Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 00.5 - Jolie and Scoobie High School Misadventures (4 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

THE FIRST THREE WEEKS of the school year passed pretty quickly. I didn’t have to worry too much about homework, since the only thing that took a lot of time was geometry, and I had decided to flunk it. Part of me knew I was only hurting myself, but the part that was really, really ticked off at my parents knew they would mind a lot.
Or maybe they wouldn’t care at all.

I had no classes with Scoobie and only one (chemistry) with Margo
. Sean O’Malley was in my English and Consumer Education classes, and he seemed to think everyone wanted to watch him be a smart aleck. He was funny, but not as funny as he thought he was. He didn’t say so, but it had to be him who put a whoopee cushion under the flat pillow on the English teacher’s chair. Mrs. Whitcomb made all of us write two paragraphs on why juvenile behavior wasted everyone else’s time. Sean was really quiet the rest of that class.

Aunt Madge was disappointed that I didn’t want to go to First Prez with her, but she didn’t bug me about it
. I almost told her that I didn’t want to see the stupid Michael guy, who was pretty much snubbing me full-time. All of the girls from his table did, they wouldn’t even say hello in the bathroom. This actually didn’t bother me. Yesterday, three of the girls had been in a ridiculous debate about lipstick color. Okay, I like to look good, too, but really?  These were not girls I would hang out with at Lakewood High, so who cared if they were stuck up?

The guys named Sam and Jack would smile or nod at me if we passed in the hall, but that was it
. They looked as if they could be fun, so that was too bad.

The one thing that almost tugged at my heart was watching the newly chosen varsity cheerleaders walk through the hall
. Most of them were kind of self-conscious about their outfits the first few days, which I probably would have been, too, if I’d been selected in Lakewood.

One of my good friends did make the
Lakewood squad. I knew this because I looked at the Lakewood paper’s sports section on Mondays. It was in the Ocean Alley High School library. That’s how I knew who won the football games the prior Saturday. Last week they had a picture of the new cheerleading squad, and noted which ones were returning members and which ones were new.

I thought about spending a weekend in
Lakewood to watch them cheer the football team. But it would seem really weird to be in my hometown and have to stay in someone else’s house. And what if I ran into my parents? Would they avoid me? 
This is ridiculous.

Scoobie had introduced me to the Army Surplus store that was two blocks from First Prez
. I bought a pair of sort of khaki-style pants that were the tan camouflage colors that troops wore for service in desert countries. Scoobie bought the green color.

These were useful pants for sitting on the sand under the boardwalk
. It was very chilly, so all the people above were usually in pants. “If we were under here in summer, the cops would accuse me of looking up the girls’ skirts,” Scoobie said.

“And would you be
?” I asked.

He grinned
. “Generally, no. I sit under here to read when it’s too noisy above.”

By now I knew that Scoobie read about two books a week, not including any for classes
. He had dragged me to the library with him a couple of times, and I knew he was disappointed that I mostly read the magazines. “My mother likes to read a lot,” I said, glancing up as someone with what sounded like high heels tromped overhead.
Who wears heels on a boardwalk?

“Ah,” he said.

“What ah?” I asked.

“Nothing
. What does she read?”

I shrugged
. “Mostly Nora Roberts and Danielle Steele.” The month before my parents deserted me, all my mother had done was sit on the couch and read. A couple of times I thought she looked like she’d been crying and she’d assured me it was something in a book. Now I knew better.

I could feel Scoobie looking at me, and turned to face him
. “What”

“Did your sister write again?” he asked.

“Yeah. She said she was sorry she hadn’t written for two weeks. She has to teach two classes to freshmen. That’s how she gets her tuition paid,” I said.

“Teaching,” he mused
. “If you didn’t have to be with little kids all day I could do that.”

This amused me
. “College freshmen aren’t exactly little kids.”

“Yeah well, from the way they party on the beach at the end of their freshmen year, they act like it a lot,” he said
.

I had
figured out that Scoobie seemed to have a lot of disdain for people who had a lot of money, or at least acted like it. He never seemed to have much, and told me he didn’t like school lunches, but if I saved a banana or cookie for him, he ate it.

“So,” I kidded, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Not sure. My dad travels a lot for his sales job. I know I don’t want to do that.”

“But your mom’s home, right
?” I knew she worked nights, which was why he could roam pretty freely.

“Oh, sure
. Tide’s coming in,” Scoobie said.

We were under the boardwalk right next to the fairly short pier that sat partially over the ocean.
I looked toward the pier’s two pillars closest to the ocean. A few minutes ago they’d been dry. Now the water was between them, seeping toward the third pillar, which was only a few feet from the boardwalk. Even at high tide the ocean wouldn’t come all the way to the boardwalk, but it got pretty close.  “Yep. My butt’s getting cold, anyway.” I stood and brushed off my pants.

Scoobie yawned widely as he stood
. “Gotta quit staying up so late,” he said.

“Don’t you go home when I do?” I asked.

“Yep. Not always tired then.”

I looked at my watch
. It was ten minutes to ten. “I have to hustle.”

As we walked onto the boardwalk
to cross and go down the steps to the street I noticed the police officer who often seemed to be around just before curfew. He never spoke to us, but I knew he noticed us.

“Do you know that cop?” I asked
. “He’s here almost every night.”

“I think his name’s Tortino.”

