I laughed. “Sounds like a really good plan.”
“Plan schplan,” she said. “Let's go have some fun. Arg!”
I laughed. “Arg!”
Casey and Danny had ditched their books and their eye patches. “What took so long?” Danny wanted to know when we found them. “Nick and Olivia have been dancing for half an hour!”
“Blame Heather,” Marissa grumbled. “And it hasn't been half an hour.”
Casey gave me a worried look, so I said, “Everything's cool.”
“Whatever. Come on!” Danny said, grabbing Marissa by the hand.
We followed them over to the crowd of dancers and started moving around. Danny obviously knew what he was doing, and I don't know if she'd been practicing at home or what, but Marissa looked real natural jammin' around with him.
Casey and I, on the other hand, were terrible. It's like he beeped while I bopped, if you know what I mean. And just when we seemed to get the feel of a song, the song would be over. It happened again and again. And it would have been real embarrassing, only Casey and I both knew we were terrible, so we just started hamming around. I mean, if you're a geeky dancer, you might as well go with it, right? So we did square-dance moves during a rap song, kind of chugging them up, you know? But we were still square-dancing to a rap song. Then we did squatty Russian kick-out steps to a metal song—that was tiring, but Billy joined in with his parrot bouncing around on his shoulder, and pretty soon we had a whole circle of people laughing and doing this crazy Russian dance to a metal song.
When that was over, Billy shouted, “Line!” and automatically all the Russian dancers put their hands on the waist of someone in front of them, and we followed Billy around the gym, going step, step, kick, “Arg!” step, step, kick, “Gar!” step, step, kick, “Arg!” And at the end of that song, Billy shouted, “A pirate's life for me!” and the whole student body shouted, “ARG!”
So we were all laughing and panting and feeling wonderfully ridiculous when the DJ announced, “And now we're gonna bring it down a notch with this oldie-butgoldie special request …”
The opening chords of the song gave me goose bumps. Not 'cause it was a slow song and I was freaking out. No, because it was my new favorite song and I knew who'd requested it.
Casey.
He grinned at me and stepped in closer. “May I have this dance, m'lady?”
“Aye,” I said, “but watch yer feet, matey. Ye may need a peg leg by the time I'm done with yer!”
He laughed and then put his arm around my waist and pulled me in closer. And I don't know if it was because we'd been having so much fun hamming it up or what, but him holding me like that wasn't awkward or uncomfortable, it was …nice. And we actually didn't step all over each other. We just kind of swayed back and forth in slow circles like we knew what we were doing.
But the more we swayed around, the closer we seemed to be getting. I could feel his breath in my hair and his cheek against my temple. And even though his arms were loose enough for me to pull away from him, they were definitely there, keeping me close.
My heart started to panic. My hands went sweaty. Then he pulled back a little and looked me in the eyes.
All that chocolaty sweetness.
That beautiful smile.
There was only one thing to do.
Bolt from the gym!
But in that instant before I broke free, he started singing along with the song, “Maybe it's all been hard on you, Pushed against the wall, But there's no need to close your eyes, Waitin' for rain to fall …” Then he spun me out like some ballroom dancer, spun me back, and dipped me as he mimicked the bluesy guitar riff, “Waah-waahwaaaaaaaaaah, waah-waah, whoa-whoa-waaaaaaaaahwaah-waah.”
I got upright as quick as I could, and then the song was over and the DJ was saying, “That was Darren Cole and the Troublemakers from way back when. And now, let's get this place kickin' again! Here's one by Queen that'll never grow old.”
The opening rhythm of “We Will Rock You” started shaking the gym, and once again Billy got everybody going. Stomp-stomp-clap! Stomp-stomp-clap! Pretty soon everyone was moving slowly forward, stomping their left foot twice, then clapping, then stomping their right foot twice, then clapping. And the further into the song we got, the more together we got and the louder we got. We could barely hear the song over the noise we were making.
Which, I've gotta tell you, was cool. It is the only time this entire year where I've seen everybody together on something. Usually it's seventh graders against eighth graders, this clique against that … but here we were all just following Billy in this crazy stomping pattern, shaking the roof right off the gym.
