The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball (20 page)

Erin Channing

“You see, I told you she would be here.”

I look up, startled to hear Lindsay's voice. She and Samantha are walking toward me. (Well, Lindsay is walking. Samantha is stopping and starting in a sort of limp-hobble because her three-inch heels keep sinking into the grass.)

“What are you doing out here?” Samantha asks, semi-distracted. “It's all dirty and there are, like, bugs and things.” She swats at the air around her face, and then smirks at my white jeans. “I'll bet you anything you have grass stains on your butt.”

“I wrote my essay,” I say proudly, holding up my notebook. “I finally figured out what to write about.”

Samantha rolls her eyes. “Um, that's great. I'm really happy for you. But don't you want to know if your best friend got kicked out of school today or not?”

Oh my God
.

I was so wrapped up in my presentation and my fight with Jesse and my essay for the trip, I forgot all about Lindsay.

“Of course! I'm so sorry! What happened? Tell me everything.”

Lindsay plops down next to me on the grass, while Samantha takes off her sweater (it's an old one, I notice) and carefully lays it down, gently lowering herself on top of it. Once she's sitting, she kicks off her shoes, and her whole body seems to unstiffen at once.

“Well, it was
so
crazy,” Lindsay begins. “My mom and I are in Mr. Baker's office, sitting across from his desk, and he starts explaining that they've uncovered a cheating ring. And then he says that Megan Crowley was in charge of it, but they have evidence that I was helping her. And I swear to God, if I hadn't been so scared I would have just burst out laughing at how clueless he is, to think that
I
would help Megan Crowley with
anything
. I mean, it's like the teachers have no idea what goes on in that place every day. None.”

“So what happened?”

“So, I'm just about to lose it and start swearing on my mother's life that I had nothing to do with it, when the secretary opens the door and says that she urgently needs to speak to Mr. Baker. So he goes outside to talk to her, and then a minute later he comes back in and his face is all red, and he apologizes. Like, ten times. He looks all sheepish and says there seems to have been a misunderstanding, and I should go back to class and forget this ever happened. And my mom and I are, like, what? But when we leave the office—mind you I'm shaking from head to toe and I can barely even walk—who do I see waiting outside Mr. Baker's door?”

“Chris Bollmer,” I answer.

Lindsay and Samantha both look surprised.

“How did you know that?” Lindsay asks. I smile and raise my eyebrows.

“Magic,” I tell her.

Samantha gives me a ride back to school, and I walk into the Art Department office just as Mr. Wallace is packing up his things. “Hello, Erin,” he says, looking pleasantly surprised to see me. “Your ears must have been burning, because I was just telling some of my colleagues about how impressed I was with your presentation today. Your interpretation of
Camo-Outgrowth
was quite sophisticated.”

I blush and nervously shift my weight from side to side.

“Thanks, but, um, I actually need to talk to you about that. The presentation, I mean.”

Mr. Wallace blinks behind his glasses as he sits back down in his chair. “Okay. Go ahead.”

I swallow back the lump in my throat, using all of my composure to keep the tears from coming. “Okay. This is really hard, but, well, I know it seemed like Jesse wasn't prepared, but he really was. I think he was just nervous or something.”

Mr. Wallace nods sympathetically as he strokes at the little goatee on his chin like it's a pet.

“But this was an oral presentation,” he reminds me. “Part of your grade was based on your ability to present the material to the class.”

I sigh. I can see that Mr. Wallace isn't going to make this easy for me. “I understand. But he was also really upset with me, and I think that may have affected his presentation also.”

Mr. Wallace raises an eyebrow at me. “Why was he upset with you?”

I keep picturing the tattoo on the inside of Jesse's arm: Truth. Truth. Truth. It repeats itself over and over and over.

“Because I didn't show up for our last trip to the museum last night. And I didn't help him work on the presentation at all. Jesse did everything. I mean, not everything. I went to the museum the first two times and I helped pick the first two paintings. But he picked
Camo-Outgrowth
on his own.” I swallow and look down at the floor. “It was just a coincidence that I already knew that piece really well.”

