101 Ways to Bug Your Friends and Enemies (20 page)

“Uh-huh,” I said, thinking it a fine coincidence that we were talking about Goldie at the same moment I was peering into the odiferous bilge of the Pirate Ship.
“Pee-yew!
Hayley, hold the flashlight a little higher, will you? And hand me that wrench. I need to tighten these bolts.”

“I feel kinda sorry for Pierre, though,” Hayley went on.

“He's an insufferable snob, but still! Goldie didn't need to strew pieces of his broken heart for the whole school to see. And poor Hiccup! He's taken to his bed, did you know?”

I shook my head. Despite his moment of thawing at Lickety-Split on Wednesday, and a few curt greetings since then, we still hadn't reconciled.

Hayley snorted. “You two are acting ridiculous. You should call him. I did. Last night. But Mrs. Denardo wouldn't let me talk to him. She said he won't be at school next week. He's got a bad case of shingles. Huh. If you ask me, it's actually a bad case of
chagrin
. He must be mortified everyone knows about his crush on Joonbi.”

I sidled the subject of Hiccup by asking: “Are you sure you're not bothered by what Goldie wrote? You know, about you not being up to Cullen's par?”

Hayley snorted again. “Shows how much Goldie knows! If she read even
one
of my letters from Cullen—”

I dropped the wrench. It landed on my big toe, but the pain was nothing compared to the white-hot panic that seared my stomach. “Hayley! You're not actually going to let Goldie read—”

She snorted a third time. “Never ever. You're the only person I've shared his letters with.” Eyes dreamy, she sank onto the turf, her back against the ship's hull. “His letters . . . they just keep getting better and better and better . . .”

Yeah, yeah, yeah
. On one hand, I reveled in Hayley's compliments. But on the other, it was kinda weird being my own rival and all.

“. . . he's been writing me for four days now. Don't you think it's time I wrote him back?”

“What?” I said.
“What? NO!”

Hayley's dreaminess evaporated, narrowed into an SOS.
“Why. Not?
His letters are so beautiful. They deserve a response! Besides, I want to do more than just
read
. I want to write to Cullen,
talk
to Cullen, let him know what I think and how I feel.”

“But he asked you
not
to write him, Hayley!”

“I know, but—”

“You haven't even known him a week!”

“I know, but—”

I kneeled in front of her. Stared directly into the depths of her ice-cream-cold blue eyes. “Promise. Promise me you won't do anything stupid.”

“Stupid?”
Her chin tilted. “Is it
stupid
to want a two-way conversation with someone you like? How else are people supposed to get to know each other!”

“I'm sure Cullen knows what he's doing,” I said. “Wait a bit longer. Play it safe. You don't want your dad finding out.”

“You're really worried about that, aren't you? That's . . . nice.” She gave me a quick hug. Her peach scent penetrated even the noxious fumes of the bilge.

My head swooned.

I picked up the wrench again, polishing it furiously with a rag so she couldn't see my face. “I just don't want you getting hurt,” I said.

And that was the tricky part. I couldn't,
shouldn't
keep up the charade much longer. Hayley had fallen harder than ever for Cullen—and all because of me! But how could “he” end things with Hayley without causing her to suffer? It seemed my clever little plan had totally imploded . . .

 

“Ho! What's da haps, Steve?” Cullen said the following Thursday as he lumbered into CAD. He stowed his pack and settled into his chair. “You been working round the clock on da drawings for da Nice Alarm?”

“Yep. How did you know?” I said with a wide yawn. I closed my eyes, laid my head on the desk. The hum of the computers created muffled, lulling ocean sounds, like when you hold a seashell to your ear.

“Mebbe 'cuz you look buss up, ready to crash.”

Ha. Mebbe 'cuz along with working on the alarm the last five days, I'd been:

“What was the question again?” I asked with another yawn.

Cullen chuckled.

“Actually, the Nice Alarm drawings are easy as pie,” I said. “It's my trig and and chem classes that are killing me.”

“Need any help, brah? Neva wen take trig. But t'ree years ago, I got one A in chem. I could tutor you dis weekend. Come for dinner, eh? Auntie make ono—delicious—
huli huli
chicken.”

Man this guy is nice
, I thought with a guilty wince. I really shouldn't accept his offer. But I really, really, really needed help.

“That'd be great,” I said. “Does Saturday work for you? I'm going to a birthday party in the afternoon, but it should be over by five. My mom could drop me at your place after that.”

Cullen shook his head. “No can. Big golf tournament dat day. If we win, we move on to da state championship. Coach going like fo' take us out fo' grinds afta da game to celebrate. How 'bout Sunday?”

“Sure.” We exchanged addresses and phone numbers.
“Mahalo
, Cull.”

He formed a fist with his thumb and pinkie finger sticking out. “Shaka, brah,” he answered.

 

Late that night, after I finally finished 1.) working on the Nice Alarm's cyber-drawings; 2.) oiling the Nice Alarm; 3.) writing three Cullen-letters to Hayley; and 4.) brushing my teeth, I had just hopped into bed and turned out the light when my computer beeped.

