Ten (14 page)

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Authors: Lauren Myracle

BOOK: Ten
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Alex didn't like the idea of Mark being a hero, it seemed, because he said, “You stepped on a roach. Big whoop. I dare you to
eat
it.”
Mark laughed in disbelief. “No way, dude.
You
eat it.”
Alex held out his hand. “Fine. Give it to me.”
“It's
squished
,” Maxine said faintly. She lifted her eyes from the poor squished cockroach (and for the record, this was the
one and only
time I ever felt sorry for a cockroach, or ever would) and turned to her hero, Mark. “Do you think you can peel it off the floor?”
Mark got down on one knee. Robert handed him an index card, and Mark scraped the squished roach off the carpet. A fiber of yarn came up, too, dangling from the yellowy-green roach guts.
“He's not really going to eat it, is he?” Amanda said. Her expression was horrified, and yet she couldn't seem to look away.
“No,” I said. I raised my voice. “Even Alex isn't dumb enough to eat a dead roach.”
“
Brave
enough, you mean,” Alex said. He approached Amanda and knelt before her. “I will if you want me to, Amanda.
Do
you?”
“No!” Chantelle said, wrinkling her nose.
“Yes!” Louise said. She elbowed Karen, who joined her. “Eat the roach! Eat the roach!”
I swiveled my head to the door of our classroom. Where was Pat? Where was
any
teacher?
“Do it, dude,” Mark said, but I noticed that he took a step back from Alex as soon as he passed off the index card with the roach on it. Maxine darted even farther back and hid behind him, giggling.
Alex grinned. Pinning his gaze on Amanda, he said, “So . . . ? It's your call, milady.”
“Don't,” I said.
“Do!” Louise said, along with half the other kids in the class. Even Chantelle flip-flopped positions and said, “Yeah, make him eat it!”
“It could have an egg sac inside it,” I said.
“A squished egg sac,” Alex said.
“You don't know,” I said stubbornly. “Maybe some of the eggs are squished, but not all. And if you eat it, guess what?”
“Roach babies in your stomach!” David crowed. “Awesome!”
I grabbed the bottom of my chair and jump-scooted toward Amanda until our bodies were touching. What I was going to say was private. I didn't want Alex eavesdropping.
“He is just trying to impress you,” I whispered into her ear. “Do
not
let him. Do
not
say yes, Amanda.”
Amanda's skin was flushed, and she gave off a hum of excited energy. Even though she didn't like Alex—and I knew she didn't like Alex, because how could she?—I think she
did
like all the attention.
“Don't be mad, 'kay?” she said without looking at me.
“Amanda!” I said.
Alex waggled his eyebrows.
Amanda took a breath, then let it out in a giddy whoosh. “Yes.” She covered her face with her hands, then peeked through her fingers. “Yes!”
Locking eyes with Amanda, Alex raised the index card and gave a toast. “For you,” he said.
He angled his head, unhinged his jaw, and tilted the index card. Girls squealed. Boys did, too. One boy's screech was so high it hurt my brain.
But the roach didn't slide into Alex's waiting mouth. It stayed put, its broken brown body glued to the card by a smear of shiny . . . inside stuff.
There were sighs of relief and murmurs of disappointment. There was
lots
of nervous laughter.
“Use your teeth,” David said. “Scrape it off.”
Alex shrugged, and it seemed as if he was going to. But we would never know, because right at that moment—both wonderfully and horribly—ex–rocket scientist Pat huffed into the classroom.
Wonderfully, because
ha
, Alex was foiled.
Horribly, because
un-ha
, Alex wasn't truly put to the test.
Maybe
he would have done it.
Maybe
he'd have scraped that dead roach off the index card and swallowed it down, guts and all. But maybe he
wouldn't
have, and everyone would have said, “Boo! Boo! Boo on you, you stupid Alex Plotkin!”
As it stood, he got to claim the title and glory of Roach Eater without having ingested a single roach antennae. Not an antennae, not a leg, not even a . . . wingy thing.
And yet he acted as if he had roach-breath anyway—hence the
sub
-
sub
-
sub
stitute when he got in my face after art class. Amanda hadn't filed out of the room yet, and I fervently hoped it was because she was busy breaking Alex's fuse bead heart to pieces.
“Alex, you are playing with fire,” I told him.
“Am I, Winnie?” He stepped even closer. “
Am
I?”
I tried to remember Sandra's words of wisdom: The Crush Fad was just a fad. Amanda would never pick Alex to be her boyfriend, and she would never
ever
pick Alex over me. If she did?
I
would have to eat a dead roach to win her back, and I really hated roaches.
“Yes, Alex, you are,” I said.
I
stepped closer, so close our noses almost touched. So close I could see his eyebrows, which were abnormally pale. “Yes, Alex. You are.”
 
