Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 00.5 - Jolie and Scoobie High School Misadventures (3 page)

I TOOK PETEY FOR HIS much-anticipated walk, and even remembered to take plastic bags to hold pooper scooper products. We were sitting on the wicker furniture on Aunt Madge’s large front porch, and I was trying to talk myself into not leaving a nasty message on our home answering machine.
Their home.

A brown
UPS truck pulled up, and after a few seconds I realized this would likely be my clothes.
Finally, some good news.
I kept a firm hand on Petey’s leash, since he seemed to want to help the UPS guy carry the boxes.

He looked at the name on the top box as he placed it on the porch
. “Usually these have Madge’s name on the box. Okay if you sign?”

“Yep
. I think they’re for me, actually.”

He grinned
. “Somebody sent you a boatload of stuff.” I tried to look friendly as I signed, and then he almost ran back to his truck.

It was only about eighty degrees and there was a breeze, almost cool for early September, so I stayed on the porch to pry the tape off one of the boxes and began sifting through it
.
Surely they’ll have a note in here.
When I finally realized there was not one, I began to open the second box.

“Hey.”

I looked to the edge of the small yard. “Hey, I tried to wave at you in the cafeteria today.” I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or if Scoobie really was looking at me as if I’d grown a second head.

“The people you were sitting with are mostly on my List of Meanderers
.” He didn’t smile.

“Your list of…what?” I asked.

He shrugged. “They kind of go from one day to the next not paying attention to much except themselves.”

Okay, so they seemed pretty sure of themselves, but I didn’t think they were snobs. Or not much, anyway
. “That guy who was at First Prez on Sunday asked me to sit with them.”

“R
iordan. Yeah. He’s the biggest pain of the lot.”

My mind was in an internal wrestling match
. I had felt very comfortable with Scoobie when I met him. I wasn’t about to be rude, but I didn’t want to risk losing the chance to make a group of friends. That’s where the fun was, people to hang out with on Saturday night, people who organized prom parties, stuff like that.

“I guess I missed that part,” I began.

“Catch you later.” Scoobie turned and stared walking in the direction of the beach.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I called after him.

“Maybe.” He kept walking.

SURELY THE SECOND DAY would be easier
. I went in the main OAHS entrance and looked at faces as I walked toward my locker, which was on the far end of the corridor. I had already figured out that home room lockers were usually near each other, but apparently people kept their prior year locker, so there weren’t any vacant ones near my homeroom. I hurried through the code on my lock and placed the very heavy English and chemistry books on a shelf. No sense carrying them until afternoon.

By mid-morning I had decided the second day sucked
. A pop quiz in world history on day two?  The teacher said it wasn’t for grades, just to see where we were. Sean O’Malley said we were in front of him, but the teacher ignored him. I kind of liked Sean.

I fully expected lunch to be the highlight of my day, and was disappointed that the two jokes I’d carefully rehearsed fell flat
. It made me tongue-tied. Still, everyone smiled as we started to afternoon classes.

MY GEOMETRY BOOK was on Aunt Madge’s oak kitchen table, but I wasn’t really looking at it. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I had sensed a very different tone in the cafeteria group today. Maybe it was my clothes. I looked down at my lightweight, blue cotton slacks and peach-colored top. I was dressed differently than the girls at the table, all of whom had on pastel-colored skirts and tops that covered barely more than a tank top. Apparently the beach mood made it to the high school.

“Having fun
?” Aunt Madge began to pull the plastic bag of garbage from the can.

“I’ll get that
.” I jumped up. “Anything’s better than geometry.”

“Never took it,” she said
. “I stopped after Algebra One.”

I had wanted to do that, too, but my father insisted
that I have four years of math in high school. “Lucky you.”

Petey followed me to the sliding glass door that led to what he likely thought of as his back yard
. I let him out when I carried the bag to the can. I liked the little dog, but he needed a lot of attention.

As I was putting the bag in the garbage can I noticed several half pieces of plywood and a half of a pack of roofing shingles against the garage
. I didn’t think they’d been there the last couple of days.

“What’s the wood for?” I asked as Petey and I tromped back into what Aunt Madge calls her sit
ting room. It’s in one part of the long L that is her main living space. One end is the kitchen, the other the living (or sitting) room, and the short part of the L leads into the narrow hallway that goes to her bedroom and bath.

“I’ve wanted to make a little dog house for Petey, and I found a pattern in one of my carpentry magazines
. I’m not sure if I’ll do it now or after the weather gets cold.”

“Why does he need a house?  He’s in here unless I’m walking him.”

