by Barbara Dee
Ashley grins. “Snickers? We’re having chocolate today, Becca?”
“NO,” I blurt. “Snickers is a dog. Mom walks them. As a job.”
“That is so, so cool,” Megan exclaims.
“Yes, it is,” Mom says, lovingly patting Darla’s head. “Really, I get my best inspirations walking my canine buddies. Some people think in the shower, but I personally—”
“And you don’t want to be late,” I insist, staring at Mom.
Mom stares right back at me. “Late?”
“For your walk. With Snickers.”
Ashley laughs. “I’m sure Snickers doesn’t have an alarm clock, Marigold.”
“Oh, but he’s very hyper about his schedule,” I say. “And if Mom’s five minutes late, he goes totally bonkers.”
Now everyone is staring at me.
“You should hear him bark,” I add desperately. “It’s like . . .” Ack, what’s it like? “You know, dog barking. Loud.”
Layla starts coughing into her glove. And I’m sure she’s probably thinking I sounded insane just now, but I had to do something. Because Jada is definitely walking in our direction. And this whole scene is excruciating enough without Jada joining in, telling Layla she can’t hear her, and asking Mom about Wikipedia.
Mom gives me a look like, Remind me to teach you some social skills, Marigold. But she doesn’t argue. She flashes me a quick smile, kisses my cheek, and to everybody else calls out, “Okay, see you later, guys.” Then she walks off with the dogs, giving Beezer one sharp tug before he pees on the school flagpole.
Don’t Mind Me
The whole next week is pretty much torture.
All I hear at school is how amazing Mom is, how creative, how fun, how you-fill-in-the-blank-with-your complimentary-adjective. After all the time I’ve spent listening to people gossip about her and snigger, you’d think I’d be relieved to hear what an idol she’s become, but I’m not. The truth is, I’m terrified that any minute some kid is going to drink canola oil, and then we’ll all be drowning in free negative publicity. And even though Layla keeps telling me that (so far) Mom hasn’t done anything “too Looney Tunes,” I’m not sure Layla’s concept of crazy is the universal standard.
Plus it just feels funny to have everyone—I mean, like, the entire school—start worshipping your mother. Even kids I barely know are coming up to me all the time, going, “Oh, Marigold, your mom is sooo cool,” and “Hey, Marigold, tell your mom I said hi!” I’m starting to feel not like Marigold but like Becca Bailey’s Daughter, and to be perfectly honest, it’s starting to get a bit annoying.
Take, for example, right this minute in the lunch-room.
I’m sitting across from Ethan, who is wearing a faded green sweatshirt that makes his freckles stand out. Every once in a while he glances at me, but our rule is Keep It Secret for Now, so we’re careful to avoid eye contact.
“Meep!” Layla is saying. She sniffs Quinn’s Tupperware. “Wazza drogool?”
“Plah-koo,” Quinn answers. She hands Layla some chopsticks. “Spinky.”
Layla grins. “Na na, dweepy bobo.” She twirls some noodles around her chopsticks, then dangles them in the air. “Yoppy kerploova fablum! Poogy yackum.”
The noodles drip. Plop, plop, plop. Probably tamari sauce.
“Pek. Fazzle reeka,” Quinn scolds, wiping the table with a napkin.
Ethan puts down his burrito. “Okay, sorry to interrupt, but are you talking English today?”
“They can’t,” Brody informs him. “It’s homework. For Becca.”
“Jaddo,” Layla adds, with a mouthful of noodles. “Pizzy alla fadoo drep.”
“Yeah,” Ethan grumbles, glancing at me through his eyelashes. “So you’re going to do this again? For, like, the entire lunch period?”
“Jez,” Brody tells him, nodding very seriously. “Veezer.”
Quinn starts laughing so hard some water leaks out of her mouth. Layla hands her back the saucy napkin, then leans over and messes Brody’s hair. He grins at her and says something that sounds like aardvark painkiller.
“Okay, this is getting too strange.” Ethan stands. “Later,” he adds, I’m pretty sure to me, and walks off to sit with some jocks from the lacrosse team.
Layla winces. “Sorry.”
“For what?” I ask innocently.
She cocks her head like, Don’t act so innocent.
