The (Almost) Perfect Guide To Imperfect Boys (13 page)

“Right,” he said, smiling a little. “I bet Fisher-Greenglass has granola with soy milk.”

“And Ms. Krieger has a croissant, or whatever she feels like. Maybe pizza or an ice cream sundae. What about Hairy Hands?”

“Blood oranges. Bloody steak. Or wait—what do they call it when steak is raw?”

“Salmonella,” I said.

He was grinning now. “No, there's an actual French name for it. My stepmom watches all these cooking shows.”

“Your stepmom?” I asked casually.

“Yeah, my dad's new wife. In Florida.” His smile
twitched at the corners. “That's where I went last spring. My parents made me.”

“Oh,” I said.

“There was this whole big wedding thing, so.” He shrugged. “But it turns out I have this cool stepbrother.”

“You mean Kieran, right?”

Zachary tugged on his sleeves. “Yeah. He's sixteen. He taught me a bunch of stuff, and he gave me some clothes when I outgrew mine.”

Well, so that explained Zachary's style makeover, and the limited wardrobe options. It also explained why he'd acted so weird last year. And why he didn't exactly volunteer information when he came back. I mean, if my parents divorced and my dad moved across the country and got himself a new family they forced me to live with—well, let's just say I wouldn't be contributing that news item to the Official Gossip.

But now Zachary was being serious and quiet, and I wanted to get back to the fun we'd been having guessing our teachers' breakfasts.

“You know,” I announced, “I strongly feel we should write down those menus. To commemorate
them for all eternity.” I grabbed my science binder and flipped to the back.

“What was that?” Zachary asked. He was peering over my shoulder.

“What was what?” I carefully wrote the words
Secret Breakfasts of the Fulton Faculty
.

“I don't know. You had a page that said something about tadpoles? And I think croaking . . .?”

My heart crashed into my chest. I slammed the binder shut.

“Oh, that was nothing,” I said. “We were studying frogs in science. Last fall.”

“So why are there names?”

“Names?”

“Of kids. It looked like a list.”

My brain emptied. “Those were just . . . to help me remember the material. I'm terrible in science, so I used a mnemonic.”

“A what?”

“You know, a dumb memory trick. Like
i
before
e
, except after
c
. Or ROY G BIV. Or My Very Educated Mother.”

“Every Good Boy Deserves Favor,” Zachary said. “Thirty days hath September. HOMES.”

“Exactly.” I exhaled a little. “Homes?”

“
H-O-M-E-S.
First letter of each of the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “Like PEMDAS in math— Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction. I can never remember the Order of Operations unless I write PEMDAS at the top of the page. Ha ha, isn't that pathetic?”

“I wouldn't call it that,” Zachary said, shrugging. “I'm the same way.”

Phew,
I thought. I'd just saved this conversation from utter excruciation. But I still had to change the topic immediately. And permanently.

“Zachary?” I said. “Can I ask you something? You still want to go to Chloe's Stupid Party?”

He raised his eyebrows. “You mean with you?”

“Yeah. I don't mean
go with me
—”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “And yeah. Actually, I do.”

And then he gave me a smile so gorgeous and glowing and Froggy that all I could do was smile back.

Before lunch was over, I snapped four shots of Zachary superfast.

The first and second ones were of him looking at the Diane Arbus book. He had a funny expression, like he was eating something that possibly tasted good, but he wasn't sure how he felt about the ingredients.

The third and fourth ones had him looking right at me. I mean,
at me
, not at the camera. Don't ask me to explain this, because I can't.

The photos didn't come out great. The library light was uneven, and Zachary was boringly centered in the composition. But it was amazing that the photos
weren't blurry, considering how my hands were shaking the whole time.

Because Zachary Mattison had almost seen the
Life Cycle
.

Well, actually, no: He
had
seen it. He just hadn't known what it meant. And I'd managed to distract him with all those mnemonics, which maybe couldn't teach Spanish verbs or toddler raising but were good for some things, fortunately. Plus, of course, asking him to Chloe's Stupid Party—that was a good distraction too.

