Awesome Blossom

  The next Modessa battle had to do with Violet, who stood up to Modessa when she was picking on weird Cyril Remkiwicz. The FFFs won that battle just as squarely and awesomely as they won the first battle, so ha.

  But then, last month, another Modessa battle reared its ugly head. Seriously! This time it was about Elena, and how Modessa was trying to steal Elena’s soul and turn her into a Modessa clone. Which she succeeded in doing. Which sucks. But Elena does (or did) have a brain. Elena could have put her foot down (on top of Modessa’s! Ha! That would have been epic!). And she could have kept wearing jeans and button-downs, which looked like cowgirl clothes to Katie-Rose, and which Katie-Rose always secretly admired, because she wouldn’t mind being a cowgirl herself, only without the cows.

  Elena could have stayed herself, but no. The “new” Elena wears skirts and cute little tops now, and beneath her tops are the obvious bumps of bra straps. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Elena still wears her cowboy boots on occasion, but paired with her new style, they look … well … stylish. Again, stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Does Katie-Rose wish Modessa hadn’t blown her poisonous un-fairy dust all over Elena? Sure. Of course. But there’s nothing Katie-Rose or Yaz can do about it now. They can’t go back in time and vacuum it up, obviously.

  Elena made her bed and now she has to lie in it, as Katie-Rose’s mom would say. And the flower friends should let her—that’s what Katie-Rose would say. And she has! Repeatedly. Katie-Rose has also repeatedly shared her opinion that it would be far more FUN to just, you know, focus on being flower friends forever and forget about any and all annoying classmates.

  But Yaz refuses to listen, because Yaz has a huuuuge heart. So now, in addition to being concerned about Elena, she’s all concerned about this new girl, this Hayley person, and … blah. It’s just so annoying.

  “—fake laugh, maybe. Do you think?” Yaz is saying. “Or maybe not. Maybe she didn’t even know, because maybe Modessa was putting on an act for her. Like, maybe Modessa thought it would be fun to …”

  Yaz talks and talks. Katie-Rose shifts positions on the sofa and sighs, thinking about how Yaz’s voice sounds different over the phone than it does in person. Most people’s do, but Yaz’s does more so than others. Maybe because Yaz is already so soft-spoken, even when she’s feeling urgent about something or other? Maybe the whisper-shush of the phone lines—if phone lines even exist anymore (do they?)—wrap around Yaz’s words and cloak them in one extra layer of telephone gossamer, muffling them just a snitch, just enough to make them buzz in Katie-Rose’s head?

  She has had enough of the buzz, she decides.

  “SO!” she says, loudly and brightly.

  Yasaman stops in the middle of her sentence. “Um … huh?”

  Katie-Rose plasters a wide smile on her face, because even if a person can’t see your expression, she can hear it, and if you’re smiling, you sound smiley. And Katie-Rose needs to sound smiley in order to lure Yaz away from the non-smiliness of all things Modessa.

  “Have you found any stray bubble-gum balls in your basement?” Katie-Rose asks. “From the bubble-gum treasure hunt?”

  “Um, I haven’t looked. I got home and called you straightaway.”

  “Ahhh. Well, you probably should make a sweep of the basement just in case, because you don’t want your mom or dad tripping over a rogue bubble-gum ball and falling on their heads or anything.”

  “Why would they fall on their heads?”

  “Because bubble-gum balls are balls! Round! Slippery! Like banana peels, only worse. Like marbles, only worse!”

  “Oh,” Yaz says. “You’re right. Maybe I should go check …”

  “And Nigar. Is she back to being Nigar, or is she still Princess Bubblelina?”

  Yaz laughs, an excellent sign. “At home? Nigar. At school? Lucy was calling Nigar ‘Princess Bubblelina,’ and Nigar was calling Lucy ‘Lucilicious.’”

  “She’s living two lives,” Katie-Rose says approvingly. “I like it!”

  “You are so strange, Katie-Rose,” Yaz says. “My little sister is not living two lives, and I don’t even know what that means, and why would you want her to, anyway?”

  That question sets a new course for the conversation, and the two girls argue (in a friendly way) about whether a girl could live two lives, or whether she’d get caught eventually. Also about whether a girl can change over time—like, really change, and not just change the color of her hair or whether she wears all black or whatever—or if you are who you are and that’s that, the end.

