Jessica Darling's It List 3

  Still, that was just enough time to watch Molly beat an eighth-grade boy in a rope-climbing race. She ascended hand over hand to the ceiling like it was the easiest thing in the world! It wasn’t the same as a match, of course, but it was still pretty cool to see her more than hold her own with the boys. Aleck, Mouth, and I stopped her on the way to the girls’ locker room.

  “Molly! You’re amazing! You kicked that boy’s butt!”

  “Thanks,” she said shyly, wiping sweat from her brow.

  “You flew up that rope faster than I ever could,” Aleck admitted.

  “Thanks,” she said again, looking at her feet.

  “Hey, is Coach Wall making your team go to the dance tonight?”

  I normally wouldn’t have asked Molly about the dance, but I remembered what Scotty and Burke had said about their coach making it mandatory.

  “Yeah. I’m supposed to. But my partner from gym class isn’t going, because he’s got a gaming date with his online girlfriend, so…”

  Well, that was unexpected. Not what Molly said—apparently a lot of kids cuddle up to their game controllers on Friday nights—but how she said it. She sounded disappointed. And that tiny, tough girl who strong-armed her way to the ceiling is not someone who looks like she’d be bummed about missing a cornball square dance.

  I’d obviously never taken the time to look hard enough.

  “Well,” Mouth said.

  We all turned. It was the first time he’d spoken all afternoon.

  “There’s an advantage to holding the dance after wrestling practice.”

  “What’s that?” Aleck asked encouragingly.

  “It already smells like a barn in here!”

  While I was happy to see Mouth returning to his jokey self, I wished his recovery hadn’t been at Molly’s expense. I mean, who’d blame her for getting upset? Her sweat had contributed to the B.O. he was joking about! But Molly totally took me by surprise—again!—by looking directly at Mouth and letting out a huge whoop of laughter.

  And that’s when I had another brilliant idea. I just had to ask.

  And this time, I didn’t hesitate.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I didn’t leave myself much time to get ready for the dance. But that’s okay because Sara was right about my beauty routine being pretty much nonexistent. Tonight it was a notch above nonexistent because I actually took my hair out of its ponytail and tried a half-up/half-down style my sister had shown me. Hope and I knew the Supersquare would go over the top with their matchy-matchy Chic Boutique formalwear, so we decided the Leftovers could wear whatever we wanted. I chose a freshly laundered version of what I usually wear to school: jeans and a vintage Dolly Parton T-shirt. I thought it was hilarious because Dolly is legendarily well-endowed, and I am not.

  My mother had read in the newsletter that the theme was “square-dance chic” and “haute couture country.” I did not expect her to take this so literally. I would’ve laughed when I saw my parents, if I weren’t so totally horrified.

  “NOOOOOOOO!”

  “I knew it was too much,” Dad said.

  “Nonsense!” Mom said. “It’s perfect.”

  “No,” I said, pointing to Mom’s glittery cowgirl hat.

  “No,” I said, pointing to Dad’s rhinestone bolo tie.

  No to the matching fringed vests. No to the color-coordinated neck bandannas. No to enormous BORN IN THE USA belt buckles. NO. NO. NO. And NOPE.

  “It’s not a costume party! It’s not Halloween! Please put on normal parent clothes! PLEEEEEEEEEASE!”

  I was literally on my knees, begging at their rainbow-embroidered cowboy boots.

  “She’s right,” Dad said. “I feel ridiculous.”

  “That’s because you look ridiculous!”

  My mother shot us both disappointed looks.

  “But it’s a theme party! They’re always so much fun!”

  “For the kids!” Dad shot back. “Not the chaperones!”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you two dressed like that.” I defiantly crossed my arms. “I mean it!”

  Did I mean it? Was I willing to let down the Leftovers to selfishly spare myself the humiliation of being seen with my parents in public dressed like rejects from a rhinestone rodeo?

  My dad took off his hat and started unbuttoning his vest as he headed upstairs.

  “Where are you going?” Mom asked.

  “You can stay as you are,” Dad said. “But I’m changing into something more me.”

  “More boring,” Mom said with a deep sigh.

  Less than five minutes later, my dad was back downstairs and dressed like his normal boring self in a dress shirt and khakis. And though my mom hadn’t changed a thing about her own outfit, their overall impact as a couple was way less ridiculous than it was before. I could live with it. Besides, Mr. Armbruster’s first call was set to begin in ten minutes, so it was far too late for her to change, even if she wanted to.

  I was the last of the Leftovers to get there. Hope, Basketball Mike, the Scouts, Aleck, Mouth, and Molly were all waiting for me at the entrance to the gym.

  “I thought you bailed on me!” Hope said. “On us!”

  “Never!” I said. I gestured toward my mother. “We had a bit of a wardrobe crisis.”

  On cue, Aleck said, “Nice outfit, Mrs. Darling.”

  “Why, thank you!” Mom looked at me pointedly. “See? At least someone appreciates my efforts!”

  “Come on,” Molly said, simultaneously pushing Aleck and pulling Mouth through the doors. “We don’t want to be late!”

  And yet, despite our rush, we all stopped dead when we got inside. The gym had been transformed into a spectacularly bedazzled farmstead.

  “Wow!” my dad said, taking it all in. “This is something else!”

  “See that silver cow with the bow tie?” I asked.

  “Holy cow!” Dad laughed. “How could I miss it?”

  “I made that,” I bragged.

  “You did?”

  I would’ve pointed out all the hard work Aleck and Mouth had put into constructing the gorgeous, glittering barnyard, but there wasn’t time, because the Leftovers had a Hoedown Showdown to win.

  No surprise, the Supersquare took up the most visible spot, right in the middle of the dance floor. The eight of us held our heads high as we passed them. Mouth was right next to me, so I couldn’t help but notice when his bottom lip began to quiver. Molly must have seen it, too, because she sped up to walk beside him, and took his hand in a show of support.

  “Omigod! The losers have arrived!”

  I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of checking them out. But I couldn’t stop myself. The boys—Burke and Scotty included—looked deceptively mature in matching dark suits. I was stunned to see Manda, Sara, Dori, and Bridget all wearing the controversial black-and-white Chic Boutique dress! By some trick of fashion magic, the same strapless fit-and-flare style complemented each of their very different body types. The girls looked lovelier than I’d ever seen them, which I hated to admit—even to myself—because their actions had been so unlovely lately.

  Leave it to Hope to be the better person I wanted to be.

  “You all look beautiful,” Hope said. “Good luck.”

  “Omigod.”

  “Um.”

  “Like…”

  “Thanks?”

  The girls were obviously flustered by Hope’s unexpected gesture of goodwill.

  “Works every time,” she said just loud enough for me to hear.

  “What does?”

  She smiled wickedly. “Crushing them with kindness.”

  So the Leftovers took our spot in the way, way back corner of the gym. We got ourselves into position, and okay, I guess this is when I should mention how Aleck became my partner. It’s not an exciting story, really, not the kind that another type of girl could retell and review and retell and review with all her friends over and over and over again. Here it is:

  Mouth and Molly
had partnered up, leaving me with Aleck.

  So I’d said, “Um. I guess we’re partners.”

  And he’d said, “I guess so.”

  And that was it.

  Only that wasn’t it at all. It was only just beginning. And I know this is the part when I’m supposed to tell you every last detail about the Hoedown Showdown. But I can’t. And not because I don’t want to, but because I’m still not quite sure what happened. But I’ll do my best.

  It started out innocently enough. Mr. Armbruster—wearing a one-hundred-gallon cowboy hat my mom must have totally envied—started us off easy with songs and patterns we’d learned in gym class. Because the Leftovers had never practiced together as a group, we figured we’d need a few warm-up dances to get used to one another.

  A plucky banjo launched into a familiar number called “Chicken in the Frying Pan.”

  “Yeehaw!” yelped Aleck. “I love this one!”

  “Me too!” said Basketball Mike.

  “It’s good,” Mouth agreed.

