“Bye.”
“Bye.”
I’m not saying that Meghan is perfect. She isn’t. As we know, she’s a bit bossy and kinda crazy.
But.
But at least she isn’t afraid of stuff. She tells people how she feels. She’s honest.
How many people can really say that they’re honest?
I’m not. I just told my dad that I had to go because my mom was calling me.
Lie.
I can’t even tell my own father how I’m really feeling.
Meghan would’ve told him.
Maybe I should ask her to tell him.
“Jeez, they’re loading the muskets again,” Meghan says as she covers her ears. A moment later, there’s a loud crack, like a cannon blast. “Why do they let those guys march in every single parade? My eardrums had barely recovered from Veterans Day.”
The Revolutionary War re-enactors keep marching in step to the fife and drum. I have to wonder how many real minutemen were overweight and wore glasses. About 90 percent of them, according to this sampling.
“I love those revolutionaries,” I say. “They’re dedicated.”
“Oh, look! There’s the Big Babies Portable Band.” Meghan points to a loony group of people in red and orange. They’re half-marching, half-dancing as they play an upbeat tune.
“Those guys are awesome.” The Big Babies sometimes just show up downtown, especially if there’s some kind of protest going on.
A dreary clown tosses some candy from the back of a vintage truck, and a group of young kids runs to grab it. Our town’s Thanksgiving Parade is tiny. It always happens the Saturday after Thanksgiving and only lasts about ten minutes. The good thing is that it makes a double loop around the block. “The parade so nice that it goes around twice,” my dad calls it.
Still, it’s really cute, and it’s close to my old house, so we used to come every year. It’s funny — sometimes it seems like half the town is in the parade, and the other half is lining the streets. And sometimes it seems like most of the town is in the parade, and the leftovers are lining the streets.
Today, the streets are pretty packed. I scan the crowd across the way. Groups of children are holding balloons from the local bank. Moms are sipping coffee; dads have kids on their shoulders. And there — right across from us — is Artie. She’s standing with Chang and Kelley, her new best friends.
“Where’s Devon?” I say, half to myself. “I didn’t realize Artie would let him out of her sight.” That’s mean, and I know it. I feel like a jerk even as the words leave my lips. But it’s too late — Meghan has heard me.
“Didn’t you know?” she asks. “Devon told Artie that he wasn’t into her.”
“What?” My heart drops to my feet and flops onto the pavement. Now I feel totally awful. And yet …
There’s another part of me that’s actually happy.
Happy!
Because if Devon isn’t into Artie, could it mean that he’s into … somebody else?
Like, maybe somebody I know?
Like, somebody I know well?
Like, in case you’re not getting this — me?
All of these thoughts are racing through my mind, and Meghan is just standing there, watching a bunch of Shriners do figure eights in their teeny-tiny cars. And I want to tell her that my whole life might conceivably change because of this news, and I’m about to open my mouth when I hear someone say, “Where’s Santa?” and when I look over, I see Kyle standing not five feet from us.
“We want Santa!” he shouts.
“Hey, Kyle. It’s Hayley and Meghan.”
“Oh, hey! Santa hasn’t come by yet, has he?”
“They usually save him for the end,” Meghan says.
“As if I have any idea when that is,” Kyle tells her.
“Here comes the Community Band.” A flatbed truck drives slowly by, carrying a group of my former neighbors. They’re playing “Jingle Bells.”
“They’re pretty good,” Kyle says, and I nod. “But where’s all the candy? People usually give me candy at this parade. Not to complain.”
At that moment, a man in a suit walks over to Kyle, hands him a candy cane, then walks on.
“Perfect timing!” Kyle shouts after him. “Who was that, anyway?” he asks me.
“The mayor.”
Kyle laughs, then stops. “Wait — seriously?”
“Yeah, the new one,” Meghan agrees. “Who just got elected a couple of weeks ago.”
“Awesome!” Kyle unwraps the candy cane and takes a lick. “Glad my parents voted for him.”