“Bingo,” she said. When I looked puzzled she added, “He needs to stay outside sometimes. If I’m going to be out for more than a couple of hours, he’ll need some shelter.”

Aunt Madge does a lot of the kind of things that my dad does around our house
. Uncle Gordon has been dead since I was five, but I sense that she likes what she calls her projects rather than viewing them as onerous chores.

“That makes sense
.” I settled back at the table and tried not to yawn too widely. I was sleeping in a very small room at the far end of the third floor of Aunt Madge’s large Victorian B&B. She said when tourist season was over she’d move me to the front, but I kind of liked the small room. Better for moping. However, I needed a desk or something. I loved Aunt Madge, but didn’t want to sit at the kitchen table doing homework like an eight-year-old.

“Those kids I sit with at lunch, do you know them
?” I mostly remembered first names, but I had learned that Jennifer’s last name was Stenner, and I figured she knew Michael Riordan from First Prez.

“Jennifer’s father and grandfather run Stenner Appraisals
. They sort of inspect houses to be sure that a sales price is close to the value of the house.”

I wasn’t interested in real estate
. “I mean, do you
know
some of them. Like did you have them in your Sunday School Class?”

She shook her head
. “A couple of them, but I don’t know any of them really well.”

I turned a page in my book, not looking at her
. “They weren’t as friendly today.”

She turned from where she was scraping a carrot into a plastic bag in the sink
. Her very old house did not have a garbage disposal. “Maybe more serious about school on the second day?” she asked.

I shrugged
. “Maybe.”

CHAPTER THREE

DAY THREE I knew that what they were serious about was avoiding me. All seats at the table were taken, and no one gestured to me to join them.

When I exited the food line I looked around, hoping to see an empty table, or maybe one with a couple of people at one end, and it could look as if I were joining them
. A waving hand toward the back caught my eye, and I recognized Margo, my temporary guide on the first day.

They were a noisy bunch of girls, still anxious to tell each other about summer vacations and which teacher
s looked as if they’d be the worst for the year. I listened, feeling more at home than at the clique table, as I now thought of the other group. Having people ignore me still stung, but at least Margo liked my jokes.

I WAS WALKING HOME when Scoobie caught up with me. “So,” he asked, “do you like to go up to the boardwalk?”

“So
me. I guess more now than in the summer, when the tourists hog everything.”

“There’s a fun arcade
. I’ll show you.”

“Now?” I asked
. I still thought of the boardwalk as a place for beach visitors, and my school clothes would be downright formal up there.

“Tonight. About nine,” he said.

My eyes widened. “Tonight?”

He may have seen panic in my eyes, because he continued, “Not like a date
. Just to goof around.”

“My aunt gets up at five, I think she’s in bed by eight-thirty.”

“Duh. That’s the idea. She won’t know when you get home. What are you reading in English class?”

“
Wuthering Heights
.” I had never met a guy who asked me what I was reading. “You?”

“O. Henry short stories
. I’m in the slow kids’ class. They give us stuff that doesn’t require as much steady concentration.” He grinned.

I looked at him directly
. “You don’t seem slow to me. I mean,” I stammered, “I didn’t mean…”

He laughed
. “I’m smart. The teachers say I’m not motivated.” He peeled away, heading down a side street. “Nine o’clock, by the salt water taffy place.”

I STOOD AT THE salt water taffy stand, whose owners were preparing to close. The aluminum sheeting that they rolled down at night was halfway down, and they were taking the candy out of the display counter.

The boardwalk in Ocean Alley is elevated and is not as wide as in some of the larger beach towns, but it has anything you could want
. There are the usual stores selling suntan lotion and the kinds of souvenirs nobody needs, and there is every kind of fast food you could think of. My favorites are the French fry stand and the ice cream store.

It was cool, and I shivered. Sixty degrees was a lot warmer when the sun was shining
. It was still dusk, but close to dark.

“Yo, Jolie
.” Scoobie had a wide grin. “I figured you’d come. Come on.”

I began to follow him, not quite able to catch up
. “You, uh, do this every night?” I asked.

He slowed a bit
. “You need quarters to play, so not every night. I should have told you. Did you bring any? I have two if you didn’t.”

“I have a dollar in my pocket.”

Scoobie made a sharp left into the most well-lit store on the boardwalk. Except it wasn’t a store, it was a small arcade, with eight or ten games. There were loud pings and buzzes, probably depending on whether a player was winning or losing. It was also lighter than a sunny day.

“The best one is back here,” he said, and stopped in front of a machine called Screw the Bunny.

