Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 00.5 - Jolie and Scoobie High School Misadventures (9 page)

“Yeah, you were, or you were acting it anyway
. I didn’t do anything.” I almost said something about having him to Aunt Madge’s for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it wasn’t as if he owed me anything.

He faced me
. “That guy Sam, that you saw at church Christmas Eve, gave me a hard time about something.”

“So what?” I asked
. “Why does that mean you act annoyed with me?”

He sighed
. “I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t your fault.”

I kept looking at him
. “And…?”

He sighed
. “About going to Vermont for Christmas.”

“So?”

“He knows my parents usually don’t take trips like that. I guess I sort of implied they did. You know, when I talked to you about it.”

I remembered what Margo said, and started to tell him, but changed my mind
. “What’s it to Sam?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Scoobie said, irritation beginning to show
. “He was being a jerk. I need to finish reading this.”

“Okay
.” I went back to my geometry book, but I wasn’t remotely interested in looking at angles and lines. After a couple of minutes, I leaned toward Scoobie. “You want to come to Aunt Madge’s for some warm bread?”

Scoobie looked up
. “Don’t think so. My mom’s getting up early and making spaghetti.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“VALENTINE’S DAY IS NEVER this warm,” Aunt Madge said.

I was wearing lighter-weight pants than my camouflage pants
, and a short-sleeved knit top. It was supposed to be about sixty degrees. I had a sweatshirt tied around my shoulders, with most of it hanging down my back, but I didn’t expect to wear it. “I’ll take it. I looked at the weather projections on the back page of the paper and it says we’ll be back in the thirties by the end of the weekend.”

“Don’t forget your cookies,” Aunt Madge said.

I had discovered cookie cutters in a kitchen drawer last month and had made a bunch of sugar cookies, some shaped like hearts and others boys and girls, the latter from gingerbread-type cookie cutters. Aunt Madge had supervised my baking, of course. I didn’t burn nearly as many as I usually do.

“I wrapped them in separate pieces of plastic
wrap,” I said. “I hope they don’t break before lunch time.” My plan was to force Scoobie to sit with Margo and me and then give cookies to everyone at the table. I wasn’t bosom buddies with any of the girls, but they were the closest people I had to friends in Ocean Alley. Except Scoobie, of course.

I kissed Aunt Madge on the cheek and picked up the shoe box of cookies, which was sitting on my world history book
. I debated leaving the book at home, but Mr. Porter had paid more attention to me since I had smart-mouthed him.

Outside I took a deep breath, happy that it didn’t make me want to cough like it does when it’s really cold
. You can’t really smell the ocean three blocks back, unless there’s one of those red tides of algae, but I pretended that I could.

“Yo, Jolie!” 

I could hear Scoobie but couldn’t pick him out among the batches of students standing in front of the school.

“He’s over there, Jolie
.” It was Sean O’Malley, and he sounded uncharacteristically quiet.

“I don’t see…why is he lying on the brick wall?” I asked, not really expecting Sean to know.

“He’s been doing weed,” Sean said, quietly.

It took me a couple of seconds to register that Sean meant marijuana
. “What?!  I didn’t know he did that.” I kept my voice quiet, too.

“I don’t think he has all year,” Sean said.

Several people looked at Scoobie as they walked up the steps, but no one said anything to him. He didn’t look up to see why I hadn’t come over.

“What do we do?” I asked
. “Will the teachers be able to tell?”

“I took the roach away from him, and threw it down the sewer
. He’s so stoned it didn’t even make him mad.”

“Do, uh, you know if he has any more?” I asked.

“Don’t know, not likely. Listen, Jolie,” he looked up toward the school doors as the five-minutes-before-homeroom bell rang, “I can’t do a lot more. Last year Scoobie and I got thrown out for three days for smoking pot on school grounds. My parents would kill me if I got caught near him today.”

I stared at Scoobie, nodding slowly.

“I’m sorry,” Sean said.

“It’s okay
. You don’t want to get in trouble. I don’t think anyone would think I was smoking with him.”

Sean walked up the steps without looking back, and I walked over to Scoobie.

“It’s like spring,” he said, in a kind of dreamy voice.

“Yes
. Listen, Scoobie, it’s time for school. Can you walk up the steps?”

