Taffy Sinclair 004 - Taffy Sinclair and the Romance Machine Disaster (6 page)

I
stood there for a long time staring into my locker as if I expected the answer to all my problems to come tumbling off the shelf and land at my feet. It didn
'
t. Behind me the hallway was getting noisy as kids slammed their lockers and shouted to each other. I didn
'
t pay any attention until I heard Melanie
'
s voice.

"
Gosh, I love your perm. It looks terrific. How do you think I
'
d look with my hair curled?
"

Naturally it was Taffy Sinclair who answered her. She must have known I was listening because her voice was really loud.

"
Oh, Mel. It would be darling,
"
she gushed.
"
I think you
'
d love it, and boys rea
lly like girls with curly hair.
"

"
They do? Then maybe I will get a perm. Only I
'
m not sure if I
'
d know how to style it once I got it.
"

"
Meet me in the girls
'
bathroom right after lunch, and I
'
ll show you some different ways you could wear it.
"

"
Okay. I
'
ll meet you after lunch.
"

"
Great, Mel.
"

By the time I turned around they had both disappeared into the classroom.
"
Great, Mel,
"
I mimicked under my breath. Mel! I thought. It sounded like a boy
'
s name. Or a dog. I giggled. Maybe Melanie was going to become Taffy
'
s pet dog. I could hear it all now. HERE, MEL. COME ON, GIRL. ROLL OVER. I sank into my seat still daydreaming about Melanie, complete with dog tag and leash, following Taffy through the halls of Mark Twain Elementary.

Wiggins threw a fit when she saw all the makeup, and she made us go to the girls
'
bathroom two by two to wash it off. I held my breath, wondering who she would send with me.

"
Jana Morgan and
Taffy Sinclair. You may go now.
"
I couldn
'
t believe it. Not Taffy Sinclair. How could Wiggins do a thing like this to me? Didn
'
t I have enough problems already?

I left my seat and headed for the door. I could tell without looking that everybody in the whole class was staring at me. Me and Taffy Sinclair. There was not one person in that room who didn
'
t know how much we hate each other. I thought I heard someone giggle—probably Mona Vaughn—but I didn
'
t look around.

Taffy sits near the front of the room so that she can make brownie points with the teacher, which is why she got to the door first. We didn
'
t look at each other as we started down the hall. Once I peeked out of the corner of my eye at her. She was prancing along with her nose stuck up in the air.

We had just gotten into the girls
'
bathroom when she looked at me in the mirror and gave me a nasty smile.
"
I know something you don
'
t know,
"
she said.

I didn
'
t answer. I just stood there staring at her as she wet a paper towel, squirted some smelly green soap on it, and started to wash her face. I knew it had something to do with Randy Kirwan.

"
You think you are so smart. You think Randy Kirwan got your name in the matchup, but he didn
'
t.
"

I could feel little explosions going off in my heart. How dare Taffy Sinclair say a thing like that?
"
You don
'
t know what you
'
re talking about,
"
I growled.

Taffy pretended not to hear what I said. She just went on scrubbing her face and smiling her nasty smile.
"
Can
'
t you figure it out for yourself? Since you and Randy had a date Saturday after the football game, if he had your name he would tell. Since he won
'
t tell, that proves that he has someone else
'
s name.
"

"
You don
'
t really believe a crazy thing like that, do you?
"
I challenged.

"
Of course,
"
said Taffy.
"
And so does everybody else. What other reason would he have for refusing to tell?
"

I shot a poison-dart look her way.
"
Maybe he
'
s tired of being teased about me.
"

"
Ha! Why would he care if kids tease him? He
'
s only keeping his girl matchup a secret because he feels
sorry
for you and doesn
'
t want to hurt your feelings. Oh, well. It doesn
'
t matter what you think. If he doesn
'
t ask you to go for pizza again after the game this Saturday, it will prove to you and everybody else that I
'
m right. He doesn
'
t have your name.
"

I hadn
'
t even thought about the game Saturday afternoon or whether Randy would take me to Mama Mia
'
s again or not. But now Taffy
'
s words echoed in my mind.
If he doesn't ask you to go for pizza again after the game this Saturday, it will prove to you and e
verybody else that I'
m right. He doesn't have your name.
I wanted to scream at Taffy and tell her that she was lying. But I couldn
'
t. I wanted to look her straight in the eye and tell her that Randy
did
have my name and that he
would
ask me to go for pizza again. But what if he didn
'
t? What if Taffy Sinclair was right? She had said that maybe he felt sorry for me and didn
'
t want to hurt my feelings. Hadn
'
t Mom said something about Randy being so nice that maybe he wasn
'
t telling who he matched up with because he didn
'
t want to hurt anyone
'
s feelings? I had never thought about that
"
anyone
"
being me. I grabbed a paper towel, held it under the water faucet and scrubbed my face so hard that it hurt.

