“A monster hunt?”
“Yeah. You know. To look for the Closet Monster and the Game Monster and the Dark-Corner Monster and everything.”
“I won’t be able to sleep,” added Melody, “until I know the monsters are gone.”
“Well,” said Dawn, “if we’re going to go on a monster hunt, we better do it properly. First we need hats. Well, you guys already have hats, but I need one.”
From a bin of dress-up clothes, Bill produced a baseball cap for Dawn.
“Next we need protective glasses,” Dawn went on.
Melody found three pairs of children’s sunglasses. (The ones she handed Dawn were decorated with Minnie Mouse figures.)
“Now,” Dawn said, “we need a flashlight, of the antimonster variety.”
“What kind is antimonster?” asked Bill.
“Any kind with red on it somewhere. Monsters do not like red.”
“They don’t?” said Melody.
“Nope,” replied Dawn.
Bill made Dawn and Melody accompany him to the kitchen, where he searched through a drawer and unearthed a flashlight with a red switch. He handed it to Dawn. Then, armed with the flashlight, and wearing their hats and sunglasses, the three tiptoed from room to room on the second floor.
In each room, Dawn would shine the flashlight around and chant, “Monster, monster, wherever you are — GO AWAY!”
And Bill or Melody would add, “Yeah, go away, Mirror Monster,” or, “Window Monster,” or, “Closet Monster,” depending on what room they were in.
Sometimes Melody would jump and scream, as if she had just seen a hand with long green fingers, or a set of gleaming fangs. Then she would say, “Okay, that monster is gone! Gone for good.”
The last room to be exterminated was the bathroom that Melody and Bill share. Dawn aimed the beam of the flashlight into all the corners and behind the shower curtain. “Monster, monster, wherever you are — GO AWAY!”
“Yeah, go away, Toilet Monster!” exclaimed Bill.
Dawn and Bill waited for Melody to jump, scream, and say, “Okay, the Toilet Monster is gone! Gone for good.” Instead, Melody looked as if she were listening for something. She cocked her head intently. Then she said softly, “I hear growling.”
Dawn and Bill stood still and listened, too.
Sure enough, the toilet was growling. Apparently, it hadn’t been repaired yet.
“Aughh!” screamed Melody.
“Aughh!” screamed Bill.
Dawn almost screamed, too, but she caught herself in time. And then she found herself running after the kids, who were fleeing the Toilet Monster.
Bill tore into his room and scooted under his bed. Melody tore into her room, scrambled into her bed, and pulled the covers over her head.
“Come on, you guys,” said Dawn. She was standing in the hallway, trying to talk to both kids at once, even though she couldn’t see either one of them. “You know there isn’t really a Toilet Monster, don’t you? You invented him. He’s just a joke. He’s silly and imaginary. So are all the other monsters.”
“Then how come we went on a monster hunt?” asked a voice from under a bed.
Dawn removed her baseball cap and the Minnie Mouse sunglasses. “We were playing, okay?” she said. “It was just a game.”
Dawn had to talk to the kids for about ten minutes before Melody would take the covers off her face and Bill would crawl out from under the bed. At last she convinced them that it was safe to turn out the lights.
“Good night,” she said. She checked on Skylar, who was sprawled out in her crib, sleeping peacefully, unaware of Toilet Monsters. Dawn tiptoed downstairs.
Half an hour later, she tiptoed back upstairs. First she peeped into Skylar’s room. Skylar was now scrunched into a corner of her crib, still sound asleep.
Then Dawn peeped into Melody’s room. She couldn’t see the bed very well, so she turned on the light in the hallway. Melody’s bed was empty.
A chill ran through Dawn.
She raced into Bill’s room — and stopped short. Melody and Bill were crowded into Bill’s bed, Melody at the foot, Bill at the head. Dawn looked at them for a few moments, trying to figure out what to do, and also letting her heart calm down. She was about to ease Melody out from under the covers when she heard a door open and close, and then the sound of voices downstairs.
Mr. and Mrs. Korman had come home.
