Cloudy with a Chance of Boys (8 page)

The day just went from bad to worse.

I was sitting in Earth Science, my favorite class at the moment, when out of nowhere, a wadded-up note hit me in the head. I looked around. Olivia wasn’t even in this class.

I opened it a teeny-tiny bit to try to read it without someone, a.k.a. Wire Rims, spying on me.
Not coming to detention after school. Sorry!
It was signed with a fancy letter
O,
big enough to rival Oprah’s autograph. Like that was supposed to make it not so bad.

Olivia. How did she do that? She must have given it to somebody else to pass to me. I was thinking how I’d never speak to her again if she left me alone with Wire Rims, when an announcement crackled over the loudspeaker.

“Stevie Reel to the front office. Mr. Petry? Is Stevie Reel in class? Please send him down to the office.”

Him?
The whole class erupted in laughter. Suddenly Mr. Petry’s giant jellyfish weather phenomenon was not so interesting. All eyes were on me. I felt my face go thermal and turn bright red. Weather alert: global warming had just reached classroom 11.

“Did they say
Steven
Reel?” somebody asked.

“Hey, Reel, make sure you don’t stop in the
boys’
bathroom on the way to the office,” somebody else jeered.

I zoomed out of there before I had to hear the standard string of sixth-grade-boys-being-jerks jokes.

The office! Now what? Did I do something wrong? I hope I didn’t have capital-
D
detention. But Dad had already signed off on the paper saying I had to stay after school. Did something happen? Somebody got hurt? Alex was sick for real and they rushed her to the emergency room?

I hurried over to the woman at the main desk who was clicking her yellow happy-face nails a mile a minute on the keyboard. “Hi, um, I’m Stevie Reel.”

“You’re Stevie?” she asked, glancing up but still clicking. “I was expecting — never mind. Your mom’s on the phone.”

“My mom?” I asked, like I hadn’t heard from her in a hundred years or something.
Why isn’t Mom at the studio?

“You can take it on that phone.” She nodded to a desk in the corner. “Just press line three.”

“Mom?” I asked. “Is everything okay? Why are you calling me in the middle of —”

“It’s me, okay?” the voice said. “I had to talk to you.”

“Alex?” I whispered. “W-what are you . . . where are you . . . why are you . . .” I stammered. Finally, I eked out a whole sentence. “I was in the middle of a class,
Mom,
” I said for the benefit of Happy Nails. “Why are you calling me?”

“Sorry I got you out of class, but —”

“You told them you were Mom? You scared me half to death! I thought it was some kind of emergency!”

“It
is
an emergency. I’m going crazy. I can’t take it anymore. I have to know.”

“Know what?” I asked, looking around guiltily.

“You know. About the play. Who got the part of Juliet? You have to look at the list for me.”

“I’m not — I can’t —” Still sputtering.

“What’s the big deal? Just go over to the auditorium and check the Drama Club list. It’ll be posted on the bulletin board outside Mr. Cannon’s door as soon as school’s over. You know, the same as it was for
Once Upon a Mattress.
”

“I can’t believe you. You fake sick and don’t come to school because you think you didn’t get the part and now you want
me
to find out for you? I’ve got problems of my own, you know. I can’t. Even if I wanted to, I have to stay after. For detention.
Comprende?
” Just then, Happy Nails walked past with a stack of papers.

“Stevie, just run down there as soon as the bell rings, please? It’ll take two seconds.”

“Sorry,
Mom.
I didn’t mean to worry you. I know I forgot my lunch, but Olivia gave me half of hers. And, no, I don’t need my violin. Orchestra is on Thursdays.”

“Stevie . . .” Alex urged.

“Okay. Love you too. I’ll see you at home.
Bye, Mom!
”

I walked back to class, fuming about Alex. But before I reached room 11, the bell rang and everybody poured into the hall. I rushed over to Olivia, who was spacing out in front of her open locker.

“What do you mean you’re not going to be at detention?” I practically screamed. “How can you skip detention? It’s detention! They’ll give you another detention for missing detention.”

“Stevie, I think you just got the Guinness world record for saying ‘detention.’” Olivia glanced around to see if anybody was staring at us.

Right-left-right. I spun the dial on my lock, yanking open my own locker so hard the door vibrated angrily. “You had all day to tell me this. You couldn’t have told me on the bus or at lunch or this morning in Language Arts?”

“I’m telling you now. I have an orthodontist appointment and I had to wait months to get it. And I’m not about to miss my one chance to get the last of these braces off.” She flashed the shiny silver on her four front teeth at me. “No way am I waiting one more day. One more minute. Look out, popcorn, here I come!”

