Click Here (to find out how i survived seventh grade) (29 page)

“How did you do that?” I asked. I’d never seen anyone eat the candy and leave the Tootsie center.

“It wasn’t easy,” Jilly said, and broke into a grin.

“That’s a lot of Tootsie Roll,” I said, swallowing hard. Tears stung my eyes and I blinked quickly.

Jilly nodded, still staring at it. “Now what I don’t get,” she said, “is how long it will last if two people share it.”

“There’s always another one,” I said, pulling two out of my back pocket.

Jilly smiled. “Thanks for what you said in your Intranet letter.” She unwrapped one of the Tootsie Pops I handed her and sucked on it. “We do have a lot to talk about.”

I took a breath. “When you walked out of my room that night, I went crazy.” I spoke softly, as if my words might send her away again. “It was like watching a part of myself walk out. I was so sad and mad I couldn’t stand it.”

Jilly nodded, taking the Tootsie Pop out of her mouth. “I know what you mean. When I read that last entry you wrote, I went crazy, too. I thought it was the meanest, nastiest, most horrible thing anyone had ever done.”

I looked down. “I know,” I began. “I’m —”

“You had your turn.” She raised her hand to shut me up.

I shut up.

“Some people have teased me about the muzzle and some have felt sorry for me for the things you said on that last page. I kept focusing on that last page, how hateful it was.” She paused. “But then I read all the other pages again. And I kept hearing that guy at the bus stop saying that stuff about kissing your pillow and stuff.”

She paused and I looked away. It was humiliating to have everyone know I practiced kissing my pillow, even if there were other girls who did the same thing.

“And how much you liked Mark and how you never told me. I can’t believe how much you never told me.” She stopped talking and blinked rapidly. “But I never really gave you a chance, did I? Never really thought about your life, separate from mine.” She sighed. “You were right. I do think about myself a lot.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything.

“You could say ‘No, you don’t,’” Jilly said, smiling.

“I could,” I said. “But —”

“But you won’t because you agree with me,” Jilly said. “I know.” We stood in silence for a few moments. I shifted my feet and shrugged my shoulders, enjoying how light they felt without the sandwich board. I breathed in the cold January air, letting it fill my lungs as I waited for her to say more.

“If I didn’t talk about myself,” Jilly asked softly, “who would?” Her question surprised me. I stepped closer to make sure I heard what she said next.

“Sometimes I feel like no one would care about what I was doing if I didn’t talk about it.”

I stared at her. “What do you mean?” I said. “I would. I do. I’ll talk about you.”

“Yeah, but would you say anything good?”

We laughed nervously and then because it was funny.

“You know, Jilly,” I said. “Sometimes you do talk too much about yourself. Sometimes it’s more about you than it is me. And sometimes I get tired of it. But I never get tired of you. You’re my friend. I never tried to tell you what I wanted, so how would you know? Most of the time I didn’t know myself.”

Jilly nodded. “I know. I just can’t get over how dense I was. How I didn’t see how you felt about Mark.”

I took a deep breath. “Would it have made a difference if I had told you?”

“Honestly, Erin? I don’t know. This has really made me think about a lot of things and I don’t know what I would have done.” She bit her lip. “It’s strange to think about because we’ve never liked the same boy …” She paused. “Have we?”

I nodded.

Jilly sighed. “Boy, do we have a lot to talk about.” She took off the wrapper from one of the new Tootsie Pops. “And I thought about how I stood in your room and tried to make you pick between two friends.” She took another lick. “I shouldn’t have done that.” She stuck the Pop in her mouth, then pulled it out. “Remember when we hid behind the Martins’ house and watched Mr. and Mrs. Martin skinny-dip?”

I looked up. What did that have to do with anything?

“And when you were the only one who would come to my birthday party after I had chicken pox, even though I wasn’t contagious anymore?”

I nodded.

“And when you brought me two maps of my classes for Molly Brown Middle School so I wouldn’t look like the new girl, even though you had been humiliated by Serena Poopendena?”

I smiled. She’d never used that nickname before.

“Only a real friend would do all that.” Jilly looked away, and I knew she had tears in her eyes. But it was kind of hard to tell, since I had them in my eyes, too.

She shook her head. “Okay, enough serious stuff. We need to come up with a signal so when I start talking too much about myself, you give me the signal and I’ll know to shut up and focus on someone else for a change.”

“A signal? Really?”

“Sure. And check this out.” She lifted her pant leg. Not a bruise in sight.

“No more monsters?”

Jilly shook her head. “I put a pillow against the frame.” She smiled and jabbed her Tootsie at me. “Put that in your blog.”