Dawn left Melody where she was and went downstairs to tell the Kormans about the Toilet Monster.
* * *
“What did they say?” I asked Dawn when she came home that night.
“Not much. First they laughed. Then they said something about the kids having incredible imaginations. After that, they paid me, and Mrs. Korman drove me home.”
I nodded.
“Mary Anne? Is anything wrong?” asked my sister.
“I just can’t stop thinking about the stupid English assignment. Tomorrow our groups meet for the first time.”
“And you’ll be with Logan.”
“Right. How on earth could we have been assigned to the same group? To study Megan Rinehart, no less.”
“What’s wrong with Megan Rinehart?” asked Dawn.
“Nothing. That’s the problem. Logan and I both like her books. I mean, I love them. And I think Logan’s read almost all of them. So we’ll both want to do a really good job on the project. Only — how can we, when we can hardly look at each other? It is going to be so embarrassing.”
Dawn sighed.
I sighed. Maybe the next day would never come.
Well, of course the next day came. What had I expected?
I bit my nails through the morning, nervously trying to prepare myself for study hall. That was when our groups would meet. For the first time only, we would get together in the cafeteria, under the watchful eyes of our English teachers, who would make sure that each group could, in fact, work together without drawing blood or anything. After that, we would be on our own. We would have to meet after school.
How could the administration of SMS do this to me? They owed me something. A Ferrari, maybe. At the very least, a good grade. What if our group ended up at Logan’s house — several times? I couldn’t go there; not with all the memories his house held for me. And not with Kerry and Hunter spying on us and asking embarrassing questions like, “Logan, is Mary Anne your girlfriend again?” It would be completely humiliating.
Maybe I should alter my appearance and run away under an assumed name.
But when study hall rolled around, I headed obediently for the cafeteria — which was a madhouse. I don’t know how big your school cafeteria is, but ours is about the size of Canada. No kidding. It’s a sea of tables and chairs and trash cans. With the entire eighth grade milling around in it, I felt like I was at a rock concert, only without a group to listen to. And without that feeling of excitement. And no fast food or — Okay, it was nothing at all like a rock concert. It was just a mess of noisy kids.
How were we supposed to form our groups? I wondered.
And just then I spotted Logan. He was running after Miranda Shillaber. So, feeling like a fool, I ran after him. I didn’t call him, though. I just kept him in sight. When he caught up with Miranda, I stood behind the two of them. Miranda turned around and spotted me.
“Mary Anne! Hi!” she said. “Okay, now we just need to find Pete.”
Logan turned around, too. “Hi,” he said, sounding uncomfortable.
“Hi,” I replied. And I was surprised to find that I felt … nervous, of course, but something else. I couldn’t identify the feeling right away. I just stood there, looking at Logan, until finally I realized that I was glad to see him.
After all, I had been missing him lately.
But I didn’t have any idea how he felt about me.
“There you are! Hey, you guys, I thought I’d never find you!” Pete Black joined us. “What’re we supposed to do now?”
“Find a table and sit at it,” replied Miranda
. (She doesn’t like Pete. In seventh grade he used to torment her. Once, he snapped the back of her bra, and the straps broke and the bra slid down around her waist. She had to go to the girls’ room to remove it, and then she had to carry it around in her purse all day.)
“There’s a table,” said Logan. “We better claim it before someone else does.”
So the four of us squeezed through the crowd of kids to a nearby table. We stood around it, deciding where to sit. Did I want to be across from Logan so I could see him, or next to him so we could sit closer together? I could tell Miranda wanted to be as far from Pete as possible. Preferably at another table. At last Pete sat down, Logan sat next to him, and Miranda sat next to Logan, so I wound up across from Logan. The first time I glanced up, he was looking right in my eyes! I looked back at him — but Logan shifted his gaze to the floor.
The cafeteria was becoming more organized and less noisy.
Pete, Miranda, Logan, and I sat like stones. We knew what we were supposed to do. Our English teachers had talked to us the day before. This was our one chance to work together during school hours when the teachers could walk around and help us.
