Oh yeah, she was in her regular spot, right next to Sara at our lunch table. The two of them were dipping carrot and celery sticks into a shared container of ranch dressing, all la-di-da no-biggie besties, business as usual. I was the only one who thought there was anything strange about getting sprung so quickly from the principal’s office.
“I thought you’d be getting tased right about now,” I said to Manda. “You know, for breaking the vulgarity rule.”
“Oh, puh-leeze.”
She rolled her eyes and slid a piece of paper across the table.
“I’ve got a doctor’s note excusing any dramatic changes in behavior on account of the uncontrollable and unpredictable hormonal fluctuations associated with adolescent development.”
Sure enough, that’s exactly what it said in a letter signed by a doctor whose name I couldn’t read because he—like all doctors—apparently flunked handwriting in elementary school.
“It’s the PMS defense,” Hope explained.
“See, that’s where you have it all wrong,” Manda said. “This letter excuses bad behavior in the pre-, post-, and mid-menstrual times of the month.”
“It’s brilliant,” Sara said. “It grants Manda permission to be a total nightmare whenever she wants to be for, like, ever.”
“You make it sound like I have a choice in the matter.” Manda made her eyes all wide and innocent. “It’s a chemical imbalance. I can’t control my actions. I’m a victim of my raging hormones.”
“We’re victims of your raging hormones,” Hope muttered just loud enough for me to hear.
“Whatever,” Sara said skeptically. “I want one of those letters.”
Even I’d learned early on in junior high how making vague complaints about “girl stuff” could get you excused from any classroom with few or no questions. But Manda had really taken it to the next level with an official letter.
“You don’t really believe hormones are to blame for Manda giving Sara the finger, do you?” Hope asked me.
“No,” I replied. “Of course not.”
That’s what I said. But it’s not one hundred percent what I believed. I mean, maybe there was a little bit of truth to the doctor’s letter. Perhaps all these crazy hormones are making it hard for any of us to take control of our emotions. Our actions. I mean, if a chemical imbalance was responsible for Manda flipping Sara the bird, why couldn’t it also be the reason why my hands shook the tray, spilled the milk, and made the mess?
According to at least one medical professional, I wasn’t suffering from jealousy.
I was suffering from puberty.
Chapter Fifteen
With puberty as my excuse, I was feeling much better about the Dori/Aleck square-dance situation when I got to Woodshop. Unfortunately, my Woodshop teacher did not share my chipper mood. Mr. Pudel slumped against his desk and read dejectedly from a school memo in his hands.
“It seems that for the next two weeks we’re putting our regular curriculum aside to pursue… ah…” He looked down at the paper. “An exploration of the celebrational ornamentation most commonly associated with folkloric traditions combining movement and musicianship.”
None of us had any idea what he was talking about. He crumpled up the paper and tossed it in the nearby trash can.
“We’re in charge of making decorations for the Down-Home Harvest Dance.”
Oh.
“The administration uses fancy terminology like that so it gets credited as an academic activity,” he explained.
Ohhh.
“EVEN WHEN IT’S A BIG BUNCH OF HOOEY.”
Sara chose that moment of all moments to sweep into the room.
“Yoo-hoo!”
“Who are you, and why are you in my workshop?” Mr. Pudel asked.
“I’m Sara D’Abruzzi, and—”
Mr. Pudel cut her off.
“Listen, Bruiser, you have no business in my workshop.”
Sara came up only to the chest pocket of Mr. Pudel’s lumberjack shirt. But if she was intimidated by his menacing growl, or the boys’ goggle-eyed gawking because they couldn’t believe there was an actual girl in their classroom (I stopped registering as an actual girl ages ago), she didn’t show it.
“I do when I’m the chair of the dance committee,” she said confidently. “And here’s my dream decor that you need to make a reality!”
She went straight to the drafting table and fanned out several pieces of graph paper, the kind with the tiny boxes I use in Pre-Algebra to chart x- and y-axis problems.