“Marigold?” Quinn says. “Do you want to do Becca’s exercise with us? It’s really fun.”
“Oh, no thanks!” I answer. “We talk gibberish at home all the time.”
Brody’s eyes light up. “You do?’
“I think that was a joke, you moron,” Layla says. She looks at me. “So it’s okay with you if we—?”
“Yup. Don’t mind me.”
She shrugs. “Okay, then, if you insist. Verspeezle fregony karple plunkert—”
And on they go with the alien-talk. Which leaves me nothing to do but nibble my lunch, a soggy ham-and-cheddar-and-bruised-lettuce-on-cardboard-pita. Too bad I didn’t bring a book; even The Lord of the Rings would be better than sitting here listening to nonsense syllables for the third day in a row. But at least I can use the free brain-time to space about Ethan—the way we held hands for a full block yesterday on the walk home, until we ran into Brody’s mother. (“And who is this?” she asked Ethan, smiling suspiciously at me as if I was maybe something he shoplifted.)
This makes me think about Emma, how great it would be to share every detail with her, exactly how we used to talk about Will and Matt. But since that last phone conversation, she hasn’t tried to contact me. Not once, not even a borrowed-cell-phone voice mail Hey, what’s up, bye sort of deal. I have a terrible thought then: Maybe the “break” Emma talked about isn’t only “until things settle down” at her house. Maybe “things” are permanently broken, and they’re never going to be fixed.
Unless Gram’s made any progress with her plan, whatever it is. She hasn’t said a word about it since her visit, though. Probably that means there’s nothing to report. Because I’m sure she would call me the second there was any news.
“Hey, okay if we join you?”
My eyes refocus: It’s Ashley and Megan. Ashley and Megan?
“Join us for what?” Layla asks, not too nicely either.
“Improv homework,” Ashley says, shrugging. “The gibberish thing.”
Layla raises her eyebrow at Quinn, who nods a little reluctantly, but she does nod. “Dro,” Layla says, moving closer to Brody. And now there’s a space at the table big enough for Ashley and Megan to squeeze in, especially because Megan is half the width of dental floss.
Okay, well, this is certainly bizarre.
“Prissky,” Megan murmurs politely.
“Prissky,” Ashley echoes, just as polite. “Speena kiff oodwee pennygrapple hooble—”
This goes on for a few demented minutes. You can tell everyone feels incredibly awkward about the seating arrangement, but even so, they’re all fake-talking, back and forth, and no one is giving the evil eye or throwing pasta or bursting into tears. It’s really kind of amazing, actually.
But then suddenly they all stop. Total frozen silence. Because here comes Jada, her hands on her hips.
“What are you doing?” she asks in a fakely super-calm voice.
Ashley’s face turns bright pink. “A theater exercise. Becca wants us to practice gibberish with as many partners as possible.”
“Gibberish? You’re joking, right?”
“She says talking in gibberish frees your imagination. And teaches you to listen better.”
Jada rolls her eyes. “So she’s making you talk baby talk. And for partners you picked these—”
“We had to,” Megan mutters, looking at the table. “It’s not like we chose to sit here.”
“Yeah, well, that’s obvious. Anyway, you guys have to do this right now?”
“Kind of,” Megan says. “Becca wants us to talk about food. That’s the assignment.”<
br />
Jada sighs deeply. “So how much longer is this going to take?”
“Five minutes. Maybe ten.”
“Lunch is over in ten minutes.”
“Jada, this is our homework,” Ashley says. Now her ears are hot pink. “We really need to do this. Becca says—”
“Fine,” Jada interrupts. “Do this.” Her eyes dart around the table. “So anyway, where’s Ethan?”
“Squeep,” I blurt out.
Everyone stares at me.
“Squeep,” I repeat, louder this time.
Quinn starts giggling.
Layla grins. “Squeep,” she says, nodding. “Squeep.”
“Yez, squeep,” Brody says. “Squeepsqueepsqueep—”
“Stop that,” Jada says sharply. “It’s moronic, even for you, Brody.” She glares at Ashley and Megan. “Well? Is someone going to answer me in English?”
“Squeep,” Layla insists. “Fazoo wobby farple.”
“Fazoo wobby treeny,” Quinn replies. “Gopper.”