At afternoon snack break, Alex sauntered over to the beanbag cluster where Amanda, Chantelle, Maxine, and I were sitting.
“Excuse me, but these seats are taken,” I said.
“Did I ask you?” he said. He dropped down next to Amanda, WHO GIGGLED. He held out his pack of cheese crackers and said, “Anyone want one?”
I reached for one just so I could crumble it up and throw it at him. He snatched the pack back.
“Let me rephrase. Anyone
other
than Winnie?”
“Alex, that's mean,” Amanda said.
“Thank you,” I said to Amanda. I turned to Alex. “But Alex doesn't scare me.”
He lunged forward.
“BOO!”
he shouted.
Chantelle screamed. Maxine dropped her juice box, but luckily it didn't spill.
“Did
that
scare you?” he asked, stepping back and smugly taking a seat on the rug.
“Not at all,” I said, using amazing self-control to keep my heart from leaping out of my chest and flopping around on the floor.
I smiled. I told Maxine I liked her earrings, which was true. Then, lightning quick, I sprung wolflike from my beanbag. I bared my teeth and growled at Alex, and
everyone
screamed, including Alex.
“Ha,” I gloated, sitting back on my haunches.
“My pants,” Maxine said, and I glanced down to see a purple stain blooming on the white denim.
“Oh, gosh. I'm so sorry, Maxine.”
She got up and grabbed the bathroom pass.
“I didn't mean to make her spill her juice box,” I told the others.
“We know,” Amanda said.
“I would like to point out, however, that Alex—not to name names—isn't nearly as brave as he wants everyone to think.”
“Wrong,” Alex said. “One time I stepped on a rusty nail and had to get forty-two tetanus shots.”
“How fascinating,” I said. “One time
I
lay on a whole bed of nails and didn't have to get a single tetanus shot.”
“You
did
?” Amanda said. “When?”
Alex smirked. “Liar. One time my parents went out for dinner, and the babysitter forgot to come, so I stayed by myself for two whole hours.”
“Well, one time I went downstairs in the middle of the night for a snack,” I lobbed back. “Everyone else was fully asleep, and I didn't even realize it. I was the
only person awake
in the whole house.”
No one looked impressed. Amanda looked confused, and ready to be impressed if only she understood why, but Alex just snorted.
“Come on, ladies,” he said to Amanda and Chantelle. “Let's stop the charade, shall we?” He leaned back on his palms. “Who here ate the dead roach, huh?”
“Uh, no one,” I pointed out.
“Details,” he said. “Minor details.”
I glanced at Chantelle and Amanda. From the looks of it, his nearly eaten dead roach packed a punch, and it frightened me.
“Okay, okay, well . . . I didn't eat a dead roach, because that's disgusting. And again, neither did you.” I swallowed. “But one time I touched a dead mouse. Didn't I, Amanda?”
“She did,” Amanda said. “It was extremely dead, and his name was Henry, and Winnie dug a grave for him and buried him.”
“Yep,” I said. “Beat that.”
Alex smiled a bad smile. “I saw a dead dog on the highway once.”
“Ohhh! That's so sad!” Chantelle said.
I thought so, too. Dead dogs were on a different level from dead mice
or
dead roaches, and I struggled with how best to respond.
“I saw it up close,” he said before I got the chance. “My dad stopped the car and got out, because he wanted to make sure it was all the way dead.”
“That's sick,” I said.
“Shows how much you know, because if it wasn't all the way dead, he was going to put it out of its misery.”
“How?”
Amanda said. For the second time today, her blue eyes were fixed on Alex's smarmy face.
Amanda, snap out of it!
I wanted to say.
Bad Alex! No! Yuck!
“But it was all the way dead,” Alex said. “Its skull was dented in.”
Amanda put down her miniature quiche. Her mom always packed her good snacks. I had to pack my own snacks, so I usually ended up with a Thermos full of pepperoni slices. But even my pepperoni slices had lost their appeal, thanks to Alex.
“Oh, Alex!” Amanda said.
“And its eyeball had popped out,” he said mournfully.
“Its
eyeball
popped out?” I said. “Really?”
Amanda shuddered. “If
I
saw a dead eyeball?
Ugh
. I don't even know what I'd do.”
“I'd faint,” Chantelle said.
“Me too,” Amanda said.
“Not me,” I said.
“Alex, you poor thing,” Amanda said. “Seeing a dead dog—that's even worse than what we went through with Henry. Don't you think, Winnie?”
“For the dog,”
I muttered.
Alex gloated. He'd won that round, and he knew it. He once more held out his snack. “Cheese crackers, anyone?”
 