“He your neighbor or something?” I asked.

Scoobie gave a short laugh
. “Nope. He’s uh, a friend of my dad’s.”

“Wonder why he never talks to us?”

Scoobie stopped at the bottom of the stairs we had just walked down. “You want to talk to cops?”

I stopped, too
. “Not especially. It just seems funny he doesn’t say hello if he’s a friend of your dad’s.”

Scoobie started walking again
. “I guess I should have said they know each other pretty well. They don’t hang out.” He grinned. “Do your parents hang out with cops?”

“Hard to say,” I grumbled.

He said nothing as we approached the corner where we usually separated.

“Hey,” I said
. “I have a babysitting job this weekend.”

“That’s good?” he asked.

“It’s money. And they aren’t babies, so I don’t have to change diapers.”

“Can I come?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No friends when I babysit. That’s probably the only rule my parents had that I’ll make sure I keep.”

“Make sure to give me a list of the ones you’ll break.”

MARGO HAD REFERRED me for the babysitting job
. It took about ten minutes to figure out why.

“My mother always lets me watch
Star Trek
Voyager.”

The ten-year old boy had been a pain in the backside all evening
. Even if I wasn’t positive about his television shows, I wouldn’t have let him spend the extra hour with me. “Maybe when she’s home. Tonight both of your parents said you were supposed to be in bed by nine o’clock.”

“I’ll tell them you spanked me.”

“They’ll thank me,” I said. “Now get back up the steps.”

“I’ll wake up my sister,” he said, triumph on his face
. The six-year old was a bigger pain than he was.

“I’ll tell your parents you hit her.”

“They won’t believe you,” he said, but there was slight hesitation in his voice.

I jumped on this
. “Oh, they’ll believe me. I can make sure they do.” I hate to tell a kid I’ll lie, but Thomas Edward Finch, Junior was an exception.

He turned and stomped up the first three steps.

“They’ll definitely believe me,” I said.

He climbed the rest of the stairs at a more normal pace
. I had already walked him up once and talked to him as he got into bed. I decided to let him go alone this time, and looked up at the hallway above to make sure he walked into his bedroom instead of his sister’s.

I sat on the bottom step and stared at his door, thinking about the week that had just ended and wishing I were in
Lakewood. It was only thirty miles. Aunt Madge said she’d drive me once a month, but she also said she didn’t think I should go up unless it was a special occasion. “No one can live in two places and feel at home in both of them,” she advised.

“Rich people do all the time,” I had retorted.

“Tell me how that works when you get there,” she had responded.

A slight noise above me reminded me where I was
. Thomas Edward looked down at me from the railing above. He has dark blonde hair that is in almost a bowl cut. He was leaning forward so much that it looked as if the bowl was about to fall over the railing.

“That’s not your bed,” I said, but softly.

“I can’t sleep,” he complained.

“Try for fifteen more minutes
. I’ll come up to see if you’re awake.”

“And then what
?” There was a slight tone of triumph in his voice.

“You can write a note to your parents and tell them why you can’t sleep.”

He scowled. “I don’t like you.”

“YOU SHOULD HAVE told me that kid was a brat.” I said this to Margo at the lunch table on Monday.

She gave me what might pass for a patient look
. “Would you have taken the job?”

The true answer would be yes, because I wanted the money
. “I don’t know, but I would have been prepared.”

One of the other girls sniggered.

“What?” I asked.

“You could get advice from Scoobie,” she said.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Margo snapped, but not at me.
Her usually pleasant expression turned to a frown.

I didn’t say anything for a few moments
. “Why don’t you guys like Scoobie?  He’s funny.”

Sandra, the girl who sniggered, said, “He’s not like us
.” Her narrow blue eyes met my brown ones for a moment and then looked away.

“He’s okay,” Margo said, before I could say anything else
. “He’s just hard to get to know.”

I started to say this was not at all true.

“Let’s put it this way,” the girl named Candy said, “this is the most he’s come to school in a couple of years.”

“He must like you,” Sandra said
. This did not sound like a compliment.

“I like him,” I said, defensive
. The three of them stared at me. “Not like
that.”

“To each her own,” Candy said
. Her bleached blonde hair was pulled back with a huge barrette today, and in addition to a beige peasant blouse she wore a smug expression.

The bell that ended lunch period gave its piercing ring before I could retort.

“See you tomorrow, Jolie,” Margo said.

It was the fastest I’d seen the three of them move, and I stayed seated for a moment
. I stood, taking the banana off my tray to give to Scoobie. I wanted friends besides Scoobie, but I didn’t feel like listening to whatever the three of them were trying to say about him. At least not all the time.

For the twentieth time I wished I were in
Lakewood.

“Yo, Jolie
.” Scoobie greeted me as I walked out of the cafeteria. He had an expression different from his usual. Uncertain, maybe.

“What’s up?” I asked, handing him the banana and falling into step.

“I, look, if those girls were giving you a hard time. If you want me…”

I stood to the side of the hallway and stopped
. “What did they say?”

He shrugged
. “Not much that I heard, just my name and a couple of other words. You’d just been sitting with them…”

I looked at him
. “They said they don’t know you well, that this is the most you’ve been in school for awhile. Is it?”

He looked away for a second, then back at me
. “I didn’t know they missed me.” He was back to his cocky self.