101 Ways to Bug Your Friends and Enemies (18 page)

“You will share secrets with a new
hic!
friend
,” Hiccup quoted,
“while imbibing a liqhic! refreshment.”

“That's right, Hector!” Joonbi said, impressed. “You'll join us, yes?”

“Love
to! Where are we going?” Goldie said, whirling between us from behind a tree. “To the place where true
looooove
blossomed?”

“HIC!-HIC!”
said Hiccup with a squirm of humiliation.

“Who
are
you?” Joonbi asked. “I already said no to an interview.”

Goldie
tsked
. “I
told
you at lunch: I'm
Goldie Laux
, the
Snoop with the Scoop!
I always get my . . .
information
. ‘No' is simply
not
in my dictionary.”

“Vocabulary,” I said.

“What
ever
. It's not in either one.”

Ace appeared in his magical fashion. “Then how about:
Go away
?”

Goldie stamped a hoof and started to shove him.

Ace stared at her over his sunglasses as if he'd detected a curious species of beetle squashed beneath his shoe. Goldie sidled away.

“Who are
you
?” Joonbi asked Ace.

He shrugged. “Is Hayley here?”

“Who's Hayley?” Joonbi asked.

“Hic!”
said Hiccup.

“She, he, they're all sorta friends of mine,” I sorta explained.

“Hayley's at Gadabout. She's
always
at Gadabout,” Goldie said, tapping her teeth with her gnawed pen. “You know that, Ace.”

Ace shrugged.

“Steve, you have so many pals!” Joonbi said. “I've never lived anywhere long enough to make real friends. Smoothies for everyone—my treat! Would all of you like to come to my birthday party? It's next weekend. I'm turning thirteen. Umma said I could have a pool party and invite whomever I want. Bring—what's her name?—Hayley too! The party will be at the Lemon County Country Club.”

“Ooo
, I wouldn't miss it!” Goldie gushed. “Mother lunched there last week and said the watercress-and-cream-cheese sandwiches are to
die
for!
Ooo
, and she spotted
Chandler Scirocco
, the snooty soap star, sashaying out of the ladies' room with
toilet paper
stuck to her shoe! Can you
imagine
?”

Joonbi slipped an arm through mine and buzzed me down the street. “I think you should write a sequel to your book. I could help you! With five older sisters, I've had plenty of experience as the buggee. Truth!”

“Sneeze already wrote a sequel,” Goldie said.
“101 Ways to Bug Your Teachers.”

“It was more a list than an actual book,” I said, “and it was for my personal use only, because—”

“I was thinking of
101 Ways to Bug Your Siblings,”
Joonbi said.

Goldie gushed, “That's a
fab
idea!”

“I'm not interested in writing another book,” I said.

Hiccup hic-snorted.

“I'm
not,
” I insisted, walking faster.

Goldie trotted to keep pace. “But I can see the headline now!
Brainy Bugging Boy Busily Brushes Up on Ways to Badger, Bother, and Bedevil Brothers!”

“And sisters!” Joonbi added.

“I got into enough trouble writing the first two books,” I said. “So the answer is
No. Nope. Never!”

We'd arrived at Lickety-Split Chick. I reached for the door.

Ace stopped, his warning calm. “You don't want to do that.”

“Do what—say no?” I asked. “I've got the right to not do anything I don't want to do!” I yanked. The cowbell clanged. Joonbi, Goldie, and Hiccup filed past me.

“Stephen.” Ace sauntered backward.
“You don't want to go in there
.”

“I'm
thirsty
.” I turned my back on him and speed-walked to the polished counter where a kid in an egg-yolk-colored uniform and a beak-red paper hat posed behind the cash register, ready to take our order and—

“Pierre!”
Goldie shriek-gloated.

Pierre, aka Fee-leep, paled and clutched at the Lickety-Split badge over his heart. “Oh,
CAROTTE!”
he spat.

“So
this
is where you've been hiding the last three months! No
wonder
I couldn't find you!
Never
in a bazillion years would I have looked”—Goldie's nose wrinkled—“
here!
W
hy
, Pierre?
Why
are you working at Lickety-Split,
hmm
?”