“Shut up,” Jada snaps. “All of you. You’re acting like total jerks, you know that?”
Then she storms off.
* * *
That afternoon in Quilting Quorum, Ms. Canetti is swishing her flowery skirt around the room, watching us lay out our patterns and offering comments like, “Ooh, I’m in love with your focal fabric,” and “Try not to make it too matchy matchy.” When she gets to my desk, she stops. “Oh, Marigold,” she says, noticing the fabric bits scattered all over my desk. “You haven’t gotten very far, have you?”
“I’m still deciding what to do.”
“You mean you haven’t chosen a pattern yet? Just pick any one. I showed you those books—”
“I’m not sure I want to make a pattern,” I confess. “I’m not even sure I want to make a quilt.”
Ms. Canetti does the kind of smile you do when you don’t know what to say. “Let’s think about this,” she murmurs. Then she swishes over to the eighth graders, Kirsten, Lexie, and Molly, who are sitting in a private group with their backs to Jada.
Jada looks up at me like she can feel my eyes on her. She stands and walks over to me, casually, then leans over my desk so I can smell her shampoo. Or maybe it’s perfume; there’s an extra wave of something flowery that you don’t get just from washing your hair.
“Nice fabric,” she says quietly. “I like your colors.”
She’s complimenting me? After I started the “squeep” business at lunch? “Thanks,” I say uneasily.
She does a quick no-tooth smile. “Does Becca like to quilt?”
“My mom? Oh, no. She can’t even thread a needle.”
“That’s so funny.” She picks up a scrap, a neon-green satin bit that Ms. Canetti had cut into a perfect square. “Because doesn’t she make her own costumes?”
“Not really. Well, she makes them, but she doesn’t sew them.”
“I guess she uses other material? Didn’t she make one out of aluminum foil?”
“Saran Wrap.”
“Right. I saw that photo on Wikipedia.”
I’m suddenly aware of my eyebrows. “That’s not all she does.”
“Oh, I know. I’ve been reading about her online. And also Ashley and Megan won’t shut up about her. They say she’s really wild.”
“Actually,” I say, “I’m pretty sure they like her.”
“Oh, they do! Because she’s so entertaining. I mean she’ll just do anything, right? All the other moms—” She shrugs.
“What?”
“Well, you know they’re not like that. My mom is always going, Wow, that Becca Bailey is something. And she has such strong opinions! And omigod, I hear my mom on the phone with Brody’s . . . Well, you know how they talk. I try to tune her out, but it’s impossible.” She sighs. “Anyway, Marigold, you’re so incredibly lucky. Everyone else’s parents are so normal.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“But sometimes aren’t you a little . . . I don’t know. Uncomfortable?”
“No,” I say quickly. “Why should I be?”
Jada fixes me with her hyper-sympathetic eyes. She doesn’t answer my question; she just lets it dangle in the air, the way Layla dangles noodles.
“Anyhow,” she says finally, “you just seem totally different.”
I swallow. My throat feels vacuumed-out, like I just ate ten peppermints.
“What I mean,” she explains, leaning closer, “is I can tell you’re a sensitive person. You really care what other people think. And what they say behind your back.” She slides the green square across my desk. “That’s how I am, incredibly sensitive. It makes things hard, though, doesn’t it? Because people can be so nasty.”
Okay, I’m starting to lose it now. “Jada,” I say, hearing my voice wobble. “If you’re trying to say something, just say it.”
She does the Bambi-blink. “You’re sure?”
I nod once.
“Okay, then.” She cups her hand around my ear. When she speaks, her hot breath fills up my head. “Everyone says you’re trying to steal Ethan from me. But I know you wouldn’t do anything so tacky, or anything people would say was tacky. Because you’re already so freaked by all the talk about your mom.”
She touches my arm, like she’s afraid I’ll break. “Did I upset you, Marigold? I’m really so, so sorry.”
The Deep End
As soon as Quilting Quorum is over, I grab my stuff and run.
I don’t want to see Ethan or Layla or anybody else. I don’t want people saying to me, Oh, Marigold, Jada’s horrible. She’s worse than horrible; she’s evil. Whatever she says to you, think the opposite.
And I don’t even want people saying, Oh, Marigold, your mom is awesome. Jada’s jealous; just ignore her.
