The (Totally Not) Guaranteed Guide to Friends, Foes & Faux Friends Read online

  “I think” is the disclaimer Sara tacks onto the end of a sentence when she doesn’t really know something, but she wants us to think she does. I hoped in this case Sara was wrong—that Hope wasn’t sick and she’d show up any second.

  Without really thinking, I turned around to glance at Hope’s empty seat. YIKES! I made eye contact with Scotty, who sat two seats behind me. YIKES! I flinched. YIKES! I forcefully flung myself into an oh-so-obvious about-face. YIKES!

  Scotty’s typical boy obliviousness was the only thing saving me from utter humiliation. He had no idea we were at the center of a seventh-grade scandal that had already been named after him. He had no reason to suspect that my weird behavior had anything to do with him. He could just assume that I was acting weird because that’s how I am. Weird.

  Boys. So clueless. And so lucky.

  “Flirt it up, flirty,” Manda joked from two rows over.

  I wanted to scream: I’M NOT FLIRTING. I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO FLIRT. AND THERE’S NO ONE I WANT TO FLIRT WITH EVEN IF I DID.

  I wish Hope had been there. She’s known Manda and Sara forever, and she always knows just the right thing to say to shut them up. The most impressive thing about Hope? She never needs to raise her voice to be heard.

  Miss Orden took her spot at the front of the class. “Who’s ready for Much Ado About Nothing?” she asked.

  Ha! I was more than ready for the Shakespeare comedy. I was already living it.

  Chapter Six

  My day went from bad to THE WORST in Español.

  I was trying so hard to avoid eye contact with Scotty that I tripped over Sara’s huge handbag that she always puts in the aisle like she wants someone to trip over it just so she can say something like, “Omigod! Watch your step! Do you have any idea how much this cost?”

  Which is exactly what she said.

  “Omigod! Watch your step! Do you have any idea how much this cost?”

  “Trip it up, trippy,” Manda joked.

  And then Señora Epstein said, “En Español, por favor.”

  This is what she always says, and it’s RIDICULOUS because we’ve only been taking her class for a month and we’ve barely gotten used to introducing ourselves with our Spanish names. (Mine is Yessica, with a Y.)

  So I didn’t blame Sara and Manda for just holding up their hands like, “Nope.” But I did blame Sara for putting her bag in the aisle. And I also blamed Manda for using my blunder as an excuse to spread her new catchphrase, “Verb it up, verby.” They’re supposed to be my friends. They should’ve taken it easy on me, knowing I was already stressed out about The Scotty Scandal.

  Anyway. So Señora Epstein turned to me and said, “¿Estás bien, Yessica?”

  What happened next is totally my fault. I should have kept it simple by saying “Estoy bien” meaning “I’m fine.” But my Nerd Self insisted on outdoing my Trying to Be Normal Self. I just had to show off my superior Spanish language skills and maybe prove to everyone that The Scotty Scandal wasn’t affecting me one bit. So I said, “Estoy embarazada.”

  Señora Epstein looked like she was going to throw up. Then she did the most shocking thing ever. She spoke in English.

  “You’re WHAT?”

  “I’m embarrassed,” I said, getting more embarrassed by the millisecond.

  “Whew!” She sighed in relief. “You’re embarrassed!”

  “That’s what I said. Embarazada.”

  In an instant, Señora Epstein’s grimace turned into a grin, then back into a grimace again, because she was trying hard not to laugh at me. Very, very hard. So hard that her face went from green to red, verde to rojo.

  Then she turned to the class and spoke slowly and deliberately.

  “Ella se siente avergonzada. No es embarazada.”

  The whole class was lost. She returned her attention to me and translated.

  “Embarazada means…”

  (AND I’M DYING AT THE MEMORY OF IT BECAUSE I GET ACKED OUT ABOUT JUST KISSING AND I ACCIDENTALLY TOLD EVERYONE I WAS…)

  “… pregnant.”

  (ACK. ACK. A BAZILLION TIMES ACK AND FOREVER ACK UNTIL INFINITY ACK. ACK. ACK.)