Which was why I did it
, I told myself.
I mean, obviously
.

I also finally took Olivia's picture. It was at dismissal, and she didn't even know I was taking it, because I stood in the doorway and used the zoom while she was chatting on the steps with Hanna.

The strange thing was, until I looked at Olivia through the zoom lens, I never realized how much she fluttered her hands when she spoke. I wondered if she even knew that she fluttered her hands. Maybe when I showed her these pictures, she'd say,
Finley, that isn't me; that isn't what I look like at all.

Maybe she thought of herself sucking in her cheeks like a supermodel. Or hideous with hidden zits. It was funny to think how people thought of themselves as
much uglier than they were. Or more glamorous. The truth was, most people were somewhere in the middle. Besides, what you saw through the zoom wasn't the ugly/glamorous stuff, but the what-did-she-eat-for-breakfast stuff, the droopy ungeneric sunflower stuff. At least that was what I was looking for.

I took three photos, then watched Hanna run off to her mom's car and Olivia join Chloe and her entourage. Eighth grade was so predictable, I thought, like we'd all memorized a dance that we'd perform every day from now until the end of June. And we knew our steps so well we didn't need a mnemonic.

Even me,
I admitted, as I started the walk home. That day the snow had thawed into a sort of slushie consistency, just wet enough to seep into your shoes and cold enough to freeze your toes. A school bus passed, spraying the snow slushie up on the sidewalk. And out of the open windows fifth-grade Tadpoles were screaming:
“You drink pus, you eat snot, you farted in the bathtub, smells like rot!”

“Seriously?” I muttered.
I am sooo ready for high school.

And all of a sudden I heard someone shouting:
“Fiiiiin, Finneeee, waaait.”

I spun around. Maya was racing toward me, her red scarf flying. When she caught up, we gave each other a long, swaying hug.

“Why aren't you degumming desks?” I asked, surprised. “Did you escape?”

She laughed. “No, I just told Fisher-Greenglass that I'd learned my lesson about respecting Mr.—I mean Señor—Hansen, and she took pity on me. Seriously, Fin, I was going mental in there. Where
were
you?”

I explained about the family chaos this morning, and how I'd tried visiting her twice, including at lunch. She crossed her arms while I was talking, like she didn't believe me, although possibly she was just cold. Then she asked me what she'd missed.

“Not much.” I paused. “Oh, right. Actually, I'm going to Chloe's party with Zachary.”

“WHAT?” Maya shouted.

“I asked him at lunch. Today.”

“Omigosh. Finley. I
cannot believe
that.”

“Don't shout,” I complained. “Why can't you believe that?”

“Because you never do things like that. What happened?”

I told her about the library, leaving out how he'd almost seen the
Life Cycle
chart. The whole time I was talking, Maya was shaking her head in disbelief, like I was saying,
UNICORN! LOCH NESS MONSTER! I WON THE LOTTERY!

It kind of annoyed me, to tell you the truth.

Jokingly, I said, “Hey, come on. It's not that crazy, okay?”

“Are you serious?” She laughed. “It's the Total Opposite of You.”

By then we were in front of her house. We faced each other.

“What do you mean?” I said, not laughing. “The Total Opposite of Me?”

“Oh, you know. Relating to a boy as an actual person. Not just calling him an imposter hologram, or some kind of amphibian on that stupid chart. It's major progress; I'm really proud of you, Finley.”

“
Proud
of me?”

“Is something wrong?” Maya asked, frowning.

I swallowed hard. It felt as if there were a grapefruit stuck in my throat. “You know what, Maya? If you don't want to do the
Life Cycle
anymore, if you think it's dumb or immature, or whatever, that's
totally fine with me. Really. But please don't act like you never did it too, and please don't insult me about it either.”

Her eyes grew wide. “How am I insulting you?”

“You're congratulating me for not being boy-illiterate anymore. Except I wasn't in the first place.”

“Okay, that's really unfair,” she said, taking a step back. “I never called you that, Finley, ever.”