“What are those?” Mr. Pudel asked.
“Construction and design plans, of course!”
Between the disruption of his teaching schedule and Sara’s intrusion, Mr. Pudel looked angry enough to flip over the table and everything on it. But when he got close enough to give Sara’s papers a quick glance, he… stopped. He calmed down.
“You did these?” he asked, picking one up for closer inspection.
“Omigod! Of course!”
I peeked over Sara’s shoulder to get a look. I couldn’t see much, but I could tell that Mr. Pudel was pretty impressed with Sara’s plans, despite his best efforts not to be.
“I approve of this project,” he said. “Bruiser, you may stay.”
“My name is Sara D’—”
“Not while you’re in here, it isn’t,” Mr. Pudel said. “Explain how things work, Clem.”
Then he rustled up Cheddar and Squiggy for a trip to the supply closet. They’d take stock of what we had and what we needed for the project.
“When did you do these?” I asked, after taking a better look at her drawings.
“During Social Studies,” she said casually. “And Science.”
Her sketches were way more detailed than I assumed they would be, with all the measurements and dimensions and suggested materials and everything. There were instructions for a plywood barn facade, silhouettes of farm animals, a post-and-rail fence, and all sorts of other good ol’ country stuff like that.
“How’d you learn how to do this?” I asked.
“We always have contractors working on our house.” She shrugged. “I’ve remodeled my bathroom, like, three times.”
I had no idea Sara had such a talent. And if Manda had gotten more signatures and won the comPETITION, I never would have found out. It pleased me to have played a role in Sara’s success—even if she reciprocated by treating me like her personal slave.
“Jess! Round up the hotties for heavy lifting!” she said. “I need big muscles!”
And that’s the moment that Aleck and Mouth chose to saunter into the room. Ten minutes late, I might add.
“You called for us?” Aleck said.
Aleck and Mouth are many things, but strong and brawny aren’t two of them.
“Omigod, you have, like, one muscle,” she said. “Combined!”
Sara immediately set her sights on the jocks and put them to work hauling plywood out of the supply closet. Without anything constructive to do, Aleck, Mouth, and I just kind of stood around awkwardly.
“So,” I said.
“So,” Aleck said.
“Burp,” Mouth said.
Fascinating.
“Did you hear how your girlfriend got herself out of detention?” I asked Mouth.
“I know!” Mouth said, getting all keyed up. “Girl stuff! It’s so unfair!”
“It’s discrimination,” Aleck agreed.
“Why can’t I blame my stupid behavior on guy stuff?” Mouth asked. “I’ve got hormones, too, you know.”
“So we smell,” Aleck said, plugging his nose with one hand and waving the air around Mouth’s armpit with the other. “Didn’t you pay attention to Nurse Fleet’s lecture? ‘Deodorant. Use it!’”
“That’s it,” Mouth said, straddling his stool. “I’m getting a note from my doctor. I’ll never get detention again.”
“Not so fast,” Mr. Pudel said as he slapped two detention slips down on the table. “That’s the third tardy f
or both of you. Automatic detention.”
“But, Mr. Pudel,” Mouth protested. “Hormones!”
Mouth hopped up and followed our teacher to the supply closet, taking three quick steps for every one of his.
“So why were you late for class, anyway?” I asked Aleck. “Were you getting extra square-dancing practice with Dori?”
ACK.
I don’t want to get in the habit of blaming hormones for every little stupid thing I do. Especially when there’s very little evidence that my hormones are doing much of anything. But without them as an excuse, I can’t really explain what made me say that. I mean, who cares who Aleck is paired with? Me getting weird about Aleck dancing with Dori makes even less sense than Dori getting weird about Scotty dancing with me, because she at least has a boyfriend/girlfriendship at stake. Aleck and I are mandatory Woodshop partners. That’s it. And yet I’ve felt sorta awkward around Aleck ever since TTSPJHCQ falsely accused me of having a crush on him. I can’t shake the feeling that he knows. NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING TO KNOW.
