Confessions of a So-called Middle Child (11 page)

The Evil Plot

We walked all the way up Wonderland Park Avenue huffing and puffing in silence. A couple of times I looked over and could see that Trixie was in a state of total shock. At the stop sign, just before we were to turn off, Trixie finally stopped, put her hands on her hips, and paced in a small, tight circle.

“Unfrickinbelievable!” She grabbed her ponytail and yanked out the elastic. “How is that even possible? How can she be that good? Does she have a twin? Did she hire a look-alike? It's just not possible. I've known her for a year, and not once, not once, have I seen her so much as stretch. You've seen her, right?”

“Yeah, I have, she's totally—”

“Uncoordinated. Incapable, a spaz, a freak, nasty, dirty.” Trix was going nuts; she could not stop rambling.

I waited until she was out of breath. “I guess she's been training.”

Trixie stopped cold. “She's better than I am. My life is over. Over. You have no idea what this means. My parents were going to come to all the meets.” She paced, looking a little nutty. “They never go to anything I do. My housekeeper does. And now she's gonna get my spot, that freak, Marta the Farta!”

“But you fit in,” I shot back. “You look right; you look better than right. You look fantastic, and that's sometimes just as important.”

She looked up. “That's true. A team's a team.”

“And as much as it pains me to say this, they won't accept her,” I said sadly. “They can't trust her; she's a loose cannon in need of some pretty major therapy.”

“You just could be right.” Trixie was thinking it over. “And if Marta looks and acts the way she does,” Trixie said, looking hopeful, “then I might just have a shot.”

“Good. Now”—I took Trixie's backpack—“let's get you home.” We followed the road around the bend, past the house with a drawbridge, until we got to her huge fortress of a house.

While her parents worked away shrinking other people's brains, Esmerelda was there with brownies and milk, which we took into Trixie's room. She fell on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. She rolled over. She blew her nose and looked at me. “How am I going to tell them?”

“Come on, Trix, you haven't lost yet!” I searched through her gymnastics movies until I found
Stick It
—her all-time favorite. I handed her the remote control. “Practice like crazy; watch all your practice tapes; get it down to a science. You do have a serious shot,” I repeated. “You do.” She blew her nose harder. Truth was, if it was based on skill and talent alone, she didn't have a prayer in you-know-what.

The phone rang; Trix scanned the caller ID. “It's Babs—hold on.” She picked it up, listened in total silence, and then let out a massive scream. “You did what? No way! Where?”

I was listening, watching her face, totally trying to decipher what the heck was going on. Whatever it was, it was big.

Trixie got up and paced. “Come on, the principal would totally know, wouldn't he?”

She was
not
crying anymore. She even looked happy. I was feeling the old, familiar tingle of jealousy. “What?” I tried to get her attention. “What's going on?”

She turned, covering the phone with her hand. “Babs followed Marta today after the tryouts, and guess what?”

“What?”

“She got on a bus! A bus!” She tried to stop smiling. “She might not even live in our school district, which would disqualify her from the team, because by law she's not even supposed to be going to Happy Canyon. Can you believe the luck!”

Apparently Trixie's parents had single-handedly founded the Committee of the Canyon, and they loved kicking people out who didn't live here. Since when was public school such a hot ticket? All my life I envied the girls going to private schools in limos, crossing through those gates that locked the second their car pulled in, those rolling green lawns, security guards to keep all the paparazzi from finding them. Trixie quickly explained that Happy Canyon was hot, hot, hot right now for the following reasons:

1. A lot of celebrities were super cheap and sent their kids there instead of to the obscenely expensive private schools down the road, where they belonged.

2. Principal Pickler loved celebrities and would do anything to get them to come to his school and pose for lots of pictures, so that he could piss off other principals and win the Coolest Public School in LA award.

Trixie's eyes got all conniving, and she wagged her long finger that had a pretty scary-looking fingernail on it. “I swear I'm so gonna tell my parents to do a sweep.”

“A sweep?” I looked at her.

