Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 00.5 - Jolie and Scoobie High School Misadventures (6 page)

CHAPTER SIX

I KNEW SEAN O’MALLEY, and he made sure everyone in my homeroom knew Scoobie and I had been under the boardwalk on Halloween.

“I seenk it is zee French name,” he said. “Eet always means zay are full of fun.”

“Better than full of something else,” I muttered, so only Sean and a couple of others could hear me.

He hooted. “She proves my point!”

“That’s enough
.” The homeroom teacher never lets Sean get away with much. If she did he would just keep going.

“You all had an extra hour of sleep recently
. I expect to see it when I do roll call.”

She doesn’t actually call our names, she has an attendance list and checks us off
. So far I have not missed one day. I had fully intended to skip a lot, but I figured Renée would come down on me harder than Aunt Madge. I didn’t feel like fighting with my sister when I saw her for Thanksgiving.

If I see her.

I HAD ACTUALLY been able to do my geometry homework without the usual cursing at the various angles and how to calculate them
. I walked into class feeling as if I might even try answering one of the teacher’s questions when I tripped, only staying off the floor by grabbing the side of a desk.

“I’m sorry,” a dreamy-sounding voice said
. I wasn’t sure of her name, but I had always thought she was an art student, because she carried a large portfolio. That’s what I had tripped over.

“No problem,” I said, trying to hide my irritation.

That was the best thought I had throughout the class. Half of the answers on my homework were wrong.
Really, what is the point?

I walked into the hall after class and heard a familiar snigger from nearby
. “Go away, Sean.”

“Where’s Scoobie?” he asked
. “Maybe he’s home recovering from getting drenched.”

“She said go away, Sean,” said the art student
. She fell into step beside me. “I’m Ramona. I live kind of near Scoobie.”

I was not sure exactly where Scoobie lived. He had always said that because of his mom’s sleeping schedule and the fact that his dad was on the road a lot, he didn’t take people to his house
.

“I haven’t seen Scoobie either,” she said, and leaned
closer. “It’s too bad you didn’t get Jennifer, though.”

I DIDN’T SEE Scoobie at lunch. It was just as well. A couple of people laughed when I walked by their tables en route to the back of the cafeteria, to Margo. Her friends, who had not become mine, did not seem too happy to see me.

“Did you really do it?” Margo asked, as I sat down.

“Yep. Don’t ask me why.”

“We wouldn’t dream of it,” said Candy.

I ignored her and turned toward Margo. “Why is this such a big deal, anyway?  It’s not exactly a crime to play tricks on Halloween.”

She shrugged
. “I guess it’s not. It’s just people besides Jennifer and her friends heard Sergeant Tortino when he leaned over to talk to you guys.”

I groaned
. “I didn’t recognize anyone.”

“Can you say Halloween masks?” Sandra asked
.

I WAS ABOUT to ask about Scoobie in the school office when he came back to school on Tuesday. Came back with his arm in a sling and sporting a cast.

“What happened to you
?” I had been sitting on a concrete bench just outside of school, hoping to catch him on his way in.

“It was stupid, really
.” He looked tired. “I was wearing my mask home and I stepped off the curb and fell. The doc at the ER said I was lucky to break an arm instead of my elbow.”

“Oh, Scoobie
. You should have called. I would have come to visit.”

He gave me one of his cocky grins and spoke in a formal tone
. “I’m not sure I would have been fully up to receiving visitors.”

“So you had to tell your parents what we were up to
?” I held open the door leading into the main hallway.

“Nah
. I just told them I was on the boardwalk. My dad wasn’t even home.”

“It’s your right arm
. You’re right-handed,” I said.

“I noticed that
. You can do my homework for me,” he said, with a grin. We had reached his locker. I knew his code and started to open it for him.

“I’m not that good a friend,” I said
. I swung it open. “What books do you want?”

“Scoobie, man what happened
?” It was Sean O’Malley, and he wasn’t being a goof-off, for a change.

“Just a fall, man
. No biggie.” Scoobie looked at me. “Maybe only math. I can just listen in history and English.”

“Jeez
. Is that the same arm you broke in third grade?” Sean asked.