“I’m glad my parents voted for him because of his stance on local issues,” Meghan says, almost huffily.
Kyle grins. “Meghan, you’re a trip,” he says, which makes her laugh.
“Here comes Santa,” I say.
“Where?” Meghan stands on her tiptoes.
“He’s in the fire truck,” I tell her. “You can barely see him. That wasn’t the smartest move.” The sight of the fire truck sends a worm of anxiety through my stomach, and I find myself scanning the crowd. I’m still not feeling 100-percent well after VomitFest, and it doesn’t take much to make me queasy. A light sweat breaks out on my forehead. But I don’t see the face I’m looking for. I gnaw my thumbnail, which has only started to grow out.
“I can’t see him at all!” Meghan complains.
“Well, then — we’re even!” Kyle says.
“But you were the one who was so desperate to see Santa,” Meghan points out.
“I’m not desperate to see him,” Kyle corrects her. “I’m just desperate for him to get here, so that they’ll start handing out the free cookies and cider.”
This is another annual tradition — the parade ends at the Civic Center, where there’s a Santa meet and greet that involves tons of sweets and screaming kids. The whole idea of walking over there makes my nausea return. “So — are we going?” Kyle asks.
“Sure,” Meghan says. “Let’s head over there before they circle around again. Then we’ll be first in line.”
“Brilliant,” Kyle agrees. “You coming, Hayley?”
“You guys go on without me,” I say. “I’ve got to head home.”
“Are you sure?” Meghan asks.
I nod, though this isn’t — strictly speaking — true. It’s just that I’ve had a thought. An idea, really.
Kyle is sweet. And funny. And really smart.
And Meghan is cool. And funny. And really smart.
I know that, even though she isn’t showing it, Meghan is probably still disappointed over the whole Ben scene. But … maybe she might like Kyle, if she got to know him.
“I’ll see you guys on Monday, okay?” I say.
“Bye, Hayley!” Meghan calls cheerfully, and in a moment, she and Kyle have disappeared into the swirling eddies of people trailing the end of the parade.
I sigh and start to walk to the corner. Then I take a sudden left.
I’m not going home. Not yet.
There’s someone I missed at the parade, and I’m going to go find out where she is.
It’s hard to tell if anyone’s home just by looking at the quiet house. The leaves have been raked, but the grass is beginning to fade to a patchwork of brown and green. The blooms on the mums are starting to shrivel, but the fire bushes line the driveway with brilliant red.
This is Marco’s yard. It’s right next to my old yard, which is a disaster zone of plastic toys and dead leaves.
I pause, looking up at the front door, which is as white as a blank piece of paper. I won’t knock on it. I’ve never knocked on it. We always used the back door.
I walk up the driveway and past the back deck. I’m about to turn toward the rear entrance when I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye — the curtain in the tree house fluttered. He’s up there, I think, and for a moment, I’m back in third grade, when Marco and I would spend afternoons eating Oreos and reading Mad magazine in our tree house. And it really was our tree house, in some ways, ev
en though it was in Marco’s backyard. Our fathers built it together the summer before second grade, over Marco’s mother’s objections. She was worried about safety — what if we fell out? — but there was no talking our fathers out of it. “A kid should have a tree house,” Marco’s dad said, and my father agreed.
I’m climbing the ladder before I even have time to think.
When I poke my head through the floor, Marco is sitting there with wide eyes, as if he expected a monster or a murderer to appear. “Hi,” I say.
“Oh. Hi.” A little color returns to his cheeks, but not much.
“What’s up?” I haul myself onto the platform and sit down across from him.
Marco watches me, almost wary, as if I might spring. “Just thinking.”
“I was looking for you guys at the parade,” I say.
“We weren’t there.”
“Sarah’s not into fire trucks anymore?” Marco’s sister has always been obsessed with emergency-response vehicles. She knows all about fire trucks, and could probably even drive one, if someone would let her.
“Didn’t you know? She’s at a residential school now.” Marco stands up and pulls back the curtain to look out the window. This tree house used to seem huge, but now there’s barely room to move around.
