As Hope gently urged Manda toward the house, Heath blissfully circled the drain, totally unaware of all the drama he had created.
Guys. So clueless. And so lucky.
Chapter Five
The three of us gathered in Hope’s bedroom to discuss the Spirit Squad’s positive protest. I’d never been in Hope’s room before, but it felt immediately familiar. Maybe it’s because her room is a pure reflection of her personality: It was whimsical without being too wacky.
Hope’s curtains were ruby-red velvet, as if pulled from a stage. A chandelier dropped dramatically from the ceiling like a movie star’s diamond earring. The desk, chairs, and bookshelves were clear plastic and futuristic and heaped with sketchbooks and art supplies. The rug was a patchwork quilt of scraps cut from different carpets and sewn together. The walls were museum-white, which made sense because they were hung with collages and canvases I assumed were created by Hope herself. It was a lot to take in. And yet the non-matchy-matchiness all came together to make perfect sense.
And this might sound weird, but the room smelled like Hope. Or vice versa, I guess. It’s—I don’t know—like a mix of wet paint, dried flowers, and fresh laundry with just the teensiest hint of ancient dog. I’ve always known that I must have a signature smell, too; I just don’t know what it is. I can’t detect it, because I’m so used to it. This is exactly the type of thing that could keep me awake at night, but I’m friends with Manda and Sara, so I must smell okay. There’s no way those two would allow any funky aromas in their inner circle.
(NOTE: This random observation would come back to haunt me with all its irony soon enough.)
Hope flopped onto a mattress on the floor. No bed frame or headboard. Just a mattress draped with an orange-pink-and-white-striped comforter and piled with a bazillion jewel-toned throw pillows. It was lazy and luxurious at the same time. My mother would not approve. At all.
“I like to stretch out,” Hope explained.
Hope is already almost six feet tall. How much more can she stretch?
“Oh” was all I could say.
I was kindasorta embarrassed that my mother’s disapproval of floor mattresses had shown up on my face. As a Realtor, Mom likes what sells. Bland, boring spaces have broader appeal to buyers. Hope’s chaotic, colorful bedroom was clearly inhabited by someone who is quite comfortable with where—and who—she is. I wish my room could be more like that. My room looks like my mom decorated it. Because she did.
Manda cleared off a space on Hope’s desk with a thoughtless sweep of her arm, sending papers, pens, paintbrushes, and a bunch of other stuff tumbling to the floor. If I were Hope, I would have been annoyed. Then again, if I were Hope, I wouldn’t have been annoyed, because Hope isn’t easily annoyed. It’s another one of her best qualities. I get annoyed all too easily.
Manda smoothed out the wrinkled paper, cleared her throat, and positioned herself like an official spokesperson at a press conference.
“Attention!” [clap clap] “Attention!”
Manda will literally call for attention when she feels she isn’t getting enough attention. She’s simultaneously self-confident and insecure in that way.
“Today you have a unique opportunity to be a part of Pineville Junior High history.”
She paused so Hope and I could fill the gap with the appropriately awestruck “oooOOOoooh.”
“This isn’t about a petition,” she continued, giving the paper a finger poke. “This is about a rite of passage. This is abou—”
Her speech was interrupted by the sound of the front door banging open and footsteps pounding up the stairs. Judging from the pinched expression on Manda’s face, she must have known who it was.
“Oh, puh-leeze,” Manda muttered as none other than her BFF and Spirit Squad cofounder breathlessly rushed into the room.
“Sign this!” Sara commanded, thrusting an identical petition at Hope. She saw me a millisecond later. “Aha! Both of you! Yesssss!”
“Hello to you, too, Sara,” Hope said archly.
“Omigod.” Sara executed an exaggerated curtsy as if she were greeting royalty. “Hellllooooooo.” She rose and cocked her hip defiantly. “Happy? Good. Sign this!”
Manda very dramatically cleared her throat. “Ah-he-he-he-he-hemmmmm.”