  All in all, Katie-Rose is quite pleased with herself for successfully distracting Yaz from the Medusa Wars saga. She doesn’t know how long it’ll last, however, so she signs off while their convo’s on a high point.

  “Adios, dahling. See you tomorrow,” she says.

  “Adios to you,” Yaz says. “Bye.”

  Katie-Rose clicks the “off” button and rests the phone against her chest. Disaster—or drama—averted.

  and texts Max, who is both a boy and her friend, and who is even her semi-boyfriend. Okay, her real live boyfriend, if she’s being totally honest and not blushingly embarrassed. Max is her boyfriend, and Milla is Max’s girlfriend, and the reason she knows this is because she knows her heart well enough to be able to say, Yes, this is something, and it’s not one-sided. It’s both-sided. We like each other, Max and I, and … yay!!!!

  What Milla doesn’t know is what it means, exactly, to be in the fifth grade and have a boyfriend. Should she hold his hand one day? Kiss him? No way, too scary. (But what if he kisses her, or tries to? Eeek!)

  For now? Texting is enough. It’s super a lot of fun, especially with all the emoji that can be added to the texts. Big happy grins! Hearts! Octopi! Strange balls of food on sticks!

  Oh, and Max has his very own iPhone, that lucky boy. He calls it his “portable computer that has phone functionality built in.” Tee-hee, so adorkable.

  Milla’s Mom Abigail is calling Milla, too. Milla’s been pretending that she didn’t hear, but now she wanders into the kitchen and gives Mom Abigail her phone back—after carefully deleting all the texts between her and Max.

  “Okeydoke, Mill-the-Pill,” Mom Abigail says. “Homework? Lunch? Do you have everything you need before heading to the car?”

  “Yes, ma’am, Mom-ma’am,” Milla says.

  Her mom smiles and tousles her hair. “Great. So who were you talking to just now?”

  “No one. Max. But we weren’t talking. We were texting.”

  “Ah,” her mom says. She likes Max. Everyone likes Max. “Anything exciting going on?”

  “No, not really. He, um, gave me the weather report, that’s all.” He didn’t, but Milla isn’t ready to bring up the Olive Garden yet. “It’s going to be on the chilly side, so you better take a jacket, because don’t you have that picnic thing today?”

  Milla’s Mom Abigail is a caterer, and last night she told Milla and Milla’s Mom Joyce about a “Cupcakes, Coffee, and Koi” event that’s she’s throwing this morning. The lady who hired Mom Abigail wants the food served in her backyard even though it’s November, because she has a new fishpond she wants to show off. Hence the “Cupcakes, Coffee, and Koi” theme (though the koi will not be served as food).

  “I do,” Mom Abigail says. “Hey, thanks for the reminder.”

  “I’ll go get your cute pink jacket,” Milla says. “That fluffy marshmallow one.”

  She skips off to the coat closet. Pizza! Burgers! Maybe ice cream, and definitely Max!

  First she’ll tell her besties. Yaz will be wide-eyed and full of awe. Katie-Rose will either scowl or tease her and make smoochie-smoochie sounds. As for Violet, she’ll help Milla pick out the perfect-o outfit, cute and chic and just exactly right.

  Except, wait. She stops skipping all at once, realizing that if she tells her FFFs, then that makes her date with Max real. If it even is a “date.” Is it a date?

  Maybe she won’t tell her besties about the … whatever-it-is that Max h
as suggested quite yet after all. Eventually she will, of course!

  Well, probably.

  Maybe.

  But honestly, it makes more sense to find out more from Max about when he’s imagining this … thing … will actually happen. Then she’ll check in with her moms, who might say “yes” but might say “no.” If they say “no,” there’s not much reason to tell her besties anyway, is there?

  But if they say “yes” … ?

  Milla shivers.

  It will be epic.

  Ms. Perez hasn’t started teaching yet. She’s doing that sneaky-teacher move called freewriting, where the kids in the class are supposed to work on their writing assignment for the week while Ms. Perez finishes her cup of coffee. Hardly anyone but Yaz does the assignment, though, so instead of “freewriting time,” it’s more like free time, period, which kids use in a variety of different ways:

  Some write notes to their friends. Medusa and Quin are big note writers, big surprise. Their notes are no doubt mean, because there is always a lot of sniggering when they pass them back and forth.