  The entire class cracked up, but nobody laughed harder or longer or louder than Manda and Sara. I swear it was almost like the two of them had invented the Spanish language just to set me up for this joke so they had an excuse to make STUPID-GROSS FACES at me and Scotty for the remainder of Spanish and Pre-Algebra and Physical Science and Social Studies and Gym. They didn’t see this as acting stupid and gross. They saw this as “just having fun.”

  “If you can’t have fun with your friends,” lectured Manda after I asked her for, like, the bazillionth time to stop it already, “who can you have fun with?”

  I wanted to point out that they had confused “having fun” with “making fun.” And then I remembered IT List #2: Have fun with your enemies. Were Manda and Sara my friends? Or my enemies? On days like this, it was really hard to tell the difference. I must have been contemplating this question pretty deeply because that’s when Sara said, “Frown it up, frowny.”

  Manda was triumphant. With Sara’s help, it wouldn’t be long before every seventh-grade girl was saying this thing she had just made up that morning.

  So at that point I COULDN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE. I had to get away because it was seventh period and Dori would also be in the cafeteria for lunch and I knew Manda and Sara would go out of their way to rev up the rumors about me and Scotty by acting stupider and grosser and “verb it up, verbier” than ever. I skipped out on the cafeteria and ate lunch in the nurse’s office.

  “This place is full of germs,” Nurse Fleet cautioned. “Eating here isn’t sanitary. It’s not good for your health.”

  Fortunately Nurse Fleet is also Coach Fleet, head of the girls’ cross-country team. Every day at practice she brings out the fierce, determined, and talented athlete in me, a side that no one—not my parents, my sister, my friends—has ever seen before. Myself included. And I guess that’s what made me feel like I could be honest with her in a way I couldn’t be with any of my teachers.

  “So, Coach,” I said, “what if I told you eating in the cafeteria today wasn’t good for my mental health?”

  Coach Fleet agreed to let me stay and eat lunch at her desk, which was apparently less germy than the rest of the infirmary. I was kind of hoping she’d ask me what was going on in my life because I kind of felt like telling her. But she didn’t ask, because she had to give a talk to a class of eighth graders about the importance of personal hygiene practices called “Deodorant: USE IT.”

  By last period, I still had a lot of frustration to get out of my system. Luckily I had a hammer and a reason to use it.

  Chapter Seven

  BAM!

  I hit as hard as I could.

  BAM! BAM! BAM!

  It felt so good to go off like this.

  Manda.

  BAM!

  Sara.

  BAM!

  Scotty.

  BAM!

  Dori.

  BAM!

  I never thought I’d say this: Thank goodness for Woodshop. Who knew pounding nails into a board could be an awesome stress buster?

  BAM! BAM! B—

  My Woodshop teacher caught the hammer in midair.

  “Take it easy,” Mr. Pudel warned. “What did that poor piece of pine ever do to you?”

  Woodshop is the only class I don’t have with Manda, Sara, Scotty, Dori, or anyone else I know from school. While all my friends are bonding and baking in Home Ec, I’m risking life and limb in Mr. Pudel’s Woodshop. It is my so-called elective, but there isn’t anything “elective” about it. Industrial Arts had been forced upon me by the mysterious Masters of Scheduling, and I hated it.

  At first.

  But on a day like the one I’d had, it was a relief to get away from all the drama. Woodshop is a drama-free zone mostly because I’m the only girl in the class. And as Scotty so clearly illustrated earlier, guys don’t get involved in
drama—even when they’re right at the center of it—because they have no idea it’s even going on.

  I can be someone different in Woodshop than I am the rest of the day. Not like I’m being fake, exactly. I’m just a different part of myself when I’m surrounded by all the Woodshop boys and not with the G&T crew. I even go by a different name in this class. We all go by different names because our teacher, Mr. Pudel, is… well… eccentric. He claims to have a medical condition that makes it impossible for him to remember names, which doesn’t make any sense because he has no problem remembering our nicknames: Mouth, Cheddar, Squiggy.

  “Yo, Clementine.”

  I’m Clementine. As in “oh my Darling.”

  “Yo, Aleck.”

  He’s Aleck. As in Smart Aleck. Or Dumb Aleck. Depending on his mood. I know his real name—Marcus Flutie—and he knows mine. But in Woodshop, we’re Clementine and Aleck.