Sara was so focused on us that she hadn’t even noticed Manda sitting behind Hope’s desk until that moment. She tried not to look surprised.
“Oh, hey, Manda,” she said, all supercasual. “What’s up?”
“Um, what’s up is that Hope and Jessica were just about to sign my petition.”
“I thought it wasn’t a petition,” Hope said.
“I thought it was a rite of passage,” I said.
Manda has gotten very good at ignoring Hope and me when we team up to annoy her.
“As I was saying,” Manda said to Sara, “they were about to sign my petition. So. You know. Tough break, sweetie.”
“But they didn’t sign it yet.”
“We had a verbal agreement.”
“Daddy’s lawyer will tell you that verbal agreements won’t stand up in a court of law, which means…”
Then Manda stunned Sara into silence with the same “zero” hand sign she’d made at Heath. Only this time it had its intended effect.
“Omigod!” Sara cried. “You did not just ‘zero’ me!”
Manda kept her hand in midair for all to see. She was making it crystal clear that she had, in fact, just “zeroed” Sara and was, for as long as her hand was in midair, still technically “zeroing” her. I still didn’t know what it meant to be “zeroed” by Manda, but the pink-to-red-to-purpling of Sara’s face indicated that it wasn’t very nice.
Ever the peacemaker, Hope stepped between them.
“All this bickering over our signatures,” she said, “and we still have no idea what this is all about.”
Manda and Sara looked at each other, then us.
“It’s for a school dance!”
They said it simultaneously, though from the disappointed looks on their faces it was clear each had tried to beat the other in sharing the news. They still high-fived and said “Bee-Eff-Effs!” to each other like they always did whenever they said the same thing at the same time, but they didn’t get much joy out of it.
“Pineville Junior High hasn’t had a school dance for, like, a decade,” Manda said.
“Omigod,” Sara said. “The chaperones complained about too much quote inappropriate body contact unquote on the dance floor.”
I’ve already established that I get all ACKED out about boy/girl business. So it should be no surprise that the phrase inappropriate body contact struck me as way funnier than it should have. At least I wasn’t alone.
“Hmmm. Is this inappropriate body contact?” Hope asked as she gave herself a piggy nose with the push of her pinkie.
“Is this inappropriate body contact?” I asked as I stuck my thumbs in my ears and wiggled my fingers.
“This isn’t a joke,” Manda said.
“This is, like, serious,” Sara said.
This, of course, only egged us on.
Hope bumped her butt into mine.
“Is this inappropriate body contact?” she asked.
I bumped back.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Is this?”
The next thing I knew, Hope and I were jumping around the room and bumping our butts into whatever—or whoever—got in our way.
“Omigod,” Sara said when I butted into her. “You two are so immature.”
“Seriously,” Manda agreed when Hope butted into her.
TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW.
When we got bored of bumping our butts, Hope and I crashed onto her mattress, cracking up.
“BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”
To their credit, Manda and Sara actually waited for us to calm down before trying to communicate with us. We were almost there when Hope very slowly and deliberately reached out and honked my nose twice. Before she could ev
en ask about the inappropriateness of this body contact, we were laughing all over again.
“BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”
And still, Manda and Sara waited us out. Which gives you an idea of just how important this petition, or rather, this rite of passage, really was to them. Manda cleared her throat.
“Why should we be punished for the mistakes of others made so long ago?” Manda asked.
She approached the problem like a politician. Sara took it way more personally.
“I’m in seventh grade, and I want a school dance,” Sara whined. “I deserve a school dance! Gimme a school dance!”
I have a feeling this is the same technique Sara deploys whenever she wants something from her parents. And based on the endless supply of new clothes, new makeup, new gadgets, and new whatever-she-wants, it actually works.
“A school dance could be fun,” Hope said in a measured tone. “I’d be willing to support a school dance.”
Manda lunged at Hope.
“SIGN MINE!”
Sara lunged at me.
“SIGN MINE!”