“No, Maya, you basically did.” The words were tumbling out; I couldn't stop them. “I'm not saying I know everything about boy behavior, because I don't, and neither do you. Although I do know some things; I'm a student of character. So you shouldn't act superior all the time, like you are in charge of everyone.”

“Oh,” she said. Her mouth dropped open. “
Oh.
You think I act like that?”

“Sometimes yes,” I said. “You can be. You keep deciding things for people without asking first. And yes, I still think there's plenty of weirdness about Zachary; I haven't made my mind up about him yet. But we talked, I know him a little better now, so I asked him about the stupid party. Although it's not a date, so please don't tease me about it, okay?”

“Fine,” she snapped. “I won't even mention it. Can I say I'm happy for you?”

“Sure,” I said. “I guess.”

“Great. Then I'm happy! No, not happy—ecstatic!”

I watched my best friend stomp into her house and slam her door.

•  •  •

Mom put down her Wiggles mug as I walked into the kitchen. “You're late, Fin honey,” she said. “Everything okay?”

“Oh sure, definitely,” I replied, sounding not okay at all.

She got up from her laptop to hug me, and for a few seconds I rested my head on her shoulder. Mom smelled like a combination of talcum powder and the fresh-baked oatmeal cookies that were cooling on the counter. And maybe it was because of what had just happened with Maya, but the sweet, safe smells, plus the hug, plus the warmth of the oven, made me wish I could stay like that, in the kitchen, forever.

Finally Mom broke the silence. “Problem with Spanish?” she murmured into my hair.

“No, just the usual,” I said.

“Boy weirdness?”

I blinked. “What?”

“This morning, in the car. You were talking about tails, boys losing tails, tails coming back—”

“Oh, right. Actually, today was more girl-weird.”

“Was it,” Mom said gently. She paused. “Everything good with Maya?”

That was when I broke out of the hug. “Why are you asking that? Who said anything about Maya?”

“Calm down, honey. You said ‘girl-weird,' and she's your best friend, so—”

“Maya is fine,” I said. “She's ecstatic. You want me to stay downstairs with Max and Addie? So you can work?”

Mom studied my face for a few seconds. Then she nodded. “Actually, thank you, Finny, that would be wonderful. I've got this podcast—”

“Hey, podcast away!”

I grabbed an oatmeal cookie and fled into the TV room, where the twins were sitting together on the sofa, sucking their thumbs and staring at Elmo. Without even thinking, I plopped beside them and opened my science binder to the back. Today there was plenty to update, but a lot of it was tricky—Ben Santino had held a door open in math (borderline Frog, except
then he let the door slam); Trey Gunderson had done a burp-and-blush (Tadpole with Croaker tendencies? Hmm); Drew Looper had teased Dahlia about her new glasses (Croaker, but the humor was totally Tadpole). It almost seemed as if these boys were a messy jumble of ages—not simply one age, then graduation to the next age, in a neat, perfectly straight line.

Plus there was the library business with Zachary. The more I thought about our conversation today, the less sure I felt about how it belonged in the
Amphibian
Life Cycle
. I mean, okay: the food offering was combination Croaker-Froggy, the awkward conversation parts were definitely Croaker, but calling robots a hobby was Tadpole; there couldn't be any different interpretation. And some of the other stuff I couldn't decide on. For example: Zachary used mnemonics—did I consider that Froggy only because I used mnemonics too? What about liking movies he knew were bad? (The bad-movie thing was Croaker, even Tadpole, but if you
knew
the movies were bad, did that make it Froggy?) Also, worshipping his teenage stepbrother—wasn't that Tadpole behavior, really? Croaker at the absolute most, but not Froggy. Definitely not Froggy.

Suddenly the whole
Life Cycle
seemed hopeless
to me. Hopeless and also utterly pointless. Because it seemed like everybody's cycles were speeding out of control. Overlapping with each other, and all of it turning into a blur.

Plus, without Maya, it wasn't even any fun. I hadn't wanted to admit this before, but it was true. Unfun and pointless, so why was I bothering? I couldn't come up with a single reason.