The kind of friends you could skip down the street with, side by side, arms linked, not worrying at all about your coolness factor, because you didn’t care what anyone else thought, as long as you had each other.
Chapter 20
“Good morning, everyone. I’m Olivia Salinas with this morning’s update.”
I held my breath as I sat in homeroom, watching the television screen mounted to the wall. I crossed my fingers. I drummed my new, shiny silver fingernails against my desk.
“You feeling all right, Madison?” Ms. Thibault asked, pausing beside me.
“Sure. Just, uh, wondering what Olivia will say,” I said. That, and Poinsettia had told me that tapping my fingers on hard surfaces might help my nails grow.
Ms. Thibault laughed and put her hand on my shoulder. “I think we all are, at this point.”
Everyone who’s listening, that is, I thought.
Olivia looked into the camera and smiled. “What a weekend. Did everyone have as good a weekend as I did? I hope so.
“Okay, first things first, the schedule for the upcoming week is as follows,” she began. “It’s our last full week before Thanksgiving break, so there’s a lot to pack in.” She ran through the list of events, games, and club meetings. She didn’t add anything extra. Everything seemed to go according to plan; she read the student council news, which wasn’t much, and she didn’t insult anyone.
As she wrapped up, she said, “On a personal note, this reporter would like to apologize for being rude. I’m sorry that I’ve said some things I regret. Please, please join us this afternoon to save the endangered animals. We’re off to a great start. You’ve seen the T-shirts. We’re temporarily out of stock on those, but we’re planning the Christmas dance-a-thon. It’s never too early to start your pledge sheet. So please come! Have a great day, Panthers!” She smiled genuinely at the camera before the screen went dark.
“Well? Did she do all right?” Ms. Thibault asked me.
“Bo—ring,” said Justin.
Bethany patted her mouth. “Yawn City.”
“Um, I think that’s probably the last time we’ll be hearing from Olivia for a while,” I said.
“Too bad,” said Bethany. “At least she made things interesting and unpredictable for a while.”
“Don’t forget Madison,” said Justin. “The rrrrain in Mmmmaine stays mmmmainly—”
“Don’t remind me!” I put my hands over my ears. “Please!”
The rest of the day seemed to continue the shift back to normal. At lunch, Taylor was carrying Kayley’s books for her because Kayley’s wrist was still sprained. She wasn’t looking where she was going, so she tripped and fell, twisting her ankle. Now they were even.
Not only that, but when Taylor fell, she got the crowd’s applause and teasing, instead of Alexis, who made it across the cafeteria without dropping her lunch tray for the first time in days.
When classes let out, I headed to the gym, as promised, to meet Cassidy and talk to Ms. Throgfeld about joining cheer mid-season. I didn’t think she’d take me, so it wasn’t that much of a risk to appear that I was willing. It was a gesture. Maybe a risky one, if Ms. Throgfeld took me up on it right there on the spot, but I was having one of my brave moments.
Besides, I didn’t think Ms. Throgfeld would do that. She wasn’t that spontaneous of a person. Anyone who had turned her back on cheer the way I had didn’t count for much in Ms. Throgfeld’s book.
It took a minute after I walked in for Cassidy to notice me and come over.
“Wow. You’re really here,” she said, looking slightly uncomfortable. She glanced over at the seventh and eighth graders who were working out without her.
“I said I would. I’ll try it, anyway.” I shrugged. “If you guys really need me.”
“Yeah, well. Your skills are probably not up to par at all,” said Cassidy.
I smiled. The old-new Cassidy was back. “I know. I’ll work extra hard, though.”
“Hey, Ms. Throgfeld! Madison wants to be the bottom of the pyramid!” She turned to me. “You don’t mind, right?”
I saw Ms. Throgfeld looking over at the two of us, forehead creased in confusion.
Maybe, when I was desperate to be friends again, at the beginning of the year, I would have jumped at the chance to be the bottom of the pyramid, to do whatever Cassidy wanted. But I wasn’t really feeling like that anymore. We were going in different directions. That was the way it would be from now on. Cheer wasn’t “me” anymore, it was her. I was okay with that. I didn’t have to put myself in a low, painful, pyramid-supporting position anymore, even if Alexis and I were the same, perfectly matched height.
“Actually, I’m not sure this is such a good idea, me going back on cheer,” I said. “My skills are really pretty rusty. And I doubt Ms. Throgfeld wants me,” I whispered. “She’s not exactly running over to welcome me back.”
“Well, that’s true. But at the bottom of the pyramid, no one would see you—at least not until you got your skills back up to par.”