“If they’re still there
.” His laugh was higher than usual.

“Come on, I brought cookies for Valentine’s Day
. You want one now?”

“Yeah, I’m starved
.” He sat up and swung his feet over the edge of the low brick wall.

I opened the box and pulled out the first cookie my hand came to, which was one of the people shapes. I unwrapped it and handed it to him as the homeroom bell rang
. “Come on, eat fast so we aren’t too late.”

He wolfed it down and reached for another one, so I unwrapped it
. He looked at the second person-shaped cookie for a moment before he ate it. “You could use those little cinnamon dot candies and make doo dads for the boys and…”

“Everything all right down there
?” It was the voice of the stern assistant principal I’d met on my first day. I now knew his name was Mr. Rosen.

I called up to him
. “Scoobie hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday. He was woozy. We’ll be right up.”

Mr. Rosen walked down a couple of steps, but didn’t come all the way down.

“Listen to me, Scoobie. You know who that is?”

“Trouble,” he said.

I was angry, but I tried not to make my face look it. “Get up, and don’t you dare stumble when you walk up the steps.” He stood and I put the lid on the shoebox and grabbed it and my world history book.

Scoobie had picked up on my tone
. He looked at me almost wide-eyed and stood. “I’m on it.”

We started up the steps
. He was steady on his feet, and I started to relax. But as we got almost to Mr. Rosen he gave him a big smile, and said, “I smoked some really good pot.”

Mr. Rosen looked from Scoobie to me
. I had tears on my cheeks. “Scoobie, how could you?”

“Can I have another cookie?” he asked.

MR. ROSEN DIDN’T keep me past homeroom
. Basically, I think he let me stay in his office until I stopped crying. Apparently he is able to judge when someone smoked pot, and he didn’t think I did.

“Thanks for the tissue,” I said, as I stood.

He almost smiled. “You’re a good friend to Scoobie, but you need to look out for yourself.”

I nodded
. Scoobie was sitting quietly, his head bent forward and eyes closed. I left and went to my locker. I felt numb as I fiddled with the combination lock. It took me three times to open it. I stood and looked into it, as if expecting to find some sort of explanation for Scoobie’s behavior. Slowly I placed the box of cookies on the top shelf and traded the world history book for my geometry book.

The bell rang signaling the end of homeroom and switch for first period, so I shut the locker
. I hoped the few minutes since I’d finished crying meant that my eyes weren’t red. I ducked into the girls’ bathroom. No one else was in there yet, so I could look into the mirror for a few seconds. Red, but not overly. I bent over and splashed some cold water on my eyes. I was drying them with a paper towel when Jennifer Stenner and a couple of friends walked in. They came to a full stop for a second, and then the other two looked at each other and went into a stall.

“Are you okay?” Jennifer
asked.

“I sprayed hairspray in my eyes this morning
. They still burn,” I said. “Thanks for asking.” I tossed the paper towel in the trash and walked into a hallway full of laughter. It was only then that I focused on the hearts made of pink construction paper that were affixed to the walls and bulletin boards.

“Jolie
.” It was Sean.

“I thought it was going to be okay
.” I fell into step beside him. “But when we got to the top of the steps he told Mr. Rosen he’d just smoked pot.”

Sean groaned
. “Why does he do that crap?”

“I didn’t know he did,” I said
.

I had stopped outside my geometry class and Sean looked at me
. “He hasn’t in a long time. I gotta get to class.” He walked quickly down the now quieter hallway and I went into my classroom.

What else don’t I know about Scoobie?

I WASN’T SURE IF I should tell Aunt Madge
. I finally decided I would because if I didn’t she’d just hear it from someone else. I didn’t start to tear up until I finished talking.

Her tone was sharp
. “Where did Art Rosen take him?”

“I don’t know.” I wiped my hand across my eyes
. “He wasn’t yelling or anything.”

“And he knew you hadn’t smoked any
?” She looked at me very intently.

“I guess so
. He told me I was a good friend to Scoobie, but I should watch out for myself.”

“Good advice
.” The phone rang and she answered it. “Just a minute, Margo.” She handed me the receiver for the kitchen wall phone.

“Jolie
. I wondered why you were so quiet at lunch. I just heard about Scoobie. I’m sorry.”