Mr. Wallace leans back in his chair, his eyes unreadable. “I see,” he says. He strokes his goatee again and lets out a long sigh. “Well, Erin, I appreciate that you told me the truth. But you didn't complete the assignment. Each person was supposed to visit the museum three times, and you only went twice.” He shakes his head regretfully. “I was going to give you an A minus, but based on this information, I'm going to have to lower that by at least a full grade.”

A full grade. That brings me to a B minus, which would bring my average in the class down to a B plus. Which means I won't qualify for the trip. My eyes begin to sting.

“I'm disappointed in you, Erin,” Mr. Wallace continues. “And not just because you didn't do the work. I'm disappointed that you let your partner down.”

There's a pesky teardrop, just like the one my mom shed. I don't say anything back to Mr. Wallace. I just fumble through my backpack, looking for the essay. I went through a lot of blood and sweat (and yes, tears) to write that thing—okay, maybe just a little bit of sweat and not so much blood, but still—there's no way I'm going to just throw it away. He'll have to do that himself.

“Here,” I manage to say, lying it down on the desk. “Not that it really matters anymore.” I turn around and walk out of the office, leaving Mr. Wallace alone with his goatee.

***

At nine o'clock that night, a green jellybean sails through my window.

What the hell?

I get up from my math homework and pick it up off of my carpet. As I'm examining it, I hear a
plink
against my window, and then a red jellybean comes flying through, hitting me on the back. It has to be Samantha. She probably snuck out of the house and wants me to accompany her on a road trip to God knows where. Las Vegas, probably.

I lean out the window, ready to yell at her, but then I stop.

It's not Samantha. It's Jesse.

“What are you doing?” I ask in a stage whisper.

“I'm trying to hit you with Jelly Bellies,” he stage-whispers back, grinning. “I nailed you with that cinnamon one.”

“I'm coming down,” I tell him. “Meet me on the side of the house, by the laundry room door.”

I grab a pile of dirty clothes out of my hamper and tiptoe down the stairs, hoping that my parents won't hear me. I wince as one of the treads creaks under my weight.

“Erin, is that you?” my mom yells from her bedroom.

“Yeah,” I call back. “Just taking some stuff down to the laundry room.”

I make it the rest of the way uninterrupted and quickly dump the clothes on top of the washing machine. I'm beyond baffled. Jesse is done with me, but now here he is, acting like everything is okay. Here he is,
grinning
and throwing Jelly Bellies at me. I wonder if maybe the Flamingo Kids turned him onto drugs, or he suddenly came down with short-term amnesia and he can't remember anything from the last twenty-four hours…I run my hands over my hair and open the door, realizing too late that I'm wearing my Barry Manilow T-shirt.

“Hi,” I say, trying not to blush.

“Hi,” he says. “Is that a Barry Manilow concert T-shirt?” he asks.

“You like ‘Copacabana,'” I remind him defensively.

He laughs. “Yeah, but I didn't go to the concert.”

I cross my arms in front of my chest to cover up Barry's face. “Did you want something?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them.

He looks at me with those blue, blue eyes, and my heart aches inside my chest like it's a rotten, throbbing tooth.

“Yeah,” he says. “Mr. Wallace called me. He told me what you did. He's giving me a B plus.”

“So, is your GPA high enough for the trip?” I whisper, staring at the floor.

“Yeah. By about a tenth of a point.” He puts his hand under my chin and tilts my face up, the way he did that night at the hot spring. Just thinking about the night at the hot spring makes my legs go weak, and I feel like they're going to buckle underneath me. “But he told me that he's giving you a B minus.” He looks at me searchingly. “Why did you do it?”

I shrug, trying to pretend that it's no big deal, even though I know that he knows that it is. “It was the right thing to do. And besides, you deserve to go to Italy more than I do. You had a much better reason.”

Jesse leans in and kisses me.

“I was really hoping that we'd be able to go together,” he says.

Now the tears are escaping, rolling down my face, but screw it—I wrap my arms around him and bury my head in his soft yellow T-shirt, my cheek pressed against him. “Me too,” I choke, barely able to get the words out.

We stand there, hugging each other for a few minutes, while I cry and cry, letting out all of my tears: the ones for letting him down, the ones for not being able to explain why, the ones for embarrassing him in front of the whole class, the ones for not being able to go to Italy, the ones for him going to Italy without me. Finally I pull back from him.