That night, I went to Mom. I told her the whole sordid story about how Alex was showing off for Amanda and how annoying it was.
“Hmmm,” she said, chopping up carrots for a salad. “Don't you think you're a little young to be having crushes on boys?”
“I'm
not
having crushes. Amanda is. She just hasn't picked out who yet.”
“She certainly doesn't need to be rushing into anything,” Mom said. “There's plenty of time for boys later, like in college.” She slid a row of carrot coins off the cutting board, grabbed a fresh carrot, and started hacking away. “Or
after
college. You do know how important college is, don't you?”
“Yes, Mother,” I said. I squiggled in between her and the counter, forcing her to put down the knife. “But what do I
do
?”
“About what?”
“About Alex!”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, Winnie, just ignore him. I know you hate it when I say that, but that's the best thing you can possibly do.”
I made an exasperated sound. I
did
hate it when Mom, or any grown-up, said to ignore someone.
Oh, just ignore that boy in werewolf's clothing, little girl,
as if ignoring people was as easy as eating a delicious chocolate chip cookie.
“Mom, that is the most unhelpful advice ever,” I said. “Try again.”
“Sorry, sweetie, but it's the best I've got,” she said. She attempted to lean past me to get at the carrot. When that didn't work, she set down the knife, placed her hands on my shoulders, and moved me out of her way.
“What you've got to remember—and this has always been hard for you, Winnie—is that you can't control how other people act. That means you can't control what Alex does or doesn't do. You can only control what
you
do.”
“Thanks, Mom. Great. Yeah.”
I controlled what I did by exiting the kitchen. I searched the house for Sandra, but found Ty instead. He was in the long hall just past the dining room, wrapped almost entirely in duct tape. Only his eyes and his nostrils were visible. His arms extended unnaturally from his body, and his legs were stiff, stubby tree trunks.
“Hi, Ty,” I said. “Are you practicing for Halloween?”
He nodded emphatically and made some
oomphuhly
sounds.
“Are you a mummy?”
He staggered toward me. He was very realistic.
“Looking good,” I said, patting him on his duct-taped head. I moved to pass him, but he hop-lurched to block me. He widened his eyes and made more
oomphuhly
sounds, and it struck me that they weren't happy
oomphs
. They were desperately unhappy
oomphs
. I'd just been too wrapped up in my own problems—“wrapped up,” ha—to notice.
“Oh, Ty.” I tilted my head, studying him. I went around him, grabbed his torso from beneath his armpits, and lugged him backward up the stairs. His feet bumped along behind.
“You're lucky I'm so strong,” I panted.
I stopped for a break at the halfway point, but when I relaxed my hold on him, he started sliding away. This time his head made the bumping sounds, and his
oomphs
were more of the
owwie
sort, I'd say.

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