Because I can’t. One thing I know for sure right now: This isn’t about Jada Sperry. This isn’t even about Ethan and me. This is about Becca Bailey, because it’s always about Becca Bailey. And I can’t let her keep hurling my life into total chaos.
When I get home, she’s not there yet, of course; she’s still at Improv. But Kennedy is there, her bare feet up on the coffee table. And this other person, a small, pointy-faced girl, is polishing Kennedy’s nails. With my nail polish.
“This color is soooo gorge,” the pointy-faced girl is saying. “What’s it called again?”
“Fun in the Sun,” Kennedy answers. “Watch it, you’re dripping some on my foot.”
“Hello?” I call out.
Kennedy jumps up. “Oh, Mari! Hi! This is Dexter. She asked if we could borrow your polish. I said it was okay, because you never use it, right?”
“Right. Though you should have asked first.” Wasn’t Dexter the mean girl who called Kennie a spaz in gym? I look at my sister, her eyes huge and pleading behind her glasses. “Actually,” I say, “this color doesn’t work for me. You want it?”
Kennie throws her arms around me. “Thanks, Mari,” she murmurs.
“Wow, Ken, your sister’s soooo cool,” Dexter says, her beady little eyes popping.
That’s when the front door opens, and Mom bursts into the living room in her purple Wagley College sweats, her cheeks glowing, her hair all sproingy. “Sorry I’m late,” she says, panting. “I tried to end the club early, but they just wouldn’t leave. Is this Dexter?”
“I’m really glad to meet you, Mrs. Bailey,” Dexter says shyly. “Kennedy’s been telling me about you.”
Mom beams, as if Dexter is now officially one of her kids. “Call me Becca,” she says, and plops onto the sofa.
For the next hour and a half, I’m in my room, listening through the walls to Mom chatting up Dexter, and Dexter giggling hysterically, and then the doorbell. “Bye!” Mom sings out. “We’ll have Dexter over for dinner next time!” I wait a few minutes for the Chocolate Night DVD to stop playing in my head. Then I go to the kitchenette, where Beezer is noisily chomping his kibble and Mom is pulling stuff out of the pantry.
As soon as she sees me, she dumps some pean
ut butter into a mixing bowl. “What a successful day,” she announces. “Kennie’s made a nice friend, we had a truly spectacular Improv, I think I’ve just had an inspiration for a new piece, and this morning I got Bob’s approval for the Mochahouse.” She drizzles some honey into the bowl, frowns, then drizzles some more. “What’s up with you, baby?”
“Nothing,” I sputter. “Mochahouse?”
“Cutesy name, right?” She laughs. “Apparently every June all the clubs have an open house for the parents. And I had this idea for an Improv coffeehouse, so my kids could perform in front of a live audience. But Lisa Sperry is making us call it a Mochahouse, because, as she puts it, “Coffee is inappropriate for middle schoolers.” I swear, that woman is driving me completely—”
Your cue, Marigold. “You’re not fighting with her, are you?”
“Well, I’m expressing contrary viewpoints. But don’t worry, always in an appropriate manner.” She rips open a bag of sunflower seeds and pours the entire contents into the bowl. Now she’s chopping apples. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. I heard some stuff today.”
“Oh, really?” Chop, chop, chop. “What sort of stuff?”
“About you.”
“Ah, free publicity. The best kind.” She stirs the goopy mixture with a spatula, frowns, then adds some raisins. “And who said this newsworthy stuff?”
“Some girl I know. She’s not in your club.”
“So apparently word travels. Well, that’s good to hear.” She takes the spatula and smears the goop all over her arm.
“Mom? Uh, what are you doing?”
“Research.” She holds out her goopy arm and jiggles it slightly, like it’s a branch fluttering in the wind. “I need to see if it’s the right consistency. Hmm. Maybe a bit too thin. See how it’s dripping off?”
“Okay,” I say. “You know what? You’ve finally gone off the deep end.”
“Oh, Mari, relax, it’s for my new piece.” She adds peanut butter to the bowl, then tastes the goop with her finger. “I’m calling it Birdfeeder. I’m going to stand in the park on Earth Day, smear this stuff all over my scuba gear, and see what happens. Maybe you can take some photos?”