I thought I heard a smile in his voice, but when I glanced at Ted his face was serious. Then I looked down at the paper that had landed on my desk, courtesy of Cary.
Mr. Morley’s “random” method had created some interesting pairs.
Alan Gray and Cokie Mason. (Now Alan would have a chance to interview those emus.)
Claudia and Jeremy. (Hmm … )
Logan and Rachel. (It still seemed weird to hear Logan’s name paired with any besides Mary Anne’s.)
Me and —
Oh, no! I stared down at the paper in shock. In front of me, I heard Cary groan.
Was this some kind of sick joke on Mr. Morley’s part? Or just a cosmic blunder? Whatever it was, it was a massive mistake. I couldn’t possibly work closely with —
Cary.
The one person I had no interest in learning about. In fact, I had negative interest in finding out anything about Cary Retlin’s life. Nor did I want him learning anything about mine.
Cary turned to look at me, and for once he wasn’t smirking. He looked as shocked as I felt. “This can’t be,” he said.
I shook my head. “No, it can’t.”
I thought of the last time Cary and I had worked together, during a disastrous student-teaching episode. We’d cotaught a gym class, and we’d come very close to creating mayhem on a scale that would have gone down in SMS history.
Just then, the bell rang. Everybody grabbed their stuff and headed out — everybody but Cary and me, that is. We approached Ted’s desk. He was busily straightening up a pile of papers, preparing for his next class.
Cary cleared his throat. “Uh, Ted?” he began.
Ted looked up. “Yes?”
I jumped in. “There is no way —”
Cary glared at me. “Absolutely no way —”
“In a million years,” I went on, “that the two of us —”
“We can’t possibly —”
“There must be some mistake,” I finished lamely.
“There isn’t,” Ted said firmly. “No mistake at all. You will be writing each other’s biographies. Any other questions?”
Cary and I gaped at each other.
“In that case, I’ll have to excuse myself,” said Ted. “I have another class arriving in two minutes.” He smiled at us and went back to his papers.
I could have sworn I saw something mischievous in that smile.
Cary closed his mouth and I closed mine. Then we marched out of the room without speaking another word.
I was still in shock when I arrived at Claudia’s house for our BSC meeting later that afternoon. But even in that condition, I couldn’t help noticing an odd silence when I walked into Claud’s room. Mary Anne wasn’t there yet, but Stacey was.
In the old days (before Jeremy, that is), if you put Claudia and Stacey in a room together they’d start gabbing like mad about some sale at the mall or their parents or something. But that day I didn’t hear a peep as I entered the room. Stacey was sitting at one end of the bed, leafing through the latest issue of Teenzine, and twirling a lock of her curly blonde hair. Claudia was sitting at her desk, stringing beads onto a leather thong.
“Kristy!” Claudia cried when I walked in. I thought I could hear relief in her voice. Was it that hard for her to be alone in a room with Stacey?
Stacey smiled. “What’s up?” she asked. Her smile was for me only. I could tell that she was carefully avoiding eye contact with Claudia.
Ugh. It’s no fun having two friends who are fighting with each other. And over what? A boy. Now, Jeremy’s pretty cute, but still. He’s just a boy. Is any boy worth losing your best friend over?
Mary Anne arrived just as I was settling in the director’s chair by Claudia’s desk. She glanced around the room, and I could tell she was taking in the situation. Our eyes met and she gave me the tiniest smile. I knew she felt the way I did about the rift between Stacey and Claudia.
“Well,” I said as Claudia’s digital clock clicked over to five-thirty, “I guess I hereby call this meeting to order.”
As if on cue, the phone rang. Claudia answered it. “Baby-sitters Club,” she said. “Can I help you?” She listened for a few seconds. “Sure, Mrs. Newton. We’ll call you right back, okay?” She put down the phone.
Mary Anne reached for the club record book, where she keeps track of our schedules. “What day?” she asked.
“Next Friday night. She needs a sitter while she and Mr. Newton go to a play in the city.”