  Aleck picked up my battered project and pointed to a crack I had hammered into what was supposed to be the fourth wall.

  “This birdhouse should be condemned.”

  He was right. I was feeling better than I had all day, but my birdhouse was definitely worse for the wear. It certainly wasn’t fit for occupancy by any flying feathered creature.

  Aleck put down the birdhouse and gave me a serious look.

  “It’s obvious what’s happening here,” he said.

  Oh, just what I needed. Another person telling me what was happening in my own life.

  “You’re obviously still suffering from PTSSD.”

  Nothing Aleck ever says is “obvious.” Especially when he claims it is so obviously obvious.

  “Post-traumatic seagull stress disorder,” he explained. “Bird rage.”

  Aleck is the only student besides Bridget who knows of my secret history as the school mascot, Mighty the Seagull. There’s nothing in life he seems to enjoy more than reminding me of that fact. He put his hand comfortingly on my shoulder, as if I were in deep distress.

  “It’s okay, Clem,” he said. “You’re safe. You’re not trapped in the bird head anymore. The goose can’t get you now. Take deep breaths.…”

  I shook his hand off my shoulder and picked up another hammer.

  “Har dee har har.”

  I reversed the tool and went about removing the fourth wall. If I carefully pried the nails out of the floor, maybe I wouldn’t have to start over from scratch.

  “So,” Aleck said. “You and Scotty Glazer, huh?”

  CRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAACK!

  Aleck took a huge step backward.

  “Whoa.”

  I’d yanked so hard with the hammer claw that the birdhouse broke right in two.

  “You heard about me and Scotty? How did you hear about me and Scotty?”

  Aleck raked his hands through the mess on the top of his head. It had taken me a while to figure this out, but his hair color comes closest to the reddish-brownish wood stain called Timber Berry. I had used it on the napkin-holder project that had come after the spoon and before the birdhouse. I’d gotten a C minus on the spoon and a B minus on the napkin holder, so I held out hope I could earn an A minus on the birdhouse. This would bring me up to the academic standards I was accustomed to.

  “Word gets around,” he said finally.

  “Whatever you’ve heard isn’t true!”

  Aleck crossed his arms, covering up the No Fear logo on his T-shirt. “Shouldn’t you wait to hear what I’ve heard before you go around denying it?”

  He had a point. I guess.

  “What have you heard about me?”

  And he opened his mouth and BOOOOOOOM! But it came out like a ventriloquist because it wasn’t Aleck who was booming but Mr. Pudel.

  “ALECK! I NEED A STATUS REPORT ON YOUR BIRDHOUSE.”

  And then—without so much as acknowledging that we were right in the middle of a VERY IMPORTANT CONVERSATION—Aleck darted over to the drafting table and unrolled an elaborate blueprint, like something an architect would draw up. It would’ve been impressive if it weren’t so totally unnecessary.

  “What is this?” Mr. Pudel asked, half-amused and half-annoyed. He had gotten to know Aleck well enough already to predict that he’d try to outdo the birdhouse assignment without really doing it at all.

  “It’s the plans I drew up for a housing project,” Aleck said proudly. “I call it the Condorminium.…”

  Aleck is the first student in the history of Woodshop—heck, maybe the history of any subject ever—to boast an F plus average.

  “I wish you could just complete the assignment as it’s given to you,” Mr. Pudel said, rubbing his beard wearily. “What have I told you time and again?”

  “Just because I can do something doesn’t mean I should,” Aleck said dutifully.

  “So you did hear me,” he said. “I thought I wasn’t talking loud enough.”

  Mr. Pudel is even louder than Sara. He’s pretty much impossible to ignore, which is important information for understanding the significance of Aleck’s dis.

  “Just because something’s loud enough to hear,” Aleck said with quiet confidence, “doesn’t mean it’s worth listening to.”

  Yikes. I don’t have to tell you how Mr. Pudel responded, because I’m sure you heard him for yourself wherever in the world you were at the time.

  “OUT OF MY WORKSHOP. PRINCIPAL. NOW.”