I was less enthusiastic about the idea of a school dance because I’m not the most coordinated girl. For me, dancing is a losing mind-body battle between what I think my arms and legs are doing versus what they’re actually doing, which is never rhythmic and always a laugh riot to everyone but me. Also, I’m not into dressing up. It’s hard enough for me to find five clean T-shirts to wear during the week, let alone a sixth totally different fancy-dancey T-shirt to wear on a Friday night. Finally, school dances inevitably put a LITERAL spotlight on boy/girl business, and you already know how I handle that sort of thing.…
This runaway train of thought suddenly brought to mind the paper in my back pocket and the whole reason I rode over to Hope’s house in the first place!
I hadn’t had a chance to ask her to take the Top Secret Pineville Junior High Crushability Quiz (TTSPJHCQ—an acronym as awkward as I am on the dance floor), and I definitely didn’t want to bust it out in front of Manda and Sara, especially when the latter was scrutinizing me in a way that made me feel like a guilty suspect even though I hadn’t committed any crime.
“Um,” I stammered, unnerved by her stare. “Why does it matter whose petition we sign when all the names are for the same cause?”
Manda and Sara looked at me like I was the stupidest person on the planet.
“Let’s just say it’s a friendly competition,” Sara said.
“A best-friendly competition,” Manda clarified.
Hope chimed in with over-the-top enthusiasm.
“And you can’t spell competition without petition!”
Without meaning to, we all paused for a mental spell-check. She was right, of course.
“Anyway,” Manda continued in a less-than-amused tone, “whoever gets the most signatures by Tuesday morning wins.”
“Wins what?” Hope asked. “The comPETITION?”
Now they looked at Hope like she was the stupidest person on the planet.
“Wins,” they said simultaneously. High five. “Bee-Eff-Effs!”
Hope called me over for a confidential one-on-one conference in the corner next to a shelf of stuffed animals. I never collected stuffed animals. Growing up, that was always Bridget’s thing. She used to love adding to her plushy menagerie, but not anymore. When Bridget got a boyfriend, she decided that she was too mature for kitties and unicorns, so she hid them in her closet. I’d bet a bazillion dollars she still sleeps with Miss Petunia Gigglewhiskers.
Anyway, Hope’s stuffed animals weren’t cute. They were dismembered and sewn back together in bizarre combinations: a hippo head on a teddy bear’s belly with duck flippers. Or a bunny face on a fish body with a monkey tail. Frankenplushies.
Hope saw me gawking.
“Salvador Dollies,” Hope explained.
Ohhhh. Like the surrealistic painter she mentioned earlier. I swear she has more creativity in her baby toe than I do in my whole body.
“This,” she said, thumbing in Manda and Sara’s direction, “won’t end well.”
“It never ends well with those two.” Then I corrected myself. “It never ends at all. As soon as a winner is declared, the loser will propose a rematch of some sort.”
Hope closed her eyes and formed a steeple with her hands in front of her face. It was a show of gratitude. Like, “Finally! Someone understands what I’ve been dealing with all these years.”
Hope spun around to face Manda and Sara.
“Okay! We’ve come up with a compromise. I’ll sign Sara’s, and Jessica will sign Manda’s.”
Not even this, the fairest way of handling the situation, was fair enough.
“Why do you want to sign Manda’s?” Sara asked me indignantly.
“Why do you want to sign Sara’s?” Manda asked Hope huffily.
“Fine! I’ll sign yours and Hope will sign Manda’s,” I suggested. “It doesn’t matter!”
Then I grabbed the pen out of Sara’s hand and signed my name to her paper before we could waste another ridiculous second debating the matter any further.
“Are you finally satisfied?” I asked.
Sara inspected my signature, then smiled.
“I will be satisfied,” she replied, “when you show us what you’re hiding in your back pocket.”
Mark my words: The FBI will recruit Sara before she graduates from Pineville Junior High School.
“Jess keeps patting her back pocket protectively,” she informed the room, “like she’s worried something will fall out of it.”
“I do?” I asked, genuinely surprised to hear this. I’d had no idea I’d been doing that.
