Cloudy with a Chance of Boys (3 page)

One glass troll eye stared at me from the bottom of the fireplace. Part of me wanted to yell
Wait!
and take it back. But it was too late.

A last line from
Macbeth
niggled the back of my brain.

“What’s done is done.”

FIRST KISS WISH

Starring Alex

Sock Monkey:
So, you’re still talking to me, huh?

Me:
Why wouldn’t I be?

Sock Monkey:
It’s just . . . you hardly ever have time for me anymore.

Me:
You sound like my sisters. Of course I haven’t forgotten you. Who else am I going to tell my secrets to?
Not
the Snoopy Sisters, that’s for sure.

Sock Monkey:
The Snoopy Sisters. Good one.

Me:
So, do you want to know my secret or what?

Sock Monkey:
I’m all ears! Even though I don’t have ears. Why don’t you give me some ears?

Me:
You had ears once upon a time. But they got all loved off.

Sock Monkey:
Aw.

Me:
Okay, listen up. Remember a couple of nights ago, during the blackout, when I —

Sock Monkey:
Did a magic
love
spell? Yeah, I remember. You went to all that trouble, when you could just write down the person’s name and put it under your pillow. Or eat three petals of the black jade rose while thinking of the person’s name.

Me:
Can we focus here? Unless you don’t want to know my secret.

Sock Monkey:
Like I said, I’m all ears.

Me:
Okay. So. You know how I threw that note from when I was in
Beauty and the Beast
with Scott Howell in the fire that night?

Sock Monkey:
Yeah, that was really using your brain. Now you burned up his love note and you don’t have it anymore.

Me:
It wasn’t a love note anyway. I wish. It just said,
“See you at practice. S.”
No biggie.

Sock Monkey:
Uh-huh. So, why’d you save that play program forever?

Me:
I know Stevie and Joey think I wished that I’d get to play Juliet in the school play, but really I wished —

Sock Monkey:
For secret crush Scott Towel to like you?

Me:
A) His name is not Scott Towel! It’s Scott Howell. That’s just what my annoying sisters call him. And B) I wished for something better than that.
Way
better.

Sock Monkey:
What? That he’d call you up? Send you a
real
love note? Ask you out to a vampire movie?

Me:
Nope, nope, and nope.

Sock Monkey:
That he’d come over for dinner again, and this time not drop his fork in the fondue and have to kiss everybody at the table?

Me:
Wrong again.

Sock Monkey:
What? I give up. Tell me!

Me:
Okay, but you have to keep it a secret. Nobody but you in the whole entire world can know. Are you ready?

Sock Monkey:
Hurry up! Whisper it in my ear. I mean, where my ear would be if I had one.

Me:
I wished that I would get my first kiss, and it would be from
him.

Sock Monkey:
Who him?

Me:
Him,
him. Romeo.

Sock Monkey:
Huh?

Me:
Don’t you get it? I have it all planned. I get the part of Juliet in the play, and Scott is Romeo. And Romeo has to kiss Juliet, right? So, voila! I get my first kiss. What could be better than a sweet, romantic, Romeo-and-Juliet kind of first kiss?

Sock Monkey:
Brilliant!

Me:
I thought so. Now all I need is to really rock my audition, get the part of Juliet, hope Scott gets the part of Romeo, and convince Mr. Cannon that you can’t do
Romeo and Juliet
without at least one kissing scene.

Sock Monkey:
Details, details.

I glanced up at the clock on the wall — 1:29 and the crowds are getting restless.

No wonder. We’ve spent the last twenty-nine minutes smushed like sardines on the bleachers with hundreds of antsy sixth graders and rowdy seventh graders in the multipurpose room, waiting for the assembly to start.

Olivia and I have been through our share of Author Day assemblies together. Once, back in kindergarten, this grumpy teacher yelled at me for telling the Author a story about putting a rubber ear in Joey’s spaghetti (that joke never gets old), and Livvie stood up for me and said it was a funny story. We’ve been best friends ever since.

“Who’s the author supposed to be, anyway?” I asked Liv.

“You know it’ll be some guy who tells seriously lame jokes.”

Afternoon forecast: Cloudy with a chance of boring.

“Or some guy whose great-great-great-great-grandfather walked the Oregon Trail,” said some kid behind us, butting into our conversation.

I mouthed,
“Who’s he?”
to Olivia. She shrugged.

The kid’s knee bumped me in the back of the head.

“Hey!” I said, turning around to squinch my face at him. He had short sandy blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses that looked kind of cool and ungeeky. And he was wearing a black T-shirt with Oscar the Grouch peeking out of a garbage can. Go figure. I never get the shirts guys wear.

“Sorry. My bad. I, um, it’s my second day here. I was at East, then we moved, like, 1.4 miles, and they transferred me to West.”

“Interesting,” I said.
“Not!”
I mouthed to Olivia, and she started giggling.

“Hey, I mean, aren’t you in my Earth Science class?” he asked.

“Me? No,” said Olivia, shaking her head.

He was looking at me. “I don’t know. Am I?” I said.

“Yeah. With that guy. What’s his name? Mr. Petri Dish.”

Olivia and I couldn’t help laughing a little. “Mr. Petry. Minus the dish. Um, word of advice? You better not let him hear you calling him that, or you’ll be staying after to wash all his Petri dishes till they sparkle.”

Ms. Carter-Dunne leaned forward from her seat at the end of the row and put a finger to her lips to shush us.

The assistant principal was yammering on about something. I’m not into being a rowdy sixth grader, but I am into telling Olivia the whole story about the storm and the power outage and the Sisters Club with the you-know-what in the fire and hoping my hair would not turn green.

“Speaking of green,” I said, “did I mention I have a new roommate? Joey adopted a frog. After the storm. She doesn’t know I know.”

“Wait,” said Olivia, “so now you have a frog living in your room? For real?”

“Frog? Who lives with a frog?” Wire Rims asked Olivia.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to listen in on other people’s conversations?” Olivia said.

“Sorry. Couldn’t help overhearing.”

She turned back to me. “Where were we? Oh, yeah. You were burning a troll doll and wishing for stuff and —”

Ms. Carter-Dunne glared at us.

“Shh! Stop saying troll doll,” I warned, making fierce eyes at Olivia.

“Did you guys say Roald Dahl? Is that who the author is? For real?”

“Yeah, that’s who it is. Except for one teeny-weeny detail. Roald Dahl is dead!” Olivia told him.

“Too bad,” I joked. “I love his book
James and the Giant
Eavesdropper.” Olivia and I cracked up.

Just then, the principal came out and tapped on the microphone. He cleared his throat and the room settled down to a dull roar. Behind him stood a guy with greased-back hair, wearing a black-and-white suit.

“Boys and girls,” the principal started, and Olivia whispered, “Uh-oh, bad news.” Whenever the principal starts out with “Boys and girls,” it’s bad news.