“Eet eez none of your beez wax!” Pierre said stiffly. Then his shoulders sagged. “Ah, eet eez of no use! Eye know you will chase me to zee endz of zee earth to learn zee truth.” He swept off his hat, crushing it between his hands. “Eye do eet for Papa. Zis bistro, she eez loozing money and we are, 'ow you say, short'anded.”

Goldie rolled her eyes. “There's
got
to be a better reason. You
despise
this place with every fiber of your croissants!” She scrutinized the restaurant as if a juicier explanation lurked in the saltshakers or was encoded in the chicken-feet hieroglyphics.

“Philip!”
a girl shouted from the kitchen.

Alarm bells tolled, sirens wailed in my head.

It was the same voice I'd heard yesterday . . .

. . . and this afternoon in front of Patrick Henry High. “You didn't greet those customers with a ‘
Welcome to Lickety-Split Chick,'”
the voice said, “and I've already told you three times today that if you insist on straying from the script I'll be forced to write you up, not that I have time to keep reprimanding you, my boyfriend will be here any minute for our dinner date—”

“Do not ruffle zee featherz!” Pierre half yelled, half crooned, his face now the color of his hat. “All eez well, eye assure—wait! You 'ave a
date
? Wis a
man
?”

“No, with a chicken! What are you hiding, your tone sounds weird, what's going on, don't make me come out there—”

“No, pleeze, my leetle sweet beak!” Panic overwhelmed Pierre's words. “Eye beg of you, Juliette, do not bothaire yourself wis—”

“Ooo
!” Goldie yipped.
“I know that voice!”

“Unfortunately, I—
hic!
—as well,” Hiccup said.

“It's
July
!” Goldie exclaimed.

“Who's July?” Joonbi asked.
“Another
pal of yours?”

“Zey wish!” Pierre said. “My Juliette, she eez too fine to assoceeate wis zee likes of zem!”

Goldie yipped again. “The Queen of the Clubs, working
here
!
Ooo
, what a comedown.
Ooo
, what a scoop!”

“I'm not your little sweet beak and don't call me Juliette!”

July Smith stormed from the kitchen, her slender hands dusted with flour, apron splotched with grease and gravy. Her face had a flushed sheen to it from working in the hot kitchen; wisps of dark hair escaped her French braid, curling against her cheeks.

No wonder Ace had warned me! After all, July Smith was his sister. A little-known fact he took great pains to keep a little-known fact. (Why, you ask? That's another story.)

“It's obvious you can't handle these customers, Philip,” July said, “so take your break now, then I can escape this hen hole as soon as my boyfriend—”

She froze. Arced a dark, elegant brow. Glared at me.

“YOU,
” she said.

I gulped and managed a thin smile. “In the flesh.”

“I DESPISE you, LOATHE you, it's ALL YOUR FAULT I'm stuck at Patrick Henry, it's ALL YOUR FAULT I'm working in THIS . . . THIS . . . THIS—”

“Don't blame him for your
hic!
mistakes,” Hiccup countered. “If you hadn't tried to steal the
hic!
alarm—”

July jabbed a floury finger into Pierre's chest. “Is Sneeze Wyatt a friend of yours? IS HE?”

Pierre choked. “Eye—eye no speeka zee Eengleesh, mademoiselle.”

July glared at Goldie, then Hiccup, then jabbed at Pierre again. “I know you, all three of you, you're all with Sneeze, I remember you from the district Invention Convention® last spring when you had me disqualified!”

Pierre shredded his hat into confetti. “Eye told you yesterday not to return, Sneeze. But deed you listen? No! And now you 'ave blown my deesguise! My true identity would 'ave continued to elude Juliette eef eet were not for you!”

July gave a tinkly laugh. “THAT'S supposed to be a DISGUISE? What a laugh! I knew immediately you had to be the owner's pathetic son. Why else would he give a job to a kid with a weird speech impediment and a Magic Marker fetish?”

“I smell a
scoop
!” Goldie shoved her microphone beneath Pierre's moosetache. “Tell us,
Fee-leep
, what's the
real
reason you're working here?”