When the song was over, Marissa grabbed me and said, “That was awesome!” Then she hitched a thumb toward the water fountain, where Heather and her cronies were standing by themselves, looking very sullen. “They probably think we're idiots.”
“Aw, forget about her.” Then, since Danny was talking to Casey, I leaned in and asked, “Is everything cool?”
She nodded, but then she grabbed me and said, “I thought Casey was going to kiss you!”
I turned red as a radish. “You were watching?”
“Of course!”
“So you weren't in any danger of being kissed yourself?”
She laughed. “I've decided—that's gonna wait. But you! That was electric!”
“Shhh! No, it wasn't—it was …” I gave in and told the truth. “I thought I was going to die. I almost just tore out of the gym.”
“So what happened?”
“He sang to me.”
“Oh! 'Cause that's your song!”
“It's not my song.”
“Not yours. Yours and Casey's! The one that will always remind you of him! The one they'll play at your wedding! The one—”
I shut her up with a punch to the arm.
“Arg!” she said, holding her arm, but she was laughing.
Everyone was thirsty, so we took a break and got some punch. There were also snacks like brownies and cookies and party mix, which the guys devoured, but all I was, was thirsty.
After I'd downed about four cups of punch, some sort of flamenco-y, cha-cha-cha-y music came on, and we all looked at each other like, Huh?
But then I saw that Mrs. Ambler had taken the floor with a sorta paunchy, sorta balding man in sorta tan slacks and a Hawaiian shirt. He took Mrs. Ambler's hand and started dancing, and an amazing thing happened—his stodginess completely disappeared. He was smooth. Really light on his feet. And dramatic, too. They danced cheek to cheek for a little while, then whoosh, he spun her out and pulled her back, and then with a silent turn and snap, he had her cheek to cheek again.
“Wow!” Marissa and I gasped when the song was over. And everyone, even the ultracool around us, whistled, cheered, and clapped.
Then a familiar voice came over the sound system. “Good evening, Bullfrogs! Looks like you're having a ribbiting good time tonight.”
You have to endure greetings like this when your school's mascot is a warty, fly-snagging amphibian. Why we don't all just leapfrog off campus in protest is beyond me.
But anyway, it was Vice Principal Caan, sounding more jovial than he had all year. “Let's hear it again for the awesome Amblers!” So we all clapped and whistled again, and then he said, “Well, Bullfrogs, the time has come!”
“This is it!” Marissa whispered.
Our group moved more toward the middle of the gym as Mr. Caan continued. “It's time for us to announce Class Personalities. And elected or not, I want you to know that I think you're all personalities.” He sort of rolled his eyes as he said it, which got a little chuckle out of some of us.
“Before I turn the microphone over to Mrs. Ambler, who will pass out the medals, I have an announcement to make.”
“Shark alert,” Marissa said through her teeth. “At eight o'clock.”
I glanced over my shoulder and spotted Heather, back about twenty feet.
Mr. Caan took a deep b
reath, then let it out and said, “Every year the teachers and I put together a list of students that we think best fit each category. But this year we had a little, shall we say, mutiny. You let us know loud and clear by your write-ins that we should turn this process over to you, the students.”
A cheer went up through the crowd, and then Mr. Caan continued. “So next year, seventh graders, we'll have a pre-election where all students are on the ballot, followed by the final election where the top five kids in each category are voted upon. Sound more fair?”
“Yes!” a lot of us cheered.
Marissa nudged me, and I chanced a look over at Heather, who was practically splitting at the seams with excitement.
“All right,” Mr. Caan said. “So without further ado, take it away, Mrs. Ambler!”
So Mr. Caan hands the mic over to Mrs. Ambler, who takes a large, green-sashed medal out of a cardboard box. She smiles at the crowd and says, “Starting with the seventh-grade recipients, in no particular order…” She reads the back of the medal, then announces, “Oh. This one's for Class Clown but—”
A girl in front of us starts chanting, “Bil-ly! Bil-ly! Bil-ly!” and pretty soon the whole gym's echoing, “Bil-ly! Bil-ly! Bil-ly!”
