Stacey's Secret Friend

  It didn’t seem to. She was concentrating on wrapping the jaguar’s balsa wood rib cage in mesh. It was as if this discussion of contact lenses had absolutely nothing to do with her.

  I’d have to try harder. I’d have to be much more direct.

  * * *

  The next day I heard Tess pig jokes everywhere. It was horrible.

  In the morning, I passed by a locker on which someone had scrawled, “Hi, Petunia!” I stopped short. It had to be Tess’s locker. Who else would be called Petunia? As in Porky Pig’s girlfriend, Petunia Pig.

  I didn’t want Tess to see this.

  I ducked into the girls’ room across the hall and grabbed a wad of toilet paper. I soaked it, then darted back to Tess’s locker. The person had used a washable marker, and the writing faded quickly. But it didn’t come off completely.

  “Hi,” Tess said. I was so busy scrubbing that I hadn’t heard her walking down the hall.

  “Oh, hi,” I said, jumping.

  Tess frowned. “Why are you washing my locker?”

  I let out a nervous laugh. “Uh, there was some graffiti on it, and I didn’t want you to find a messy locker. You know. That can be a bummer. I’m sure it wasn’t anything personal. Just … one of those things.”

  Tess peered at the faint, blurred writing that remained on her locker despite my scrubbing. “ ‘Hi, Petunia’?” she read. “ ‘Petunia’? I guess it was meant for someone named Petunia. I suppose whoever wrote it had the wrong locker.”

  I looked at her for a moment, not knowing what to say. Maybe she didn’t know who Petunia Pig was.

  “It was very nice of you to clean my locker, though,” Tess continued.

  “No problem,” I replied as my eyes traveled over her latest outfit. A bright pink, yellow, and red plaid pantsuit. It looked like something I’d seen in old disco movies from the 1970s. I couldn’t imagine where she’d even found such a thing.

  She realized I was studying her outfit. “Like it?” she asked. “It was my mother’s.”

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t want to be a hypocrite and say I adored it. “It’s hard to get used to the style.”

  “I know.” Tess beamed. “That’s why I like it so much.”

  I nodded. “Well …” I let my voice trail off.

  “Hey, want to come to my house tomorrow afternoon?” Tess asked. “I’ve got some books on castles. I dug up some photos I have too. We could start on our project.”

  “I suppose so. Sure.”

  Tess smiled, then turned to open her locker. “ ’Bye,” I said, drifting away from her. I took one last look at her in that terrible plaid polyester pantsuit, then walked away.

  The wheels in my head turned. Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea. Tomorrow I’d be alone with Tess. I could use the opportunity to give Tess a makeover. This girl desperately needed to be saved from herself!

  “Hey, Tess,” I called to her. She turned toward me. “Do you mind if we work at my house? I … uh … have a meeting and I can work longer if I’m not too far away.” (This happened to be true.)

  “Okay,” Tess agreed.

  I smiled and waved. Great! I had a day to plan Operation Makeover Tess.

  On Tuesday afternoon, Claudia went to the Rodowskys’ house to baby-sit for the three boys — Archie, who’s four; Jackie, who’s seven; and nine-year-old Shea. She was wearing her oldest overalls. If she could have, she would have sprayed herself with stain repellent. Somehow, sitting for those three always turns into a disaster. It’s Jackie who’s responsible for most of the mayhem. He doesn’t do it on purpose. He just seems to attract, well, disaster. In fact, we refer to Jackie Rodowsky as “the Walking Disaster.” He’s always falling over something, painting himself, knocking something down, getting stuck inside something, tripping. But we’re crazy about him. He and his brothers are adorable and fun. (Shannon thinks Shea has a crush on Claudia.)

  When Claudia rang the bell that day, it was answered by the three boys, standing in size order. All three have red hair and freckles. “Hello!” sang Shea.

  “Hello,” Jackie sang in a higher tone.

  He had to nudge Archie, who then yelped out, “Hello!”

  Shea shook Archie’s shoulder. “That was terrible. It was supposed to be in harmony, Archie!”