I’m not exactly a prude, but in Lakewood I didn’t think there would be a game with the word ‘screw’ in the title. At least not in the part of town I hung out in. “How do you play?” I asked.

He assumed a formal tone, which I could tell was meant to be funny
. “The object of the game is to end up with a high score, which represents a lot of bunnies. See this lever here?”

I nodded at the round joy stick and looked at the blinking screen
. There were several bunnies on the screen, but they were not moving. There was a red fox, and he was blinking fast in place. There were also several baskets that looked like they had Easter eggs.

“When you put in your quarter, the bunnies start hopping, but in place
. You put the little arrow on a bunny, and he starts to move. You use the joy stick to move change his direction so he doesn’t run into the fox. If he does, Mr. Bunny disappears.”

“How do you know it isn’t Mrs. Bunny?” I asked, trying to be funny.

“An astute question,” he said, again in the formal voice. “Hard to tell, because when the fox gets it, the bunny disappears. When you make the bunny run into a basket, it’s like a safe zone, but you can only keep the bunny there a couple of seconds. The fox can’t stop, so he might run over the bunny, but it’s like the foxy guy can’t catch Mr. Bunny when he’s in the basket.”

“And you get more bunnies how?” I asked, trying not to convey my thought that this was all kind of immature
.

“When your bunny leaves the basket, there are suddenly more bunnies.”

“So, definitely girl bunnies,” I said.

He shrugged
. “I guess. You keep playing until the fox eats all of the original three bunnies. If you’ve made it to a bunch of baskets before then, you have a high score.”

“What about the baby bunnies?” I asked, as he placed a quarter in the slot.

He grinned but did not look at me. “You’ll see.”

I watched for almost five minutes, occasionally congratulating him, but mostly not commenting
. He racked up a score of four-hundred-twenty before the fox got the last of the original three bunnies. By this time, I had learned that the baby bunnies simply turned pink or blue as the fox ran over them, but they did not vanish if they ran into the fox.

“Pretty good,” I said
. By this time, my competitive spirit was taking over. “I never saw this game.”

“It’s only here
. This guy named Puny Steve made it from parts from other games. He wants to make millions with it.”

“Okay,” I said
. “I’m going to beat you.”

Scoobie whooped and stood aside
. “Not gonna happen.”

HALF AN HOUR later Scoobie had beaten me by six-hundred points, but I had gotten better with each game. We had each played three games, me insisting that he use one of my four quarters.

We walked onto the boardwalk, both still a bit jazzed by the games.
“Jeez, it got a lot colder out here,” I said.

“Yeah
.” He looked both ways on the boardwalk, seemingly looking for someone. “Probably ought to get home.”

“I didn’t take you for a party pooper,” I said, ribbing him.

He did a fast smile. “Not. But once school starts, there’s a ten o’clock curfew for school-age kids.”

My smile died
. It was ten until ten. “Gee, I don’t think I can walk home that fast.”

“It’s only on the boardwalk, sidewalks are fine
.” He faced me. “If you want to do it again, we can. But I can’t play every night, not enough quarters.”

“I can bring more…”

Scoobie shook his head, quite firmly. “I like to pay my own way.”

“You want to pick, like, a schedule
?” I asked this as we walked down the six or eight steps from the boardwalk to the sidewalk below.

“I’m not always sure which nights are good
.” He hesitated and glanced sideways at me. “Sometimes my parents are pretty strict about homework, other times I can get out more easily.”

“Sure,” I said, almost disappointed
. “See you tomorrow?”

“If you’re lucky,” he said
. As he walked in the opposite direction I saw him pull a small book from the back pocket of his jeans.

IF PETEY HADN’T yipped when I came in Aunt Madge wouldn’t have awakened. I had been about to climb the back stairs, which are at the far end of her living area. The main staircase squeaks more.

“Jolie
?” She was cinching a bathrobe as she came out of her bedroom.

I just managed to slide the tiny prize tickets the Screw the Bunny Machine spit out into a pocket before she walked in
. “Sorry, couldn’t sleep.”

“Goodness
.” She flipped on a lamp that sits on a small table just outside her bedroom door. “You don’t have to be in the dark.”

“I didn’t want to wake you
.” I realized she would expect me to be in pajamas. “I thought I’d take Petey for a walk.” I was trying very hard not to flush as she looked at me for several seconds.

“It’s after Labor Day, so I guess it’s okay
.” She turned to go back into her room. “Too many inebriated folks on the street when all the tourists are here.”

“Sounds good
.” After she was back in her bedroom I took Petey’s leash off a peg by the sliding glass door. “You don’t have to look so happy about it,” I whispered. He drooled on my foot.