After I finished washing my face, I didn
'
t wait for Taffy. She was still standing in front of the mirror brushing her new curly perm. I hurried out of that bathroom and stomped down the hall promising myself that I
'
d show Taffy Sinclair how wrong she was. I
'
d find a way to get Randy to admit that he had my name if it was the last thing I ever did.

Wiggins gave the class free-reading time while we waited for all the gi
rls with makeup on to go to the
bathroom. I propped a book up in front of me and pretended to be reading it. What I needed was a plan, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn
'
t come up with one for the life of me.

When everybody got back to the room, Wiggins held her hand up for silence.
"
Today is our big day. We are going to the Media Center this morning to begin working on the computers.
"

Her smile was so big you would have thought she had just announced that school was canceled for the rest of the year. I groaned. Computers had gotten me into the mess I was in. More computers could only mean more trouble.

She lined us up in twos to march to the Media Center. I looked over to the other side of the room toward Randy
'
s desk just in time to see two girls, Sarah Sawyer and Lisa Snow, almost knock each other down to get close to him. Those show-offs, I thought. Then I smiled with satisfaction as Wiggins motioned for Mark Peters to march with Randy.

When we got to the Media Center, Wiggins led us to the end of the room where the six new computers sat on library tables and told us to sit down on the floor in a large semicircle. She got out a big cardboard illustration of the screen and the computer keyboard and her long pointer and began explaining the various parts and what they were for. Then she went to one of the real computers and demonstrated how to start it up and call up a certain program and how to shut the whole thing down again. I tried to pay attention but I couldn
'
t.

"
Now, boys and girls,
"
said Wiggins.
"
You are finally going to get the chance to use the computers yourselves. But remember one thing. Never, never leave the computer without shutting it down completely. This is very important. Do you think you can all remember that?
"
Everybody nodded. Then she called up the first six kids to work on the computers. Randy was one of them.

Wiggins handed out work sheets to the rest of us. She said that they would help us remember what she had said while we waited for our turn. I wrote my name at the top of my work sheet and glanced at Randy again. I just couldn
'
t seem to keep my eyes off of him. He looked so handsome sitting in front of his computer punching on the keyboard and then looking at the screen and then back at the keyboard again. I must have been staring at him longer than I realized because suddenly Wiggins was announcing that the next group of six students should come to the computers. When she counted them off, I was number four.

I sat down in front of my computer wishing that I had paid more attention to Wiggins
'
s demonstration. The keyboard looked pretty much like a typewriter and the screen looked like a little television, but beyond that, I was lost.

"
Does everybody remember where to find the little switch that turns the computer on?
"
asked Wiggins. She was standing beside the cardboard illustration again holding her pointer.

Practically everybody shook their head so she pointed to the right place on the computer. I turned on the switch and the computer began to hum.

"
And does everybody remember how to call up a program?
"
she asked. Again, almost nobody did.

Finally a list of questions appeared on the screen. Each multiple choice question had three possible answers with little boxes at the end of each choice. The instructions at the top of the screen said to put an
X
in the correct box and then push Enter. The computer would say if the answer was right or wrong.

I took a deep breath and looked at the first question. It was the same as the first question on the work sheet. I felt better. Maybe this wouldn
'
t be too hard after all. Then I remembered that I hadn
'
t paid much attention to Wiggins because I was too busy thinking about Randy, and I hadn
'
t answered a single question on the work sheet either.

Question 1 said, The cursor always tells you: a. Where the next character will be displayed, b. When you
'
ve made a typing error, c. How to get to the cafeteria. I had to laugh at choice
c.
Obviously that was not the right answer, but for the life of me I couldn
'
t remember what Wiggins had said the cursor was really for.

I looked at the other five kids sitting at computers. They were all punching keys on the keyboard as if they knew what they were doing. I looked back at question 1.

Suddenly the air was filled with a piercing sound. My fingers froze on the keyboard. At first I thought someone was screaming, but then I realized that it was the fire alarm. There was instant panic as kids scrambled for the door. Above the noise I heard Wiggins shouting,
"
Remember, boys and girls. Walk quietly and stay calm.
"

I started to get up and follow the others, but just then I remembered something else.
"
Never, never leave the computer without shutting it down completely.
"
My mind was blank. I couldn
'
t remember how I started it up, much less how to shut it down.

"
Jana! Come on!
"

I looked around. It was Randy, and he was motioning to me. All the other kids had shut down their computers and were heading for the door. I was the only one still standing there. I wanted to run, but my computer was still on.