But none of us said a word. So I was glad for a distraction. Even if the distraction was Cokie. She was standing by our table with her English teacher, and she was pretending to look serious and concerned.
“Is this the group studying Megan Rinehart?” asked Mr. Lehrer.
“Yes,” replied Logan and Miranda.
Mr. Lehrer nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Now, I know you were told that you could not switch out of the groups to which you were assigned, but I’d like to make an exception for Cokie here. She says Megan Rinehart is the one author who truly interests her. I’d like to give her the opportunity to study Ms. Rinehart’s books.”
I knew why Mr. Lehrer was making an exception for Cokie: because she’s a terrible English student. Mr. Lehrer must have been astounded to think she was showing an interest in something.
I also knew that Cokie couldn’t care less about Megan Rinehart or any other author. The person she cared about was … Logan.
What a snake.
We were going to be a wonderful group. Miranda couldn’t stand Pete, I couldn’t stand Cokie, and Logan and I weren’t speaking.
Then Mr. Lehrer sprung his surprise. “Cokie was going to be a member of the group studying Natalie Babbitt,” he went on. “Who would like to switch places with Cokie and study Ms. Babbitt’s wonderful books?”
Miranda jumped up as if someone had stuck her with a pin. “I would!” she exclaimed, glaring at Pete.
I nearly gasped. Could this possibly be happening? Miranda was going to desert me — and leave me to deal with Cokie and Logan?
I thought of the Wicked Witch of the West in the movie The Wizard of Oz. “Oh, what a world, what a world,” she had murmured as she died.
Those were her last words.
Now I understood what they meant.
Miranda walked off with Mr. Lehrer. Cokie, grinning, slid into the empty seat. She patted her hair. “So,” she said brightly. “What did I miss?” She paused. “Why, Mary Anne!” she cried, as if I hadn’t been sitting there all along. “What a pleasant surprise to find you in this group … and Logan!”
Logan smiled. “What are we waiting for?” he said. “Let’s get to work.”
“Oh, barf,” said Pete.
Logan ignored him. “How many here have read Megan Rinehart’s books?” he asked. Then he answered his own question. “I’ve read most of them. And I know Mary Anne has read all of them.”
I dared to smile at Logan.
He flashed the briefest of smiles back at me.
And that was all it took. I knew then that I wanted Logan as a friend and as my boyfriend. How could I ever have said we needed time apart?
“I haven’t read any of her books,” spoke up Pete. “They’re for girls.”
“Pete!” exclaimed Logan. “I just got finished saying that I read them.”
“You’ve read that one that has something about pink prom dresses in the title?”
“I haven’t read every one of them.”
“How many books did Marie Rinehard write, Logan?” Cokie asked. You’d have thought he was the only other person sitting at the table.
“Fourteen, I think. Right, Mary Anne? … And her name is Megan Rinehart.”
I nodded. And suddenly I felt as tongue-tied and as awkward as the first time Logan ever spoke to me.
“Fourteen?” repeated Pete. “You mean we have to read fourteen books for this project? How am I going to read fourteen books?”
“Oh, we don’t each have to read all the books,” said Cokie.
“I think we better,” I managed to say.
“Of course you think so,” said Cokie. She was answering my question but she was looking at Logan — as if she were hypnotizing him. (I half expected his eyes to turn into swirling red and white spirals, like in TV cartoons.) “You’ve already read the books.”
“I plan to read them again,” I said quietly.
“Wait a second,” said Pete. “We don’t even know what our project is going to be. I mean, we’re supposed to study this author. Then we have to work on a project together. What’s our project going to be?”
“It’s going to be easy, I hope,” Cokie replied lightly.
“Easy!” I exclaimed. “It’s got to be good. Megan Rinehart is —”
“Megan Rinehart?” repeated Cokie. “I thought her name was Marie Rinehard.”
“Cokie! Logan just —” I started to say.
“Logan, what’s her name?” Cokie asked sweetly, interrupting me.