  “But ‘Jersey Devil Went Down to Pineville’ is better, right?” said Molly.

  “I agree!” Hope chimed in.

  “Us too!” added the Scouts.

  Aleck’s hand never got gross and sweaty like Scotty’s. Maybe that’s why I was actually enjoying myself. For real. We all were. Honestly, we didn’t need a warm-up. We were so in sync, right from the beginning, moving effortlessly from one pattern into the next. I imagine if you had watched us from above, like from the top of Molly’s rope, the eight of us would’ve resembled the shape-shifting gems at the bottom of a kaleidoscope.

  Song after song, call after call, we paid no mind to the Supersquare or anyone else. All around us, the judges Mr. Armbruster had brought in from the International Square Dance Association eliminated the clumsier squares one by one. Before long, there were way more kids clapping in time from the sidelines than on the actual dance floor.

  Mr. Armbruster made a big announcement at the end of a song called “Swing, Swang, Swung Yer Partner.”

  “We’re down to our top three squares!”

  For the first time since the music began, the Leftovers took notice of what was left of our competition. It was down to us, a square of 8th-Grade Hots in matching red-white-and-blue overalls, and—of course—the Supersquare. The competition had definitely taken a toll on them. At some point, the boys had removed their jackets and ties, revealing deep rings of armpit sweat. The girls had fared even worse. Dori’s updo had fallen apart. Manda’s mascara was smudged up to her eyebrows, and her lipstick was smeared down to her chin. Sara’s self-tanner had stained orange streaks on the white bodice of her dress. Only Bridget would’ve looked as pretty as ever—if she weren’t scowling at Burke.

  In our T-shirts and jeans and official Scout uniforms, the Leftovers looked like we always do—only happier.

  “It’s time for the Hoedown Showdown!” announced Mr. Armbruster. “‘Jersey Devil Went Down to Pineville’!”

  The final dance began with a sizzling fiddle riff. Hope and I met in the center of the square and coached each other with our eyes.

  IT’S NOW OR NEVER.

  TIME TO FLY THE COOP.

  And so we did.

  The Leftovers were quick to notice that Hope and I had stopped following Mr. Armbruster’s calls and were going freestyle with our moves. I mean, how could you not notice the two of us swiveling our hips and waving our arms and shaking our rumps to the beat of the washtub bass?

  The Leftovers froze with panic.

  Except Aleck. If it weren’t for Aleck, it all would have ended right there.

  But it didn’t.

  Because Aleck intuitively jumped in the center and shouted, “We’re squiggle dancing!”

  He was right. We were square dancing with wiggle room for creative interpretation, as he’d put it. And it was exactly what Bethany had instructed us to do. Within seconds, the rest of the Leftovers caught on and were squiggle dancing right along with us. It was an awesome display of spontaneous synchronization! And synchronized spontaneity! What made sense to us must have looked like chaos to everyone else. I can only imagine the reactions coming from Sara’s square.

  “OMIGOD! What are they doing?”

  “Puh-leeze! Who cares? We’re winning!”

  “It’s like they’re messing up on purpose!”

  I don’t know if they actually said these things, because I didn’t hear a word Sara, Manda, Dori, or anyone else was saying. I was too in the music, too in the movement, too in the moment. So I totally missed it when Mr. Armbruster fell off his hay bale and shouted, “SWEET JUMPIN’ JEHOSHAPHAT! THEY’RE FLYING THE COOP!”

  For the duration of a song, I felt one hundred percent free, as if I’d never again be burdened by stressing, obsessing, or second-guessing. And that blissful liberation was the greatest reward of all.

  Yes, even better than defeating the Supersquare and being declared the winners of the Hoedown Showdown.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Six out of eight members of the Supersquare shrugged off the loss. But Sara and Manda weren’t going down without a fight.

  “Omigod! Mr. Armbruster! They cheated!”

  “Flying the coop? Puh-leeze. There’s no such thing!”

  Mr. Armbruster and the International Square Dance Association judges assured them that we did not cheat and that there is such a thing. They would not waver in their decision, even after Sara made the usual threats about Daddy’s lawyer.