“No surprise there,” Mrs. Ambler says with a laugh. “But, this is the first year eighth graders have written in a seventh grader as their Class Clown.”
“Bil-ly! Bil-ly!” the cheer starts again.
“That's right. And considering Mr. Pratt's history, we have decided to make an exception and award him both. So, Billy Pratt? I hereby bestow upon you the dubious honor of William Rose Junior High's School Clown.”
Everyone cheers and Billy does a handstand, then walks through the crowd with his feet waving in the air. When he gets up front, he flips onto his feet, takes a grand bow, and accepts his medal like a pirate Bullfrog should.
“Arg!” he says, then gives Mrs. Ambler a giant smoocheroo on the cheek. “Bonny wench!”
The whole gym—even Mrs. Ambler—cracks up.
“Next up,” Mrs. Ambler says, still laughing as she produces another medal from the box, “is Most Popular Seventh Grader, which goes to …Tyra Estavan!”
Tyra was the obvious choice. She participated in everything. Sports, leadership, community-service clubs—she was always trying to get people involved.
Anyway, while we're clapping, Marissa and I are sneaking peeks at Heather, watching her face twitch its way into reality.
She had not won Most Popular.
After Tyra got her medal, Mrs. Ambler announced, “Seventh Grade Brainiac goes to…Caldwell Lisske!”
Caldwell hadn't come to the dance, so Mrs. Ambler continued. “Friendliest Seventh Grader is …Elizabeth Reins!”
“Oh, I'm so glad she won,” Marissa said, bouncing on her toes. “I was afraid it would go to Demitria.”
Again, I checked Heather. She was trying to hide it but she was upset, and I could see her calculating her odds: Had her extra fifty-plus votes really not topped Elizabeth's votes? Were they onto what she'd done? But how could they be? No one had seen her! She hadn't told a soul!
And stupid me, she caught me looking. I turned around farther, like I was looking for someone else, but she knew I'd been checking her out.
Next Mrs. Ambler announced Most Athletic, which went to Lance Rodriguez, who's a star in every sport. And then when she announced, “Next up, Most Unique Style,” Marissa tugged my sleeve and said, “Shhh, shhh, listen!” even though I wasn't saying anything.
“This category,” Mrs. Ambler said, “was very close. The votes were almost evenly split. But winning, with sixty-eight write-in votes, is … Sammy Keyes!”
The whole world seemed to spin. “What?”
Marissa jumped up and down, squealing, “It worked! It worked! I can't believe it worked!”
“What did you do?” I gasped, and believe me, I was not jumping up and down.
“Holly, Dot, and I talked about it, and we all agreed that you were way more unique than the other nominees. So we decided to tell everyone we knew to write you in!”
This was absurd. Ridiculous. Embarrassing. My face pinched up as I looked at Marissa. “But …I don't have style … I'm just me!”
“You are so stupid, you know that? What do you think style is?”
“Sammy?” Mrs. Ambler was saying into the mic. “Sammy, where'd you go?”
“She's right here!” Marissa shouted, pointing at me.
“Well, walk your high-tops up here!”
So like in a dream I went up, and when Mrs. Ambler looped the medal around my head, she whispered, “I want you to know this was completely legitimate.”
I thanked her, then staggered back to my group, where Marissa was bouncing around, giggling, laughing, acting not at all the way a pirate should. And out of nowhere I've got lots of friends, patting me on the back and congratulating me and telling me they voted for me.
“Wow,” Casey said with a grin. “And here I thought this school was full of morons.”
I looked at my medal—it had a big goofy bullfrog with a crooked crown on top, and on the back was stamped:
MOST UNIQUE STYLE SAMMY KEYES
I shook my head and said to Marissa, “I don't know whether to hit you or hug you.”
She decided for me with a bone-crushing hug. Trouble is, as she's crushing my bones, I see Heather charging at me like a bull in a tutu. “Uh-oh,” I say, breaking free of Marissa.
“What's wrong?” she asks, but Heather's already there, grabbing for me, saying, “You rigged this, I know you did!”
I pivot to the side, so all she catches is air.
