Durinda's Dangers (5 page)

Then the McG gave out much smaller cards to each of us. Instead of our names, she had merely written
Eight
on each in boring black marker, and the cards were nothing special, but still...

Oh, this was very bad. This was so bad, it could not have been worse.

"Well, Zinnia?" the McG prompted. "Why haven't you started handing out your cards yet? I'm surprised. You Eights are always so quick to be first at anything."

Zinnia could avoid it no longer.
We
could avoid it no longer.

She rose from her seat and, lickety-split, raced to Will's desk and deposited the valentine she'd so lovingly made, then raced back to her own chair.

Then Rebecca did the same.

Then Petal.

Then Marcia.

Then Jackie.

Then Georgia.

Then Durinda.

For once, Annie was the last to go.

We had put so much time into these—all that red and pink paper, all that glitter, all those feathers and sequins—but now all we felt was awful and ashamed.

"Aren't you forgetting someone, Eights?" the McG asked expectantly. "Or som
eones?
"

Eight heads shook from side to side. Eight heads hung in shame.

"What is
wrong
with you children?" the McG practically shrieked. "Never mind that you left out one of your own classmates—how could you leave out
me?
"

We stole a glance over at Mandy. She was sitting in her seat, quietly crying. It was as though the lovely valentines she'd received from Will and the McG didn't matter.

She looked up at us, tears staining her cheeks. "Why do you all hate me so?" she asked simply.

We could have lived with the McG's shrieking—she'd never once been kind to us—but we couldn't live with the look of sadness on Mandy's face, nor could we live with the way we saw Will looking at us now. We'd hurt another child. It was too much.

Before the rest of us knew what was happening, before Will and Mandy and the McG could realize what was happening to them, Durinda rapidly tapped three times against her leg and sharply pointed her finger, doing the whole thing three times in one great blur of motion until she'd frozen our classmates and teacher.

"So what do we do now?" Marcia asked.

"I don't know," Durinda said. "I just couldn't bear it any longer, having them look at us like that."

It felt odd, having just us Eights talking in a classroom where our teacher and classmates normally talked too. It was like being home alone, except not.

"I don't know that we
can
do anything," Annie said. "Sure, Durinda froze them, but they won't stay frozen forever. And we can't erase their memories. They'll all remember what we've done."

"Even I feel bad," Rebecca said.

And so we waited, the clock on the wall loudly ticking away all the while, for our teacher and classmates to come back to us.

Luckily, they came back at exactly the same time. Unluckily, the McG continued right where she'd left off.

"Don't you
know,
" she said, "that it's awful to leave out any child on Valentine's Day? When I was a child, I was often left out. And let me tell you,
that hurt!
"

We might have guessed that the McG's obsession with Valentine's Day stemmed from some sadness in her childhood.

"We're sorry," we said to the McG.

Then we turned to Mandy, speaking the exact same words at the exact same time because we were each feeling the exact same thing: "We're sorry. We didn't mean to hurt you. We'll make it up to you somehow."

But knowing that the McG was upset over her own childhood didn't help us now, for the McG was shrieking at us again. "This is the last straw! I'm marching you down to Principal Freud's office and we're calling your parents! Mandy, take over the classroom!"

***

Principal Freud was very bald. He was so bald, we'd often thought that if a single hair tried to grow on his head, it would die of loneliness.

But Principal Freud's hair, or lack of it, didn't matter right now since Principal Freud was disappointed in us.

It's not great when an adult is angry at you, like the McG was with us. But it's far worse when an adult is disappointed in you, particularly when it's an adult you respect.

"I'm afraid," Principal Freud informed us, "that I'm going to have to side with Mrs. McGillicuddy on this one. Your parents will have to come in."

This was badder than bad.

It would be one thing if Principal Freud sent a note home; Annie could always forge a reply. It would be one thing if he insisted one of our parents call him; Annie could fake Daddy's voice. But none of us could pretend to be Daddy in person. We were all too short. Besides, they'd seen him before.

"Mommy is at home with a terrible tummy virus," Annie said. "You wouldn't want to catch it. It's nasty. And our father is modeling in France."

These were our standard lies to tell whenever we were called upon to produce our parents.

"I'm sorry," Principal Freud said, "but that simply will not do. I insist on speaking with some family member—"

Annie opened her mouth.

"—who also happens to be an adult," Principal Freud finished, shutting Annie's mouth.

Hmm ... a family member who was also an adult?

Aunt Martha? Uncle George?

Nah and nah.

They'd never liked kids. Besides, we were pretty sure they lived too far away.

"Can I use your phone?" Annie asked Principal Freud as the McG glared. "I need to call our uncle."

Seven heads swiveled toward Annie. What was she talking about?

"Of course," Principal Freud said, moving the phone toward her.

"Can we have some privacy?" Annie asked, looking meaningfully at Principal Freud and the McG. "Our uncle is, well, a bit odd. He gets very nervous talking on the phone if there are people he doesn't know listening in."

Principal Freud gave Annie a strange look, but then he indicated the McG should follow as he exited his own office, shutting the door behind them.

"Pete," we heard Annie whisper into the phone after she punched in the number for Pete's Repairs and Auto Wrecking, "we have a huge favor to ask of you..."