I laughed. Jilly laughed. We laughed and laughed until we could hardly breathe. As the bus came around the corner, Jilly helped me slide the sandwich board off the sidewalk and behind a bush. I’d deal with it after school.

“What a crazy semester, huh?” Jilly said. “How can so much happen so fast?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I can’t believe I got through it.” I couldn’t help smiling. I had gotten through it. I really had.

“Yes, you did,” Jilly said. Her voice held admiration and it made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t used to that. “I know you think I’m this really great person and all, Erin, but I’m not. I could never have survived what you did. Never.”

We climbed on the bus and found a seat near the front. “First of all, you never would have done the things I did,” I told her. “But if you went insane for a day and actually did do them, you would have been fine.”

Jilly shook your head. “You’ve got something that I don’t have.”

“Stupidity?”

Jilly laughed, then shook her head. “I do stuff because you’re there or another one of my friends is there. But you do stuff on your own.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. I was finding out that silence can be a pretty good thing sometimes. As I settled my backpack at my feet, Jilly got up and sat down in the seat behind me.

“What are you doing?”

“Saving a seat for Rosie,” Jilly said.

“Really?”

“Sure,” she said. “I want to hear about some of these hot tamales you two talk about.”

I smiled and leaned back as the bus lurched forward. A few stops later, Rosie got on and sat with Jilly. As they talked, I glanced out the window, watching the houses and trees pass by, flat clouds streaked above them across the pale blue sky. I felt as if I could slip right through the glass and float up to them, my heart was so light.

I listened to their murmuring behind me, wondering how long it would be before Jilly leaned forward to say something about Bus Boy. My guess was ten Mississippis.

Sighing deeply, I closed my eyes. I didn’t know if the three of us could be friends, or how the rest of the year would turn out, but somehow it didn’t matter. Whatever happened, things would be okay.
I
would be okay.

“Erin?”

I grinned. Nine Mississippis. I was only off by one.

Monday, June 9

Yes, I’m back to writing in my blog. You didn’t think I could stay away forever, did you? But I have taken extra precautions against this disc falling into the wrong hands. I’ve passworded every file and have signs everywhere to remind me. I’m also going to try not to talk about anyone else but me.

I had a rockin’ 13th birthday party in April. It was a big surprise party at the rec center. Jilly and Mom planned the whole thing…I had absolutely NO idea, which, of course, Jilly loved. Everyone was there—even Serena. She gave me a great present, but I didn’t know it at 1st. When I opened it I was kind of mad because it was the
Pinocchio
DVD. But when I opened the case, it was the
Erin Brockovich
movie. She’d only put it in the
Pinocchio
cover to freak me out. Mark gave me passes to the Y, Tyler gave me some computer games, and Rosie gave me movie tickets and some tamales — real Mexican ones, not the boys and not the candy. They’re awesome. Jilly gave me a necklace and a general gift certificate to the mall…good for any store so I can choose for myself.

I’d like to say the rest of the school year was quiet and good and nothing big happened. But if I did, I’d be lying. I made the MBMS basketball team and tripped over my feet twice going for layups during a playoff game. A picture of me sprawled out on the court facedown made the home page of the Intranet, thanks to Steve who claimed it was only a joke, it wasn’t supposed to get published. I asked him why he had taken the picture in the 1st place, but I had to laugh. I did look pretty funny.

I didn’t try out for the spring play (there were no vegetables in this 1, but there was something that sounded suspiciously like a piece of fruit), but I did offer to create some computer images that projected on the wall behind the actors during some of the scenes. Unfortunately, there was a bad connection and the circuit blew, and the whole theater went dark right when Jilly was going to do this really important scene. When the lights finally came back on, half the audience was in the bathroom and someone missed their cue, showering the stage with cotton balls B4 the snowstorm was supposed to hit. Jilly handled herself like a pro, saying her lines as if there weren’t cotton balls stuck all over her head and several dozen attached to the sequins on the front of her dress.

I asked Tyler to the Spring Dance, but some girl from B Track had already asked him. Not that I
like
like him or anything, but he is kind of cute in a non-geeky, non-nerdy kind of way. Mark had strep and there wasn’t anyone else I wanted to go with me (and no 1 asked me), so I helped Jilly get ready to go with Bus Boy.

Just B4 school got out, someone uploaded a picture of Mrs. Porter to the Intranet, but they had doctored it to make it look like she was dancing on a table with 1 of her puppets, a toy whale, on her head.

Steve said it wasn’t supposed to go live and that he just wanted to show it to all of us and then get rid of it. He got 1 day of detention and had to write a formal letter of apology to Mrs. AND Mr. Porter (I have a hard time imagining a Mr. Porter. I wonder if he has strings? Oh, wait. That’s not nice. Strike that).

So life goes on.