The BEDMAS Conspiracy (7 page)

A
fter school, we found Sludge and the Z's in the back of the cafeteria, celebrating with ice-cream sundaes. They were toasting each other with vanilla, chocolate, and hot fudge.

“Daniela,” asked Beena, “what
happened
to you?”

“Yeah, what
happened
?” echoed Meena.

Before we could explain, we were surrounded by half of our grade six classmates. The female half!

The first to approach us was Janine Stroop. All of grade six knew she was boy crazy.

Janine got right to the point. “Olaf is totally hot. He
is
Sick on a Snow Day.”

“Is it true that he's come all the way from Norway?” asked Lisa Hutchin, popping up behind her.

“Sweden,” corrected Daniela.

“And he's involved in an exchange program where he hangs out at the mall?” questioned Janine and Lisa's best friend, Sarah Hibbit.

“Yup,” I answered quickly, trying to shoo them away. “He's there right now.”

Janine looked at Sarah and Lisa.

“He's going to need help finding the stores with the best clothes,” said Lisa.

“And the coolest music,” said Sarah.

“Don't forget about food,” said Janine.

“To the mall!” agreed all three girls as they walked away.

I had managed to tell the rest of the band about Daniela's case of stage fright right after our meeting with Principal Losman. Of course, I'd also filled them in on my quick thinking. Sludge and the Z's were so impressed that they'd wasted no time in spreading the legendary story of Cousin Olaf around the school. They weren't as impressed, however, when I set up our practice schedule.

“Four practices a week?” said Sludge. “I'm not exactly one for school, but I'm going to need a little more time to get my homework done, dude. I'm finished with detention this week and I'm hoping to enjoy a little sunshine before I get sent back there.”

Beena and Meena agreed with Sludge. Daniela wanted to support me, but even she agreed our practice schedule was a bit intense.

“The District Donnybrook is in a few weeks,” I reminded them. “The competition will be stiffer than the Subtractions and Averagely Mediocre.” Seeing my point, the rest of the band nodded. “Right now, we need to focus on the competition and worry about school stuff later. Trust me, lots more homework and tests will be waiting for us after the competition.”

I must have been convincing because the band eventually agreed to all of the practices—even the one on Monday, the day before the big spelling test. Beena and Meena left the cafeteria and headed to the library to study. Daniela went to talk to Mr. Papernick about something she didn't understand in the previous day's homework. Sludge dug deep into the bottom of his bag and fished out a beat-up history text book. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Just trying to manage my time better, bro,” he smiled.

Soon, I was left sitting alone. I noticed blabbermouth Eldrick Hooperberg heading my way. He looked like he was walking with a purpose. His expression was determined—or at least as determined as he could muster. There was no way I was going to let him ruin my perfect day. I gave him a dirty look. Before he could open his mouth, I grabbed my stuff and darted out of the cafeteria.

T
hat evening, my family surprised me and Daniela with a celebratory chocolate cake.

“To the band,” toasted my mom as we all clinked glasses of apple juice.

“To Olaf!” toasted Abigail.

“Did I ever tell you about
my
high school band?” asked my dad, doing the moonwalk. “We lasted three weeks before breaking up. The usual band politics: our sound, our lyrics, whether to sing in French or English.”

Josh bolted after wolfing down three pieces of cake. Daniela had already excused herself to wash her hair. My mom “suggested” that Abigail go watch TV. Something was up.

She got right to the point. “We still have a deal, Adam. District Donnybrook or not, we are holding you to it.”

“I've done everything you said,” I told them. “I've gotten some sort of B on all of my tests.”

“We spoke to Mr. Papernick and he told us that you're not paying attention in class again. He says you're scribbling in a notebook instead of listening to him,” said my dad.

“No more writing lyrics in class,” ordered my mother.

“But I've learned tons of new words from writing so many new songs,” I argued. “Last week, I was working on a protest song about the crummy food in the J.R. Wilcott cafeteria. It was really hard to find words that rhyme with lasagna, banana and hoagie, but I managed to do it and learned that Banya is a little village in south-east Bulgaria, Ghana is a country in Africa, and Muskogee is a town in eastern Oklahoma, on the Arkansas River. I'm totally going to ace the next geography test!”

“Yogi also rhymes with hoagie,” said my dad. “A guy who practices yoga. You could have used that. Or maybe, instead of asking for hoagies you could have just used a more common name like submarine sandwich and then shortened it to ‘sub.' A lot of words rhyme with sub—tub, cub, rub, club. Hey, you could have worked in
club sandwich
.” He started to hum a few notes.

My mom elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

“Right,” he said getting back on track. “It's great that you're getting familiar with the globe, Adam, but we have an agreement. B's in all of your classes. Regardless of whether you're in a superstar band or not.”

“You have a spelling test next week,” said my mother.

How do parents know everything?

“If you don't get a B on it, your practices will be cut.”

“But the Donnybrook is in a few weeks! We need to practice every day!”

“You'll just have to find a way to make time for both school and the band,” said my mother firmly.

There was no arguing with them. This amazing day had suddenly gone south—and it was about to get worse. I had barely made it out of the room before the phone rang. It took me a couple of seconds to recognize Lisa Hutchin's voice. It sounded much more nasal on the telephone. I held the phone away from my ear.