You know?
“We don’t need extra practice.” Aleck grinned. “We’re that good.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Well, my partner and I are really good, too,” I lied. “The best.”
I waited for Aleck to ask who my partner was, but he didn’t. He just smiled to himself and said nothing. I snapped like Dori on the lunch line, for no good reason.
“What?!”
“I find it hard to believe that anyone is better than me and Dori,” Aleck replied. “And our superior skills elevate the rest of our square to another level of excellence.”
“Is that so?” butted in Sara.
Literally. She smacked me in the behind with a large roll of graphite tracing paper. I hadn’t even noticed that she was close enough to listen in on our conversation. No wonder she always hears gossip before anyone else.
“It is so,” Aleck said.
“We’ll see,” Sara said. “At the Hoedown Showdown.”
“The what?” Aleck and I asked.
“The Down-Home Harvest Dance championship,” Sara said, setting the roll on the table. “You can’t have a square dance without declaring a winning square!”
Of course not. Because everything’s a competition to Sara.
“And we will win.” Sara picked up an X-Acto knife. “Won’t we, Jessica?”
“Do-si-do!”
It wasn’t a yes or a no, but it satisfied Sara nonetheless.
This definitely wasn’t the time to tell her that I have no plans to actually attend the dance. Not with so much on the line. Another W in Sara’s column would mean an L in Manda’s. I couldn’t predict how that revised ratio of victories and defeats would level the popularity playing field at Pineville Junior High. But as Sara’s cochair and one-eighth of her square, I have a front-row VIP pass to all the action.
Whether I want it or not.
Chapter Sixteen
Later that night, my parents and I were eating organic sprouted multigrain pasta with Tofurky mini meatballs for dinner. Or rather, I was trying to eat. My mother’s efforts to cook all healthy always result in food fakes that taste nothing like the original dishes they’re pretending to be. I spiked a shell and sniffed. Ack. It smelled like something you’d find clinging to the underside of a rotting log.
“Your dad and I feel bad that we’ve been so busy lately,” Mom said, picking at her salad.
“Uh-huh,” I said, dumping a pound of Parmesan cheese on the all-natural nastiness on my plate.
“We know you weren’t happy about being ba—” Mom cut herself off before saying babysat. “I mean, supervised by Gladdie.”
“But work has calmed down considerably for both of us,” Dad added, reaching for the cheese when I was done.
My dad does technical support for a school district, so the first few months of the academic year are a crazy time for him, because everyone forgets how to use their computers after returning from summer vacation. And though my mom sells most of her houses in June, July, and August, she gets bogged down with all the related paperwork through early fall. They were so worried about not having enough parental guidance that they actually persuaded my grandmother Gladdie to watch over me for a couple of weeks or so. At first I was offended that they got me a babysitter because they still see me as a baby and not an almost teenager. But spending those weeks with Gladdie was pretty sweet in every sense of the word. First, no one bakes like she does. And because she’s old she’s got, like, wisdom, and she helped me out with a lot of my girlie drama. I was sad to see my grandmother go back to Florida, but I’d never admit this to my parents. Know-it-all parents are the most annoying parents.
“We want to make it up to you,” Mom said.
Hey! If they wanted to believe I deserved a reward for enduring my time with Gladdie, I wasn’t going to correct them. I tried to act all casual about it because my parents always make too much of a big deal whenever I get excited about anything.
“Um, okay,” I said.
“We want to do something special,” Dad said.
“A once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Mom said.
There was only one once-in-a-lifetime thing I could think of.
“Holy koala!” I shouted. “We’re going to Australia!”
I’ve been obsessed with the smallest continent since I was about four and learned that it’s summer in Australia when it’s winter in New Jersey because it’s located all topsy-turvy in a whole different hemisphere. And then I started reading up on Australia and was wowed by the fact that so much of its animal population—kangaroos! koalas! and that krazy platypus!—isn’t found anywhere else in the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of Hope’s Frankenplushies was discovered there someday. Anyway, I’ve always considered Australia the Land of Opposites and Misfits. This appealed to me long before junior high made me feel that way on a regular basis.
