Secret Admirer (10 page)

“Whoa!” exclaimed Morgan as Amy joined her three friends in Morgan’s carport on Tuesday morning. Morgan’s grandmother was driving them to school since it was, once again, pouring down rain.

“What happened to you, Amy?” asked Emily.

Amy just shrugged, glancing over her shoulder and wishing her friends would just chill. “Nothing …”

“You’re wearing makeup!” said Carlie with a shocked expression.

“So?” Amy turned and looked directly at her friends. “No big deal.”

“And look at your shoes,” said Morgan. “You’re almost as tall as Emily now.”

“Aren’t you worried you might break an ankle in those things?” asked Carlie as she held up her arm, finally cast-free, as if to make her point.

“No, I’m not,” said Amy. She glanced at her watch now. “So, Morgan, is your grandma taking us to school or not?”

“Here I am, girls,” said Morgan’s grandmother as she
emerged from the house jingling her car keys. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“How are you feeling, Mrs. Evans?” Amy asked. Okay, so this was a partial attempt to distract her friends from her new look, but she had been concerned about the old woman’s health. They all had.

Morgan’s grandmother smiled. “Pretty good, Amy, all things considered. But it does feel good to get out a bit. Being stuck in the house for weeks wasn’t much fun. Thank you for asking.”

“Grandma’s only been driving for a week now,” said Morgan. “So we’ll have to keep an eye out for her and make sure she doesn’t run any red lights or anything.” Morgan grinned at her grandma.

“Don’t you girls worry about me,” said Mrs. Evans. “I’ve been driving for more than fifty years now. A couple of months of prescribed rest haven’t affected my driving skills in the least.”

They all piled into the car, and Amy turned her face away from her friends, pretending to look out the window and hoping they’d forget about her change in appearance. To be honest, Amy was having second thoughts herself. She wondered if it was really worth all the trouble to try to look older. For starters, it hadn’t been easy sneaking past her mom this morning. She had eaten breakfast first then sneaked back to the bathroom where she’d quickly applied
makeup before she grabbed up her backpack and slipped on her new shoes. Then she’d hollered a quick good-bye and dashed out the door and over to Morgan’s. But then she’d almost tripped in her shoes. And that was after practicing walking in them for nearly an hour last night. Looking older was proving to be a real challenge.

“Seriously, Amy?” asked Carlie from the other side of the backseat. “What’s up with the makeup anyway?”

“Nothing is up,” said Amy. “I’m just trying something new.”

“You mean you’re just trying to catch a boy,” teased Morgan from the front seat.

“Morgan Natalia,” scolded her grandmother. “It’s not nice to tease little Amy.”

“It’s true,” said Morgan. “She is trying to catch a boy — aren’t you, Amy?”

Amy folded her arms across her front and pressed her lips together.

“Well, Amy wouldn’t need to use makeup to catch a boy,” said Grandma. “She’s already a very pretty girl just as she is.”

So then Emily had to go and tell Morgan’s grandmother all about Amy’s secret admirer and the note. Amy suddenly wished she hadn’t told anyone. Why hadn’t she kept her secret admirer a secret?

“Oh my,” said Mrs. Evans. “How exciting to have a
secret admirer, Amy. I remember once, a long time ago, when I had someone like that.” She sighed. “It was such fun trying to figure out who that admirer was.”

“Who was it?” asked Morgan.

Her grandmother laughed. “It turned out to be your grandfather’s very best friend Henry Lake.”

“What did my grandfather think of that?” asked Morgan indignantly. “Did he punch this Henry right in the nose?”

Mrs. Evans laughed even louder now. “No, not at all … your grandfather and I weren’t even going together way back then. But Henry got your grandfather’s attention, and before long your grandfather became my not-so-secret admirer, and within a year we were happily married.”

“How romantic,” said Amy.

Carlie giggled. “So, do you think Brett Woods is going to propose to you today, Amy?”

Amy rolled her eyes. A statement that stupid did not deserve a civilized response.

“Well, you girls have a good day,” called Mrs. Evans as they piled out of the car, running through the rain up the front steps. Amy had to be careful not to stumble in her new shoes.

“Amy,” said Emily once they were all inside. “You look so different.”

“Different good?” asked Amy hopefully.

Emily kind of frowned. “I’m not sure.”

“I think you look like a clown,” said Carlie.