“Nope, that was my other one
. I’m gonna be late, Sean.” Scoobie took his book from me and strode away. I closed the locker and gave the combination lock a swirl so it was locked. When I looked back at Sean he was just staring down the hall after Scoobie.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THANKSGIVING WAS TOMORROW, and it looked as if Renée and I were having it with Aunt Madge. This was what she had expected, but I had been certain my parents would have called to tell us to come home. Of course, they hadn’t talked to Renée and me about their problems before they more or less abandoned us for the year, or spent extra time with us in the late summer, so I don’t know why I expected anything different.

Maybe I should be worried
.
It had never occurred to me that they would divorce. I don’t know why not. I knew at least ten people whose parents were divorced. Just not mine.

Renée stuck her head in my bedroom door
. “There’s a guy in Aunt Madge’s sitting room waiting for you.”

“
That’s odd. Good looking?” I asked, as I stood up from the small card table where I’d been working on an essay for English class.

She shrugged
. “Kinda sort of.”

Renée is a couple of inches taller than I am, and she has a perfect figure
. If she hadn’t been such a doting big sister when we were growing up, it would be easy to hate her for her good looks. Or at least resent her. Especially since my mother always implied that anything Renée did was the way it should be done, from the dresses with the small floral print that she wore to church on Sunday to the ballroom dancing lessons she and her friends had taken a couple of years ago.

I walked downstairs without her, since Reneé didn’t seem interested
. She walked down to the room Aunt Madge had assigned her, a bigger one toward the front of the house on the second floor. I had kept my small room on the third floor.

“Scoobie
. What are you doing here?” I asked.

His expression looked almost shifty
. “I need a reason?”

“Of course not
. You just never came over before.”

He shrugged
. “My dad’s not getting home until tomorrow night, and my mom’s at work. She’ll be sleeping a lot tomorrow.”

“Then you should come eat dinner here, Adam,” Aunt Madge said.

“Nah, you’re having a lot of people, aren’t you?”

“Just we three girls, and Petey, of course
.” She nodded toward the sliding glass door. Petey was outside, with his nose pressed against the glass. When he saw he had Aunt Madge’s attention he yipped.

I walked to the door and opened it
. He came in, tail wagging and tongue out, and made straight for Scoobie. “I just let you out, dumbbell.” I said.

“You shouldn’t talk to your aunt like that,” Scoobie said.

IT ACTUALLY WAS kind of fun
. Scoobie brought over a picture of a turkey he had drawn in second grade, and it looked more like a fish with colorful tentacles around its head. He said it could be a table decoration.

“And you brought this why?
” I asked, wiping my eyes.

He shrugged
. “Because I can’t cook.” He regarded Renée, who was pulling a pan of sweet potatoes out of the oven. “How come you can cook and Jolie can’t?” he asked.

“Because she wo
n’t sit still long enough for our mom to teach her.”

“How do you know I can’t?” I asked him.

“Because Sean has Consumer Ed with you, and he said you burned the toast and couldn’t sew a hem.”

“He has a big mouth,” I said
. “I liked learning how to use an electric screwdriver better.”

“I bet there were some good comments about that lesson,” Renée murmured.

“Especially about reversing the screw…” Scoobie began.

Aunt Madge gave a small cough
. “I must have a tickle in my throat,” she said.

“Of course, I never laugh about stuff like that,” he said.

“No doubt,” Aunt Madge said, dryly. “I have a project for you to help me with after dinner, Adam.”

“Is it called dessert?” he asked.

She thought for as second and gave him one of her “be careful what you wish for” grins that I’ve seen when I say stuff like I want to sleep in rather than go to school. The one morning she did not force me to go she made me vacuum the entire first floor when I did get up. I was at school by eleven.

“Be careful, or you’ll end up in the doghouse,” she said.

IT TURNED OUT AUNT MADGE was being close to literal
.

Scoobie and I went to the small garage to carry in the pieces of wood, which Aunt Madge had already sawed into various shapes according to a pattern she’d gotten from a carpentry magazine
. She told us to leave the shingles in the garage, that she’d deal with them later.

