Always, Abigail (14 page)

I tossed. I turned. I sighed. I tried
everything
not to think about how AlliCam hadn't gotten off the bus to help me out of the puddle. I tried
everything
not to think about everyone laughing. I tried
everything
not to think about what J&M would be saying tomorrow about Gabby helping me.

When I finally fell asleep, I woke up a couple of hours later, and all I could think about was Gabby. She was the only person who
had
helped.

I wouldn't have helped her if she had fallen. I would've been one of the people at the bus window staring, and probably laughing too—not because I thought it was so funny, but because I wouldn't have wanted to be the only one
not
laughing. Knowing that about myself made me feel even worse than falling into the puddle.

1.
The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad puddle incident.

2.
Gabby Guilt—it was giving me a headache. I didn't know why I was so worried about Gabby when I had plenty of my own problems. It's not as if me being nice to her would change her status at Crestdale Heights. Especially with the condition of
my
status. So what was I feeling so guilty about?

1.
Made me my favorite rice pudding.

2.
Let me use her laptop to watch a movie in bed.

1.
Acted grumpy.

2.
Acted ungrateful.

1.
She was being really nice to me.

2.
Gabby didn't even have a mom to be mean to.

Thx, Mom!

U R the BEST!

A

1.
A piece of spiral notebook paper with all the assignments I'd missed written in Gabby's handwriting.

2.
A note from Gabby. (Not a friendly letter. A note.)

Hey Abigail,

Old Hawk wants us to finish cleaning out the metal cabinet. She said she'd negotiate with us for more extra credit points. With all these extra points, LA will be an easy A, so I'm in. How about you?

Gabby

P.S. I can't stay after to do it today. How about tomorrow?

Gabby,

Okay. Tomorrow.

Abigail

1.
Gabby found
The
Three
Billy
Goats
Gruff
and said, “Oh, remember when that storyteller came to our class in first grade and told us this story?”

I hadn't thought about it in a long time, but I did remember. How could I forget? The guy made the story so scary every first-grader had nightmares for a week.

“WHO'S THAT TRIPPING OVER MY BRIDGE?!!!!” Gabby bellowed.

She sounded so much like the storyteller guy, I got chills on the back of my neck.

“It seems pretty stupid now, but I made my brother sleep in my room for a month after that child-abusing storyteller visited our classroom,” Gabby confessed.

“I slept with the lights on for the rest of the year,” I said.

Gabby seemed surprised that I agreed with her, but she kept talking. “Yeah, for the longest time, I thought for sure there was a troll living under my bed.”

2.
After our troll phobia connection, we got back to work. That's when Gabby started her usual bizarro laughter, and for some reason it made the lava in my volcano start to heat up again.

At least this time I didn't try to tackle her. I just yelled, “WHAT? WHAT'S SO FUNNY? DON'T YOU KNOW EVERYONE THINKS YOU'RE CRAZY WHEN YOU LAUGH LIKE THAT?!!!”

Gabby didn't even look startled that I'd yelled, and she didn't even answer my question. All she said was, “Doesn't the troll look just like Jackson Dawber?”

“Are you crazy?” I asked, disgusted with myself for wasting any time feeling guilty about Gabby being an outcast when she was such a freak.

“No, seriously. Look at this picture. It looks just like Jackson,” she said, pointing to the book. I looked at the book. Gabby was right. The troll's hair looked just like Jackson's moussed-up hairdo (which he thought made him look cool). The troll's chin was pointy and stuck out just like Jackson's. (His stuck out even more when he thought he was being funny.) And their noses were almost identical (which meant that Jackson Dawber had been born with a troll nose). That
was
something to laugh about.

I burst out laughing, and Gabby snorted like a pig, which only made us laugh harder. “I told you!” Gabby said, taking a breath. “They should make a copy of this picture and put it in the yearbook next to Jackson's photo.”

I leaned back and laughed even harder and hit my head on the metal cabinet. Gabby snorted again.

Wiping tears away, I said, “Jackson Dawber, most likely to become a troll.”

And that just made both of us collapse in hysterics on the piles of books lying on the floor.

They always say, “Laughter's the best medicine,” and at that moment, I felt cured from all my Gabby Guilt.

3.
We were still laughing by the time we heard Old Hawk clearing her throat as she walked back into the classroom.

“Are my friendly letter partners becoming too friendly?” she asked as she sat down at her desk to grade papers. “Remember why you are here, young ladies. I do not award extra credit points for horsing around.”

We were quiet again until Gabby started making troll faces at me. I giggled to myself like Gabby usually did. The harder I giggled, the more faces Gabby made.

“Girls…” Old Hawk scolded, without looking up from her desk.

I felt like I would explode from laughter, but it was so much better than feeling like an active volcano.

Because of the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad puddle incident, I had asked my mom to pick me up so I wouldn't have to ride the late bus. But the puddle wasn't the only reason I'd asked her to pick me up. The other reason, the bigger one, was Gabby. I didn't want anyone on the late bus seeing us together and thinking we were friends.

I knew that made me a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad person. But I couldn't help it.

Already SPF with AlliCam was evaporating one letter at a time, and the other girls on the pom squad couldn't care less about me. If anyone thought I was actually friends with Gabby, that would be the final straw. I'd be another wannabe wandering the middle school halls without anyone even knowing I was alive, or worse, like Gabby, I'd become the punch line in Jackson's newest joke.

So when after leaving Old Hawk's room, Gabby said, “Let's stop at the water fountain before we head out to the bus. All that laughing made me thirsty.”

I lied and said, “I have a dentist appointment, so my mom's picking me up.” That's when the Gabby Guilt hit me like a bad flu, and I was sure I was going to throw up.

I walked to my mom's car feeling like a bigger troll than Jackson Dawber.