Trixie threw up her hands like I was seriously dumb. “It's when they send people to go check addresses to make sure people are really living there. So many of them give fake ones, or places they don't live in anymore, it's criminal.”

“Oh, come on.” I thought of poor Marta.

But Trix shook with the thrill of it all. “Nationals, here I come!”

I got up, tapped her on the shoulder, and said, “Stop, Trix, stop, stop.”

Trix turned, glaring at me. “Why?”

“You can't get her kicked out
now
; seriously, think about it.”

“What's to think about?” She shrugged. “My parents are heads of the committee. This is what they do.”

“Right.” I nodded. “But before you and Marta compete for the team?” I shook my head. “Seriously, how's that gonna look to everyone, huh, Coach included?”

Trixie dropped the phone to her chest. She closed her eyes. “You're right—it'll look like I'm doing it to get her disqualified.”

And then I added, “Yep, like you're not good enough.”

“You are so right.” She picked up the phone and began talking.

I fell back on her bed, stared up at the ceiling, and closed my eyes, bullet dodged.

“Change of plans,” Trixie said. “No one can think we're trying to get Marta booted.” Long pause while she listened and paced. I was just about to slip into a delicious only-child dream when I heard, “That's why I'm sending Charlie.”

I bolted out of bed. “What?” I watched her hang up the phone and slip into a bathing suit. “You're sending me where?”

“To find out whether it's true or not. See, Babs didn't actually follow her home; Marta ditched her.” Trixie combed her hair. “She's got something to hide, I know it—”

I cut in. “Trixie.”

“Don't worry,” she said, stopping me. “I'll wait until the competition's over, and then we'll tell my parents. It's my duty, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, but I didn't. Not anymore. She had no idea what it felt like to get kicked out of school.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, looking up at me with those baby-blue eyes. “You want me to win, right?”

“Of course I do.” I kinda melted.

She touched my knee. “Then you'll help me?” she asked. “I'd help you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, looking at her, ever careful. “Of course.”

“I knew you would. Here, try one of these.” She pulled open drawers and tossed a billion bathing suits onto the bed. “You'll look beautiful in this one.” She picked up a great polka-dotted red-and-white bikini. And then we rode the elevator and pretended like we were just a couple of nice girls. But we weren't.

Attack of the Hairy Teen

When I got home, Pen was nibbling on carrots, super annoying in and of itself. Who the heck eats carrots when there are tubs of buttercream frosting begging for a spoon? When she saw me, she stopped talking to Mom and got all up in my grill. “That was seriously uncool what happened to that girl today, and you were supporting the
wrong
choice.”

I took a deep breath. “First of all, hello, Pen, Mom. It's nice to be home. And secondly, Pen, I was supporting both of them.”

“You are such a liar.” She crossed her bony legs and picked up an apple. “You want Trixie to win because you like her more, but Marta—oh my God! There's no comparison. It was so not fair.”

“She was incredible, you're right, but”—I felt like a double agent, working for both Marta and Trix. “Gymnastics is a team sport.”

“Made up of individuals,” she said.

“Mom,” I said, looking into the fridge, “tell her it's a team sport, please.”

I sniffed. “What are you making?”

“Chili.” She kept stirring. “It's a team sport, baby.”

“And”—I had to cover my butt here—“if your teammate's farting all over you or doesn't wear deodorant or shave the pits, chances are you're not gonna want to spot her.” I paused for effect. “Am I right?”

“Sad but true.” Mom nodded.

“Now let's add to this the fact that she's on the team illegally—would that build unity?”

Pen stopped crunching. “Why illegally?”

“According to Trixie, looks like Marta doesn't even live in our school district, which means she has no right to be in our school, or on the team.”

Pen was taken aback by this one. “Really? How is that even possible?”

I poured myself a tall glass of lemonade and found a bag of Doritos. Mom gave me this look, and I gave it right back to her. “I'm only having a few, all right? Plus I had no breakfast.”

Pen started shaking her head. “Trixie's a real piece of work.”

Let me pause for a moment and reflect upon Doritos. Eating them just had to be the most incredible experience in a lifetime. I wished everyone would go away so I could close my eyes and eat the entire bag without distraction.