Mary Anne ran her finger along the page she’d turned to. “Stacey and I are free.”
“Um,” said Stacey, glancing at Claudia, “I’m not actually free. I — I have plans.”
We all knew what that meant. Stacey had a date with Jeremy, but she didn’t want to make a big deal about it in front of Claudia. Even though they weren’t best buds anymore, they were making an effort to be civil to each other.
I snuck a glance at Claud. She was concentrating on her bead-stringing, pretending not to listen.
“Well, okay,” said Mary Anne. “No problem. I’ll be glad to take the job. I haven’t spent time with Jamie and Lucy in ages.” She wrote her name in the book.
Claudia called Mrs. Newton back to let her know Mary Anne would be the sitter. After she hung up, there was an awkward silence in the room.
“So —” I said.
“I heard about —” Stacey started speaking at the same time.
“What?” I asked. “Go ahead.”
“No, you.”
I sighed. “I was just about to say that Claudia and I had a cool English class today.”
“That’s what I was going to mention,” said Stacey. “I heard that Ted gave your class an interesting assignment.”
From the way she was speaking, I knew she’d heard it from Jeremy. And I was sure Claudia knew that too. So Stacey probably already knew that Claudia and Jeremy were partners. And she probably wasn’t happy about it. Stacey doesn’t seem too comfortable with the fact that Claudia and Jeremy get along really well. I decided to ignore that issue and bring up my own problem. “Did you hear who my partner is?” I asked.
“For what?” asked Mary Anne.
I realized she didn’t know anything about the biography project, so I backed up and explained it. She nodded, looking thoughtful.
“Anyway, guess who I’m stuck with? Mr. Eyebrow. Cary Retlin.”
Everybody groaned. For a moment it felt like old times, when we were all on the same side.
As usual, Mary Anne tried to be positive. You can always count on her to be sensitive and understanding. “Maybe it will be interesting,” she said. “I mean, aren’t you curious about what makes Cary tick?”
“I couldn’t care less,” I insisted, even though I’d been wondering the same thing only the day before. “And I certainly don’t want him probing my most innermost thoughts and dreams.”
“I won’t tell him anything if he interviews me,” Claudia promised. “Except maybe that story about when you threw up on the first day of school in second grade.”
I grabbed a pillow and threw it at her.
“Who’s your partner, Claudia?” Mary Anne asked innocently.
Claudia stopped laughing. She mumbled a name.
“Who?” Mary Anne asked.
“Jeremy,” said Claudia, a little bit louder. She avoided Stacey’s eyes.
“Oh,” said Mary Anne, with a glance at Stacey.
The room fell silent again.
I crossed my fingers and wished as hard as I could for the phone to ring. We needed a distraction.
Silence.
Suddenly, I remembered something. “Hey!” I said. “Guess what? Last night my mom and Watson agreed to let me throw a Christmas party. You know, a real party, with decorations and food and games and dancing and everything.” I was excited. I’ve had plenty of parties, but most of them have been pretty basic. A couple of pizzas, a video or three, and a bedroom crammed with girls in sleeping bags. This party was going to be differen
t, more like an adult party. And I was going to be in charge of everything, from making the food to deciding on the music. I wanted it to be perfect. I’d even started reading some of those slick home magazines — the ones I normally avoid like the plague — looking for tips on “holiday entertaining.”
“Cool,” said Stacey.
“That’s great,” murmured Mary Anne.
“Excellent.” Claudia didn’t look up from her beads.
Stacey was the only one of the three who really sounded psyched. I felt like smacking myself on the head. What a jerk! Of course the other two wouldn’t be excited about a party. Mary Anne had just broken up with her boyfriend. And Claudia, well, for one thing, she and Stacey weren’t exactly getting along. And Stacey would be sure to bring Jeremy to the party, which wouldn’t help. I could see it all now. What was the point of a fabulous party if my friends weren’t going to enjoy it?
