Bessica Lefter Bites Back (15 page)

“Why don’t you want to bring your gift?” she asked.

“Um,” I said. I worried that if I showed up to the party I wasn’t invited to with a lame present for Sylvie, my entire future with Sylvie would be in jeopardy.

“Wait one second,” I said as I walked back to my room.

“Don’t dawdle,” Grandma said. “We don’t want to be late.”

But I didn’t know if that was true.

I walked into my room, but I just couldn’t bring myself to get Sylvie’s present. I sat on my floor. How had I ended up here? Why did Sylvie have to have such terrible nose hair in the first place? I finally pulled the box out. I couldn’t give this to Sylvie. Giving her this gift in front of her friends would be the exact same as complaining to her about her nose hair in front of all her friends. And I would never do that. So I searched my room for something Sylvie would like. But all I found was my own stuff that I wanted to keep forever. So I grabbed a cute tote bag and puffed it up like it had something inside it and figured I’d just lie and say I’d forgotten the present.

I hated lying. But sometimes it made the future feel more hopeful.

Grandma drove Mom’s car to the party, and when we got to Sylvie’s house there were so many other cars stuffed in the driveway that we had to park along the road.

“Looks like a big party!” Grandma said. “Did you tell Sylvie I’d be home or is she going to be completely surprised to see me?”

I swallowed hard as we walked toward the front door. “She’s going to be completely surprised to see you,” I said.

Luckily, Sylvie was not standing at the door greeting people as they came in. And the lighting was a little dim. A giant disco ball hung from the ceiling, shooting colors across the walls.

“Mrs. Potaski went all out,” Grandma said as we walked in and took off our shoes.

“Yeah,” I said. I kept glancing around for people I knew. Uh-oh! I couldn’t believe it. Raya Papas was sitting on Sylvie’s couch.

“Grandma!” I said. “You’ll never guess who’s sitting on Sylvie’s couch!”

Grandma looked at the couch. “Who is that?”

“It’s Raya Papas from my math class. I invited her,” I said.

“Sylvie is so sweet to let you invite some of your own friends,” Grandma said.

And I didn’t exactly know how to explain to Grandma that none of what she’d said was true.

“Bessica!” a voice cheered. “And Rhoda Lefter!”

Nobody called my grandma Rhoda except for a few adults. I glanced around and realized that Mrs. Potaski was the person talking to us.

“I just got back, and I wanted to come and wish Sylvie a very happy birthday,” Grandma said.

I watched as Grandma and Mrs. Potaski hugged. I didn’t see Sylvie anywhere. Why wasn’t she at her own birthday party? And then I saw her. She was sitting next to Raya Papas. How had I missed that? I stopped breathing.

“Do you want to set your tote bag down?” Mrs. Potaski asked.

I nodded.

“Take the present out first,” Grandma said, “so we can set it on the gift table.”

I took a big breath and held it.

“What’s wrong?” Grandma asked.

“I forgot it,” I mumbled. Grandma looked very disappointed to learn this.

“No way! Is that Bessica?” a familiar voice called. And it was familiar because it was Sylvie.

I slowly turned and looked at her. And the coolest thing ever happened. She seemed happy. It was amazing. Because I was standing in the middle of her living room as
an uninvited party guest and Sylvie was smiling at me. It felt very, very good.

“Hi,” I said. “Grandma Lefter came too. But she’s not staying for the whole party.”

“You’re back!” Sylvie yelled as she ran to Grandma and gave her a hug.

Click. Click. Click.

Mrs. Potaski snapped pictures of us looking happy. I hoped all of us stayed looking happy.

After Sylvie finished hugging Grandma, she came over and hugged me. And I was really surprised by what happened next. I heard myself whisper something to Sylvie.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I regret every mean text I sent.”

Sylvie stopped hugging me and pulled away from me. She looked me in the eye and smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

And it felt very good to be forgiven.

“Cool disco ball,” I said. “Did it cost a fortune?” I was surprised there wasn’t more jungle stuff. No safari hats. No grass skirts. No fake parrots. No monkeys. She didn’t even have a single piñata.

Sylvie laughed. “It’s a rental. And guess what? In honor of the disco/jungle theme, I invited a special guest.”

“Ooh,” I said. Because I thought maybe it was a famous disco person.