It was a warm day for Thanksgiving in
New Jersey, almost fifty degrees. It took us a couple of trips, because the wood was not heavy but it was in a bunch of awkward sizes. Plus, with his cast Scoobie couldn’t carry much.

By the time we brought the last batch of wood in Aunt Madge had the pattern on the oak kitchen table and her toolbox was open on a large piece of plastic on the floor
. My father used to tease her about her carpentry skills. I loved watching her make or repair things. Renée used a doll house Aunt Madge made.

I had been more interested in a huge jigsaw puzzle that Aunt Madge had fashioned for me when I was about six
. When the pieces were assembled and painted, they took the shape of Uncle Gordon’s small boat, which now resided in the garage. When she turned sixty-five my mother begged her to stop using the jig saw. Aunt Madge kept her table saw, but I don’t think my mother knows it’s in the basement.

Renée had a notebook and a stack of student papers she was grading
. She had the occasional comment, but she wasn’t really helping as Scoobie and I lined up the pieces of wood in an order Aunt Madge specified. Once we’d done that and she had a basket of small braces and nails, she set to work.

“Adam, hand me that magnetic screwdriver, would you?”

Scoobie obliged and sat cross-legged near Aunt Madge. After a few minutes on the floor I sat next to Renée and watched the dog house take shape. It wasn’t a complicated little house. Aunt Madge said Petey didn’t need something really strong as he wouldn’t have any idea how to break one.

“What color are we going to paint it?” I asked.

“We’ll put on a coat of white primer first, maybe this weekend. It might rain tonight, and I don’t want it on the porch until it’s got a couple of coats of paint.”

Petey had been surveying us from a spot near the sliding glass door
. Aunt Madge looked at him. “Well?”

He yipped and stretched and walked over
. After a couple of cautious smells he wagged his tail in approval.

“Petey’s going to have a nicer house than a bunch of the people in town,” Scoobie said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

DECEMBER AT THE SHORE CAN BE mild or really, really cold. It’s the kind of cold that finds its way down your neck and makes your fingers as numb as your nose. Naturally, since I was walking to school, it was one of the really cold Decembers.

I walked into the main entrance of Ocean Alley High about a week before Christmas and stood still, looking around
. A guy ran into me.

“You need to keep your butt moving,” Sean said
. He passed me and then turned back to look at me. “You didn’t know about the snowflakes?”

Every six inches or so a large paper snowflake hung suspended from the ceiling
. They were red, green, or white. The string was apparently tied around the framing for the tiles that made up the suspended ceiling.

“No
. There must be hundreds,” I said.

He fell into step beside me
. “Thousands. The In Crowd works on them all of December.”

“Ah
. I can’t imagine why they didn’t ask me to help.” I was still craning my neck when Sean and I walked into homeroom.

“Sean and Jo-lee sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-NG…”  It was one of the two guys who always sat near Sean at the back of the classroom.

“You’re a retard,” he said, and flushed as he walked to his seat.

“Sean
.” The teacher’s voice was firm but not loud. “You don’t want to insult people less intelligent than you are.”

Still, the guy in the back heard her
. “Which is hardly anybody.”

“What are you guys, twelve?” I said this more harshly than I meant to
. All three of them stared at me. “What are you looking at?” I slid into my seat. They looked away.

My outburst surprised even me.
What do you care if they act like idiots?
  I don’t do much self-analysis, but it didn’t take me long to realize that the snowflakes made me think of working on decorations for stuff at my high school in Lakewood. A bunch of my more artsy friends organized decorating the front hall. I always helped hang the garland. Tears burned, and I blinked fast so they’d stay in my eyes.

It was very quiet as the teacher made notes on her attendance sheet.

“COME ON JOLIE, you do want to go
.” Scoobie was walking to the Cozy Corner with me and I had just told him I didn’t think I wanted to go home for Christmas.

“It’ll make me remember why I don’t want to be here
. And then I’ll just have to come back.” In reality, I hoped that my parents would miss me if I stayed with Aunt Madge. Let them see how it felt to be ignored.

He didn’t say anything
. We had to concentrate on where we walked. It had sleeted for awhile about noon, though it had stopped before we left school. Still, it was slippery and Scoobie had just had his cast taken off. He had worn it so long it had been almost black from all the signatures running together.

