Freaked Out (17 page)

“So, Dillon…dull party?” Mr. Ramsey asked as he handed the usually talkative boy a double scoop butterscotch special with almonds and rainbow sprinkles.

Maeve looked at Charlotte, who looked around the
table. It was her dad. She would have to do the talking. “Julie's brother came in, and we think he and his friends were drinking,” Charlotte blurted. “They started making fun of everyone, including Riley, who was there with his band.”

“Things got a little out of hand…did they?” Mr. Ramsey was very matter of fact, for which Charlotte was relieved. It would have been just awful to get a lecture now.

“I hope Julie's party wasn't totally ruined. She looked so sad when people started to leave.” Charlotte couldn't stop thinking about the whole thing.

“Julie really looked forward to having a great birthday,” Nick agreed, “and the Fabers spent a lot of money to help her celebrate.”

“You okay, Katani?” Mr. Ramsey asked.

“Sure. I—it was just kind of crazy there.” She looked over at Pete, who nodded in agreement.

“We can get home from here, Mr. Ramsey,” Nick said. “Thanks for the ride. I'll call you tomorrow, Charlotte.”

Charlotte smiled. Nick said he'd call, right in front of everyone. Dillon got up and left with Nick. Charlotte noticed he didn't tell Maeve good-bye or that he'd call her. She hoped he wasn't mad at Maeve. Maybe his eye was starting to hurt. Pete took one last bite of his sundae, scraped his dish, then left as well.

Katani seemed really tired. Charlotte looked over at her dad. His face had an expression she hadn't seen before. She wondered if he could wait for her to tell him in the morning. All she wanted to do was go home and crawl
into bed. The party of the year had turned out to be the biggest bust of the century.

Sisterly Advice

Katani looked at her watch when she got to her room. Kelley was sound asleep. Using the computer wouldn't disturb her. And Katani knew her oldest sister would still be wide awake. Did anyone in college get any sleep? She needed to talk to Candice, immediately.

J
oline tossed things in her locker helter-skelter, as if desperate to find homework.

“I can't believe Tim Cole threw up right in the middle of the floor. It was so gross. And then DJ punched Dillon right in the eye….”

“Wow, sounds like some party,” Robert Worley said.

“Too bad you weren't invited,” Anna reminded him. Robert flushed and quickly walked away.

“What a dweeb.” Joline grimaced.

“Julie's party was so entertaining. Yeah, if only Katani hadn't…” Joline stopped in mid sentence. “There she is,” Joline said in a very loud voice, just short of shouting.

All heads turned. The Anna and Joline Show was about to begin.

The Queens of Mean spread their witch capes wide and swooped toward their victims.

“Whoa, duck for cover, Katani!” a bemused Avery
yelled to her friend as she put her hands over her head to ward off the evil twins.

Eager classmates surrounded the BSG. Nobody wanted to miss the show. And everyone who hadn't been invited to Julie Faber's party was hoping the BSG would take Anna and Joline down a peg or two or three!

“Two minutes to the bell,” Robert Worley called out. Still smarting from Anna's remark, he was trying to show the Queens of Mean that he was still an important part of the group…Revenge of the Excluded.

Charlotte, Avery, and Maeve looked at Katani, but they stepped close to support her. “What's going on, Katani?” Charlotte whispered.

“Ms. BSG Tattletale here,” Anna swung her head back and forth and waved her finger in the air, “told Julie Faber's parents that there was drinking and fighting and the whole party was out of control. So the parents came down and kicked everyone out…just when it was getting good.”

“Was that after they cleaned up Tim Cole's throw-up?” Maeve asked ever so sweetly.

Joline shot her the Queen of Mean special look—the one that said, “Back away, lowly insect.”

Maeve shrugged and rolled her eyes. Joline Kaminsky didn't scare her.

“You are such a tattletale, Katani. What were you thinking? It's like kindergarten all over again. And Julie is brokenhearted,” said Kiki Underwood, who seemed thrilled to stick her two cents in. “She made herself sick crying. She couldn't even come to school. And her brother
can't leave the house for a whole month. Their parents really freaked out. Julie and Bobby both hate you. You think you're so cool, Katani, but you are so immature.”

“I…It was the right thing to do,” Katani spoke quietly.

“I hope you're proud of yourself, Miss Party Spoiler,” Kiki said. “Tim and Bobby only drank three beers. It was no biggie.”

“That was three too many,” Pete Wexler said in Katani's defense. “Those guys were really rude. And what they did was illegal. The Fabers could have been arrested.”

“What about Bobby?” Henry asked. “He's the one that broke up Julie's party, not Katani or Julie's parents. My parents would have done the same thing.” To Katani's surprise, the Yurtmeister seemed to be on her side.