Maybe it was just one of those automatic messages reminding me about Joonbi's birthday party on Saturday afternoon. The e-mail certainly couldn't be from Hiccup. I'd heard he still had shingles. Besides, he hadn't bothered to forward me so much as an influenza vaccine schedule since he ceased being my bud.

So who . . .?

I clicked on the light. Clicked open the mail program . . .

. . . and felt a jumper-cable shock to my heart.

Why was Hayley writing to Cullen? Especially since she promised (she had promised, hadn't she?) that she wouldn't?

Curious fingers crept to the keyboard.

I had a point.

I gulped. Opened the message. Shut one eye and read with the other:

My heart went into cardiac arrest.

The directions at the bottom of Hayley's e-mail led Cullen directly inside the Great Pyramid.

I wrenched out of my chair and began to pace, eyes burning, fists and teeth clenched.

How could she do it? How could Hayley tell Cullen—
Cullen!
—about her secret hiding place?
Our
secret hiding place?

A strange, hot anger engulfed me. My hands grabbed the first thing they could find and, grunting like a troll, I hurled it across the room.

Lazy Lick, the electronic ice-cream-cone holder I'd invented, smashed into a jillion pieces against the wall.

I grabbed Cut 'n' Putt and flung it at the wall too.

Grunt.
CRASH.

I grabbed another invention. (Grunt.
CRASH.)
And another
. (Grunt. SMASH.)

I was just reaching to hurl See to Pee, the glow-in-thedark toilet seat, when Dad stumbled into the room.

He stared at me, wild-eyed, befuddled.

I stared at the toilet seat in my hand, then whisked it behind me, dropping it on the floor. “Nothing, Dad.”

“Nothing?”
He surveyed the damage and scratched his Einstein-like hair. “Do you consider an earthquake ‘nothing'?”

“What was that crash?”
Mom called sleepily from the master bedroom.
“David, is Steve all right?”

“Steve's fine, Barbara,” Dad answered. “I think.”

I snorted and flumped onto my bed.

A ridiculous laugh bubbled inside me.

“We're not snacking, Barbara!”

“But I smell ice cream!”

Another bubble laugh. I was getting hysterical. “How do you
smell
ice cream?” I asked Dad.

“She's six months pregnant,” he replied. “She can smell a double-dip of chocolate on the moon.” To Mom, he yelled: “A couple of Steve's inventions broke. I'll help him sweep up. Go back to sleep, honey.”

“Sure I'm sure!” He shot me a wary glance, then shuffled out of the room. Minutes later he shuffled back carrying a broom and dustpan.

With a sigh, I moved to help.

Dad waved me away.
“Are
you okay, Steve?” he asked, sweeping. “With your crazy schedule, we haven't had a chance to talk the last couple of weeks. Are you managing to juggle school and hapkido and Gadabout—?”

“Yeah.” I stared at the ceiling. The dimpled pattern reminded me of golf balls. I turned to stare at the Nice Alarm.

“You'd let me know if you weren't okay, though, right?”

“Right.”

“Don't lie to me, Stephen. I'm holding a broom and I know how to use it.” He waved it with false menace, dust bunnies and metal motes snowing onto his wild hair. He looked so silly, I laughed. A normal, non-crazed laugh.

“I'm not lying, Dad,” I said. “I just don't feel like talking now.”

“Fair enough.” He lowered the broom and swept the remains of my inventions into the dustpan. Then he dumped the lot into the trash. “But you'll let me know when you
are
ready?”

I nodded.

“G'night, then.”

“G'night.”

He flipped off the light.

When my door was almost closed, I called softly, almost hoping he wouldn't hear: “Hey, Dad?”

“Hm?”

“I have a—question.”

“If it's about electronic ice-cream cones—”

“It's not.”

“Then shoot.” He came back into the room.

“I was thinking about . . . lies. Have you ever told one?”

He cleared his throat. “What kind of lie are we talking here? I want to give you an honest answer, son. But as a Concerned and Responsible Dad, I have a duty to be a proper role model.”

“I don't mean the ‘Officer-I-swear-I-didn't-rob-that-bankdespite-the-one-hundred-thousand-dollars-poking-out-of- my-pocket' kind.”

“I see,” he said, chuckling. “More like when your mother asks:
‘David, do these pregnancy pants make my butt look big?'
and I answer
‘No'
?”

Mom hollered: “I can hear you!”

“The second kind,” I said, lowering my voice.

“Then the answer is yes,” Dad admitted.

“Did any of the lies . . . ever get out of hand? I mean, let's say, for example, you lied to someone for a really, really good reason.”

“Define ‘good.' ”

“To protect this someone, keep her from getting hurt.”

“Gotcha. Go on.”

I pulled my blanket around me. The frayed edge of satin tickled my chin. “And the lie I—you told,” I went on, “it not only kept her from getting hurt, but made her really, really happy. So happy that you told another lie and another and another. You didn't mean for things to go that far, but they did. And now you're not sure how to stop. Because if she finds out you lied, she just might hate me, I mean, you, I mean, whoever, for the rest of your life. Has that ever happened to you, Dad? And if it did, what should I—you do?”

Dad didn't answer right away. Instead, he made his way across the darkened room and perched on my bed. The springs squeaked.

“That's a prickly predicament, Stephen,” he said finally.