“If Trixie's trying to get her kicked out,” she started, strutting around the kitchen like a peacock, “I swear to God, I'll go to the principal myself and tell him why—”

“Jeez, she's not trying to!” I lied, of course. If Trixie lost, she'd do everything in her power to get Marta kicked out, including blackmailing me. “Take a break from saving the world and eating carrots. Have a chip, all right? She's not doing anything to her. She wants to win fair and square.” Which was true. “You really should give her more credit.”

“Trixie shouldn't even be getting a second chance at this at all,” Pen stated matter-of-factly. “Marta's a better gymnast, plain and simple, better than anyone on that team.”

Oh God, I located one of the orangest chips, caked with that all-American perfect Dorito seasoning. It melted on my tongue. I needed another moment of reflection. Oh, heaven on earth, thy name is
Dorito
.

“Sometimes, Charlie, you have to take a stand.” Pen shook her head in disgust. She walked up the stairs. “I gotta go correct papers.”

Stand? Give me a break. It was the weekend. I leaned back and had another chip. “Hey, Mom, can Trixie and Babs come over tomorrow and dig for tunnels?”

“Of course, my sweet baby.” Then she picked up the bag of chips I was eating
while
my hand was still in the bag and walked away. Jeez, zero respect, huh?

Closing In on Houdini

Supposedly, Houdini wrote down everything in his journals, which he kept locked in his famous leather trunk. Everyone, and I mean everyone, looked for it after he died, but it had never been found. But I knew where it was. No doubt about it. It was hidden in the tunnels.

Anyway, one afternoon in the middle of summer, on one of those rare days my parents let me out of my cage, I was up by my Houdini statue when I saw a piece of trash sticking out of the dirt. But it wasn't trash; it was an old hand-drawn map of the tunnels that someone had buried, and had it not been for the gopher that'd been digging holes, I don't think it would have ever been found.

It stank like super bad body odor, so at first I thought it was a pair of Penelope's underwear. But it was actually a map of the whole place above and beneath the ground before it all burned down. I'd read it so many times. My dad and I did everything we could, and still we could not locate the tunnels. So I thought maybe Babs and Trix could shed a little light.

“Oh my God, look at this!” Babette stared at the map, more excited than I'd ever seen her. “Is it possible? An elevator, tunnels, all right under us?”

According to some people, Houdini's wife closed off the tunnels when she discovered he was having way too much fun over there.

“Looks like if we dig here, we'll hit the tunnels, right?” I shook my head. “But they're not there. We've gone over this spot a thousand times.”

Trix was shaking her head. “What if it's not far down at all? What if the entrance is right on the surface, like a trapdoor?”

I couldn't believe she got there so fast. “You know, that's exactly what I'd been thinking.”

Then she said, “And what if you've been reading it left to right all this time?”

I stared. “What?”

“Instead of right to left.” She crossed her arms like a super cool fashionable explorer. “People who made maps always did things like that to confuse you.”

“They did not!” Babs laughed, and Trixie kicked her.

But me, I studied. There was a spot that looked like an X that I had always assumed before was a cross. “No, it can't be,” I said, and yet the more I looked at it, the more it was possible. “Right to left—let's give it a shot.” I grabbed her and hugged her. We jumped up and down.

Trix was so excited, she hadn't mentioned gymnastics or Marta once. “What if it's full of dead people?”

Or the dead animals Houdini was trying to make disappear, like he did to Jennie the elephant. The greatest trick ever, making an elephant disappear from the stage just like that.

“Yeah! Let's get the shovels.” I rolled up the map and ran for my dad's shed. “Dead people and animals, here we come.” Babette, Trixie, and I started digging. We thought we could hit the trapdoor that afternoon, crawl down the steps, and come face-to-face with all of Houdini's secrets, but sadly, in life, I have found that everything
takes way too long
.

We quit after an hour. “This is going to look amazing for Halloween.” Babs checked out all the seriously cool decorating work Mom had done.