I wasn’t sure if she was fishing for information or if she really was calling to be nice
. “Thanks, Margo. I just didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Sure, I get it
. The cookies were good.”

I wasn’t sure what to say
. “Aunt Madge helped me make them.”

Margo didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, then she said, simply “Okay,
I just wanted you to know that…that I cared.”

“Thank you
.” I almost whispered it, afraid I would cry again. I recradled the phone and turned back to Aunt Madge.

“Margo is a nice girl,” she said.

I nodded. “She dates Eddie. He always says hello to Scoobie and me.” That was pretty much how I classified Ocean Alley students. Snobs who pretended not to see us when anyone else would have said hello, and the people who said hello. My guess was there would be fewer hellos after today. I mostly didn’t care. But I cared some.

“Scoobie has to learn to make his own path,” Aunt Madge said, and walked over to the oven to take out the two loaves of bread for the
four o’clock tea.

I thought that was kind of an odd thing to say
. “Are you going to be mad at him?  If he comes over or something.”

“No
. I expect he’ll get in enough trouble at home.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

MARGO’S CALL WAS WHAT got me to school without giving in to the sense of dread I felt. I guessed it was dread. It seemed Scoobie would likely be suspended, and I would be by myself all day, except for lunch. I’m perfectly fine being alone, but I hate feeling so lonely in a crowd of people.

I was sitting in home room staring at my notebook when a tiny wad of paper landed on it
.
No doubt who that is.

Sean grinned at me and gave me a thumb up
. I didn’t know what that meant, but I nodded and gave him a small smile.

“Thank you for the valentines,” the homeroom teacher said
. She gestured to a small pile on her desk. “I got at least one in every period. First time for that.” She smiled. I thought she taught French, and wondered if any were in French.

She finished taking attendance and reminded us that the spring food drive for the food pantry would start in two weeks
. She wanted us to remind our parents to buy some extra canned goods. We were to bring them in two weeks from Friday. It made me think of Scoobie being hungry.

The bell rang and Sean walked over to me
. Several people looked at us. I stared back at one of the girls and she flushed and walked out.

“Come on,” Sean said
. “I’ll walk you to your geometry.” We stepped into the hall.

“Did you talk to him?” I asked.

“Yeah, he called about seven last night. He thinks you hate him.”

That almost amused me
. “I don’t hate him. I mostly don’t understand.”

“He only got a three day suspension
. And it’s the kind where they give you schoolwork to do while you’re gone.”

I looked at him, a question probably showing in my eyes.

“It takes the teachers time to do that. It means they still have hope for you. Catch you later.” Sean loped down the hall.

I was thinking about what he said and again tripped over the art portfolio that belonged to the girl named Ramona
. This time I would have hit the floor, but the guy who was sitting behind her caught my elbow. “Steady as she goes,” he said, and actually smiled at me.

“Thanks,” I said
. I didn’t even know his name.

“I’m sorry, Jolie,” Ramona said
.

I looked at her, and as annoyed as I was that she had again left it partially in the walkway, I could tell she meant it
. “One more time and you owe me lunch.” I gave her a sort of smile and took my seat.
Nothing like looking like a klutz in front of everyone.

At first no one talked about Scoobie at the lunch table
. Margo and almost all of her friends dated someone, and they talked about the cards or gifts they had gotten the day before. Eventually, Candy asked, “How long is Scoobie out for?”

She looked at me directly, but
for a change I didn’t think she was being snotty about Scoobie. “Sean said he called last night. Three days.”

“That’s not bad at all,” Margo said, looking almost pleased.

What do these girls know that they aren’t telling me?

Margo walked out with me
. “Does he ever talk about his parents with you?”

That surprised me
. “He just says his dad travels a lot for his job. His mom works nights.”

She stopped and stood to the side of the hallway
. I stopped, too. “I told you my mom knows his mom.” She hesitated. “She’s not very nice.”

“Oh
. He never said anything like that.”

“I think Scoobie wants you to know him how he is now, not how he was the last couple of years.”

My face must have shown my confusion. “If you aren’t too mad at him, it would be good to let him know that.” She walked away.

I almost stumbled into world history
. I felt as if there was some sort of conspiracy not to talk to me about Scoobie’s history. He’d lived in Ocean Alley all his life. Margo probably knew a lot about him. But so would Aunt Madge.

