Bessica Lefter Bites Back (6 page)

I looked into my mom’s worried eyes. “That will never happen,” I told her. And when I said those words to her, I totally believed they were true.

“What do you have now?” my mom asked.

“Mr. Hoser,” I said. “Geography.” It sure would have been nice if my mom had just taken me home. I fluttered my eyelashes and smiled.

“You’re not leaving school early,” she said. “Have a great rest of your day.”

Then she kissed me on the head and walked out. I followed her into the empty hallway and finished the last bite of my ham sandwich and then almost gagged. Because Alice Potgeiser came rushing up to me.

“Which paws did you pick?” she asked. She was breathing heavy and looked upset. Then she poked her head into Mrs. Batts’s office and saw the cruddy paws still on her desk. She turned and looked at me like she wanted to stab me with a pencil. And this worried me, because the school office had a ton of those. “Are those mine or yours?”

“Yours,” I said. And inside I was laughing a little bit in delight, because I’d gotten the superior mascot footwear.
Ha, ha, ha.

“Fine,” Alice said. “Take the better paws. It doesn’t matter.”

“I’m glad you feel that way,” I said. Even though I knew she thought it mattered a great deal.

“You’re such a nickel,” Alice said.

I just looked at her like I didn’t know what she was saying. Because I didn’t.

“It means you have very little value to me. Or anyone.”

I tried to think of a comeback. “I like nickels.”

Alice rolled her eyes. “You would.” Then she cleared her throat and smiled at me in an evil way. “Also, I should probably tell you that your mascot career is over.”

I gasped. Was it possible that Alice knew about my faked foot fungal infection?

“Yeah, I made it so you’d be cheering against the most vicious mascot during your first game,” Alice said.

But that didn’t sound so bad to me, because I thought me and the other mascot could maybe put on the best show ever.

“You’ll look like a dweeb. And T.J. will look like a rock star. Because he’s a pro and you’re a nickel.”

I considered reminding her that I liked nickels again, but I didn’t. I was starting to feel worried that maybe I would look like a dweeb in front of the school.

“You act like you’re special, but you’re not,” Alice said. “And everybody is going to be able to see that.”

And when she said those words, they hit me hard. I worried that maybe there was a little truth to them. I wanted to be special and find my spot. And part of finding my spot meant that I wanted other people to think I was special too. From there I’d become majorly popular.

The bell rang, and Alice looked at me and leveled her brace-covered hand toward my heart.

“I don’t know what sort of medical emergency you faked to get the good paws, but I’ll get to the bottom of it. And when I do, everybody is going to know that you’re a total sham.”

I don’t think anybody had ever called me this many
names in a row.
Nickel. Dweeb. Sham.
Alice didn’t stick around for me to start calling her names. I was surprised that Alice was able to hurt my feelings so much, because I didn’t even like her. But those names and their sharp corners kept tumbling around inside me.
Nickel. Dweeb. Sham.
And just when I thought my feelings couldn’t be hurt any worse, I heard Alice say the following terrible things after she turned the corner.

“Of course I’d like a Two-Taste Teton donut! Mmm, mmm, mmm. Thanks, Cola. These flavor flecks rock!”

W
hen your life is going terribly, it’s pretty easy to have nightmares. That night I dreamed something so horrific and rotten that it made me sweat in my sheets. In my nightmare, I was stuck on the ledge of a building. And nobody would help me get down. And there was scary wind blowing and crazy birds flying and I was terrified. Plenty of people walked past with ladders: Annabelle Deeter, Sylvie, the gorgeous Noll Beck, Mom, Dad, even Grandma Lefter!

But whenever I yelled at them to get me a ladder, they all said the same thing. “You found your way up there.
You can find your way down.” Even Grandma told me that. Which I couldn’t believe! Because standing on the ledge of a building is totally unsafe. Then Sylvie walked past and she had the best ladder ever. So I yelled, “Sylvie, I’m stuck on a ledge! Help me!” And she said, “You found your way up there. You can find your way down. Plus, you should have called me back!”

That was when I dream-yelled, “I’m sorry!”

And Sylvie dream-yelled back at me, “I bet you are, Fungal Foot!”

I popped my eyes open and stared into the darkness while I sweated and sweated and sweated. Holy crud. I had never expected Sylvie to treat me that way when I was stuck on a ledge. Then the hallway light flipped on.

“Are you having a nightmare?” my mom asked.

Even from my darkened room, I could see that she looked terrible. Her hair poufed where it was normally flat and was flat where it normally poufed. And she had white cream smeared all over her forehead and nose.

“You could tell I was having a nightmare?” I asked. Because that meant my mom was psychic and that freaked me out a little bit.

“I heard you yelling,” she explained.

“Oh,” I said. That made more sense than having a mom who suddenly became psychic in the middle of the night.

“Are you sleeping with your bear paws?” my mother asked.

I blinked at her. Then I reached above my head toward the area of my bed I referred to as my pillow zone and felt my bear paws and their glorious fur.

“Your scalp oil will damage their fluffiness,” she said.

I sat straight up and removed the bear paws from my pillow zone. My mother had never mentioned that I had fluff-damaging scalp oil before.

“What was your nightmare about?” she asked.

“I was stuck on a dangerous ledge,” I said. And when I told my mom this, I remembered how alone and afraid I had felt up there and my voice got shaky. “And nobody would help me get down.”

My mother walked into my room and sat down beside me. “But you’re not on a ledge. You’re safe in your bed.”

“I know,” I said. “But in my dream nobody walking past would help me. Not you or Dad or Sylvie or Grandma. And you all had excellent ladders.”

My mother leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. “I’m going to tell you a secret.”