  Archie stuck his tongue out at Shea.

  Claudia laughed. “It sounded good to me.”

  Suddenly, Jackie lunged forward and looked sharply in both directions. Then he darted back into the house and leaped over the front couch, hiding behind it.

  “What’s the matter with Jackie?” Claudia asked as she stepped into the front hall. “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t ask,” Shea said, waving in the direction of the couch. “He’s gone nuts, that’s all.”

  “Nutsy cuckoo! Nutsy cuckoo!” Archie shouted gleefully.

  “Gone nuts?” Claudia asked with a smile.

  “Wacko,” Shea confirmed matter-of-factly. “He’s been this way for a week.”

  Claudia knelt on the couch and peered over the back. She discovered Jackie, whispering on a cordless phone to someone. He realized Claudia was gazing down at him and he looked up with a little smile. “Okay, see you soon,” he whispered into the phone, then he clicked off.

  “Is something the matter, Jackie?” Claudia asked.

  Jackie sprung up. “Not anymore.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. Everything is A-OK. Under control! No problemo!”

  “See?” said Shea. “Wacko!”

  “Who did you call?” Claudia asked Jackie.

  Jackie shrugged. “A friend.”

  Mrs. Rodowsky came in then, already wearing her jacket. “Hi, Claudia,” she said. “I’ll be at Washington Mall, and I’ll give you the number of my new cellular phone.” She dug in her canvas shoulder bag. “I wrote the number down on some masking tape I stuck on the back of the phone. Now where is the phone? I thought I put it right in my purse last night.”

  “Here it is!” Archie cried. He’d found the phone in Jackie’s open backpack, leaning against the closet.

  Mrs. Rodowsky shot Jackie a questioning glance. “Why is my cell phone in your backpack? Did you take it to school today?”

  Jackie’s skin turned so red his freckles seemed to disappear. “I guess so,” he admitted in a small voice.

  “Why?”

  “In case of an emergency?” Jackie ventured feebly.

  “Were you expecting any particular type of emergency?” Mrs. Rodowsky asked, taking the phone from Archie.

  “A twister!” Jackie cried. Clearly the idea had just occurred to him. “You know, a tornado. I wanted to be able to phone home if a tornado was coming.”

  “We don’t generally get twisters in Connecticut,” said Mrs. Rodowsky.

  “But it could happen,” Jackie insisted. “You never know.”

  His mother rolled her eyes and laughed lightly. “This phone is not a toy,” she told Jackie. “You’re not to take it again.”

  She wrote the number of her cellular phone on a small notepad and left it on the front-hall table for Claudia. “Be good, guys,” she said to her sons as she departed.

  “Why did you really take Mom’s phone?” Shea asked Jackie the moment the door was shut behind his mother.

  “I told you,” Jackie insisted with an exasperated sigh.

  “Yeah. Sure. Like I really believe that,” Shea scoffed. “You’re lying.”

  “Am not!”

  The brewing argument was cut short by the doorbell. When Claudia opened the door, Nicky Pike was standing there with his arms folded, wearing an extremely serious expression. “Hello, Claudia,” he said in what Claudia figured was meant to be a formal, businesslike tone.

  “Hello, Nicholas,” she replied.

  He didn’t seem to catch the teasing in her greeting but strode purposefully past her into the living room.

  “Wow! You got here fast!” Jackie cried, his voice full of relief. “I thought I saw —” H
e cut himself short.

  “What did you see?” Claudia asked.

  “I saw … uh … that … uh …” Jackie replied, his eyes darting as he tried to think of something to say. “Uh, that it was nice out and we should go and do something. Something outside.” He grabbed Nicky’s arm and pulled him toward the back door. “Come on!”

  Claudia watched them leave. “Strange,” she murmured.

  “Want to see my new video game?” Shea asked. “It’s really cool. I’ll teach you.”

  Claudia settled down cross-legged in front of the TV as Shea booted up the game. Archie hopped onto her lap. It was a jungle game, with monkeys and tigers and hunters chasing each other. Claudia liked it and found that she was pretty good at it too. But, after her tiger chased a hunter up a tree and she won the first level, she decided it was time to check on Nicky and Jackie. “Be right back,” she said, settling Archie on the floor.