“Boarding school?” I ask. “Does she like it?”
Marco’s shoulder lifts, then dips. “It’s hard to tell.”
“Maybe a special school is a good idea — she can get the help she needs.”
Marco looks pained. “That’s what they said.”
We sit in silence for a moment. I want to talk to Marco about the test — the fact that we cheated, and how it made me feel. But I can’t force the words out. He looks at me, his eyebrows slightly lifted, and I get the sense that there’s something that he wants to say, too. But neither one of us speaks. We just let the silence stretch between us.
I know I should just tell him what I’m thinking, but I can tell he’s sad already. I don’t want to make it worse. So I stay silent. And then the moment is broken by a voice calling Marco’s name. It’s his mother.
“I’ll see you,” Marco says.
And he leaves me sitting in his tree house, which used to be our tree house, all by myself.
Look, Sarah was difficult. It was embarrassing to go out in public with her. I know I’m not supposed to say that, but it’s true. She was in her own world most of the time, and loud noises could sometimes make her scream. She would hit herself. People would stare. First at her, then at us. Then at her again.
Marco has always loved Sarah. She drives him nuts, too, sometimes, of course. But they have their own equation — she’s calmer around him. He’s the little brother, but he likes to protect her. I’ve seen him take on much older boys who were teasing her. I know it must be hard for him without her here.
Still, I think it’s better that she’s gone.
I’ve said before that Marco never really liked to have friends over at his house. Well, one of the few times I was there, I noticed that there was a lock on the outside of Sarah’s bedroom door. I realized then that Marco’s parents must be locking her in there sometimes.
It sent a shiver through me.
I don’t know — maybe lots of parents do that. But mine never would have. It struck me as wrong, and maybe even dangerous. Marco’s parents were strict — the lock on the door made me wonder about other ways they might “discipline” Sarah.
I never told anyone about that. I never even mentioned it to Marco. It felt too scary.
Anyway, that’s why I’m glad that Sarah went away.
Glad for Sarah, I mean.
Don’t chicken out, I tell myself as I scan the nearly empty hallway. The first bell hasn’t rung yet, but people are milling around, heading to lockers. Just pretend you’re Meghan. What Would Meghan Markerson Do? Meghan would tell Devon how she felt; that’s what she’d do. She wouldn’t beat around the bush, either. She’d hire a skywriter or set off fireworks or something.
I look down at the cake pop in my hand. It’s covered in white chocolate, and has a single red candy heart stuck to the top. I finally got the chocolate to go on evenly, and this looks like it could be on the cover of Cake Pop Monthly magazine. It’s the Hayley equivalent of fireworks.
I like to think I learned something from the moment I let pass by with Marco. I should have said something about the test then, when we were alone in the tree house. Now I’ll never get that moment back, and we’ll probably never talk about it. Maybe we won’t need to. Maybe Marco felt as bad as I did. But I don’t know.
I check my watch, then dig my assignment notebook out of my purse and pretend to scan it for some kind of Very Important Information. Really, I’m just waiting for Devon to head toward his homeroom, hoping to catch him before the first bell rings. I look over my shoulder and say a tiny prayer of thanks that Artie is nowhere in sight.
“Hey, Hayley!” Devon gives me that warm smile, the one that melts my kneecaps and makes me feel like I’m going to ooze all over the floor. “Is that for me?”
He knows! My face is practically consumed in flames, but I force myself to hand him the cake pop. Suddenly, the red heart seems incredibly obvious, worse than skywriting. “Um, yeah.”
“Seriously?” Devon smiles. “I was kidding!”
“Oh — you were? I — I just wanted to preview the cake pops, you know, before I put them out at the fund-raiser….” Not true. Stop talking. You’re messing everything up!
Devon takes a bite out of the cake pop. “Oh, man — I’m going into sugar shock! This thing is awesome!”
My heart flops like an awkward toad. “You like it?”
“You’re some kind of crazy cupcake genius, Hayley. I really owe you for doing this fund-raiser. Honestly, I kind of can’t wait until this whole play is over. I’ll finally have some free time.”