After about thirty seconds of silence, I asked, “Do you stay here at Christmas, or go away?”

“I’m not sure. Sometimes we go skiing in Vermont,” he said.

“Wow
. You didn’t tell me that.” That seemed pretty expensive, considering that I had the impression that Scoobie never had much money.

He shrugged
. “It depends if my dad gets a big Christmas bonus.”

“Gee, I hope he does
. I’ve only been to Spring Mountain in Pennsylvania. Vermont has really good slopes.”

“You’d probably fall on your butt,” he said.

“Are you any good?  Skiing, I mean?”

He hesitated for a moment
. “Not really. I mostly like to sit in the ski lodge and drink hot chocolate.”

“Is it the same ski lodge that the Von Trapp family owned?” I asked, thinking of the family from
The Sound of Music.

“You ask a lot of questions for a girl who isn’t very concerned about Christmas,” he said.

“I’m jealous,” I said. “It would be something to look forward to without having to go home and come back.”

I started walking on the grass
. It crunched, but it wasn’t as slippery as the sidewalk. A car horn honked and we both looked up. Mrs. Finch rolled down the window of her van. “Jolie, are you free on Christmas Eve?”

Without thinking, I said, “Yes
. What time?”

“Our friends are having an Open House from seven to nine
. Come just before seven.” A car honked and she started to pull away, but instead called out, “We’ll pick you up.”

After Scoobie and I walked a couple of more steps, he said, “I guess you’re staying.”

MY MOTHER HAD the nerve to be upset that I didn’t want to come home
.

“Mom, I haven’t seen you and dad for months, and it’s not
like I’ll get to see my friends when I’m there. You only want us there Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Everybody’ll be with their families those days.”

“And I thought you would want to be with yours,” she said, more patiently than she usually talks when I irritate her.

“I wanted to be with my family all fall and the spring coming up. I’m not going home for two days. It’ll just make it harder when I have to come back.”

Apparently my mother had no retort, because she changed the conversation to talk about how she and my dad were going on some trip after Christmas
.

I didn’t listen
. If she had Renée and me at home for a bit she could look like a good mommy. I wasn’t buying it.

If Aunt Madge was surprised she that I didn’t want to go home for two days, she didn’t act like it. I waited until the day before Christmas Eve to tell her
. “I’m glad we’ll be spending Christmas together, Jolie. There’s a midnight service. Do you want to go?”

I considered this
. I had stayed away from First Prez because I didn’t want to run into the snob from school, but I like church on Christmas.

“Sounds good
. I’ll be home from babysitting by ten at the latest, I guess.”

THOMAS EDWARD AND HANNAH were allowed to stay up until ten o’clock on Christmas Eve, though Thomas Edward had quietly informed me that Hannah would fall asleep on the couch, probably trying to hold her eyes open.

“When we get up in the morning, there’ll be presents,” Hannah said, confident of this
. Her elfish features were radiant and she tugged absent-mindedly at one of her long pigtails as she talked.

“Does Thomas Edward get some, or does he just get coal in his stocking?” I asked.

She looked delighted. “My grandma used to say that!”

I caught her use of past tense and glanced at Thomas Edward
.

“They both passed away,” he said, quickly
. Hannah stopped smiling.

I wasn’t sure what to say, but I took a stab at it
. “I’m glad you have good memories. My grandparents are in heaven, too, but I have my Aunt Madge, the one I live with. She was my grandmother’s sister.”

Thomas Edward looked uncomfortable
. “That’s good, I guess.”

“Why don’t we take one more look at your Christmas list
?” I asked Hannah this. Thomas Edward had assured me he knew what was really going on with Santa.

She jumped off the sofa, happy
. “We can look at the whole list, not just the ones I want best.”

“Most,” her brother said.

Hannah had retrieved the list from the dining room table and came back to sit next to me. “Okay. First, no clothes. Clothes aren’t real presents.”

It was a single-page, but had about twenty-five things on it
. She explained the difference between Beanie Babies and what she called regular stuffed animals. “Beanie Babies have lots of friends. A stuffed bear is just a stuffed bear.” Apparently this was supposed to be what mattered.