Anna glared at him. “I thought you were on our side.”

“Why do we have to take sides about this?” Charlotte said.

“Ten seconds to the bell,” Robert alerted everyone.

“We know whose side you're on. The goody two shoes side. Give me a break. You're all immature babies.” Joline slammed her locker and flounced away.

Avery, Maeve, and Charlotte gave each other sidelong glances. They were startled by what had Katani done.

Dillon put his arm around Katani. “The Queens of Mean are riding their brooms today.” Then he escorted her to homeroom, leading the way through the crowd that had gathered. Katani heard a few boos and cat calls before she slipped into class.

Ms. Rodriguez stood at the door and greeted her
students. She stepped back to let in Dillon, Katani, and the BSG. Isabel had caught up to the crowd in the hall soon enough to hear some of the commotion.

“What happened out there in the hall just now?” a concerned Isabel whispered.

“Tell you later,” Avery said. Avery and Isabel knew some of the party details, since they had been IM-ing on Sunday. But neither had heard anything about Katani telling Julie's parents that the party was out of control.

“Good morning, Dillon.” Ms. R smiled. “Did you have a good weekend?”

Dillon grinned at Ms. R. “Sort of. But you should see the other guy.”

It was the standard answer to the age-old question, but Dillon knew the other guy didn't get a scratch, while his eye was going to be black and blue for at least a week.

Dillon shrugged and took his seat.

“I have to admit,” Avery said, “I'm sorry that I missed this party after all.”

“I think being on TV was probably a better deal,” a sarcastic Katani replied.

The BSG hadn't been able to get together on Sunday, but they had chatted online, and Avery had talked to Katani twice on the phone. Not once had Katani mentioned to them that she had gone to Julie's parents about the trouble in the basement.

All eyes went to the front of the classroom where Ms. Rodriguez stood waiting for everyone's attention. She looked especially pretty today in her crisp white shirt and jean skirt. Maeve couldn't help but think that it would be
so much fun to be Ms. Rodriguez's matchmaker.

Maeve figured that since she was going to be single herself for about a hundred years, she might as well get a job. Both Riley and Dillon were probably really mad at her, and Tim Cole had three strikes against him—too old, totally inappropriate, and an overall dud. She snuck a look at Dillon. His black and blue and purple and green eye looked terrible. She hoped it didn't hurt. It probably looked worse than it was, but it made her feel awful anyway.
But
, she thought as she twirled her hair into a ponytail,
how could she have known what would happen? All she wanted to do was dance with Tim Cole. How was that a bad thing?
Maeve questioned.

“Okay, now what was all the uproar about?” Ms. R asked. “Katani, you seem to be the center of attention.”

Katani took a deep breath, thought about what Candice had said, and spoke. “Julie Faber's brother and some of his friends came in and caused trouble at Julie's birthday party. They had been drinking and they started a big fight. Tim Cole threw up all over the floor. Some of us decided to leave.”

“Wise choice if you ask me,” said Ms. R, focusing her attention firmly on Katani.

“Anyway,” Katani stuck her chin up, “I decided that Mr. and Mrs. Faber needed to know what was going on. So I told them. If that makes me a tattletale, fine. I don't care what anyone else thinks.”

“I don't think it was your place to go and tell the parents, Katani,” Dirk Petersen said. “It was none of your business. You ruined the party for everyone else.”

“Things weren't that out of control,” Patrick Hawk said. “People would have settled down.”

“Yeah,” Joline put in her two cents. “It wasn't your place to interfere. Julie could have told her parents if she'd wanted them to know. You squealed, Katani. Own up to it.”

“Okay.” Ms. R thought for a moment. “Since this has now become a school issue, let's hear from some of the rest of the class. That okay with you, Katani?” Katani nodded, even though she was feeling a little nervous. “Do you think Katani did the right thing…telling Julie's parents?”

“Are you kidding me? Definitely not,” Joline insisted.

Lucy Kim raised her hand. “It was Julie's party—she should have taken control of the situation.”

“I don't know if she could,” Charlotte said. “It seemed to me that Julie didn't know what to do.”

“I think there's a difference between reporting something and being a major tattletale,” Riley Lee said. “I was there. The party was out of control big time.”

“It was a middle-school party and kids were drinking. That's not cool,” Pete Wexler said firmly.

“Okay, what's the difference in tattling and reporting?” Ms. R let the question sink in and waited for opinions.

Betsy Fitzgerald waved her hand. “I wasn't at the party, but I think that reporting is telling something that needs to be told. And tattling suggests, well, spite or meanness. Since Katani had been invited to the party, unlike others in this class who weren't, she wasn't alerting the Fabers out of spite. Maybe she thought someone could get hurt.”