The point is I couldn’t act all supercasual about Australia.
“Omigod! Australia! Omigod! Australia!”
I reminded myself a little bit of Sara in that moment. Had we been spending too much time together lately? My parents kind of looked at each other like, “oops.”
“We aren’t going to Australia,” Dad said.
“Ohhhh.”
I was deflated but not entirely defeated. I dared to guess again.
“California? Omigod! California!”
Yikes! More of my inner Sara was coming out. This scared me. And that fear launched my Nerd Self into hyperdrive.
“I’ve always dreamed of going there before the next great earthquake sends the California peninsula floating into and around the Pacific Ocean,” I babbled. “But then again, if I wait long enough, California could eventually drift far enough to become part of Australia and I could visit both places at the same time.…”
AND MY TRYING TO BE NORMAL SELF WAS DEFEATED ONCE AGAIN.
“We’re not going on a trip, Jessie,” Dad said.
“We’re not?”
“Why travel,” Mom said, “when we can spend quality time together much closer to home?”
I liked the sound of this less and less.
“How close to home?” I asked. “New York City? Philly?”
I made the mistake of popping a mini meatball into my mouth.
“The Down-Home Harvest Dance!” my mom said.
“Your mother signed us up to be chaperones,” my dad said.
“Won’t that be fun?” my mom said.
And then my dad slapped me on the back a few times because I was choking on a half-chewed wad of Tofurky.
“How did you even find out about the dance?” I asked when I finally recovered.
“Parents are e-mailed a weekly newsletter to keep us informed of school happenings,” Mom said. “And it’s a good thing, too; otherwise we wouldn’t know anything!”
“Well, I’m not even going to the dance.”
I had it all figured out
: I’d stay home. Scotty would draft Dori to fill my spot. Poor Aleck would be left without a new partner and unable to wow the judges with his allegedly superior square-dancing skills. Sara would win the Hoedown Showdown, and everyone would be happy. Well, except Manda. And Aleck. But I wasn’t about to lose any sleep over that.
“You have to go!” my mom said. “You’re the cochair of the dance committee! You’ve made a commitment!”
“I’m in the newsletter?”
“Yes,” Mom replied with pride. “With specific mention of your Industrial-Arts connections.”
“My what?”
I pushed my plate away and headed straight for the Techno Dojo to read this newsletter. Sure enough, before “Girl Wrestler Invokes Title IX” (yay, Molly!) and after “Sloppy Joes Stay on the Menu” (boo, Spirit Squad!) was “PJHS to Hold First Dance in a Decade.” There’s no doubt where the information came from. Only Sara would think to write a press release for a junior-high dance, incorporating phrases like square-dance chic and haute couture country and putting the prom back in promenade. (She definitely stole that last bit of wordplay from Hope.) I was surprised Sara had credited me at all. And it was exactly as my mom had said. I was “the dance cochair with Industrial-Arts connections.” Yep. That’s me, all right.
I spun around in the swivel chair and faced my parents.
“You really, really don’t have to go to this dance.…”
“We want to go!” my mother said.
“Your mother wants to go,” my father corrected.
“You wanted to support her cross-country meets, so…”
“So your mother feels we should support this, too.”
Mom pointed an accusatory finger at Dad.
“And if you had chaperoned Bethany’s junior-high dances back in the day,” she snapped, “you’d understand why I think it’s important for us to be there now.”
“Notso isn’t Bethany.”
It’s always awkward when my parents get snippy in front of me. But it’s the cringiest when they get snippy in front of me about me.
“You’re the techie one! You know kids grow up so much faster these days because of the Internet! If you’d seen what I saw on that dance floor ten years ago, you’d shudder to think what Jessie’s class is up to!”