“A tiger is coming,” Sylvie said.

“What?” I said. “That’s insane!” Seeing bears behind electric fences seemed reasonable. But bringing a tiger into a house didn’t seem smart.

“No. Not a real tiger,” Sylvie said. “You know him. He’s a mascot.”

“No,” I said, backing up.
“No.”

“Yes!” Sylvie answered, widening her eyes like a thrilled person. “T.J. the Tiger is coming!”

My world spun faster than the disco ball above me.

“Why?” I asked. “Is he your friend?” Because that seemed evil of her.

“My mom knows his mom, and since my party is a disco/jungle theme it made sense to invite a tiger,” Sylvie said. “Plus, he doesn’t get invited to many parties. I guess he’s not that popular.”

“Duh!” I said. “He’s the worst.” I didn’t want to bring up the fact that he wanted to facebomb me, because I didn’t even want to say that word. I wondered if he’d try to facebomb me at a party.

“Bessica!” Grandma called. “Did you know that Mrs. Potaski invited a tiger mascot to the party?”

“I just found out,” I said.

“He’s running a little late,” Mrs. Potaski said.

I really hoped the party would get going so we could hurry through it and I could leave without meeting T.J. I wasn’t ready to face him. I wasn’t even dressed like a bear.

“Maybe you should go talk to Raya. She’s nice. And guess what?” Sylvie said. “You forgot to sign her invitation. She didn’t even know you were the one who invited her here.”

“Oh,” I said. I didn’t tell Sylvie that I’d done that on purpose.

“Go talk to her,” Sylvie said. “Did you know her cousin is an astronaut?”

“No,” I said.

I couldn’t believe that Sylvie had sat next to Raya Papas for ten minutes and learned the most interesting things ever, and I’d sat next to Raya Papas for weeks and didn’t know anything about her except what I could learn from staring at her.

I started to walk toward the couch, but I stopped when Grandma stepped right in front of me.

“I’m headed home. Do you want me to swing back with your present?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Don’t do that.”

“Okay. I’ll pick you up when the party is over. Have a great time. And save me a piece of cake.”

“Do you want me to wrap it in napkins?” I asked. Because I’d saved a cupcake for her once like that and it had wrecked the frosting.

“Mrs. Potaski is going to put a piece in some Tupperware for me,” Grandma explained.

And as Grandma was leaving, I sort of wished I was leaving too.

“Disco time!” Sylvie yelled. Everybody jumped up and started dancing. The music made the floor throb as the lights spun around the room.
Tiger. Tiger. Tiger.
I couldn’t turn my mind off. I was too young to be facebombed at a birthday party.

I decided the best thing to do was to get away from this situation in a hurry. Sylvie and I had made up. I didn’t need to stay here and dance. I tripped over somebody’s jacket, and the next thing I knew I crashed into the gift table and presents flew everywhere.

“Aah!”
I cried. “I’m breaking the presents.”

The music stopped, but the disco ball kept spinning. From the floor, I looked up at over a dozen blinking faces.

“Sorry,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” Sylvie asked.

“I was dancing and I fell,” I lied. I didn’t want to admit that I was fleeing in fear.

“Why are you dancing on my presents?” Sylvie asked.

“So weird,” Raya Papas said.

“No, I was dancing over there and ended up over here,” I said. I wanted to convince everybody that I just covered a lot of ground when I danced. “Watch.” And I started zooming as wide and far as I could while shaking and
shimmying. Admitting that I was afraid of another mascot would make me look lame.

Shimmy. Shimmy. Shake.

Nobody looked amused. They looked freaked out and confused. Then my mind flashed to something Vicki had said. So I unleashed a mojo-building move. “Watch my windmill arms!”

And that was when the worst thing ever happened. That was when Mrs. Potaski entered the room with her triple-layer cream cake and hit my mojo-building windmill arms.

SPLAT!

What a mess. It looked like the cake had exploded. All over Mrs. Potaski. And the carpet. And the gift table. And everybody’s shoes.

“My cake!” Sylvie cried.