  Elena used to stare out the window, probably daydreaming about horses, but now she has joined the note-passing ranks with Medusa and Quin.

  Chance, who claims he has fifteen different girlfriends in fifteen different states, draws cartoon strips. Katie-Rose has seen Chance’s cartoons. They’re not bad. Nevertheless, she is highly doubtful of his girlfriend collection.

  Natalia Totenburg also uses the time to draw. She alternates between poking her enormous headgear with her eraser and drawing detailed pictures of cheerleaders. Natalia’s pictures are good, too, but cheerleaders? Why?!

  As for the rest of the kids in the class, it’s anyone’s guess what they’re up to. Some, like Yasaman, are hunched over their journals, but Katie-Rose would bet dollars to doughnuts that most of them are scribbling stuff like, “Here I am writing. Just writing. Writing anything at all, that’s what I’m doing, la la la.” When Ms. Perez makes her occasional classroom scan, that’s the sort of gibberish Katie-Rose writes, anyway.

  Ms. Perez seems particularly tuned out this morning, however, and Katie-Rose would never admit it, but she’s bored with no actual work to do. To pass the time, she props her elbows on her desk and her chin in her palms and beams her laser-like eyeball energy at a boy two rows in front of her. His name is Preston, and he is annoying, but also slightly cute (in an annoying way). Not that she would ever ever EVER in a squillion years admit such a thing.

  “Preston, Preston, Preston,” Katie-Rose says under her breath. She uses a menacing voice, because it is entertaining. Come to think of it, maybe Preston is only (slightly) cute because although he is unquestionably annoying, he is easy to annoy. And annoying Preston is one of life’s great pleasures.

  He lifts his head, looks straight at her, and catches her staring. He winks at her, and she jerks back and almost topples over in her chair.

  He chuckles, and she narrows her eyes.

  “You think that’s funny?” Katie-Rose says under her breath. She continues addressing him, but in her head: You almost killed me, and you think it’s funny? Well, hardy har har har har, you’re soooooooo hysterical. You should join the circus, or better yet, clown school. Why don’t you join clown school, Preston, huh?

  Preston lounges in his chair, grinning insolently and twirling his pen between his fingers. He’s wearing white skinny jeans (it takes an exceedingly confident boy to pull off white skinny jeans, she’ll give him that) and a blue shirt that has a velvet snake-like pattern on it.

  Skater-dude hip, that’s his vibe. Katie-Rose’s gaze travels upward, and she notices that he even has—

  Whoa!

  “Preston!” she whisper-hisses.

  “Yes, She Who Adoreth Me?”

  She waves that off with an irritable finger-flutter. “Preston—you got your ear pierced!”

  “Yup, to add to my hotness factor.”

  “Ew,” Katie-Rose says. Fifth graders are not supposed to be hot, or even say that word.

  “I’ve got passion in my pants and I ain’t afraid to show it, show it, show it,” Preston croons. He waggles his eyebrows. “I’m sexy and I know it.”

  “Uh, no, you’re disgusting,” Katie-Rose says. She edges out of her desk. “But your ear. Can I see?”

  “Come forth,” he says. “Admire.”

  Katie-Rose glances at Ms. Perez, then slinks two rows forward to Preston’s desk, squat-walking to keep her head at the same height as the rest of the students’ heads.

  “You walk like a duck,” Preston comments.

  Katie-Rose scowls and tries to think of a comeback.

  “It’s cute,” he says.

  She closes her mouth. Did he just say she was cute? Is it possible that while she was going about the morning thinking Preston was (slightly) cute, Preston was thinking the same thing about her?

  Or—more likely—is he messing with her mind?

  “Yeah, whatever,” she says. She grabs the hair at the nape of his neck (it’s surprisingly soft) and pulls him toward her, angling his head so that his pierced ear is directly in her line of vision. Jammed through his earlobe is a gunmetal-gray earring, but not an earring earring. Not a girly one, that is. Preston’s earring is a small hoop with a ball-bearing sort of thing at the bottom. Very very boy.

  “Whoa, that’s awesome,” she tells him.