I smiled again. As long as she could insult me, without maybe meaning to, she was still Cassidy, and I was still me. That was actually a good sign. “I don’t know. I’d better not risk it. I mean, what if I couldn’t support you? You need good support, remember?” I asked, referring to the Macy’s incident last year, when we were still friends.
She laughed. “God. Don’t ever tell anyone about that. Ever.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said, smiling. “So, you go ahead. I’d just end up not being committed enough again.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right. You really aren’t good at commitment these days,” she said.
“I’m not?” I asked.
“Besides, everyone on cheer has long hair, which means you totally wouldn’t fit in. You’d look really weird, actually. Plus, your coolness factor is still, you know. Questionable.” She straightened her ponytail and dashed back over to the group.
Cassidy had insulted me to my face. Things were definitely getting back to normal. Or at least, the new normal.
“Madison? Is there something you need to tell me?” asked Ms. Throgfeld, jogging over to me as I headed for the door.
“No, not really. Sorry if I bothered practice.”
“Always nice to see you. Don’t be a stranger!” the coach called after me as I left the gym and hurried down the hall to the after-school club room.
I could hear a commotion as I got closer. People were arguing in loud voices, and as I entered the room, Olivia was standing with her back to the whiteboard, as if she wished she could back up even farther. I saw a pile of discarded handmade Endangered Animals Club T-shirts on the table in front of her.
“The ink ran!” one eighth-grade girl was yelling at Olivia. “And it ruined like ten other shirts of mine.”
“I want a refund!” her friend said.
“I’ve already given back all the refunds I can today!” said Olivia. “What do you think, I carry around hundreds of dollars with me?”
“You should,” a boy said. “It’s our money and we want it back.”
I felt like telling them all sales were final, but I didn’t want a mob scene on our hands. Instead, I stepped forward and pulled a notebook out of my backpack. “We already put the money into the bank,” I said. “We’ll return it, but for the rest of today, we’re just taking names. We’ll give you each an I.O.U.”
Everyone groaned but eventually got in line, and Olivia and I sat there and handed out I.O.U. slips for about half an hour.
Finally we’d handed out our last I.O.U., and in return, we had a hundred streaked, ruined T-shirts to deal with instead.
“Oh, man,” Olivia groaned. “We blew it.”
I smiled, shaking my head. “No, you don’t understand. This is great. This is fabulous. We’re back to being nobodies. That means the meanicure worked!”
“Well, good, because the shirts definitely didn’t,” said Olivia. Then we both started to laugh. “Let’s pretend we never
started this club,” she said.
“Agreed.” We found a plastic garbage bag in the supply table, and stuffed it with the ruined shirts. Then we walked out of the room, turned off the light, and closed the door.
Olivia hoisted the garbage bag over her shoulder. “We have to recycle these somehow.”
“I’ll ask my mom,” I promised. “She’s picking me up today. She’ll know what to do.”
Last Things Last
A few days later, there was a cold mid-November breeze coming from the ocean when I walked out of school with Olivia at the end of the day. I tugged my hat down over my ears, and pulled up my collar.
“Look at this.” Olivia waved a piece of paper in the frigid air as we waited for Taylor to meet us out front. “Cameron left a note in my locker. Can you believe this?”
“Seriously? What kind of note?” I asked.
She began to read it aloud. “ ‘Olivia, when are you going to do the update again? Other people are so normal and boring. See you around—Cameron,’ ” she read.
I smiled, because it sounded like he might sort of like Olivia. Who was, of course, oblivious.
“He misses you!” I said. “What’s wrong with that? Maybe he likes you.”
“And maybe he’s an obnoxious pinhead. I wish he’d just leave me alone!” Olivia held the note up in front of her and ripped it in half, and then tore it in half again. She tossed the pieces into the air, and the wind lifted them up in a swirl, sending them down the street.
My eyes widened. I think I gasped. “You didn’t just do that, Oblivia.”
“Do what?” she asked.
“Tear up somebody’s name and send it flying off into the universe!” I said.
“Oh. I guess I did. Why?” She looked at me. “What are you so worried about?”
“One, you littered. Two, we just got things back to normal. And now you go and start up something else?” I started running, trying to grab the scraps of paper swirling around in the air. I couldn’t let Cameron fly away and end up lying on the street, or in a storm drain, or even worse, drowning in the Atlantic. That could be bad—very bad—for our brand-new and improved karma. It would sink to the bottom of the ocean.
I could only find half of them. “Here. Keep these,” I told Olivia, panting. “Put them in your pocket, right now.”
“Why?”
“Because we have bad luck when we do stuff like this. Or have you forgotten already? Oh, look—there’s another one!” I raced after another scrap and held it up. “I got the N! I got it!”