  She walked to the back window and peered out at the small yard with its big toolshed and half-blue doghouse. (She remembered when the Rodowsky boys decided to paint the doghouse. It had been another messy, disaster-filled day.)

  Gazing around the yard, Claudia spotted Nicky and Jackie practicing what looked like some kind of martial arts moves. Everything appeared to be calm, so Claudia returned to the video game. She made it back in time to see Archie’s video monkey fall out of a tree. GAME OVER, the screen flashed. “Your turn,” Shea told Claudia.

  She played until she won the next level, then decided to check the yard again. This time, the scene was less calm: Nicky and Jackie were tottering along the edge of the toolshed roof, waving their arms for balance.

  “Uh-oh,” she murmured. Jackie the Walking Disaster on top of the toolshed? Visions of a record-breaking disaster flashed into Claudia’s head. “I’ll be right back!” she called to Archie and Shea as she dashed for the back door.

  Bounding into the yard, she stopped and gazed around. The boys weren’t on top of the shed roof. They weren’t anywhere. They’d disappeared.

  “Jackie!” she shouted. “Nicky!”

  The only sound was the gentle swoosh of the big pine tree that extended into the Rodowskys’ yard from the Segers’ yard, on the other side of the fence.

  Claudia was confused. It had taken her less than a minute to get from the window to the yard. How could the boys have vanished so quickly? She peered over the fence into the Segers’ yard. No one was there.

  “Jackie! Nicky!”

  Suddenly, Claudia became aware of something falling around her head and shoulders. She reached for the top of her head and pulled a small bunch of pine needles from her hair. Looking up, she saw Nicky and Jackie balancing on the branches of the tree.

  “Why didn’t you answer me?” she demanded.

  “We were practicing invisibility,” Nicky explained with deadly seriousness.

  “Well, practice visibility and come down from there,” said Claudia.

  The boys made their way down. Claudia watched them intently, worried that one of them would slip. (Especially since Jackie has fallen from a tree before.) They did fine, though, all the way down onto the toolshed roof. Claudia didn’t breathe easily until they were on the ground.

  “Who were you hiding from?” she asked them.

  The boys exchanged glances. “No one,” Nicky answered. “I was just showing Jackie how to disappear in an instant when the enemy approaches. Then you can jump down and take them by surprise.”

  Claudia gazed up at the tree. “If you had jumped down from there, you would have been taken by surprise,” she told them. “You’d be plenty surprised when you broke all your bones.”

  “Naw,” Nicky scoffed. “You’d just go into a roll.”

  “You’ve been watching too much TV,” Claudia told him. “And what enemy are you expecting anyway?”

  Again, the boys looked at each other. “Just in case there was an enemy,” Nicky said.

  “Hey, you never know,” Jackie added, with what had apparently become his favorite saying.

  “That’s for sure,” Claudia said as she ushered them into the house. She didn’t know what was going on with them. But something definitely was going on, and she had the feeling it would only be a matter of time before she found out what it was.

  On Wednesday after school, I walked with Tess to my house. “My mother works,” I explained as I unlocked the front door. “She’ll be home by five-thirty. I’ll have to leave before then, though. I have a meeting. We can work in the dining room.” The night before, I’d equipped the dining room with everything I thought I’d need. A stack of books about hair, makeup, and fashion sat in the middle of the table. My makeup bag was on the hutch behind the table.

  Tess took a seat while I went to the kitchen to cut up some carrots and apples for a snack. When I returned with the plate, Tess was already paging through the beauty books. Yes! My plan was working.

  “What are all these for?” Tess asked.

  “All what?” I replied innocently.

  “All these books.”

  I looked at the books as if I were surprised to see them. “Oh, the books! They’re just some fashion and beauty books I happened to have lying around.”

  “You don’t need them,” Tess said. “You look great.”

  “Thanks. But you can learn new things in these books. I always discover interesting tips.” I flipped open the nearest book. “Here, look at this. Did you know that soft curls can soften a too-square or too-round face?”

