I So Don't Do Spooky (11 page)

I lean over and speak into the phone. “Austin, doesn't everyone kind of do that?”

“Not to the same degree. Also, and here's the clincher, we'll give the info to every team that goes up against Saguaro. So everyone has an edge on them.”

Junie's eyebrows leap way up by her hairline.

“Very brainy,” I say. “So, tell me about plan B.”

“You know what, Mary?” Austin pauses. “That's more Claire's department.”

T
he Ruler's at the stove, sterilizing the canning lids by dropping them into a pot of boiling water. “How's the homework going with Junie?”

“Good.” I grab a tube of Pringles and a bag of sour Gummi Worms.

She actually whole-body-winces at my snack choice, but doesn't say anything. To her credit, she puts those snacks on her shopping list. 'cause she knows they make me happy.

The Ruler turns back to the pot and tongs out the lids, one by one, and lays them to dry on a paper towel.

The open dishwasher shows off its army of glass mason jars, all clean and dry, standing at attention in the top rack. And on the counter, there are about
three thousand pounds of cucumbers and four thousand piles of tomatoes.

I'm super thrilled to not be involved with the canning torture. I'm super, super thrilled to know The Ruler will be busy and safe in our kitchen all night, which means I'll get a bodyguarding break. I'm super, super, super thrilled to be meeting Josh at Jazzed-Up Juice tonight. Josh Morton. Just thinking his name turns my insides to an oatmealy mush.

“I'm about ready for your brother.” The Ruler sets a pile of labels and a marker next to the lids.

“Looks like you guys'll be canning till, like, Thanksgiving.”

“We probably could.” The Ruler smiles. “But I figure Sam will only last an hour, two tops. After that, we might go to the mall for a movie.”

To the mall? As in, outside in the dangerous stalker-filled world? In order for me to go to Jazzed-Up Juice with Josh, I need The Ruler to totally stay put, here in our safe and sound suburban house. “For an excellent canning job, you should do the whole entire thing. Every tomato. Every cucumber.”

The Ruler's back is to me while she's working at the sink, running water over cucumbers. “We're not canning the cukes tonight. Just soaking them in pickle brine.”

“Sam has amazing staying power. He could easily
go ten, twelve hours without a break. Definitely do all the tomatoes, okay?”

She picks up a brush and starts scrubbing the cucumbers. “Are you planning to help?”

“Uh, no. Remember I'm going out with Josh?”

“Well then, Sam and I will stop after a couple of hours. We might go out. We might not.”

I full-throttle it to the office.

When I get there, Junie's tap-tapping on the keyboard, still uploading Donner Web stuff.

I pop the lid on the Pringles and pass her the container.

Junie pulls out a couple of chips and munches away.

“Interested in going to the movies tonight?” I say.

“Maybe. Which one?” She plunks the container on the desk.

I take a chip. “Something G-rated.”

“G-rated?”

“With Sam and The Ruler.” I hold out the sour Gummi Worms to her.

“No thanks and no thanks.”

“Puhleeze, Junie,” I whine. “Turns out they're only canning for a couple of hours. And then they might go to the movies. Where she'll need to be body-guarded. But I'll be out with Josh.”

“See if you can get together with Josh now,” Junie says calmly.

“And you'll keep working on the website?”

“Just for a while.” Junie's cell beeps with a text. She flips open the phone, reads the message and smiles. “Actually, I think I'm done working on the Donner site.”

I grab her phone. “Nerdy Nick? You're getting texts from Nerdy Nick?”

Her face and neck are the color of red Skittles.

I read the message aloud. “‘I'm free. How bout u?'”

And while I'm in my shocked shock that Junie's texting with Nerdy Nick about chilling together, she very easily stretches out an arm like Cat Woman and plucks her phone from my hand.

I shake my head to clear out the craziness lurking there. “It's for robotics, right? You do not
even
want to know what I was thinking. That you and Nerdy Nick …”

She doesn't dignify my craziness with an answer, just lets her thumbs tap-dance over her phone's keypad. Then she stands and seizes her purse.