Pierre flung out his arms, showering confetti. “Eye confess! At first, eye work 'ere only to 'elp Papa. But zen—zen eet eez becuz eye fall in love!”

Goldie's eyes glittered. “With
who
?”

“Wis Juliette!”

“With
hic!
July?” Hiccup said.

“With
me
?” July asked.

“I can see the headline!” Goldie said.
“King of the Kitchen Falls for Queen of the Clubs
!”

“Are you
hic!
daft, man?” Hiccup demanded. “How can you feel affection for
her
?! I am the first to admit that Sneeze's faults are plentiful—and annoying!—but that was no reason for this woman to wrong him. She lacks
hic!
morals! She lacks
hic!
scruples! She is guilty of trademark infringe
hic!
ment”

“Eet eez true, eye
am
cray-zee! Cray-zee wis love!” Pierre bent down on one knee and clasped July's flour-y hands. “Juliette, now zat eye 'ave reveeled my feeleengs for you, pleeze tell me: Do eye 'ave your 'eart? Just say zee word and eye shall bee yours for eeterneetee!”

We all looked at July.

We all held our breaths.

“Yuck,” July said.

“I quit,” July said.

She yanked off her greasy apron. Dropped it onto Pierre's head. “And don't call me Juli—”

The cowbell clanged as a customer entered. A waft of pungent aftershave, mingled with peppermint, itch-tickled my nose.

My neck prickled with chicken skin.

“Ready for dinner, babe?” asked Marcos the Moke.

My heart jackhammered in my chest.

“Well, well, well,” Marcos said with a little smile. He strode toward us, his cleated golf shoes crunch-clacking across the chicken tracks. “Look who it is: my favorite post-nasal drip.”

I managed a weak laugh. “Ha-ha, that's pretty good.” I edged behind the counter. “You've been boning up on your puns!”

“Zis
eez zee boyfriend, Juliette?” Pierre asked. He gave Marcos the once-over, taking in the PHHSVGT uniform with distaste. “You prefer zee
jock
to zee
Jacques
?”

“And the Drip has his little adenoids with him again,” Marcos added, popping a peppermint. “How cute.”

July grabbed a purse and her cape. “I'm ready to get out of here anytime you are, Marcos.
And I'm not coming back
,” she shot at Pierre.

“Eez zat zee threat . . . or zee promise?” Pierre shot back.

“Be with you in five, babe,” Marcos said. “First I need to have a little ‘chat' with Banana Nose here. You know, the punk with the monkey food on his face.” In one swift movement, he hopped the counter.

I inched backward into the kitchen. Bumped into a sink. Banged into hanging pots and pans. A lid clattered to the floor.

I looked wildly around for something, anything I could use to defend myself.

“Pssst!
”

I glanced behind me.

Ace lounged in the doorjamb of the emergency exit. He beckoned with one nonchalant finger.

I faced Marcos again. He'd moved closer—too close!—with the calculated stealth of a mountain lion. Then he smiled, turned his hat backward—and pounced.

I scooted beneath one of the tables. Marcos caught the loose tail of my hapkido belt and yanked. I belly flopped, my nose connecting with—
ow
!—a metal drain. Marcos yanked again, dragging me toward him. I kicked blindly. Marcos grunted and let go. I scrabbled to my feet and shoved the garbage onto the floor.

The contents spewed.

Marcos and his cleats slipped—

tripped—

and sprawled in a slough of gizzards, gravy, and rotting banana peels.

He roared. Struggled to rise. But Joonbi was on him, wrenching his arm behind his back.

July rushed in, cape billowing, hand to her mouth.

Marcos lifted his head, spitting, sputtering, face splattered, dripping. An orange rind replaced his hat; a banana peel dangled from one ear.

I shouldn't have said it. I really shouldn't have. But I couldn't resist: “Ho! Look who's got monkey food on his face now!”

She shouldn't have done it. She really shouldn't have.

July
laughed
.

Marcos's face purpled.

No humiliate dat moke a third time. It could be your last . . .
Marcos roared again and slip-struggled to his feet, bucking Joonbi.