exact same thing.
“Want to play Wii or something?” Sea asks, perched on the arm of the couch.
“Yeah, sounds fun.” I take a seat on one end of the couch and my back end feels like it died and went to heaven, that’s how soft and ridiculously comfortable the couch is. I close my eyes for a moment, enjoying the cushiony goodness, and I’m startled when Sea tosses the Wii remote in my lap.
“Remember when we first saw Star Wars—the one with Hayden Christensen as Anakin?” I ask. It was one of our first times in a real movie theater. Dad was still living at home with Mom and me. The theater was almost empty, and he let us sit two rows ahead of him so that we could pretend like we were grownups.
Sea smiles. “Yeah.” She starts our game.
“He was so cute and we both had huge crushes on him. We used to talk about what it would be like to date him,” I add. Sea even ripped a picture of him out of a teen magazine and hung it on the wall in her room. She used to kiss him good night every night.
“I remember. He was always so good to that Queen Amidala. He loved her so much.” Sienna sighs. She has always referred to her as “that Queen Amidala.” Like she wasn’t good enough for Hayden Christensen or something.
“Yeah. And we used to say we needed to find a guy like that. A guy who really loved us. Remember?” I ask.
“Uh-huh,” Sea replies, moving her small Yoda character through the desert, looking for clones.
She seems pretty agreeable so far. I might as well go for it.
“You can have a real guy who really loves you, Sea,” I say. I make my Obi-Wan Kenobi cut off two Sand People’s heads and hop into his Jedi ship.
“Uh-huh.”
It’s working.
“You can have a real boyfriend,” I say. I’m pretty proud of myself for how quickly I’ve mastered this whole covert hypnotism thing.
“Yeah,” she mumbles.
GAME PAUSE.
Sea turns to me. “Okay, wait. What the heck are you saying?”
Whoops. She looks kind of mad.
“What?” I hope my innocent face is coming across. Though any face other than my guilty one will do.
“What is all this real boyfriend stuff? What are you trying to say?”
Oh, yikes. Not good. Like her Yoda character, the force in her, strong it is. “Huh?” I offer. “I don’t know. I thought we were talking about Star Wars. What are you talking about?”
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