Annie had called on our savior. Annie had called Pete the mechanic.

***

Pete was our father's mechanic. Previously, we'd tricked him into teaching Annie how to drive Mommy's Hummer. Then we'd called him to help us when someone tampered with that same Hummer after Will's birthday party. Now we'd called on him to pretend he was our uncle.

"Pete Huit here," Pete said, shaking first the McG's hand and then Principal Freud's.

We looked at Pete oddly. He was using a fake British accent, just like Annie did whenever she impersonated Daddy.

Never mind the bad accent, though, for Pete had done us proud. Over his usual outfit of ill-fitting jeans and navy blue T-shirt against which his belly bulged, he'd put on a wide and wild tie that looked like it was knotted mostly correctly and he'd even donned a man's jacket, although the sleeves were a bit short. It looked like it might have come from a tux.

"Now what have my girls got up to this time?" Pete asked, taking a seat.

"
Your
girls?" the McG asked pointedly.

"My brother's girls, my girls," Pete said. "We're just one big happy family."

Pete was probably sorry he'd asked, because the McG proceeded to tell him the whole story, nearly coming to angry tears again when she got to the part about receiving no valentines when she was a child.

Now it was Pete's turn to look at us with disappointment.

"You hurt a classmate, did you?" he asked.

We nodded.

"Well," he said, his expression softening, "you girls have had an awful lot thrust on your plate lately."

Then Pete turned back to Principal Freud and the McG.

"My girls are sorry," he said, "but this has been just one huge mix-up. Of course the girls planned to bring valentines in for this Mandy Stenko. For their lovely teacher too," Pete added, lying through his teeth. "But—what, ho!—things have been insanely busy at their house lately. So, you see, they
made
the valentines; they just didn't
bring
the valentines."

"Are you quite certain of this, Mr., er, Pete Huit?" Principal Freud asked.

"Of course," Pete said. "What kind of children do you think we raise in the Huit family? They would never hurt another child intentionally, and I can assure you they never will again."

We all nodded at Pete, giving him our silent vow.

"But what about me?" The McG either sniffed or sniffled. It was hard to tell.

That's when Pete rose from his chair, lifted the McG's hand, and kissed the back of it. "Oh," he said with a wink, "who could forget you, ducks?" Pete looked back at Principal Freud. "Are we through here, then?" he asked.

"What? Oh, yes," Principal Freud said. "Except for..."

"What?" Pete waited patiently.

"It's just that...
jacket
you're wearing." Principal Freud blushed. "I've never seen anything like—"

"What? This old thing?" Pete proudly patted the left sleeve with his right hand. "It's an Armani."

Pete was out the door and we'd already started to trail after him—we still needed to thank him in private—when Principal Freud's voice stopped us.

"This Pete Huit," he whispered. "He doesn't sound like your dad, he doesn't look like him, and that jacket ... Let's just say, he doesn't seem at all like your model dad."

"That's because he's not," Durinda said with a proud smile. "He's just Pete—I mean, Uncle Pete—and he's like no one else in our world."

CHAPTER SIX

We caught up to Pete in the parking lot.

"Thank you, Mr. Pete!" we shouted at him, one after another.

"My pleasure," he said, turning around to face us. "For some reason, even though I'm never even sure I should be doing it, I don't mind helping you lot."

We did notice that he'd stopped speaking with his fake British accent, which was a good thing. He was awful at it.

Still, we stared at him, sighing, happy in the moment.

Then we looked around and realized there was a new thing that was terribly wrong.

"Oh, no!" Petal cried, her lower lip starting to quiver. "The school day is over!"

"And that's a bad thing?" Pete's smile was easy. "I should think that after the day you lot have had, you'd be grateful to see it done."

"Of course," Annie said. "But what Petal means is that our school bus has departed, and it's done so without us."

"Maybe," Jackie suggested, "we could go back in the school and ask Principal Freud if he'll let us use his phone again so we can call a cab."

"You mean
cabs,
" Rebecca said testily. "And how many do you think we'll need to call?"

"Never mind that none of us has any money on her here," Georgia pointed out. "The checkbook is at home. The credit cards too."

"Wait a minute," Pete said. "You mean you don't have any way to get home?"

Eight heads shook no, Petal's head shaking the hardest as a tear tipped over her lower eyelid and traced its lonely way down her cheek.

"I suppose we could walk," Georgia suggested. "We walked up the driveway once. I suppose we could walk a few miles home." Georgia had been trapped in an avalanche one time and could be said to be the most adventurously outdoorsy among us.

"You can't
walk!
" Pete said. "Your house is ten miles from here!"

"It
is?
" eight voices said. We were shocked.

"I suppose there's nothing for it," he said. "I'll have to give you a lift." Then he smiled, as though a wonderful idea had just occurred to him. "Say, it is Valentine's Day today, meaning tonight it's something like Valentine's Night, as it were. I don't suppose you're planning any sort of celebratory holiday dinner with, er, your parents?"

Eight heads shook no.

"Right," Pete said, as though he'd suspected as much. "Your father is still in the bathroom and your mother is off in France. Or was it the opposite?" He shook his head. "Anyway, I thought you might like to come home to have dinner at my house. My wife would love to have eight children over for dinner."