“Someone had already gotten hurt.” Katani looked over at Dillon.

Murmurs from the class seemed to suggest that Betsy had it right. There was a difference between reporting and tattling.

“So let me get this straight,” Billy Trentini said. “Like, if Avery saw someone breaking into my locker and reported it, she wouldn't be a tattletale?”

“If someone broke into your locker, Billy,” Avery said, “no one would have to report it. He'd be lying there on the floor, passed out from the smell.”

“Ewwww, dead socks,” Sammy said, holding his nose, adding to the laugh that Avery got.

“I think Katani did what she felt was right,” Dillon said when the laughter died down. “It was a hard thing to do—she must have known that she was going to make some people mad. But I think she made the right decision.”

“Me too,” came from several voices. Katani kept her head down, doodling on a page in her notebook. She was glad for Betsy's speech. She was glad Ms. R had given them a chance to talk about the situation. To be thought of as a tattletale by her whole class would have been more than she could handle. Candice had e-mailed her grandmother, telling her there might be a problem at school on Monday. But Katani had a talk with Grandma Ruby and asked her not to make this into a big school thing. It was hard enough for Katani to live a normal life when her grandmother was principal of Abigail Adams Junior High.

“All right, class. We're going to start today's lesson off with some free writing. I want you to take out pen and paper and write on the subject of personal responsibility
in the face of a potentially dangerous situation.” There were groans. Some kids hated free writing. They felt it was pointless.

Ms. R paused. “Remember, with free writing, you just write anything that comes to your mind. It doesn't even have to make sense at the time. You're tapping into your subconscious mind.”

“What if there's nothing in my subconscious mind?” Dillon asked. He was one of the students that loved this type of assignment. It meant he didn't have to watch his spelling or grammar. To Dillon, free writing was a great deal.

“From what I have overheard, Dillon, I'd think there'd be a little bit there today.” Ms. R smiled back at him.

“Don't look around for inspiration. Just start writing and continue until I say time is up.”

The class got even quieter than usual. Apparently there was a lot on people's minds today. Or they just kept writing the same word over and over as Ms. R said they could do in this exercise.

“Time,” Ms. R said finally, although she usually didn't let them write for more than ten minutes, and more often it was five. “As you know, writings like this are private, but would anyone like to share?”

Betsy Fitzgerald waved her hand.
Here we go again,
Avery thought.
Betsy to the rescue. What else is new?

“All right, Betsy.” Ms. R sat on a high stool by her desk.

Betsy cleared her throat. “Responsibility is when you may be only one person, but one person can make a
difference. Sometimes it takes guts to do what you think is right, like Katani did. However, if you're part of a team, you're responsible to everyone on the team. Like in basketball, if you don't practice, and it happens to be you who has the chance to score the winning point right before the buzzer, and you miss, then you've let your team down. So there's individual responsibility and team responsibility. Your team should let you have the chance to score sometimes, even when you don't have a lot of experience.”

Avery looked at Isabel, shrugged, and grinned.

“I wonder if you're thinking about today's basketball game, Betsy? By the way, congratulations on making the team. I didn't know you played basketball.”

“I didn't. But I realized when you fill out college applications, they are looking for well-rounded people. I decided I wasn't very well rounded.”

Little laughs escaped all over the room.

Billy Trentini lay back in his chair, shaking his head. Betsy drove him crazy with all her college talk.

“That's right. Colleges look at more than grades when they choose their new freshmen. Good luck today, Betsy, and all the rest of the team.” Ms. R looked at Avery.

Avery didn't take the cue to read. Maeve shook her head and Charlotte pretended that she was looking in her notebook. None of the BSG wanted to comment any more on Katani's decision in front of the whole class. They were glad that some other people outside their group had defended Katani. It seemed like a real blow to the Queens of Mean, who were trying to paint Katani as a major tattletale.

 

At lunch, the Beacon Street Girls finally got a chance to talk more about the party.

“So Katani, what made you tell the Fabers?”

Katani stared at her food before answering. “I just really thought that twelve-and thirteen-year-olds shouldn't be involved with drinking. I mean, what if something happened to Tim Cole? What if he passed out and didn't wake up? That kind of stuff happens a lot. I've heard about it from my older sisters.”

“That was brave, Katani. As the Aussies say,
Good on you
,” Charlotte said.

Avery piped in, “That was hard to do. I think it's awesome that you stood up for what you thought was right, knowing that other kids might make fun of you for it.”

The other girls nodded in support. Katani almost cried. To have such good friends as the BSG was the best thing about being in seventh grade at Abigail Adams Junior High.