“It’s Megan Rinehart —”
“You are so smart. Can you imagine what would have happened if we’d done a project and gotten the author’s name wrong?” said Cokie. “Thanks, Logan. We would have looked like fools if it weren’t for you.”
“You’re going to look like a fool anyway,” muttered Pete. He was staring glumly at his hands, so he didn’t see that Cokie was still hypnotizing Logan. (She could hold a person’s gaze longer than anyone could.)
At the same time, Cokie edged her notebook across the table — until her fingers brushed against Logan’s elbow ever so slightly.
Here’s what we had accomplished by the end of study hall: We had decided to hold our next meeting at Cokie’s house. (Well, she had decided, and Logan and Pete said that was fine, so I went along with everyone else.)
“Do you think that was a productive study hall?” Pete asked me as the bell rang.
I gave him a Look.
* * *
That night, I had trouble concentrating on my homework, even though the house was silent. Dad and Sharon were out, and Dawn was studying with her music off, for once. I kept gazing across my room at the row of books by Megan Rinehart that were lined up on a shelf.
I was glad when I heard Dawn call, “Hey, Mary Anne? Want to take a break?”
My sister and I wandered down to the kitchen. We were making tea when Dawn said, extremely casually, “You know what I heard Grace say today?”
“Grace? Grace Blume?” (Grace is Cokie’s best friend.)
“Yeah. Her group was sitting at the table next to mine in study hall today.” Dawn turned off the stove as the tea kettle began to sing. “Well, I heard Grace say that Cokie doesn’t care about any author, not even Megan Rinehart.”
“I know.”
“You know? Oh.” Dawn poured hot water into two teacups. “Then I guess you know about the Logan thing. No wonder you’ve been so quiet.”
“I —”
“I can’t believe,” Dawn went on, “that Mr. Lehrer fell for Cokie’s trick. He must be the only person in Stoneybrook who doesn’t know … well, it’s like what Grace said. Cokie just wants a shot at Logan now that he’s available.”
Available? Logan was available? Who had decided that? The dating god?
He was not available. He was mine. Well, he was once.
And
I missed him and wanted him back.
It was unbelievable. Unthinkable. Unreal.
I was on my way to Cokie’s house.
You might be wondering why Cokie and I don’t like each other. The truth of the matter is — Cokie has been interested in Logan ever since he moved to Stoneybrook, which is about how long Logan had been interested in me. And she once did a pretty mean thing as a way of trying to take Logan from me. This started a war — my friends against Cokie and Grace and their friends. The war began when Cokie tried to make me crazy by sending me frightening messages. She wanted me to look like a fool in front of Logan. Only I figured out what she was doing, and my friends and I got back at her — in a graveyard on Halloween night.
Of course, Cokie had to get back at us, so later she took things out on Kristy, since Kristy is the BSC president, and it was the members of the BSC who had scared the daylights out of Cokie — with Logan watching.
Now that Logan and I were no longer boyfriend and girlfriend (all of SMS was aware of that), Cokie had her eye on Logan again, and the three of us were working together on a group project. What a combination. I wondered if Cokie would have gone after Logan if he and I had been assigned to separate groups.
Oh, well. There was no point in thinking, “What if?” As my father would say, the cards have been dealt. Now we had to play out our hands.
Okay, so Cokie had decided our second group meeting would be held at her house (assuming the rest of us would go along with her idea).
Which we did.
I am such a wimp.
Now it was a Thursday afternoon — a beautiful, clear Thursday afternoon — and I was going to waste it in Cokie’s kitchen. That doesn’t sound right. What I mean is, I wanted to do a good job on our project. I just didn’t want to do it at the Masons’.
I was riding my bike to Cokie’s house, which was a good distance from mine. Not as far away as Kristy’s house, but still pretty far.
This project was going to be torture. Pure torture. I wanted to ask to switch to a different group so I wouldn’t have to watch Cokie and Logan together. On the other hand, I wanted to keep Logan in sight. I liked having an excuse to be around him again. Besides, I wanted to study Megan Rinehart.