“I'm sorry,” I say. “For everything.”

He wipes my wet cheeks with his fingertips, brushing my tears away into the ether. “It's okay. I don't know what's going on, but I know you were doing something to help Lindsay, and I get it. Friends come first. It's how it should be.” He stands back. “Hey, speaking of Lindsay, did you hear about Chris Bollmer? He confessed that he hacked into Mrs. Newman's computer and made it look like Megan Crowley had stolen those math tests. And he said that he'd been trying to frame Lindsay too. He was mad at her for not, like, bowing down before him after Megan got kicked out. Anyway, Mr. Baker expelled him. But then the police came. They're talking about charging him for breaking into the school's computer system, and he might have to go a juvenile detention center. Can you believe that?”

“No,” I say, both shocked and pretending to be shocked by the news. “That's crazy.”

“Actually, that not's even the craziest part. The craziest part is that when he was telling his story to the police, he kept saying that there was a magic ball that was going to get him if he didn't come clean.”

My heart thumps so loudly I'm worried Jesse can hear it. “Wow,” I say. “That really is crazy. Lizzie and Matt and Cole must be having a field day.”

Jesse rolls his eyes. “You have no idea.”

I bite my lip. I feel kind of bad for Chris. I mean, he's getting what he deserves—he did hack into a school computer and frame other people for doing it—but still. I can't help but think about Megan wanting to be a vet. It makes me wonder if Chris had dreams for his future too.

“I should get back inside,” I say. “I don't want my parents to think that I'm actually doing laundry or anything. They might start expecting it from me.”

Jesse laughs. “Okay. I'll see you tomorrow?”

I lean in and give him a light peck on the cheek. “Yes. I will definitely see you tomorrow.”

At lunch the next day, things are totally back to normal. Or, as Samantha likes to text, back to the way things were BTWAB (Before Things Went All Bizarre). Samantha and Lindsay and I are sitting at our usual table. Meanwhile Megan, Chloe, Brittany, and Madison huddle together at a table on the other side of the cafeteria. I see Jesse walk in through the side door, and I wave to him across the room. He waves back and heads toward us, giving me a kiss on the cheek as he reaches our table.

Okay. So maybe things aren't
totally
back to BTWAB.

The whole room is buzzing with the news about Chris Bollmer. Everywhere you turn, someone is talking about him or Lindsay or Megan's email about Lindsay. It's, like,
the
gossip event of the century. It could have its own Barbara Walters Special (with Lizzie, Matt, and Cole as cohosts, natch).

“I still can't believe everything worked out,” Lindsay whispers, squirming in her seat. Her dimple is back. It's the first time I've seen it in a while.

Samantha arches an eyebrow and gives me a knowing look. “It
is
pretty amazing. But it would be so much more amazing if we knew what you said in that email to Chris Bollmer.”

Just as I am about to remark that I have no idea what she's talking about, Megan and her posse stride up to our table. A few people at the table next to us nudge each other, and like a crowd doing the wave at a football game, a hush spreads out across the room. I look around at the sudden quiet, and once again, I see hundreds of eyes watching, waiting to see what is going to happen next.

Lindsay freezes, and the old fear creeps into her face. I give Megan a look, warning her with my eyes not to do anything stupid.

But Megan simply smiles.

“Hi, Lindsay,” she says brightly.

Lindsay looks around, not sure what to do. I know exactly what she's thinking. She's thinking that she can't believe Megan actually called her by her real name.

“Um, hi?” Lindsay says. It comes out as a question, like:
Do you really expect me to be nice to you after two years of torture, just because you apologized to me in an email?

“I just wanted to say how relieved I am that that lunatic isn't at school anymore,” Megan continues. “For both of us.” She looks around, lowering her voice so that the whole room doesn't hear, and when she turns back to us, I can see just the slightest hint of worry in her eyes. I smile to myself. So she does believe it. She really does believe that Lindsay has magic powers. I
love
that.

“Also, I wanted to say that I hope there are no hard feelings between us. I mean, I think it would be nice if we could be friends. Like, why not, right?”

Lindsay gives Megan a you-can't-possibly-be-serious look, and Samantha covers her mouth with both hands.