“So who exactly are you inviting?” Trix went to wash off her hands in the natural spring, then saw a carving of Houdini underwater and got spooked. “Can I use the kitchen?”

We walked in, and Mom, my great mom, was making brownies for us. Pen was perched on the counter ready to eavesdrop and judge, her two favorite hobbies. “Thanks, Mom.” I grabbed a seat and started eating while Trix and Babs were still washing.

Trixie picked up a brownie, took a bite, and almost had a heart attack. “OMG! What did you put in these brownies?”

“It's just a mix,” Mom said.

“Simply the best brownies I have ever eaten in my life.”

 

 

Mom caught on right away. “I'm happy you like them,” she said in a kinda mean voice. Pen rolled her eyes. I could so see what was happening, and it was not good. They were ganging up on my friend in silence. “We're inviting everyone,” I announced proudly. “Everyone in the entire class.”

“I so love when people do that. It's just good karma, right?” Trix licked her lips and glanced at Mom.

“Speaking of good karma, any news on Marta?” Babs gulped milk down, totally oblivious of the fact that this was not the time or the place to talk sabotage.

I checked to make sure Mom didn't hear it. “I haven't had time yet.”

Trixie took a tiny sip and stared straight at me. “You should go, like now.”

“Go where?” Pen asked.

I glared at her. “Nowhere. Go away, Pen.”

Trix batted her lashes. “Nowhere, Pen.”

“I thought we were going to wait,” I said, lowering my voice and my head. Pen could read lips, you know. “Until after the competition.”

“Change of plans. We're gonna need to find out now,” Trixie whispered. “Now.”

Pen grabbed an apple and walked past. “Even if she lives outside the school district, she could still have a permit, you know.”

“Pen!” I yelled. “Stop listening to our conversation!”

Mom put down more brownies, checked our glasses, acting like this was a totally normal conversation to have. “Like work, siblings, transportation, you name it.” She poured more milk. “There's a permit for it. You'd better check on it before you get yourself into trouble.”

“Oh, I wasn't going to tell!” Suddenly Trix was playing the dumb blonde. “Of course she could have a permit, and I sincerely hope she does, Mrs. C.” Trix got up and walked around the table until she stopped right behind me. “But even if she doesn't, I won't say a word until after the competition.”

Babs shook her head. “Not a word, Mrs. C.”

Trix looked at Babs. “It would look bad and underhanded, and I don't want that.” She batted her eyes at my mom and picked up her Gucci purse, like she was ready to go.

“No,” Mom said tightly, “you don't.”

“And anyway”—Trix came over and put her arm around me—“my good friend Charlie already warned me to keep my mouth shut, and she is right.” She shrugged. “My lips are sealed.”

“Yeah, sealed,” Babs agreed. “Thanks, Mrs. Cooper.”

Mom gave them a dirty look. And Pen, she watched them leave like they were a pack of yipping hyenas dragging off a deer. I got up and followed them to the door, feeling hopeful that maybe, just maybe, this whole thing would be put to rest until after the competition. “See you on Monday, guys.”

But the second they were out the door, Trixie pulled me close and whispered in my ear, “Find out where exactly she lives. No matter what. I want to know by Monday.”

“Ah, come on!” I said tiredly. “You promised to wait.”

“Monday.” And then she was gone, Babs trailing after her.

After they left, there was silence in the kitchen. I was just about to go take a nap when Pen announced, “You have to go to Marta and warn her right now! Right this very moment.”

“Oh, come on!” I grabbed another brownie. “It's Saturday. I'm mentally exhausted; I have to think.” My bed was calling me:

Charlie

Charlie

Charlie

“Find her address,” Mom instructed, “and then go warn her. If it's true, it'll give her parents time to apply for a permit, or at least ask Principal Pickler or Coach for special permission. There's no telling what those girls will do,” Mom said, “especially the little round one who's so eager to please that know-it-all.”

“Babs.” Pen shook her head. “She's just a victim.”

“Great.” I glared at Pen, thinking how I wanted to make
her
a victim. Of a bloody crime committed by yours truly.