“She rigged this!” she screeches out at the crowd. “Who in their right mind believes this loser has style?”
“Back off, Heather!” Casey says.
Heather doesn't back off, but everyone else does, and that creates a dense circle around us. “It's okay,” I tell Casey, because I can see Mr. Caan plowing through kids, trying to get to us.
But Heather's seen him, too, and at this point she doesn't care—summer's right around the corner, and she's not going quietly into the seventh-grade sunset. She lunges for me again, and I'm so busy telling Casey not to get tangled up in things that she gets hold of my left arm and digs her nails in hard. Then she tries to punch me in the head, but I manage to duck out of the way in time.
Some moron yells, “Chick fight! Yeah!” and I'm telling Casey, “Stand back!” 'cause how lame is that? Having your attacker's big brother come to your rescue.
But fake or not, Heather's nails are gouging me, and then swish, she swings at my head again.
So I'm actually dying to end the year the way I started it—with a nose-splatting punch to Heather's face. Right there. In front of the whole school. Smack. She'd go down, blood would squirt everywhere.
It would be a beautiful sight.
And who could blame me?
Trouble is, I don't want the year to end the way it started. I don't want to feel like I'm back at the first day of seventh grade. I want to feel like the year has brought me forward, not just back to where I began.
Besides, if Heather's a hundred percent wrong now, I want to keep it that way. Punching her out would confuse things.
So the next time her fist comes at me, I grab it with my free hand, twist her wrist 'til her arm goes with it, then pin it behind her back, hard and tight.
Not nearly as much bone-cracking fun as punching her lights out, but oh well.
Mr. Caan breaks through the crowd, so I shove Heather at him, saying, “You got a medal for Biggest Psycho?”
“She rigged it!” Heather wails. “I heard someone cheated—it was her! Her!” She points to my brassy bullfrog. “I bet she stole some ballots! I bet she filled in her own name! There's no way she really won that! Count the ballots! I'll bet there's more than there's supposed to be! Count the ballots!”
“Heather,” Mr. Caan says, “you and I need to have a little talk.”
So Mr. C
aan gets her out of there, and Mrs. Ambler goes on to announcing the eighth-grade Personalities. And through it all I could tell that Casey was bummed about his sister. “I can't wait to be in a different school than her,” he said. “I can't wait.”
I felt sorry for him. I mean, how would you deal with a sister like that? I sure don't know. It's hard enough dealing with her as an archenemy.
So it was good to get out of the gym and back to the Hummer. Especially since Billy was still hamming it up. “Shiver me bum, mateys!” he said, having retrieved his hook hand and bucket o' bones. “Are we up for an icy slide?”
We all laughed and said, “Aye!” then he held the Jolly Roger high, and we all followed him into the Black Pearl.
And as we pulled away from school, calling “Arg!” and “Gar!” and “Ahoy!” to all the people gawking at the Hummer, I was sure we were leaving choppy waters behind us.
Turns out, we were sailing straight for trouble.
And this time, it was real trouble.
TWENTY-THREE
I don't think Olivia or Nick really wanted to go ice-blocking. They'd done a lot of slow dancing, even during fast songs, and were now more into locking lips than anything else.
It was making the rest of us kind of uncomfortable, but Billy shook his hook at them and said, “Ye got the rest of yer lives to drop anchor, swabbies! We got seas t'sail! Villages t'pillages! Lootin' t'doin'! Off yer miserable arses, sea doggies!”
Olivia looked at Nick like, Oh, honey, do we really have to? And Nick sort of scratched his head and looked from her to Billy to Danny to Casey.
“Arg!” Billy growled, his unpatched eye squinting.
So Nick said, “Come on, Liv, it'll be fun,” but Olivia kept giving him that look and whimpered, “It's going to be cold, and I don't want to go to the graveyard!”
“We're going to the graveyard?” Marissa asked.
“Arg!” Billy growled. “I got me a bucket o' bones t'bury!”
“Billy,” Nick said, “they're chicken bones. You don't need to bury 'em.”
“Aye, I do!” Billy said. “Or their souls will haunt these parts 'til the moon fergets t'rise!”