I sighed.
Oh, well. I was going to go ahead with my plans anyway. My BSC friends weren’t the only ones I was going to invite. And with luck, Claudia and Stacey would work out their issues before the party rolled around, and Mary Anne would be that much more used to not being a couple with Logan. The party could still be a success.
I checked Claudia’s clock. Five fifty-three. Would the meeting ever end? This had to be one of the longest half hours of my life.
The phone rang two more times, once with a job request from Dr. Johanssen and once with a call from a girl in Claudia’s math class who needed that day’s homework assignment.
Finally, finally, the clock clicked to six. “Meeting adjourned!” I cried, jumping to my feet. I couldn’t wait to leave.
Stacey seemed to feel the same way. “ ’Bye!” she said, sprinting for the door.
Mary Anne and I said good-bye to Claudia. She seemed happy to be left with her beads. “Are you still coming over for dinner?” Mary Anne asked me as we left Claudia’s house.
I’d almost forgotten that she’d invited me. “Sure,” I said. “I’m looking forward to it.” I was, too. It would be nice to spend some time hanging out with Mary Anne. At least there was no awkwardness between us.
But I can’t say it was like old times either. It was strange to have dinner at Mary Anne’s temporary house, which is next door to Claudia’s. For one thing, it’s weird to be back on Bradford Court with her, on the street where we both grew up. Also, this house just felt unfamiliar. It’s oddly empty, since Mary Anne’s family lost so much in the fire. And there are all these boxes around, things they salvaged from the fire but haven’t unpacked. The boxes will probably sit there until Mary Anne’s family moves into the new house they’re creating out of their old barn. The smell of smoke still clings to the boxes. At dinner, Mary Anne’s stepmother, Sharon, looked tired and sad, and her dad seemed preoccupied.
After we ate, Mary Anne and I hung out in her room for a little while. We talked about school and about the situation with Stacey and Claudia, but I had a feeling there was something else on her mind. Finally, it came out.
“So, who’s Logan’s partner for that biography project?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“Rachel,” I answered.
Mary Anne nodded.
“Does that bother you?”
“Why should it?” She raised her eyebrows. “He’s a free agent now. He can hang out with anybody he chooses.”
“He didn’t choose,” I reminded her. “Ted did.”
“Oh, right. Anyway, I really don’t mind. I know you probably think I’m having second thoughts about breaking up with Logan, but I’m not. It’s just weird. Not to talk to him, I mean. We used to talk all the time. Now we probably wouldn’t have anything to say to each other anyway. But it still feels weird. And it’s strange knowing he’ll be talking to somebody else.”
She didn’t have to add that the “somebody else” was a girl we never really liked. I knew it must be hard for her. We talked a little longer and then Watson came by to pick me up.
“You had a phone call,” my mom said as soon as I walked into the kitchen. She handed me a slip of paper. “Cary wants you to call him back.” A phone number was written underneath his name.
This was not my favorite day.
I really didn’t feel like calling him back, but curiosity got the better of me. What did he want, anyway? I dialed the number on the paper. The phone rang twice and then somebody picked up. But he or she didn’t say anything. “Hello?” I said tentatively.
“Who’s this?”
I recognized Cary’s voice. I should have known. Who else but Cary Retlin would answer the phone without answering it? “It’s Kristy,” I said.
“Yes?”
“You called me,” I said.
“Not this time.”
I wished I could reach through the phone line and smack him. “Come on, Cary, what do you want?”
“A truce.”
“A what?”
“A truce,” he repeated. “Look. We don’t need a repeat of that gym-class thing. We got in a huge amount of trouble over that. I think we should work together this time. I mean, I know you annoy me to no end, and for some reason I seem to annoy you too. But I think we can reach an agreement, can’t we? Just to make Ted happy.”
I was still bristling from “you annoy me” — in what way could I possibly annoy him? — but I had to admit that Cary’s idea was a pretty mature concept. What could I do but agree?