  “Thanks,” he says. He plays it cool, but he blushes a little.

  “Did you go to Claire’s?” she asks, since Claire’s is the store where girls almost always go to get their ears pierced.

  “Claire’s?” he says incredulously. “Uh … no. At Claire’s, they make you hold a teddy bear so you won’t be scared.”

  “They do?”

  “That’s what they did with my little sister,” he says. “If you ever get your ears pierced, you’ll see for yourself. You’ll get to hold a cuddly widdle teddy bear, and if you want them to, they’ll even take a picture for you.”

  “No, thank you,” Katie-Rose says, which makes Preston laugh. “So if you didn’t go to Claire’s, where did you go?”

  “I did it myself,” Preston says.

  Katie-Rose huffs. “Liar pants. You did not.”

  “Did so. Took a needle out of my mom’s sewing basket and popped it right through. It really did pop, too.” He lowers his voice, as if making sure no spies are listening. “The earlobe is a fleshy thing. There’s more going on there than you’d think. You probably would have fainted.”

  “Uh, no,” Katie-Rose says. She doesn’t know whether she believes him, but she does know that she can’t let him get the upper hand. “This girl does not faint.” Unfortunately, she wobbles as she says this. She grabs his desk to keep her balance, and he grins that cocky grin.

  “Do you always refer to yourself in the third person?”

  “I am not about to faint, so shut up!” she hisses.

  “It could be my extreme hotness,” Preston muses. “Girls faint all the time when they see me. They drop like flies.”

  Really? Katie-Rose thinks. Really?!! She steals another peek at Ms. Perez—she’s still grading, or Facebooking, or whatever it is she’s up to—and says in her most menacing tone yet, “Preston? You. Are. Ten.”

  “Eleven,” he corrects her.

  She’s momentarily thrown. He’s eleven? A whole year older than she is? How did she not know that? Then she reminds herself that she doesn’t care.

  “Okay, eleven,” she says. “Whoopie-dee-do. But guess what? Eleven-year-olds are not …” She swallows. “You cannot say that you’re …”

  “Hot?” Preston says. He extends his leg into the aisle. His sneaker is enormous, and when he nudges her shin, she topples onto her bottom.

  “Ow!” she cries. Ms. Perez glances up. Natalia gawks, and Modessa and Quin swivel their heads in unison to see what’s going on. They look at Katie-Rose, then at each other. Modessa laughs and holds her palm up so that Quin can give her a high five. Laughter spreads around
the classroom. Katie-Rose feels her face heat up.

  “Katie-Rose?” Yaz says anxiously. Katie-Rose is certain that Yaz is the only person in the room who cares that she fell. Everyone else just thinks it’s hilarious.

  “Here,” Preston says, reaching to help her up. He isn’t laughing, she notices. He almost looks concerned.

  But Katie-Rose feels a rush of anger anyway. She pushes him away. “Leave me alone,” she snaps.

  “Katie-Rose …”

  “I said leave me alone.”

  He furrows his brow. “O-o-okay. You’re, uh, kind of prickly, aren’t you?”

  “Shut up, Preston. Just shut up.”

  He lowers his voice. “I didn’t mean to make you fall.”

  “Well, good, because you didn’t. I fell all by myself.” She blinks back tears. “You think the whole world revolves around you, Preston. But guess what? Nobody cares what you do, especially not me.”

  Hurt flickers across Preston’s face, and Katie-Rose feels ashamed. Then just like that, his expression changes, and Katie-Rose wonders if the hurt was ever there at all.

  “Down, girl,” he says loudly, to the room. He holds out his hands, palms forward, as if she’s a crazy dog sprawled on the floor in front of him. “I’d give you a Scooby snack, but I’m fresh out. Sorry.”

  The kids who were already laughing laugh harder, while those who weren’t join in.

  “People,” Ms. Perez scolds.

  Katie-Rose picks herself up off the floor and returns to her seat. Her insides are quivering, and she wonders how she ever, even for an instant, thought that Preston was (slightly) cute.

  He’s not, and he never will be, and if she’s crazy—which she’s not, but that’s how he made her feel—then it’s for thinking even for a minute that she liked him.

  Because she doesn’t, and she doesn’t like his earring, either. It’s stupid, and so is Preston. And she hates him.