“Really?” Amy got worried now. What if Carlie was right? What if Amy had made a stupid mistake? More than anything else, Amy hated to look dumb.

“Look,” said Morgan in a kinder tone. “You know we’re your friends, don’t you, Amy?”

“Of course.” She nodded.

“Don’t you think we’d be honest with you?”

“I, uh, I guess so.”

“Well, that makeup is … well, it’s hard to get used to, Amy.”

“I thought it looked pretty good this morning.” Amy had actually thought it looked fairly glamorous too. And, combined with her new outfit and tall shoes, Amy thought that she should at least be able to pass for thirteen or fourteen now. She studied the faces of her friends now. Maybe they were jealous. After all, Amy had been the lucky one to receive a note from a boy — possibly from one of the most popular boys in their class. Or maybe they just wanted Amy to look way younger than them. Maybe they wanted her to be the baby of the group. Well, she was finished with that now! Amy stuck out her chin and held her head high and decided that her friends were simply envious. That had to be it.

“Hey,” said Chelsea as she came over to join the group of girls.

Amy let out a little sigh of relief. Naturally, Chelsea would get this. “Hey,” said Amy. “These guys are giving me a bad time about my makeup.”

“Oh,” said Chelsea, peering more closely at Amy. “You
are
wearing makeup. What’s with that?”

“I just wanted to grow up a little,” admitted Amy. “Do you think it looks okay, Chelsea?”

“I guess.” She nodded, but didn’t look completely convinced.

“Well, I think you could tone down that blue eye shadow some,” said Morgan. “It seems a little over the top to me, Amy.”

“I agree,” said Emily.

“Me too,” added Carlie.

Just then Amy saw several eighth grade girls walking by. They all had on eye shadow — and not so much different than hers. It seemed that her friends, well, other than Chelsea, were too unsophisticated to understand.

“I need to get to band,” she told them.

“Hurry up,” teased Carlie. “Maybe you can grab first chair before Oliver.”

Seriously, her friends could act so immature at times. Still, Amy liked her friends. And she was glad to have her friends. She just wished they’d give her a little more respect. Now she wished she’d taken off her coat so they could’ve seen her whole new outfit. Surely, that would’ve impressed them a little.

“What happened to you?” asked Oliver as Amy entered the mostly empty band room.

She just shrugged and removed her damp coat, hanging it on one of the many pegs by the door. Who cared what Oliver Fitzgerald thought of her appearance anyway? He was actually wearing a bow tie today. Who did he think he was anyway — the host of the Miss America Pageant?

Oliver sat there staring at her as he adjusted the reed on his clarinet, but the expression on his face made her feel as if she’d sprouted a second head. “Man, Amy, you look like you got run over by a cosmetic truck.”

She decided to ignore him as she sat down and slowly opened her clarinet case, taking her time to check her reed and clean her instrument.

Oliver continued to blab at her, saying how he didn’t understand girls and fashion and why they went to so much trouble to “look perfectly ridiculous.”

“Thanks a lot,” she snapped at him. “Who died and promoted you to chief of the fashion police?”

He laughed. “Clever. At least your new airhead appearance hasn’t destroyed any valuable brain cells yet.”

With narrowed eyes, Amy put the clarinet to her lips and began to warm up. She wasn’t about to let her rage toward stupid Oliver distract her from her music. One of these days she was going to unseat that ignorant boy, and
then he’d be playing a new tune. In the meantime, it would take all her self-control not to unseat him by pushing him out of his chair and onto the floor right now. Wouldn’t that be fun!

Even so, Amy stopped by the girls’ restroom after band. She went directly to the mirror, trying to see what all the fuss was about. And as she looked at her image, she thought maybe her friends had been somewhat honest with her after all. As for Oliver — well, he was just mean. So Amy used a damp paper towel to rub off some of the blue eye shadow. Of course, that only messed up the mascara, making dark smudges beneath her eyes. She tried to fix it, but by the time the first warning bell rang, she wasn’t sure if she’d made things better or worse. Maybe this whole makeup thing wasn’t too smart after all. She tossed the paper towel into the trash and hurried out of the girls’ restroom, nearly running smack into Brett Woods.

He stepped back startled. And, embarrassed, she said, “Oh, excuse me!” And then he actually smiled at her before he hurried on his way. Well, that wasn’t too bad, she thought as she walked quickly to her next class. They hadn’t exactly exchanged words yet, but it was a start. He had smiled!