“Omigod, like, at first I thought you were providing more examples of quote inappropriate body contact unquote. Like, pat, pat, pat, pat.” She patted her own butt to demonstrate. “But when you didn’t actually joke about it, well, I realized it was a tell.”
“A tell?” Hope asked.
“A tell,” Sara explained, “is body language that reveals the truth.”
“Oh, puh-leeze,” Manda said dismissively.
“Manda’s mouth says she isn’t interested in hearing what I have to say,” Sara said, all smarty-pantsy, “but the way she leans toward me says, ‘tell me more.’”
Manda immediately shifted away to prove otherwise, which only succeeded in reinforcing Sara’s point.
“What are some other tells?” Hope asked.
“Omigod. There are zillions,” Sara answered. “Nose scratching, half shrugs.”
She pointed at my face.
“Lip biting.”
I was, at that moment, nervously biting my bottom lip.
“So are you going to surrender what’s in your back pocket, or are we going to have to use force?”
“This is all very interesting,” I said, “but you’re wrong. There’s nothing in my back pocket.”
“There’s nothing in your back pocket?” Sara asked.
I took a deep breath before answering.
“No.”
Sara hopped up and down and clapped excitedly.
“Did you see that?” Sara asked Manda and Hope. “She said no, but she nodded yesssss.”
Both Manda and Hope gave little ahas in assent. They had seen it, too.
“I did not!”
“Do you see that? Her arms crossed in a defensive posture? The body doesn’t lie.…”
THANKS A LOT, BODY.
Now all three of them wouldn’t take their eyes off me. They were looking for the truth in my earlobes.
“Stop looking at me!” I snapped.
“Just tell us what you’ve got hidden back there,” Sara said.
“And don’t lie,” Manda chimed in. “Because I’ll know you’re lying.”
And just like that, Manda had appointed herself the body-language expert in the room. Sara’s “you’ve got to be kidding me” reaction needed no translation.
“If Jessica does have something in her back pocket…” Hope be
gan.
“She does,” Sara said confidently.
“Then it’s up to her to show it to us or not,” Hope continued. “It’s her own personal, private business.”
“If it’s so personal and private,” Sara argued, “it should be kept somewhere safe.…”
Fortunately for me, Manda has a specific form of attention deficit disorder: She can’t tolerate it not being paid to her.
“WHO CARES?!?!” Manda cried out in annoyance. “WE ARE WASTING VALUABLE TIME HERE THAT COULD BE SPENT COLLECTING SIGNATURES FOR A SCHOOL DANCE.”
Then she marched through the door without another word. Sara had to make a split-second decision. What mattered more: the comPETITION or my back pocket?
“Wait up!” Sara paused briefly in the doorway to address me. “This investigation is just getting started,” she said, as if warning me that she’d return for answers.
Then she chased Manda down the stairs and out the door. Hope and I looked at each other and fainted onto her mattress in relief. We didn’t say anything for a few seconds. We just enjoyed the peace and quiet. Quiet and peace. Both are in short supply when Manda and Sara are around.
“So,” Hope said finally. “Are you hiding something in your back pocket?”
I unfolded my arms and unbit my lip. I emphatically shook my head the correct, negative direction.
“Nope,” I lied. “Not at all.”
Chapter Six
I should have gotten rid of TTSPJHCQ once and for all when I had the chance.
Shredded it.
Flushed it.
Microwaved it for thirty minutes.
Given it to Dalí as a chew toy.
Even the last option—as impractical as it might have been, considering Dalí has few teeth—would’ve been better than what I did. Which is nothing at all. Because now the fate of TTSPJHCQ isn’t up to me. It’s in the least responsible and most mortifying hands possible.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
It felt weird to lie about the contents of my back pocket. And the longer I stayed in Hope’s room, the more I stressed about her somehow finding out that I had lied, even though the only way that would’ve happened is if the paper inexplicably came to life, leaped out of my pocket, jumped up and down on the mattress, and yelled, “LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE.”