“But my Jazzed-Up Juice date with Josh …”

Junie grabs her Mountain Dew and flashes me a quick smile. “See ya.”

I take a deep breath and speed-dial the love of my life.

“Hey, Sherry,” Josh says. “What's up?”

“Messing around on the computer. What're you doing?”

“Still working on English with Candy.”

“Can you be done? Because I'm free now.”

“Let me ask.” His voice fades, but I can still hear him. “It's Sherry. She wants to meet now.” There's a short pause while he listens. “Oh, okay.” He clears his throat. “Uh, Sherry, I guess not.”

“Oh,” I say from the depths of my flip-flops. “The Ruler and Sam might go to a movie later.”

“And we can't be alone in your house.”

And I have to protect The Ruler from a crazy stalker. “But they might not go. They haven't decided yet.”

“Hey,” Josh says, “I have a great idea.” And he tells me.

I get off the phone and finish up the Donner member pages. And the Pringles. And my Mountain Dew. Then I change into jean capris and my new, lilac blouse from the Rack. I restraighten my hair and redo my eye makeup. I'm just applying the eleventh and final coat of gloss on my visibly plumper lips, when the doorbell rings.

My skin tingles. I know it's Josh. Because we are so on the same page.

From the top of the stairs, I peer over the banister as Sam dashes to the door and swings it wide open. “Josh! Dude! Are those for us?”

Yuppers. That very fine boyfriend of mine has arrived, swinging a cardboard drink carrier with four
drinks from Jazzed-Up Juices. And poking out of his pocket is a rented video game.

Our plan: to make sure The Ruler and Sam stay home.

“Hey, Sam.” Josh sets down the carrier and waves the video game in the air. “You up for this?”

Sam goes bug-eyed. He loves to chill with Josh. And he loves
Super Go-Kart
. The Ruler couldn't drag him from the house tonight.

The three of us hang in the living room, playing. Eventually, The Ruler calls Sam into the kitchen to finish up with the canning.

Josh scoots next to me, right next to me. Our legs touch from the hip down. My nerve endings throw off flames. When he drapes an arm over my shoulder, I pretty much melt into him. Because we've been together for two whole wonderful months, I can read his moves.

So when Josh's head inclines the teeniest bit to the side, I know his lips are headed for mine. Then it's like I'm on autopilot, like we're just programmed to be excellent kissers. My head does a complementary dip.

And we do kiss.

And it is great.

But somehow even in the awesome moment of it, my mind is wandering.

I
t's Monday at lunch and I'm cranky.

Cool people are not in their right minds. At least not the cool people at my school who insist on sitting at the
outside
lunch tables. Why? We have a perfectly good cafeteria
inside
where it's air-conditioned and, uh, cool. But, no, they choose to eat out here in a climate similar to that of Mercury. Which, for some strange reason, I happen to know has temperatures of around six hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Cool people must spend all their allowance on deodorant.

Kyle, whom I'm supposed to be spying on, hasn't shown up. Junie, who's supposed to be spying with me, hasn't shown up either.

I'm squished at the table next to where Kyle and
his gang chill, trying desperately to hang on to space for me and Junie. This is not as easy as it sounds, because, apparently, I'm invisible to eighth-grade girls, who keep edging me out. Hello, people! I'm here. I exist. I'm just one year younger.

On top of my territory troubles, I've got Ghostlympic worries. Today's the preliminaries. Mom has to make it through this round or Real Time is out the window. And now that I know about Real Time, my intestines are all tight and braided up because I want those five minutes with her more than anything else in the world.

There's a lentil-sized legume of guilt niggling me about Real Time and Sam. He doesn't even get to connect with Mom the way I do for the mystery solving. He doesn't get to connect with her at all. But every time I think of giving him the Real Time, if Mom even wins it, I realize how bad I want to see her.

“Could ya give me some room here?” says an eighth-grade girl with hoop earrings the size of Frisbees.

I slide a fraction of an inch.

Earring Girl squeezes in, barely, between me and an eighth-grade girl with long brown hair and a thick, flowery hair band. I'm surrounded by squealing, yakking cool girls and their lunch trays. Because they all bought. Because, as everyone knows, buying is the cool thing to do.

From a brown paper bag, I pull out a tuna sandwich on whole wheat. Tuna mixed with some of The Ruler's newly canned relish. Which, surprisingly, is actually very delish. I'm even getting used to the grainy bread.

Every few sentences, the girls toss me a what-are-you-doing-here? look. I just ignore them. Seriously, this
is
a public middle school.

“Troy Garcia asked me out,” Hair Band Girl says.

Three girls scream.

“To Rollerblade World,” she continues. “But I'm so bummed. I totally need a new top. But I'm so broke.”

I can relate to that.

“Sucks.” Earring Girl unwraps a sandwich on blindingly white bread. She obviously has no sense of dietary fiber.

“You wanna borrow something from my closet?” asks a blonde dressed in shades of pink.

Hair Band Girl frowns. “But our colors are so different.”

Once again, I can relate. You try being BFF with a redhead like Junie. It totally nixes clothes trading. Plus, she's a bigger size than me.

Speaking of which, where is that girl? I pull out my cell and text.

“How much money do you have?” asks a girl who's breaking the school dress code by wearing a tank top.

Hair Band Girl sighs out a depressingly low number.

And I'm relating again. Because living fashionably on my allowance takes skill and talent. And a lot of sales.

“That sucks,” Earring Girl says.

They all take bites of their matching spongy white-bread sandwiches. Hair Band Girl looks miserable.

I have no idea why I leap into the conversation. “Have you checked out the clothes at the Rack?”

The girls turn and stare at me with their shadowed, outlined, mascaraed beautiful eyes.

“Who are you?” Pink Girl says.

“Sherry Baldwin.”

“She's a seventh grader.” Earring Girl returns to her nibbling.

“Aren't you Josh Morton's girlfriend?” Hair Band Girl says.

I tear open a package of low-sodium, low-fat baked fake-o Cheetos. “Yeah.”

And their hostility evaporates into the stifling,
make-your-face-shiny Phoenix air. Which, quite frankly, is überbogus. Because I'm still a seventh grader.

“What's the Rack?” Hair Band Girl says. “I've never heard of it.”

The others shake their heads.

“The Rack? It's next to the Nut 'n' Nut? The health food store downtown?” I tweezer out a fake-o Cheeto. “It's this smallish store that pretty much always has a sale rack going. Anyway, they have incredible prices.”

They all stop chewing.

“Right now, they have this great sale on tops. Thirty percent off the sale price and buy one, get one free.” I gnaw on the Cheeto. “I'm not entirely sure how you figure out the final price,” I say to Hair Band Girl, “but I'm guessing you've got enough.”

“You get that top there?” She points to my turquoise + sea green baby-doll.

I smooth it out. “As a matter of fact,” I say proudly.

And when I tell them the price, there's a group jaw drop. This is followed by a group silence while they all mull over how much money they have in their cool, eighth-grade purses.

“Wow. Thanks, Josh's Girlfriend.” Hair Band Girl's got a big grin going.

“The name's Sherry.”

“Then thanks, Sherry.”

And while I'm taking a slug of fluoridated bottled
water, she leans over and plucks a pretend Cheeto from my bag.

“Try not to think of it as a Cheeto,” I say. “More as a paper substitute.”

She gently scoots it under her napkin.

“Hey, do you guys happen to know where Kyle is?” I say.

“You're interested in him now too?” Earring Girl asks. “Aren't there
any
decent guys in your grade?”

“I'm not interested in him that way.” I toss the bag of fake-o Cheetos in the nearby trash. “I have a few questions.”

Hair Band Girl laughs. “If you've been toilet-papered, it was Kyle.”

“Kyle is so wild and crazy.” Pink Girl gives a little shake, like she's shivering.

“Kyle's done with wild and crazy for a while,” Earring Girl says. “He has in-school suspension for all this week. And his dad grounded him last week. No sports, no friends, no TV. Until he raises his grades.”