“So, anything new developing with Brett?” Chelsea asked as they walked to the cafeteria together at noon. So Amy told Chelsea about bumping into him outside the restroom.

“It was kind of embarrassing,” she confessed. “But I did say excuse me.”

Chelsea laughed. “Well, that’s one way to get him to speak to you.”

“Well, he didn’t actually
say
anything,” admitted Amy. “Although he did smile at me.”

“Why don’t you let me talk to him for you?” said Chelsea eagerly. “Kind of move things along, you know?”

Amy wasn’t sure. “I don’t want him to think I’m being pushy.”

“But what about the note?” Chelsea reminded her. “That’s kind of pushy.”

“But I’m not positive he wrote the note,” said Amy. “I mean, it’s really just a feeling. I don’t know for sure.”

“Well, I can find out,” declared Chelsea. “And I’ll be very diplomatic.” Then she elbowed Amy, nodding toward the lunch line. “There he is. Just let me go and talk to him, okay?”

Amy shrugged then giggled. “Well, I guess I can’t really stop you.”

“That’s right.” Chelsea grinned. “This is going to be fun.”

Suddenly Amy felt extremely nervous. “I’ll go sit with Carlie and Emily,” she said when she noticed those two were already at the table. “No way am I getting in the lunch line while you’re talking to him.”

“That’s fine. I’ll be right back.” And then Chelsea took off.

And Amy headed straight for the table where her friends were just setting down their lunches. Seriously, Chelsea was not intimidated by anything. Amy knew for certain she wouldn’t be able to walk up to a boy that she didn’t even know and just start talking to him like that. Chelsea was a piece of work.

“Hello, Beautiful,” teased Carlie as Amy sat down with her back to the lunch line. She did not want to see Chelsea talking to Brett. She did not even want to think about it.

“Hey, where’s your lunch, Amy?” asked Emily. “Not hungry?”

So Amy quickly explained about Chelsea, and suddenly both Emily and Carlie were staring directly at the lunch line. All Amy could see was their expressions as they watched. “Is Chelsea talking to him yet?” she whispered as if she thought Brett might actually be listening to her.

“Oh yeah,” said Emily quietly. “And he’s talking to her too.”

“And he’s smiling too,” said Carlie.

Amy so wanted to look. But at the same time, she didn’t want Brett to see her watching. That seemed very uncool. “He’s
really
smiling?” she asked quietly. “Like he’s happy kind of smiling? Or nervous kind of smiling?”

“He seems happy. And he’s talking to her and moving his hands,” said Emily.

“And he’s still smiling,” added Carlie.

Funny how these two were suddenly so interested in all this. These girls who acted like they could care less about boys!

“They’re still talking,” said Emily. “And now they’re laughing too.”

“Can you believe Chelsea?” said Carlie, shaking her head. “No way would I just walk up to a boy and start talking to him like that.”

“I wonder what she said to him,” said Emily.

“Probably something like ‘
Amy Ngo likes you and she wants to know if you like her
,’ ” suggested Carlie in a singsong voice. “I hear girls saying that kind of thing all the time. I think it’s stupid.”

“No,” said Amy firmly. “She wouldn’t say something that lame. She said she would be diplomatic.”

“Diplomatic?” Emily laughed. “Like what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means she won’t make me look dumb.”

“You don’t think this whole boy-crazy thing is a little dumb?” asked Carlie.

Amy let out an exasperated sigh. Would these girls ever grow up and get it? Maybe by high school.

“What’s up?” asked Morgan as she joined them with
her lunch tray. “And why is Chelsea over there talking to a bunch of boys?”

So Emily and Carlie took turns explaining what was quickly beginning to feel like a three-ring circus to Amy.

“Here she comes,” said Morgan.

“Looks like mission accomplished,” said Emily.

Chelsea came to their table now, sitting down across from Amy with a deadpan expression.

“So, how did it go?” Amy asked nervously.

“Well …” Chelsea frowned now. “It was both bad and good.”

“Bad and good?” Amy felt confused. “Explain, please.”

“The bad part was that Brett did not write that note, Amy.”

“You asked him about the note?” Amy stared at her in shock. “You said you’d be diplomatic. I can’t believe you brought up
the note
. Of course he’d deny it, Chelsea. He was in front of his friends. I can’t believe you mentioned the note!” Amy felt sick. Why had she trusted Chelsea with something this important? This was wrong. All wrong!