“I'm pretty happy with the friends I have,” Lindsay answers. “But thanks anyway.”

“Oh,” Megan says. The fake smile that she pastes onto her face doesn't do much to hide her shock. “Okay, well, I'm around…” She doesn't finish. She just lowers her head and slinks off, her groupies following her back to their corner.

“Oh my God,” Samantha hisses, finally letting go of her mouth. “That was so amazing! You were like, ‘Sorry, bitch, TTYN!'”

Jesse turns to me, a puzzled look on his face.

“Talk to you never,” I translate.

Lindsay lets out a loud, satisfied sigh. “I've been waiting for that. You don't know how long…”

Jesse raises his milk carton.

“Well then, I propose a toast,” he says quietly, as the rest of the cafeteria processes what just happened. “To Lindsay.”

Samantha and I raise our cartons to touch his.

“To Lindsay,” we all whisper together.

***

As lunch winds down and people start throwing their stuff away and going off to their lockers, I notice that Samantha is transfixed on something on the other side of the room. I follow her eyes. It's Aiden.

“I was able to fix everything but you and Aiden,” I say to her. “I'm sorry.”

She breaks her gaze and turns to look at me.

“
Au contraire, mon frère
,” she says. “Aiden got fixed all by himself. Trance broke up with him last night. Turns out she's been cheating on him for months with some guy in community college, and she finally told him. He came crawling back to me with his tail between his legs this morning.”

I'm not sure if I want to be happy or barf. “So…are you going out with him now?”

Samantha laughs, like I've just said the most ridiculous thing ever. “Oh please. I told him to try digging through a different trash can. I mean, is he kidding? Like I would go out with him after the way he treated me?”

I lean in and lower my voice, so that Jesse won't hear me. “But maybe it was the ball,” I remind her.

“Ball, schmall,” she whispers. “He treated me like crap, and that's that. I've moved on. Aiden is
so
last week.” She glances longingly at him again.

“Really?”

“Okay, maybe not
really
, but he doesn't need to know that.” She giggles. “I'll torture him for a few months. It'll be fun. Maybe I'll even go out with that singer from the Flamingo Kids. He did say they were coming back, remember?”

I groan. “Please, no more concerts. My hoodie is officially retired.”

Jesse taps me on the shoulder. “What are you guys whispering about over there, huh?”

Samantha smiles at him brightly. “Oh nothing. Erin was just saying how she can't wait to go to another Flamingo Kids concert.”

Jesse laughs. “You're lying.”

Samantha laughs too, and I give her the evil eye.

“You suck,” I whisper to her.

“You wouldn't have me any other way,” she whispers back.

***

Jesse and I hold hands as we walk down the hallway to AP Art History. “I don't know if I can face Mr. Wallace,” I admit. “Do you think he hates me now?”

“Not possible. No one could hate you. Besides, what you did took a lot of guts.”

We pause outside the doorway and he gives me a long kiss on the mouth, right in front of everyone. “It's so hard for me to concentrate in there, knowing that you're just two rows behind me, and I can't touch you,” he whispers when he's done.

“Well, it's worse for me. I have to just sit there, staring at the back of your head. Talk about distracting.”

He kisses me again, but we're suddenly interrupted by Maya Franklin.

“First of all, you two should get a room. And second of all, Erin, I heard about your B minus. That's really too bad.”

I swallow. “Yeah, well, congratulations. I guess you're number one now.”

Maya pretends to think about it for the first time. “Oh, wow. I am number one, aren't I? Gosh, I hadn't even realized that…”

The bell rings. We take our seats, and I have to suffer through Phoebe and Emily's presentation. Yawn! And I'm not being a hater or anything. It's just that, compared to ours, it's awful. It's unimaginative and predictable, and…well, for lack of a better term, it's inside the box. Even though I don't feel like crying, I can't help but be pissed. My B minus is so undeserved.

I try to distract myself by staring at Jesse. I look at every part of his body, trying to remember which parts I've felt and what they felt like. The back of his neck, his shoulders, his lower back…all of a sudden he shifts in his seat, lifting his left heel up off of the ground so that the bottom of his Converse is exposed.

I see you looking.

I try to stifle a laugh. He turns his head around and gives me a quick wink.