“He wasn't there!” she whined.

“Who wasn't there, Lisa?” I asked, confused. Lisa and I weren't close friends. In fact, she had never called me before.

“Olaf!” she wailed.

I held the phone even further away from my ear.

“Huh?” I was still confused. “Where was he supposed to be exactly?”

“The mall. Sarah heard from Janine who heard from Raz Keilberg that this week, Olaf has to write a report comparing North American french fries to Swedish french fries. I went to every french-fry stand in Orchard Mall and couldn't find him.” She lowered her voice a bit. “Can you keep a secret?” She didn't wait for my answer. “I think Olaf likes me. I could feel a real
connection
between us when he sang.”

I didn't know what to tell her. “Well, Lisa, I
think
he said he was going to Orchard Mall, but to tell you the truth, his mouth was full of cereal when he told me what he was doing today. Combine that with his heavy Swedish accent, and maybe I misunderstood. He could have said Everton Mall or even Aldershot Mall. I really don't know.”

I tried to change the subject. “Want to hear some of the new lyrics I've been working on?”

“No, thanks,” she answered quickly before hanging up.

Ten seconds later the phone rang again. This time it was Sarah Hibbit. I repeated the story about being unable to understand Olaf when he talks with food in his mouth. Sarah was also uninterested in hearing my new lyrics. So were Janine Stroop, Jenny Mitchell, and Marlene Tang. Exhausted and sick of talking about the mall, I finally told my parents to tell any grade six girl who called that I wasn't home.

But I hadn't mentioned the grade six boys. I had one more disastrous phone call coming my way that night.

“Adam, telephone!” called my mom from the kitchen.

I was sitting in my bedroom, trying to find a word that rhymed with casserole.

“I'm not taking any more calls!” I yelled back at her.

In some houses, people actually stood in the same room when they wanted to talk. But not in my house. We just yelled through the walls.

“You said you didn't want any more phone calls from
girls
,” she bellowed from the bottom of the stairs. “It's not a girl this time.”

She was getting closer to my bedroom, but we were still a floor apart. I picked up the telephone.

“Hello,” I said wearily.

“Um…uh… hi, Adam,” said the person on the other end of the line. I didn't recognize the voice immediately. It sounded a bit confused and unsure, which was weird because whoever it was knew he was calling me. Why should he sound so confused?

“I, uh, need to talk to you about something.”

I started to notice a high-pitched quality to the voice. I still couldn't place it, but I knew I had heard it before.

“It won't take too long,” said the voice.

Then I noticed a
tattletale
quality to the voice. Eldrick Hooperberg!

“Do you have a minute?” the voice almost pleaded.

It was the mouldy cherry on my now miserable sundae of a day.

“You'll want to hear what I have to say,” he said as firmly as possible for him.

“There's nothing you can say that I am interested in,” I told him wearily.

“You'll talk to me if you don't want me to say anything about Swedish Cousin Olaf—or should I say, Cousin
Daniela
,” said Eldrick.

So he knew the truth about Daniela. Great! I was too exhausted to deal with Eldrick right then, but I figured it would be a good idea to find out if he had a plan hidden up his scrawny sleeve. After all, snitching was part of his repertoire.

“Fine, meet me at my locker tomorrow morning,” I said, hanging up before he had a chance to respond.

I went straight to Daniela's room and knocked on the door. But it wasn't Daniela who answered. It was Olaf!

“What do you think, Adam?” asked my new Swedish cousin.

Daniela was wearing the blond wig and she had a new black fedora perched on top of it. She wore a pair of funky red sunglasses and black vinyl boots. Lisa, Sarah, and the rest of the girls at school were going to go crazy!

“I went to Orchard Mall after school and picked up a few things,” said Daniela. “But it was hard to get a moment to myself. I swear every girl in the sixth grade was at the mall today. And they kept bugging me to tell them where Olaf went. Finally, I gave in and joined Sarah in the hunt for him.”

“He's become pretty popular,” I agreed.

“Want to see what else I bought for our famous, Swedish, rock-star cousin?” she asked.

I nodded enthusiastically, forgetting all about my morning meeting with Eldrick Hooperberg.

E
ldrick was waiting for me at my locker.

“You've got twenty seconds,” I said to him flatly.

“I know the truth about Daniela,” he said quietly.

“And what exactly is that?” I said, playing along with him.

“That she's Cousin Olaf.”

“So?” I waited to see where he was going with this.

He was getting ready to play his hand. “I'll stay quiet about it if you give me something in return.”

“Yeah? And what is it that you want?” I waited for some stupid request like a date with Daniela or to stop giving him dirty looks when he passed by my locker.

“I want to join Sick on a Snow Day.”

Finally, he had shown his cards—and he was carrying the ace of blackmail! His plan was so bold that I was almost impressed.

He mustered up all of his courage. “Let me play triangle in your band or I'll tell the whole school the truth about Olaf.”

“And what if you did?” I said, calling his bluff. “You think the rest of the school really cares if it's Daniela or Olaf who's singing?”

“Yes! And I suspect that it's not just the rest of the school that will care if Olaf ceases to exist. What about Daniela? I'm guessing that she needs him,” said Eldrick. “Besides, look around, Adam.”