“Well, uh — hey — do …” It’s really hard to think when all of the blood in your body is rushing to your head. “Uh … do you want to go to —” Can hardly breathe! “A movie, uh, next weekend? Or something? Since you’ll have time …” I try to gulp in some air.
“Oh, sure,” Devon says as he takes another bite of the cake pop. “That might be …”
I’m hanging there, waiting for the end of that sentence. Fun? Boring? Weird? Awkward? But just as I’m about to say, “What would it be, Devon?” a pretty girl with dark hair and large brown eyes steps out of a classroom and grabs on to Devon’s arm with a possessive smile.
It’s Trina Bachman, and she’s hanging on Devon like a Christmas ornament.
“Hey, Trina, taste this,” Devon says, holding the cake pop to her lips.
“Mmmm,” she says as she nibbles a bite. Then she touches her lips as if she’s afraid her lip gloss might have been mussed by a crumb. “So sweet.”
Devon cocks his head and smiles at me. “So — we’ll chat later?” he asks.
My throat has swelled so much that I can hardly force air through it. But I do. I manage to whisper, “Sure,” as Devon walks off with Trina. Now I know why he broke up with Artie. It was because of another girl — but that girl wasn’t me.
Why did I think this was a good idea? I wonder as hot tears threaten to choke me. I’m not Meghan Markerson.
There’s a reason I thought she was crazy. Maybe she can confess her feelings without getting her heart crushed … but I guess I can’t.
See me after class.
I’m staring at the note as the seconds click by on the clock above Mr. Carter’s desk.
See me after class.
We’ve been back from our holiday for three days, but Mr. Carter has just handed back everyone’s tests. Everyone’s but mine. And Marco’s. He gave us each a note.
Meghan noticed, of course. She frowned when she saw that. What’s up? she mouthed, but I just shook my head and looked over at Marco. He was staring at his desk, cheeks burning.
I can’t stop those last ten seconds from slipping away. The bell rings, an
d I gather my things and head to the front. Marco trails behind me, looking at the floor, the whiteboard, watching the other students file out — his eyes are everywhere but on mine.
Mr. Carter is glaring at Marco as we step up to his desk. Our teacher rolls his chair backward a bit and folds his arms across his chest. He waits until the last student has filed out and says, “I know that one of you copied off of the other during the last test.” His eyes flicker to my face, almost with a look of pity, then settle back on Marco.
“How do you know?” Marco asks.
Mr. Carter opens a folder and pulls out the tests. He points to a problem he has circled on the second page. I see it immediately — I made a careless error while simplifying one of the fractions in the problem. “Fourteen divided by two does not equal six. It’s possible for one person to make a sloppy mistake like that, but not for two students to make the same sloppy mistake. A second grader knows what fourteen divided by two is.” He hisses on the word second grader and sneers at Marco, and I just wish I could punch him in the face.
“I think that one of you copied from the other, but I can’t prove who did the copying,” Mr. Carter says. “So. The grade on these exams — minus this mistake — is a ninety-six. Since one of you did the work, and one didn’t, I’ll be generous” — he grins the ugliest grin I’ve ever seen — “I’ll let you split the grade.” Then he narrows his eyes and looks at Marco. “In case you can’t do the math, that’s a forty-eight for each of you.” He sits back in his chair, smug. “Unless one of you wants to confess. Then each of you can have the grade you really earned — a zero and a ninety-six.” Mr. Carter stares hard at Marco, as if he hopes to bore a hole through him with his gaze. Marco has turned pale, and looks like he’s about to throw up.
Mr. Carter wants him to squirm, I realize, and before I know what I’m doing, I hear myself say, “It was me.”
Mr. Carter’s eyebrows go up. “What?”
“It was me,” I repeat, “I did it. I cheated.”
The room is silent for a long moment. Mr. Carter clearly did not expect this outcome. “I —” he says after a moment. “I —” But he can’t seem to finish the thought.