“And Ms. Carter-Dunne said that was okay?”

“I told her I had a dental emergency. She said I could make it up Friday.”

“Sheesh. Faking sick sure is going around. Maybe I can catch it too.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” I turned to my friend and pleaded. “Liv, please. I’m your best friend.
Please
don’t leave me alone with him.”

“Who him?”

“You know who him.” I lowered my voice. “Wire Rims.”

“Oh. Him. So that’s what you’re all bent out of shape about?”

“Hello!” I said in a voice that came out high and shrieky. “I told you, I don’t know the first thing about boys.” She knew when it came to boys I hadn’t the foggiest. But she pretended like it wasn’t a big deal.

“So?” She shrugged. “I already told you. They have big clown feet, they grunt instead of talking, they’re always hungry, and they like to burp.”

“Be serious,” I told my friend.

“I
am
being serious. See?” She sucked in her cheeks to keep from smiling. Her eyes popped out at me.

“Okay, now you just look like a demented circus clown. C’mon, Livvie. I don’t know what to say to the guy. You know I’m bad at this stuff.” Not like Olivia. When it came to trying new things, she did not hesitate to dive right in. Brave. Fearless.

“It’s detention. You don’t have to talk. You can flirt with your eyes.” She blinked her eyes, fluttering her eyelashes madly.

“Okay, now you look like a demented circus clown with something stuck in her eye.”

“Look, trust me, there’s nothing to stress about. First of all, you’re not supposed to talk in detention anyway, right? So, you don’t have to talk to him.”

“I can’t just not talk to him. Then he’ll think I hate him.”

“Guys aren’t like girls. They don’t read a bunch of stuff into talking, or not talking. When it comes to boys, it is what it is. Simple.”

“There’s nothing simple about it.”

Olivia stepped back, studying me up and down.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just . . . why do you care so much?” Olivia gave me a hard look. “Time out! You like him. You are so crushing on the Glasses Man!” she teased.

“Shh! I’m not crushing on anybody!” I said, keeping my teeth clenched. I glanced around to make sure nobody heard us.

“You’ll be fine. I promise. Just remember, if he cracks his knuckles, that means he wants to hold hands. And if he takes his glasses off, that means he likes you.”

“Wait. What?”

“Kidding! But not about the first thing.”

I couldn’t tell if she was making fun of me or not.

“Besides, it’s better this way. Without me there, he’ll have to talk to you. Instead of talking through me to talk to you.”

Dear Ms. Carter-Dunne,

Unfortunately, Stevie Reel had to go home sick and won’t be able to make detention after school today. I’m afraid she has a bad case of Boyitis.

I wish.

2:55

De·ten·tion
(noun) [di-ten-chn]

1. confinement, imprisonment
   with a boy
   
2. punishment by being detained after school
   with a boy
   
3. locked up, incarcerated
   with a boy
   

Okay, so I added the
“with a boy”
part. But still!

3:01

So far, no Sudoku in sight. Maybe the real punishment is just to worry about what our punishment will be.

Outside, the rain had stopped. But fog had swallowed up the mountains and settled over the parking lot, turning the playground into a scene from
Macbeth.

I sat at my regular homeroom desk. Wire Rims slid into the seat next to me.

“Hey, Stevie.”

“Hey . . . Wire Rims.”

“So, you like the glasses, huh? I get that a lot. Comments on the glasses, I mean.” He took off his glasses and rubbed them with the hem of his shirt. He smiled a crooked, goofy smile.

Ms. Carter-Dunne told us we could sit quietly and work on our Language Arts homework for class — a five-paragraph persuasive essay. Mine argued against hunting wolves in Oregon. But I found it hard to concentrate on wolves when I could feel Wire Rims looking at me.

Why hadn’t I used my peppermint body wash this morning? Now I just smell like dumb old soap.

Why did he have to sit so close?

Why were my ears turning red for no reason?

Why was he cracking his knuckles?

Why was my heart beating in my throat?

Why was he not pretending to do his homework?

Why was he looking over at my essay? What was his essay about?

Why did I even care about any of this?

Forget detention. This felt like a class in Lame-ology 101.

Stare straight ahead,
I willed myself.
Stop stealing glances at him.

Forget wolves. I took out my Science notebook and tried to concentrate on homework. But instead of observing clouds, I observed the specimen sitting next to me.

OBSERVATION:
Shaggy blond hair

CONCLUSIONS: