My Little Phony - 13 (11 page)

Massie wondered if maybe, just maybe, her kiss wasn’t as bad as she thought. Maybe she had to maintain perspective, to find the good in her situation. Maybe her kiss was more similar to the famous kisses than she realized—it was, if nothing else, dramatic.

She reviewed her list mentally.

The Mys Kiss, in
Spider-Man,
for example, was similar because… well, Massie
had
been at sort of an awkward angle, which was kind of like how Spidey had been upside down. Although, it would have been more similar had Kirsten Dunst pulled Spidey’s face mask all the way down by accident during the kiss, knocking him off the wall and into a pile of cardboard crates.

The Risk Kiss in
Twilight
was similar because kissing in front of your crush’s grandparents
was
risky. Although the Risk Kiss would have been a little more similar if afterward Bella had actually died. Of embarrassment. The way Massie had.

The Diss Kiss at the VMAs was definitely similar insofar as only one of the participants in her kiss had actually been ready to kiss at that moment. Although the kisses would have been more similar if Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson
had knocked foreheads and then he had run away screaming and fallen off the stage.

The Aqua-Bliss Kiss, truthfully, wasn’t similar to hers at awl, except for the fact that Massie had cried a lot afterward, so her face was just as wet as Rachel McAdams’s and Ryan Gosling’s faces after kissing in the rain.

The Hiss Kiss on
Gossip Girl
was similar because both kisses involved onlookers. The kiss would have been more similar, though, if when Serena kissed Nate at a party to make his cougar girlfriend jealous, it turned out that all of Nate’s family members and the family members of the cougar girlfriend were watching on video chat.

Oh gawd, who was she kidding? Her kiss belonged in a category all its own: the I’m Never Going to Get Over This Kiss. Oh gawd. The high-schoolers would laugh at her. The middle-schoolers would no longer look up to her. And the grade-schoolers would see her as a public service announcement for what nawt to do.

Massie’s iPhone buzzed loudly.

Landon?!
Maybe he was telling her that he’d tucked Bean in for the night. Or that, after some thought, he’d decided he had liked the kiss and wanted to video all their kisses.

Frantically, she dumped her handbag on her bedspread. Out fell two Glossip Girl tubes, a case of peppermint Altoids, the ticket stub to
Liaisons Diaboliques,
a mascara-soaked tissue, and finally her iPhone. A text glowed on the screen.

Alicia:
Ready to kiss and tell?

“Ugh!”
Massie immediately powered down her phone and stuck it in her desk drawer. The only thing that could help now—short of a time machine—was sleep. She slipped into her lavender silk pajamas, then climbed onto her bed, and hid under the soft covers.

“Bean, is that you?” Massie called groggily an hour later, awaking to a light tickle on her leg.

“Arf?” Bean responded from her perch on her doggy bed, a clean three feet away from the tickle on Massie’s leg.

Confused, Massie sat up and snapped on her bedside light. She pulled back the purple duvet and—

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-H
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Claire’s mouth spread into a super-wide smile. She threw off her covers and ran to the window. Every single light in the Block house flicked on in rapid succession, from Massie’s room at the second-floor right corner all the way to the library on the bottom-floor left, as though the entire house were doing the wave.

Claire felt a wave of her own. It was either guilt or victory. She was too tired to tell.

As Massie continued to shriek, Claire quickly settled into her desk and video-chatted Layne.

Layne appeared on the screen, sitting in a high-backed chair and wearing what appeared to be an old-fashioned smoking jacket (or was that her bathrobe?). She was drinking something yellow and creamy-looking from an oversized brandy snifter. On the table next to her was a carton of eggnog-flavored rice milk (her newest obsession). A big stuffed animal—a cat—was in her lap, and she was stroking it. “Well, hello, Kuh-laire,” she said in a low voice. She raised the glass up toward Claire like she was toasting her.

Claire giggled, then held the laptop up to the window. “Hear that?”

Layne smiled a huge eggnoggy smile and then wiped her mouth.

The scream continued, getting louder by the second.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Sounds like she ran out back and…” Claire peered into the dark backyard. “And she’s running around the pool?”

“A little night swimming perhaps?” Layne refilled her glass.

Claire snickered.

“What do you think her face looked like when she saw them?” Layne said.

“Like this.” Claire made a goofy monkey face into the camera of her laptop.

Layne snorted rice milk onto the screen. “No, this!” she said, crossing her eyes and puffing out her cheeks. “Yee-gads. She’s still screaming. You weren’t kidding about the whole not-liking-bugs business.”

“Guess this means Mission Bedbugs is a success,” said Claire.

“And how!” Layne put down her brandy snifter, and the two girls high-fived their screens.

A moment later Claire signed off and went back to her window.

The entire Block family was out on the front lawn now. Mr. and Mrs. Block were in big, fluffy bathrobes, holding giant mugs of something steaming. Massie was in her silk Calvin pajamas and was holding on to her mother, whimpering.

Claire watched as, a few minutes later, Isaac came
outside, still wearing his black driving outfit. He wrapped a thick blanket around Massie’s shoulders and then said something to Mr. Block, who nodded. Eventually, they began to file back inside. Claire figured Massie wouldn’t return to her room that night. If she knew her former alpha at all, she’d insist on sleeping in one of the bathtubs, a can of bug spray clutched to her chest.

For a moment, Claire felt bad for her former friend. Yes, Massie had bugged her first, but Claire was more resilient than Massie. She’d had to deal with hardships, like moving to a new town and living with a mean queen bee and battling sale seekers at Marshalls and overcoming adversity to rise to the top of OCD’s social strata. But Massie has never had to do any of that. She’d always been popular and rich. What was it that Claire’s mom always said? What doesn’t kill you just makes you stronger.

A little voice at the back of Claire’s brain whispered that “she did it first” wasn’t a good enough reason, that Claire was just trying to justify her actions, that maybe she shouldn’t have exacted such a terrible revenge on Massie. But Claire shushed it.

And with that, she flipped off her light, climbed into her own soft, bug-free bed, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

SCRATCH-ch-ch-ch. SCRATCH-ch-ch-ch. SCRATCH-ch-ch-ch.

Massie ran her now-ragged, metallic-bronze manicured nails over the thigh of her slate gray Theory skirt. Deep red groves ran up and down her arms and legs, making them look like the World War I battlefields they were studying in class.

Plop!

A little folded-up paper triangle landed on Massie’s desk like a raindrop on a cloudy day. She clenched her teeth and forced herself to look down.
Uch.
Not another one. Her friends had alternately been shooting her looks of pity about the kisstastrophe and giving her “helpful” bits of advice about the infestation.

She unfolded the lined notebook paper and recognized Dylan’s messy blue scribble immediately:
HAVE YOU TRIED A CHAMOMILE BATH? THAT WORKED WHEN I HAD THE POX
.

A second later another note landed on her desk, this one written on graph paper in Alicia’s slanty script:
AT LEAST IT WASN’T SCORPIONS, LIKE THEY HAVE AT MY COUSIN NINA’S PLACE IN SPAIN. THEY PIIIIIIIIINCH!

Before Massie even had a chance to turn around and give Alicia a look, her phone lit up with a text.

Kristen:
When the people down the hall in my apt bldg had roaches, it only took a few days to fumigate.

Massie felt her face grow red. Was she hawnestly being compared to a tenant in Kristen’s low-income apartment building? Especially one who was dirty enough to attract insects? What was the point of having money if it didn’t protect you from natural disasters like this? Massie laid her burning forehead down on her cool oak desk.

“Massie.” Mr. McGowan paused at the board. “Is everything okay?”

Massie sat back up and tried to make her face appear normal. “Uh-huh,” she said. Her voice came out sounding more robotic than Wall-E’s.
Beep-boop.

“And so would you care to explain why the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was the match that lit the powder keg of World War One?”

Massie wracked her brain for any shred of what he had just been talking about, but the only thing that was in there was a loop of images from the last eighteen hours: Landon’s warm lips. His horrified face. His grandparents’ shocked expressions on his Mac screen. The sight of the bugs crawling on her lavender Frette sheets.

Isaac had picked up Bean earlier that morning, and he’d returned home with a slice of birthday cake and a note from Landon that said,
CALL ME
. It was ahb-viously a pity note that Mrs. Crane had made him write.

“Um, no thank you,” Massie said.

Mr. McGowan gave her a stern look. “Please pay more attention, Miss Block. I am not Alan Lambert and just ‘Here for Your Entertainment.’”

Massie was so defeated, she didn’t even have the energy to mention that his name was Adam, not Alan, and that she was
quite
aware Mr. McGowan was not placed on Earth for her amusement. The man was duller than a plastic spoon.

“Now, who can help Miss Block with the answer…?”

Massie was hit with a wave of exhaustion so complete that she couldn’t even work up the energy for a glare at Strawberry, who promptly answered the question. She was not only emotionally exhausted, but physically too. The night before, after finding that her bed had been turned into a jungle theme park, she’d moved into one of the guest rooms. But even there she hadn’t felt safe from the bugs and their bloodsucking fangs and their multiple legs and their shiny, terrifying eyeballs. Eventually she’d tried to sleep in the bathtub of the guest bathroom, but it was hardly comfortable using porcelain for a pillow.

Finally, the bell rang.

Massie felt a pinch on her leg and instantly reached down—
SCRATCH-chchch. SCRATCH-chchch. SCRATCH-chchch—
before gathering her books.