“Madison? Madison!” Olivia yelled to get my attention. “I think you’re one of those people who’s going, like, slowly insane.”
I put my hands on my hips and was about to yell at her when I realized how crazy I must look, scrounging for litter on the street. We started to laugh, but kept jumping around trying to get the scraps of paper before they blew into oblivion.
“OMG, what happened to you guys?” Taylor said, when she came out and saw us. “Leave you alone for two minutes and you both go crazy.”
Cassidy, Alexis, and Kayley passed by while we were all still cracking up and trying to grab the remaining scraps blowing around in the breeze. They didn’t say anything, just shook their heads and kept walking.
But then it was like they couldn’t help themselves. Cassidy suddenly turned around and said, “Since when is it an after-school sport to catch paper?”
“Don’t tell me, this is one of your new little activities,” said Alexis. “The paper recycling club.”
Same old, same old, I thought. We were acting silly, and they were making fun of us. But then I thought, maybe it doesn’t have to go back to being exactly the way it was before. Things could change, even if people didn’t … right?
“You know what? I’d rather recycle paper than outfits,” I said. “Didn’t you guys wear the same exact thing last Monday?”
“Right. As if we would,” Kayley scoffed.
But I could see Cassidy thinking about it, and looking a little uncomfortable. “We have to go,” she said suddenly. “We have more important things to do than stand around collecting—”
Suddenly one of the scraps of paper blew right into her face. “Here.” Cassidy handed me the “me” from Cameron’s name. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “Hey, how come your nails look better than mine? We got the same thing.”
She shrugged. “I guess I just take better care of myself.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, checking out my own chipped polish. “Maybe it’s time I started doing that, too.”
“Well, we’re going to the mall. See you.” Cassidy gave a little wave and followed Kayley and Alexis across the school parking lot to Alexis’s mom’s waiting minivan.
“We have important things to do, too!” I said. “For instance …” I looked at Olivia and Taylor. “What are we going to do this afternoon?”
“I don’t know,” said Olivia. “How about if we go get some fries.”
“Okay, but you missed your bus. Is your mom coming to pick you up?” I asked.
“No. Wow. I guess I should have planned better, huh?” said Olivia.
“Then I guess you’ll have to ride on my handlebars,” said Taylor.
“Oh, no. You won’t even be able to see if I do that,” said Olivia. “No. I’ll pedal, you ride. I’m a lot taller.”
“I’ll pedal,” said Taylor. “It’s my bike. My ankle just got better. I can’t risk getting injured again.”
“And I can?” said Olivia, laughing.
“Anyway, the seat would be too low for you.”
“I’ll raise it,” said Olivia.
“You don’t know how,” Taylor said.
“You’re not strong enough to pedal both of us.”
“Hello? Have you seen my leg muscles?”
They kept on like that, arguing the whole way to the bike rack. I unlocked my bike and slid it out from the metal rack, leaning it on its kickstand while I stuffed the U-lock into my backpack. “You guys realize … we could be there by now,” I said.
“So what are we waiting for?” Olivia asked. Without asking, she grabbed my bike, hopped onto it, and started riding away, laughing. “See you at the Whale!” she called over her shoulder.
“My bike!” I yelled. “I can’t believe she just did that,” I said to Taylor.
“If she wasn’t so nice, and so ditzy that she didn’t have another way home, I think I’d hate her right now,” Taylor muttered as she pulled on her helmet. “So. Like I said to Olivia, I’ll pedal. Where do you want to sit? Front or back?”
I felt one of those flashes of bravery that were sometimes misguided, but sometimes right on the money. “I’ll take the handlebars,” I said, carefully perching on the front of her bike, then lifting my feet up off the ground.
What was the worst that could happen?
Wait. Don’t answer that.
Acknowledgments
I am extremely grateful to Ruth Katcher for her brilliant, insightful editing, and to my agent, Jill Grinberg, for her wisdom and guidance.
Thanks, as always, to my family for their support, and for understanding the need to keep ice-cream sandwiches stocked in our freezer at all times.
And I couldn’t have written this without my friends and the members of CS who inspired me. You shall remain nameless, don’t worry.
(Same goes for you mean girls.)
Catherine Clark is the author of Wish You Were Here, Better Latte Than Never, and many other books for young readers. She has never tried and does not endorse the methods in this book, but she had a close group of friends in seventh grade and remembers it was always two against one. She is also terrible at applying nail polish.
She lives in Meaneapolis—er, that’s Minneapolis—with her husband and daughter. Visit her online at www.catherineclark.com.
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