But I wasn’t too excited to hear it. Because my mother’s secrets were usually pretty lame and actually sounded like messages you could find inside fortune cookies.

“It’s a good news secret,” she said.

That sounded better. “What is it?”

“Grandma is coming home early to surprise you,” she said.

What? What? What?
I grabbed at my heart and screamed. This was the best secret my mom had ever told me.

“When?” I cried.

“Calm down,” my mother said. “We have a few days.”

“No way! A few days? We need to make preparations.” My mind raced with things to do.

“No. We need to go back to bed,” my mom said softly as she pulled the blanket toward my chin.

“Are we going to make her a special dinner?” I asked. “I know! We can order her favorite dinner from the new Thai restaurant in Rexburg!” Grandma had never eaten there, and one thing Grandma always did was eat at new restaurants as soon as they opened in Rexburg.

“We can talk about this in the morning.”

“Oh!” I yelled. I’d thought of something else, and I didn’t want to talk about this in the morning, I wanted to talk about it right now. “We need to clean up her room!” My mom and dad had put some boxes in her room in the basement, and we shouldn’t make Grandma live with boxes. “And!” I yelled, because I’d thought of something else. “We need to make Dad go down there and kill all the big spiders.” Because we shouldn’t make Grandma live with those either.

I felt my mom rubbing my back. “We’ll talk about it over breakfast.” Then the hallway light flickered. I looked at the light switch. My dad was doing that.

“What’s all the yelling about?” my dad asked. “Did you have a nightmare?”

I sighed. My dad was very behind in what was happening in my bedroom. “Yes,” I said. “I was stuck on a ledge and nobody would give me a ladder. Not even you.” I pointed at him when I said this. “But then Mom came in and told me that Grandma is coming back in a few days. Hey. Maybe you should go downstairs and kill the spiders right now while they’re still sleeping.”

My dad yawned. “It’s bad luck to kill spiders.”

But I didn’t really care. Because they frightened me.

“We’re not going downstairs in the middle of the night,” my mom said. “We’re all going to go back to bed.”

But I felt very wide awake.

“What time is it in Minnesota?” I asked. “Maybe I could call Grandma and ask what she wants to eat for her homecoming dinner!” I reached for my phone, but my mom stopped me.

“It’s the middle of the night there, too,” my mom said.

“Bummer.” Then I laid my head back down on my pillow zone.

“I think we should turn off the light,” my mom said.

Click.

“But I’m not tired,” I said. I closed my eyes. I felt my mother stand up.

“I’ll always give you a ladder, Bessica,” my dad said.

That felt good to hear.

“Me too,” my mom said. “And so will Grandma.”

“And even Willy,” my dad said.

“Willy!” I shot back up. The guy who had showed up in a stinking Winnebago and taken Grandma away and ruined everything? I basically hated him.

“Willy will be coming with Grandma,” my dad said.

“I wasn’t going to mention that part,” my mom said.

“I just figured Grandma would leave Willy in New Mexico where he belongs and come home to us,” I said. My stomach felt like it was tying itself into terrible knots.

My mother turned on the hallway light again. “But Grandma and Willy are a couple now.”

What? How? Why? Ugh. This didn’t make any sense. “No!” I screamed.

“Don’t yell, Bessica. You’re going to wake yourself back up again.”

“Dad already woke me back up when he told me the worst news ever!” I stabbed my finger in his direction again.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” my mom said.

Click.
My room went dark again.

I’d woken from my ledge nightmare only to enter a much worse one. Willy was coming to my house. Because Willy and Grandma were a couple. What was wrong with Grandma? Why would she want to be a couple with that guy? Why didn’t she want to stay a family with us?

Willy. Willy. Willy. I couldn’t get him or his cowboy hat and head out of my mind. I knew that at one point I’d made a promise to Grandma to like him, but I’d changed my mind. And I had every right to do that. Because when I told Grandma I would like Willy, I didn’t know they’d become a couple and return from their road trip
together.
Bleh.

I reached over and picked up my phone to see what time it was. It was 3:21 a.m. Then I saw that Sylvie had left me a bunch of messages. I had a whopping seven new Sylvie messages. It wasn’t like me to let my messages pile up like that. I must’ve been a lot angrier with Sylvie than I’d realized. Since I was already up and feeling miserable, listening to Sylvie apologize to me over and over seemed like a smart way to spend the middle of the night.

Saturday

This is crazy! Did Principal Tidge get in touch with your mom? Are you okay? Call me back and tell me everything! I’m so sorry.

Saturday

Are you okay? What’s going on? Why aren’t you texting me back? You need to call me right away so I can stop worrying.

Sunday

I’m going to bed soon. But I’ll be up for another hour. Are you mad? Is that why you’re not responding? Please don’t be mad at me. I didn’t mean to cause you any mascot problems. I’m really very sorry.

Sunday

No message. Just a dial tone.

Sunday

I still haven’t heard from you. This is getting annoying.

Monday

Do you just expect me to keep calling and texting you every day and never hearing anything back? You’re being mean to me. I said I was sorry.

Monday

I’m done. This isn’t how you treat your friends, Bessica. I’m giving you an ultimatum. Either you call me back
tonight, or we’re officially not friends. And that means no coming to my birthday party. For real.

I looked at my clock. It was too late to call. But it wasn’t too late to text. I thought really hard about what I should say.

Me: What you did was awful. I’m not over it.

I held my phone to my chest. I felt much better after I sent that. Sylvie should feel bad for a couple of more days for what she did.

Sylvie: You should learn to forgive.

I was very surprised that she was still awake. I thought of something else to text.

Me: Think about my feelings. Not yours.

Sylvie: It’s always about you.