  “The decision stands!” Mr. Armbruster took off his cowboy hat and threw it into the air. “These are our champions!”

  And the eight of us had just enough time for a group WHOOP! before my parents came rushing at me with eyes bigger than their belt buckles.

  “Jessie! I never knew you had it in you!” Mom marveled.

  “Had what in me?” I asked.

  “Whatever it was we just saw!” Dad joked.

  Added bonus to being in the moment? The whole time I was dancing, I didn’t worry about how my parents might be embarrassing me. And I was on such a hoedown high, I actually told them so.

  “I know I gave you a hard time—” I started.

  “See?” Mom interrupted. “I told you it would be fun for all of us!”

  My mother is never above an I-told-you-so. NEVER.

  “You did,” my dad admitted. “You told us so.”

  And then he patted me on the back to let me know he found Mom’s I-told-you-so as irritating as I did.

  “I’m happy you came,” I admitted when we reached the car. “Because I have no idea how I would’ve described what happened!”

  And for the first time in a long time, all three of us laughed.

  Everyone was being picked up by their parents at the same time. It was a sloooooow exit out of the parking lot. There was a lot of noise, so it took a minute before I realized the car next to us was honking rhythmically to get our attention.

  Honk! Honk! Honkity-honk!

  Honk! Honk! Honkity-honk!

  Honk! Honk! Honkity-honk!

  Aleck was in the passenger seat of the honking car. He gestured for me to roll down the window.

  “I’m really glad you asked me to be your partner!”

  Me too, I thought, before quickly taking it back in my brain because I hadn’t asked him to be my partner. Molly and Mouth had paired up, so it just kind of worked out that way. But I didn’t say this or anything else too revealing, because my parents were listening and my mom would ask, like, a bazillion questions about who Aleck is and what exactly I’d meant when I said those two words, and I was already semidreading all her questions about the dance itself and just couldn’t deal with a whole new interrogation on top of it.

  So I just rolled my eyes and half smiled like “Okay. Whatever you say.”

  And then he shouted something I couldn’t quite hear over the rumble of all the idling car engines.

  “What?”

  “I said,” he shouted louder, “I guess you re
ally do miss me when I’m not around!”

  THAT’S WHAT I’D THOUGHT HE SAID.

  Did this mean Aleck didn’t burn the Top Secret Pineville Junior High Crushability Quiz like he said he did? Or did he read it first, then burn it? Or did he not read it at all and burned it like he said he did and he’s just innocently joking around and I’m just totally paranoid because I know I wrote his name for dumb trick question #5 and he doesn’t?

  But then the traffic opened up, and his car sped off, and I didn’t get to any of those questions—not that I would have shouted them out the window with my parents in the front seat. To be honest, I doubt I’ll ask Aleck in Woodshop on Monday, either, even if it’s my only opportunity to confront him somewhere he can’t make a quick escape. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned about stressing, obsessing, and second-guessing, it’s this: I’m much better off when I don’t try so hard to know everything.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It was an eventful weekend.

  Bridget broke up with Burke for being a jerk. Manda tried to make up with Mouth. Mouth and Molly held hands at the movies. Sara shopped everywhere but Chic Boutique. Bridget forgave Burke for being a jerk. Manda re-rebounded with Vinnie. The Scouts earned merit badges in folk dancing. Heath remembered to wear his helmet and taught Aleck a new skateboard maneuver. I wrote a thank-you poem for my sister, and Hope illustrated it with cartoon-chicken versions of us flying the coop.

  By the time I walked into homeroom, Pineville Junior High had already turned its collective attention to hotter topics than our victory at the Down-Home Harvest Dance. Only Mr. Armbruster was still enthralled by what he’d seen that night. He couldn’t wait to give the whole class his play-by-play color commentary on my winning square’s fly-the-coop coup.

  “I tell you, I haven’t seen anything like that since the Northeastern Square Dance Semifinals in 1982.”

  He certainly would have gone on for the next ten minutes if he hadn’t been interrupted by the buzz of the intercom.