***

When the bell rings, everyone claps for Emily and Phoebe. Mr. Wallace stands up at the front of the room, yelling his announcements over the noise, just like he did yesterday.

“Tomorrow we will hear from Christian and Maya, and don't forget, Italy applications are due in my box by five o'clock today! Also, Erin Channing, would you please stay for a moment after class? I need to talk to you.”

Jesse and I exchange worried glances, and he signals that he'll meet me in the hallway when I'm done.

I wait as Carolyn Strummer corners Mr. Wallace with a question about the Italian Renaissance, and my heart is pounding as he gives her what might possibly be the longest answer in the history of answers. What could he want with me? Maybe he thought about it and decided that a B minus wasn't low enough. Or, maybe he's decided that lowering my grade isn't enough, and he's going to give me detention. Again. My hands get clammy as I consider all of the possibilities.

Finally, Carolyn leaves the room and Mr. Wallace waves me up to his desk. My strategy is to beat him to the punch on whatever he's going to say. I'm hoping that if I show him that I know he went easy on me, he'll be less inclined to punish me anymore.

“Mr. Wallace, I just want to tell you that I know you could have been a lot harder on me, and if you feel like you need to do more, I totally understand.”

Mr. Wallace furrows his brow. “Erin, I didn't ask you to stay so that I could lay more consequences on you.”

“You didn't?”

The faint hint of a smile crosses his face. “No. I asked you to stay because I read your essay last night. For the Italy trip.”

I don't understand. He must know that I don't qualify with a B minus on my presentation. So why would he read my essay if I'm not even eligible to go on the trip?

“But why?” I ask.

“Well, I was impressed with what you did for Jesse. If you remember, one of the things we're looking for is character. And what you did yesterday really proved to me what a strong character you have. So I was curious to see what you wrote.” He sighs. “I have to tell you, I was skeptical about this idea. I told the principal not to get his hopes up. I told him that it would probably be just a bunch of kids who only want to go because they think it will beef up their college applications. But it seems I underestimated you. Your reason for wanting to go is exactly what we were hoping for.”

“But I got a B minus,” I hear myself remind him. “My grade in the class will never be an A minus now. I'm disqualified.”

He nods. “I know. And the B minus stands.”

My heart sinks. For a minute there, I thought he was going to reinstate my original grade.

“So that's it? You just wanted to tell me how great my essay was, and how sorry you are that I'm going to miss out on the trip?”

“No,” he says. “I wanted to tell you how great your essay was, and I wanted to offer you some extra credit work that could bring your GPA back up to an A minus.”

I stare at him for a moment, speechless.

“Do you have anything to say?” he asks.

“Really? Really? Oh my God. Thank you, Mr. Wallace. Thank you so much! You have no idea how much this means to me.”

He laughs and hands me a thick folder. “Don't get too excited. You haven't seen the work yet.”

“I don't care. Whatever it is, I will do it. I will write essays in Italian—I mean, first I'd have to learn Italian, and then I would write the essays, but whatever. I just want to go on this trip.” I pause for second. “But what's the work?”

“I'd like you to write a ten-page paper discussing the role of superstition and magic in artwork from the Renaissance period.”

I stare at him, waiting for him to tell me that this is a joke, that Samantha and Lindsay put him up to this. But he just strokes his goatee, and I realize that it's not a joke at all. He's dead serious.

A smile spreads across my face.

“I can do that,” I tell him confidently.

“That's good, because you have to turn it in before we make our announcement on Monday.”

***

When I get outside in the hallway, Jesse is waiting for me. I jump up and down.

“What? What is it? What happened?”

I tell him the news and he gives me a huge hug, lifting me off the ground and spinning me around in a circle.

“We're going to Italy!” I squeal. “And I'm still going to have the highest GPA in tenth grade!”

Jesse laughs, but then suddenly his face turns serious.

“What?” I ask him. “What's wrong?”

“Well,
you're
going to Italy. But how do we know that they're going to pick me too?”

I think about this for a second, and then I shrug.

“We don't, really.” I tell him. “But I just have a feeling, the same way that you had a feeling not to get on that boat with your mom and your brother.”

Jesse gives my hand a little squeeze. “You know what?”

“What?”

“So do I.”