“HE GOES TO FIRST PREZ, right?  You must know him pretty well.” I poured myself some juice from the pitcher in the fridge so I’d have something to do with my hands.

“He comes off and on,” she said, slowly
. “His parents don’t and I don’t know his family well. Adam’s been pretty independent since he was about twelve.”

“You care if I call him?” I asked.

“Of course not.” She seemed to think for a few seconds. “We’ll need to decide how much your parents need to know about this. They don’t really know Adam. I know he’s just…a good kid with occasional bad habits.”

“It won’t be in the paper or anything,” I said, hoping our decision would be not to let them know.

She nodded slowly. “If they ask, specifically, we’ll mention it.”

I kissed her cheek
. I was glad not to have to sneak around to call Scoobie and more glad not to have my parents ask questions about him. Scoobie had said not to call in the day because his mom worked nights, and I realized I’d never called him. He always called me. I picked up the small Caller ID box that sat by the phone in the hall outside of Aunt Madge’s bedroom and flipped back until I saw his number. It was after five o’clock. Surely his mother would be up.

The phone rang ten times before I hung up
. “No answering machine I guess.” I replaced the receiver and looked down at the ball of black fur rubbing my leg. “I’ll take Petey out.”

I walked to the boardwalk before I remembered I hadn’t brought the pooper scooper
. One of the knick knack stores was open year round, except after Christmas week, so I tied Petey to the railing and went in to beg for a bag.

When I came out, bag in hand, the policeman who was often on the boardwalk in the summer was petting Petey
. I knew I wasn’t supposed to leave him tethered, and did an internal groan. “I just went in for a second,” I said.

He had been crouching and stood
. “I saw you go in.”

I held up my plastic bag
. “Forgot to bring one.”

“And to think I thought you only went to the arcade
.” He smiled and walked toward the steps that led from the boardwalk to the street.

That was odd
.
Lakewood is a much bigger town than Ocean Alley. The only time people in Lakewood talked to the police was generally to get a speeding ticket.

I had walked about a block before I saw Scoobie sitting on a bench facing the ocean
. I was about half a block away and wanted to walk quickly, but Petey found a couple of spots that needed a good smell.

Scoobie looked up as I got within a few feet
. He looked almost alarmed.

“You’re okay,” I said, relieved to see him
. “Petey, cut it out.” He was standing on his hind legs, paws on Scoobie’s pants.

Scoobie reached down to pet him, looking at me as he did so
. “Are you going to keep talking to me?”

“Of course
.” I sat next to him and let go of Petey’s leash. He never wandered more than a few feet from me. “I guess I am, well, irritated. It just seemed kind of dumb to come to school stoned. It’s not worth getting thrown out.”

“I called Mr. Rosen yesterday to see if you got in trouble
. I didn’t really…remember.”

“You were more or less napping when I left his office
. I only missed homeroom.” I looked at him. “What were you thinking?”

“I dunno
. It was a nice day.” He shrugged and stared at the ocean.

“Are you sad or something?” I asked.

He kept staring at the ocean, but his expression changed to almost amusement. “Sad?  Not really. Just kind of fed up. With school and…everything.”

“Can I, uh, help you somehow?” I asked.

“Nah. I got it.” He looked at the ocean instead of me.

“I called your house.”

“When?” He stared at me.

“Just before I came out
. Aunt Madge said it was okay.”

“How ticked off is she at me
?” His attitude was gloomy.

“She isn’t going to tell you it’s good, but she didn’t seem really mad.” I decided not to tell him how Aunt Madge had described him.

I was debating whether to ask Scoobie something about his parents when he said, “It’s cold.” He stood.

It was cold, only
in the upper forties. I hadn’t paid much attention to it when I was walking. “Come on Petey.” I walked over to where he was and picked up the leash.

“That dog wasn’t the brightest one in the litter,” Scoobie said, sounding a little like himself.

“He knows where he eats. You want to come back to the Cozy Corner?” I asked.

He shook his head
. “Mr. Rosen told my parents I’m supposed to be home by six while I’m on suspension.”

“Isn’t that awfully early?”

“I think Mr. Rosen knows that the guy who sells most of the pot in town doesn’t get to his spot outside the Sandpiper until about eight.”