  I think Mr. Pudel was a bit too harsh on Aleck. He didn’t deserve to get detention for insubordination. In my opinion, Aleck’s words were the wisest I’d heard anyone say all day.

  I was more relieved than ever to hear the final bell ring. I still had cross-country practice, but the worst of the day was finally over. Somehow, despite all the day’s many head messings, I’d thought ahead and brought all my homework and running gear with me to Woodshop so I could dodge Sara at our lockers. I really couldn’t handle any more speculation on The Scotty Scandal.

  I was about halfway to the changing room when two identical voices called out to me, using the nickname they’d heard my dad shouting at our meets.

  “Yo, Notso!”

  “Hey, Shandi,” I said to the twin with the silver beads in her hair.

  “Yo, Notso!”

  “Hey, Shauna,” I said to the twin with the gold beads in her hair.

  The Sampson twins aren’t just two of the most popular eighth-grade girls; they also happen to be two of the nicest. Other Hots go out of their way to make 7th-Grade Normals like me feel lower than scummy smudges of gum on the cafeteria linoleum. Shandi and Shauna have greeted and treated me like an equal from the moment I showed up at my first cross-country practice. But after the day I’d had, you can’t blame me for assuming that they, too, would start messing with me about Scotty.

  “So,” Shauna said. “How are you feeling today?”

  “How do you think I’m feeling today?” I snapped back.

  “Chill,” Shandi said. “We just thought you might be sore after running so fast yesterday.”

  Yesterday’s victory felt like it had happened a bazillion years ago. The Scotty Scandal had completely taken over my life, and yet Shandi and Shauna seemed to know nothing about it. They weren’t looking at me any differently. And they certainly weren’t making any stupid-gross faces. Maybe this HUGE DEAL that had made me so preoccupied and paranoid all day wasn’t important to anyone outside my very small seventh-grade social circle.

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I had a crappy day,” I replied. “And my shins are killing me.”

  If Shandi and Shauna were bothered by my bad attitude, they didn’t let it show.

  “You know how to recover from that?” Shandi asked.

  “A long, slow distance run,” Shandi answered.

  We took a few steps together before I asked for clarification.

  “Will running help my shins or my bad day?”

  The twins looked at each other before responding.

  “Both.”

  And then they took turns giving my ponytail a playful yank before we heade
d into the changing room to get ready for practice.

  That afternoon we ran as a team. Coach Fleet, the Sampson twins, Padma, Molly, and I took an easy jog along the winding trails behind the school’s property. They did most of the talking, except for Molly, who is a girl of few words. I listened for a little bit, but mostly I let my mind wander. The others were so engaged in their conversation that they didn’t seem to mind that I was there but not really there, if that makes any sense. I mean, I was alone with my thoughts, but I didn’t feel alone because I was surrounded by my teammates. It was a safe place to be.

  So the Sampson twins were right. As a form of therapy, a long, slow distance run was even better than pounding nails. Never before had I been so grateful for the cross-country team. Running is the only part of my life where I’m making any obvious progress.

  Chapter Eight

  I came home tired. Almost too tired to deal with what happened next.

  “Hello, gorgeous!” called a voice from the back of the house.

  “Gladdie?!”

  I headed straight for my grandmother’s favorite place in the world: the kitchen. The whole house already smelled like chocolate and sugar and butter and all things delicious.

  “Well, look at you,” she said, waving a batter-splattered spatula like a magic wand. “You rapturous thing, you!”

  Gladdie had made herself at home. Her silvery perm and sunshine-yellow pantsuit were dusted in a fine coating of flour and cocoa powder. Yes, my grandmother happens to be one of those old-fashioned grannies who loves to bake and knit, but she has not-so-old-fashioned hobbies, too. Truthfully, Gladdie is pretty cool for an eighty-something-year-old lady with two hip replacements and a closet full of polyester. She’s a champion card player and performs with a senior citizens’ synchronized-swimming troupe called the Golden Mermaids. She also wears red lipstick at all times. Even in the pool.

  “Gimme a hug!”

  I complied, figuring it wouldn’t matter if I got flour and cocoa powder and red lipstick all over my already-filthy running clothes. After a good squeeze, she took a step back to get a look at me.

  “You’re more beauteous than ever!”