We made plans to interview each other and various family members. We even talked a little about other sources we could use. Our conversation was surprisingly … normal.
After we hung up, I pulled out the fiction list Ted had given us. I wanted to start thinking about which book I would read. The list looked interesting, and I marked several titles to check out further.
Little did I know how much trouble that list was about to cause.
Over the weekend, I spent some time at the library looking at books from Ted’s list. By Monday morning, I’d narrowed my choices down to two. I was going to read either The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton (everybody I know has already read it and loved it), or The Red Pony, by John Steinbeck, which I’ve heard is really good but sad. I was hoping to have a moment to talk to Ted before class, to see if he could help me choose which one to read.
I had also made up a list of questions for my first “interview” with Cary. We’d decided to meet after school that afternoon, and I wanted to be ready. Most of my questions were pretty basic. I had realized that I really didn’t know much about Cary Retlin. And in a weird way, I was starting to feel interested in learning more.
I was still thinking over my questions as I headed for English class. As I walked through the hall, I noticed clumps of kids talking excitedly and looking upset. I wondered what was up. Had somebody been suspended? Or was it news from outside the school, for instance, something about the space shuttle launch? I didn’t have time to stop and find out, not if I was going to talk to Ted before class.
I hurried along and arrived a few minutes before the bell rang. But Ted wasn’t sitting alone at his desk as I’d hoped. Instead, he sat on the edge of it, surrounded by a group of students. The kids looked as upset as the ones out in the hall — and Ted looked even worse. What was happening? I approached the group, but I couldn’t tell what they were talking about. I heard, “It’s not fair” and “How can they do that?” but nothing that told me what was going on.
Finally, Ted stood up. He looked tired and sad, and I couldn’t begin to imagine what was wrong. “You kids had better head to your next class,” he said. “Go on, now. We’ll talk some more another time.”
The crowd broke up. One girl looked as if she were about to cry. “What is it?” I asked her. She just shook her head.
By then other kids from my class were drifting in. There was a buzz of conversation. Everybody knew something was wrong.
“Okay, folks,” Ted’s voice rose above the noise. “Let’s all take a seat. I have a feeling there are lots of rumors floating
around. Maybe I can clear things up a bit.”
“So it’s true?” Jeremy asked.
Ted held up his hands. “Hold on,” he said. “Let’s just wait until everybody’s here and seated. Then I’ll try to explain.”
Just then, Cary came in the door and headed for Ted. He stuck out his hand for a shake. “I’m behind you, man,” I heard him say.
Behind Ted? What did that mean?
“Thanks,” Ted replied. Then, as Cary took his seat, Ted moved to the front of the room and asked for our attention.
Everybody fell silent instantly, and all eyes were on Ted.
“I don’t know how to say this,” said Ted, “but I may not be your teacher for much longer.”
“What?” Logan sounded outraged. “Why not?”
The buzz of conversation started all over again. Ted held up his hands. “I think some of you may have already heard that there has been a call for me to be suspended or fired or punished in some other way.”
“What are you talking about?” The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them.
“I’m talking about the fact that some parents of kids in my classes do not like the book list I handed out on Friday. They object to some of the titles on it. In fact,” Ted continued, “they’re so angry about the books that they’re making a point of asking the school administrators to make sure I can’t hand out a list like that again.”
This was unbelievable. I mean, we were talking about books.
“I want to say right away that I still stand behind these books.” Ted held up the list he’d handed out. “If there are books on this list that you do not want to read, and that your parents do not want you to read, that’s fine. That’s your choice. All you have to do is find a book that you do want to read and that your parents consider appropriate. There is something for everyone on this list.”
“My parents don’t tell me what to read and what not to read,” said a girl named Jessica.
Ted smiled at her. “That’s great,” he said. “Personally, I don’t think parents should censor their kids’ reading. But all I’m saying here is that you do have a choice. There are books on this list that nobody could possibly find objectionable.” Ted sighed. “At least, I think there are.”