And when I turned to look at her I saw the most awful thing ever. I saw her sad, sad face bursting into tears. And I saw Malory Mahoney the Big Plastic Phony putting her arm around her. And I wished that I could have been the one to be putting my arm around Sylvie. But I wasn’t because I had just windmill-armed her mom and her birthday cake.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The person at the door didn’t wait for anybody to
answer it. It swung open and there stood Grandma. She looked very shocked when she saw the exploded cake. I rushed toward her and put my hands out in a begging way. I think I wanted forgiveness.

“I decided to bring Sylvie’s present for you after all,” Grandma asked. “This party looks out of control.”

“Oh, Grandma,” I said. “I unleashed a mojo-building countermove and it damaged the cake. And now I need to leave before I get facebombed by a tiger.”

“Bessica Lefter ruined the disco/jungle party,” Raya Papas said.

“Oh my,” Grandma said.

I covered my eyes with my hands, but it didn’t really improve the situation. Why had I invited one of the meanest people I knew to this party?

Grandma was still holding Sylvie’s present, so she walked it over to the gifts scattered on the floor and set the purple box down next to a cute pink one.

“Thanks,” I said. But really, I couldn’t believe that Grandma had returned to the birthday party and brought Sylvie the battery-operated nose hair trimmer. First, Grandma didn’t belong at a tween disco/jungle party. Second, Sylvie was going to open her gift and hate me forever now.

“I want to leave,” I said. “And never come back. And possibly change my name and move.”

“Everything is going to be okay,” Grandma said.

“This party is weird,” a girl said.

“Was all that supposed to happen?” another girl asked. “Was it part of the entertainment?”

“Can we leave?” I asked Grandma.

“Whose grandma keeps coming to the party?” a girl asked.

Grandma sort of looked like she didn’t know what to do. “Do you want to stay and sort this out?”

Mrs. Potaski was lifting big chunks of cake up off the floor and setting them on paper plates. Did she really think people were going to eat that? Because I sure wasn’t.

“Not really,” I said.

“Don’t you think you should say goodbye to Sylvie?” Grandma asked.

I turned to look at Sylvie, but Malory was still hugging her and whispering really nice things in her ear. I glanced at Raya Papas. This wasn’t how I wanted things to go at all.

“I am so sorry,” I said. “I am the sorriest sorry person you’ve ever met.” And then I rushed past Grandma and grabbed my tote bag and ran out the door and raced to the car and got inside and slammed the door and closed my eyes as tight as I could.

It didn’t take long for Grandma to climb in beside me. “I know things feel horrible, but this is just a low point. Things will start improving very soon.”

I flipped around to face Grandma. “Sylvie has ridiculously hairy nostrils and so I bought her a battery-operated nose hair trimmer and that’s what was inside the box you brought.”

Grandma looked stunned. “Why would you give Sylvie that?”

“I thought I was doing her a favor,” I offered.

“Bessica, Bessica, Bessica,” Grandma said.

“Is my low point going to get lower?” I asked.

“Probably,” she said. “It’s always a bad idea to buy people grooming devices.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“But you’re a good egg. This should sort itself out.”

Grandma didn’t sound totally convinced.

“Do you think Sylvie will forgive me?” I asked.

There was a little bit of a pause.

“You two have a lot of history,” Grandma said.

“That’s true,” I said. “But some of it’s bad.”

Grandma pulled the car into our driveway and slid the gearshift into park.

“Bessica,” Grandma said, sounding very serious. “I promise you that while this may feel like the worst problem you’ll ever face in your life, it isn’t.”

It was almost as if Grandma knew that T.J. planned to facebomb me at the game.

“I thought being a mascot would make my life easier,” I said.

“What does being a mascot have to do with the cake debacle?” Grandma asked as she turned off the ignition.

“Everything,” I said. I climbed out of the car and dragged myself into my house and down the hallway to my room.

“You’re back already?” my mom called from the kitchen.

But I didn’t answer. I climbed into bed in my cricket-ridden room and stared at Bianca and tried to keep my mind from replaying the terrible events of the day. But my mind wouldn’t stop. I closed my eyes and saw my windmill arms meeting Sylvie’s cake.
Whirl. Whirl. Whirl. Splat. Splat. Splat.
What a gigantic disaster.

THINGS THAT WILL
DESTROY ALL HAPPINESS
IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

1.
Orange food

2.
Triangle crushes

3.
Bucking cows

4.
Impulsive biting