  Tess studied me. “Your face isn’t too square or round.”

  This was going to be harder than I thought. What did it take to get through to this girl? She absolutely could not take a hint.

  “I was thinking of cutting my hair,” I said (which wasn’t true). “You know, just for a change. Do you ever think of growing yours out?”

  “No,” she replied. “I like it short. It’s easy.”

  Tess turned to her pack and took out some photos. She spread them on the table in front of me. They were all of castles. “We can choose from a lot of different styles,” she began. “These aren’t all medieval, though. Some are later than that. This one is older. It was originally a Roman fortress that was later added onto when —”

  “Tess,” I interrupted her. “Why don’t I give you a makeover? It would be fun.”

  “A makeover? Do you think I need one?”

  “My friends and I give each other makeovers all the time. We just think it’s fun. I have lots of makeup.”

  “All right. If you want to,” Tess agreed, though she sounded uncertain.

  “Great.”

  Tess removed her glasses and I began to work. I used an example I’d found in one of my books as a guide and created a very natural-looking makeup for her.

  I worked on Tess for nearly an hour. All the while, I talked about clothing and hair, dropping heavy hints. “I’m applying a lot of makeup,” I said. “But I only wear a little to school. You’d look great with mascara and some blush.” I figured the mascara might make her eyes show up more behind her glasses, and the blush would give her face a less round (and less piglike) look by adding some shape.

  When I was done, Tess stood before the dining room mirror. “What do you think?” I asked.

  She squinted and leaned forward. “I can’t really see myself without my glasses.” She put them on. “Nice, I guess,” she said without much enthusiasm.

  “Too bad you can’t see without your glasses,” I commented. “You might like it better. Have you ever thought about getting contacts?”

  “I’ve had them for a couple years now.”

  “You have?” I gasped. “Why don’t you wear them?”

  Tess shrugged. “Glasses are easier. Besides, I like them.”

  Tess always seemed to leave me speechless. She constantly said things I didn’t expect.

  Glancing at my watch, I saw I would need to get going or I’d be late for my meeting. “Wow! The time’s flown,” I announced. “Sorry, but I have to leave
for my meeting.”

  “But we didn’t even work on the project,” Tess protested.

  “The project isn’t due for a while,” I replied, gathering my things. “Kristy — she’s the club president — gets so mad if we’re late. And she has a point. We all have to be there to make the club work.”

  “You certainly are involved in a lot of clubs,” Tess commented. I couldn’t tell if she thought that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  But it gave me an idea.

  If kids got to know Tess — and discovered that she was all right — the pig jokes would probably stop, and she’d have the chance to make new friends.

  “Why don’t you join the Pep Squad?” I suggested.

  “I don’t know,” Tess replied.

  “You’re already working on the jaguar with Barbara and me,” I pointed out. “You might as well join officially. There’s a meeting tomorrow.”

  “I’m not sure it’s my sort of thing.”

  “Sure it is.” This was a great idea. It would make all the difference for Tess. I couldn’t let her pass it by. “You don’t have to be peppy, you just have to support SMS. Come tomorrow. Check it out for yourself. Barbara will be there. And if the jaguar’s dry, we can paint it.”

  “I suppose so. Okay,” Tess agreed, still looking uncertain.

  * * *

  The next day, Thursday, I didn’t run into Tess until lunchtime. I was disappointed to see that she wasn’t wearing a bit of makeup. “Hi, Tess,” I called as she passed by the lunch table where I always sit with my BSC friends (except for Claudia, Jessi, and Mallory, who have lunch at different times).

  Tess held her tray in one hand, like a waiter. Everything she did seemed to make her stand out.

  Her outfit that day might have been the worst one yet. She wore baggy pink overalls and a long-sleeved, satin shirt with a bright (and I mean bright) pattern of pink and green daisies all over it. She had also clipped a small (but bright) pink plastic barrette in her short hair, the kind little kids wear.

  “You’re coming to the Pep Squad meeting, aren’t you?” I asked.