“Will the Beanie Babies sleep in your bed?”

Her look was as scathing as any a six-year old can give. “Of course not. Only babies sleep with toys.”

“How about you, Thomas Edward?” I asked.

He looked up from his book. “Pokemon. Only Pokemon.”

“You need a Game Boy first,” Hannah said.

“Yeah, well, that’s what I’m hoping.” He looked at me as if he wasn’t sure of something. “Are you going to your house in Lakewood or stay here tomorrow?”

“My parents are only going to be home for a couple of days, so I’m staying here with Aunt Madge.”

“Don’t you like them?” Hannah asked.

From the mouths of babes
.
I wasn’t about to tell her how angry I was. “They’re okay. Right now I just like Aunt Madge better.”

“You should go,
” Thomas Edward said. “You never know when people will be gone.”

THE CHRISTMAS EVE service was really nice. Plus, there was supposed to be Christmas cookies and hot chocolate afterwards.

I stopped myself from yawning as the minister talked about the shepherds following the star
. A look around the church had already shown me Michael Riordan wasn’t here. I had thought of things to say, like hoping he had the Christmas spirit all year. It probably wouldn’t have made him feel guilty.

After the service Aunt Madge, whose hair was red in honor of the season, stopped to talk to a couple of her friends, so I made my way to the table of cookies by myself
.

“Jolie
.” It was the guy named Sam who sat at the snobs’ lunch table. “I didn’t know you went here.”

I nodded toward Aunt Madge
. “My aunt does. I came in the summer, but not so much after that.”
In fact, not at all.

He had the decency to look uncomfortable
, shown by a flush that crept from his neck to his dark black hair. Sam did nod at me in the hall, so I really wasn’t angry with him. I just couldn’t understand why he wanted to hang out with the In Crowd, as Sean called them.

“Are, uh, your parents here?” he asked.

“They’re on an extended tour of Europe. That’s why I’m here this year.”
I hope it’s only this year. I want senior year with my friends.

“Wow
. Too bad they didn’t take you with them, huh?”

“I guess
. I think they’re doing mostly boring stuff. You know, museums and tour guides.”

He smiled and we carried our cookies to the back pew
. “You like OAHS?”

I gave him what might have passed for a withering look
. “It’s not all that friendly.”

He flushed
. “Look, I’m sorry about not…”

“No, no
. I am, really.” And I was. It was Christmas for God’s sake. I smiled at him. “At least you aren’t afraid to nod at me in the hallway.”

He gave a reluctant kind of grin
. “I guess sometimes I’m kinda stupid.”

“I doubt that
.” Aunt Madge walked up behind our pew and raised her mug of hot chocolate at me. “You’ll like this. They put in more sugar.”

“I’ll get one in a sec
. Do you know Sam?” I asked.

“Three years of Sunday School,” he said, before she could respond
. “How come you stopped?” He had directed this question to Aunt Madge.

She gave a slight
ly raised eyebrow. “It was…interesting, but there were some younger people who wanted to teach. That let me off the hook.”

I had never heard her put it quite like that
. I knew she had stopped teaching a few years ago. She said that Sundays were busy at the B&B, and sometimes it was hard to find the time even for the church service at First Prez.

This time Sam gave her a full-out grin
. “Wouldn’t have had anything to do with people coloring beards on Jesus in the book, would it?”

“Jesus had a beard,” I said.

“Not in the manger,” Aunt Madge said, dryly. She looked at Sam. “At least you made it a short beard.”

Someone called her name and Aunt Madge moved away.

“Beards, huh?” I gave Sam a friendlier smile.

“Yeah, Riordan started it
. She even kicked him out of class once.”

“Ah,” I said.

Sam looked kind of uncomfortable again. “So, where’s Scoobie?  He usually comes on Christmas.”

“He said they were going to
Vermont to ski,” I said. “Guess he’s not too much of a skier, but…”

“Scoobie?  And his parents?” Sam asked.

His tone surprised me. “Yeah. He said they don’t go every year, but he said his dad got a nice Christmas bonus.”

“That’s good,” Sam said, and looked away and then back again
. “How about some hot chocolate?”