Gracie's Game: Sudden Anger, Accidentally on Purpose (42 page)

Chapter 36

"I've had better lunches," Cheryl informed her friends, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin.

"I
like
chili," Kelly said. He scraped the last dregs from the plastic bowl and leaned forward a bit to see if she had some left. "I'll take that if you don't want it."

"It's not bad for institutional food," Gracie said. "And besides, none of us felt like going out for lunch in this weather.

"Here, Kelly, you can have mine too." Shawna picked up her bowl and handed it to him. "It's been cloudy all day, but naturally it had to start raining right at lunchtime."

Cheryl handed him her bowl as well. She glanced at the clock on the cafeteria wall and said, "I think I'll visit the ladies' room now. It's always so crowded right before the bell rings."

"Sounds like a plan," Gracie said.

Shawna stood up too, prompting Kelly to look up in surprise. "You're not gonna leave me here all by my lonesome, are you?" He did his best to look pitiful.

Gracie patted his shoulder and reminded him that he was still eating. "We'll be right back."

They walked away together, leaving Kelly mumbling to himself about the age-old question of why women couldn't seem to manage this basic function alone.

"Let's stop at the vending machines on the way back," Cheryl suggested. "I want something to take the taste of that chili out of my mouth."

"You complain about the grease in the chili, then you eat chocolate," Gracie teased.

"And you stay so
skinny
!" Shawna added.

"But the calories in candy taste so much better!" Cheryl explained, laughing.

They pushed open the door to find the bathroom apparently unoccupied. But they hadn't taken three steps before they heard the unmistakable sound of someone losing their lunch. They looked at each other and grimaced in sympathy.

"Who's there?" Gracie asked. "Are you okay?"

At first the only answer was a groan. "Uh, it's Meaghan. Is that you, Gracie?"

"Yeah, and Shawna and Cheryl are here too."

"I must've eaten something that disagreed with me," Meaghan said in a weak voice.

"I
told
you that chili was gross!" Cheryl said.

Shawna grabbed a couple of paper towels, wet them at the sink, and bent down to stick her hand under the door. "Here's some wet towels, if you need to clean up or wipe your face."

"Thanks…unh!" Whatever Meaghan had been going to say was cut off by another bout of sickness.

"Stay there and we'll help you when we're done," Gracie said.

"I'll be okay," Meaghan insisted. "Just let me sit here a minute."

A couple of minutes later Meaghan unlocked her door and they helped her stand up. "Let's get you over to the sink so you can wash your hands," Shawna directed. "You should rinse your mouth out, too."

Gracie kept her hands on Meaghan's waist to steady her as she cleaned up. Meaghan looked at herself in the mirror and remarked, "I look awful."

"You want us to take you to the office so you can lie down?" Gracie asked.

"No, thanks," Meaghan said. "Actually I'm feeling better now." She tried a feeble grin on for size. "You know how it is, sometimes you just have to get it out and then you'll be okay. You can let go of me now, Gracie."

Emily burst in and headed for the sinks. She stuck her hands under the water, pumped a blob of soap onto one and began working up lather. As she did so she took in the scene with the other girls. "What's wrong?"

"Meaghan ate the cafeteria chili," Cheryl replied, trying to lighten the mood. "What're
you
doing, scrubbing for surgery?"

"It's this horrible poison ivy!" Emily wailed. "It just seems to be getting
worse
. See, yesterday I found some on the side of my neck." She pointed with a soapy finger.

"Allison told you not to scratch it," Gracie said.

"I'm not, I swear," Emily insisted. She held out one arm. "See? It's covered with that pink crap, and there's no scratch marks." She began rinsing her hands.

"So what's with the hand-washing?" Shawna inquired. "Soap won't make it go away."

Emily sighed loudly. "I know. But I'm getting paranoid; just in case I've touched it without realizing I figure it can't hurt to wash my hands a lot. Then maybe it won't spread so much."

"Makes sense to me," Gracie said. She turned to check on Meaghan, who was staring at her hands, turning her little silver purity ring around and around on her finger. "Are you feeling better now, Meaghan?"

Meaghan's head jerked up as if she were surprised the conversation had turned back to her. "Yeah, I think so, thanks."

"Do you need to go home or something?" Shawna asked, concerned.

"I think I'll be fine," Meaghan said, though her tone of voice didn't sound so sure. "Besides, Amy's coming over to hang out after school and I'd hate to disappoint her."

"Well, if all the crises are over, we'd better get back to Kelly," Cheryl said. "He's gonna wonder if we all fell in!"

Cheryl was still licking the chocolate off her fingers as she settled in to her seat in 4th hour. She pulled the appropriate book from her backpack, added a notebook, and then began rummaging around in search of a pencil. Having found one, she opened the book, pressing her hands against the pages to keep them open. She stared in dismay at the resultant brown smudge her sticky fingers had left on the page, then began licking the fingers again.

"Didn't your mother teach you to wash your hands after you ate?" Serene said snidely. She sauntered over towards Cheryl and looked down her nose at the smear on the book. "Looks like someone's been eating chocolate.
I
never touch the stuff because I know what it'll do to my face and figure."

Another time Cheryl might have returned the rudeness but right now she was doubly embarrassed to be noticed as well as harassed. "It doesn't seem to bother me." She glanced at the clock. "Help me out here, do you have a tissue so I can wipe my fingers?"

That was the right response, as it served to point out that Serene had to work at looking good while Cheryl seemed able to eat anything and not gain weight. "Gimme a minute and I'll see – but
only
because I don't want you touching me and getting me all sticky."

Serene turned her back on Cheryl and took a step forward to her desk; Cheryl reached over the back of the chair and rubbed her fingers across the wooden surface, sticking her tongue out as she did. She pulled her hand back quickly as Serene sat down, and pasted an innocent smile on her face. The girl across the aisle smothered a giggle with one hand while giving Cheryl a thumb's-up with the other.

Serene dropped her backpack on the desk with a heavy thump. She'd opened her mouth to make another nasty comment when suddenly the entire writing surface of the desk flipped forward under the weight of the book bag. Both desktop and bag fell on Serene's outstretched legs and she screamed with surprise.

Everyone stared in shock for a moment. Austin jumped up to pull the heavy piece of wood off Serene's legs, then stood there holding it awkwardly, unsure quite what to do with it. He finally put it down on the teacher's desk.

The teacher rushed up, having seen the accident as she walked into the room. "Serene, are you all right? My goodness, I've never seen that happen before."

Serene looked down at her feet and said in a stunned voice, "I'm bleeding."

The teacher bent down to take a closer look. "It's just a scratch, dear. Stand up and see if you can walk." She extended a hand to help Serene up, which gesture was ignored.

Serene took a cautious step and announced that it hurt a little but she didn't think anything was broken.

"Why don't you go clean up and we'll get you another desk. Austin, bring up one of those in the back, no one sits there this hour." She pushed the broken desk into the front corner of the room as Serene left (limping) and Austin showed off his strength by picking up an empty desk rather than pushing it.

The teacher pushed on the replacement to make sure it too wouldn't fall apart. "All right, class. Everything's under control; let's get started and Serene can catch up when she comes back. Though what with poor Mrs. Lane and Travis' fall the other day and now this we certainly seem to be having a lot of accidents around here lately."

Gracie and her girl friends had gone to the mall after school. Kelly professed a sudden interest in homework; anything was better to him that wandering around the mall looking at clothes! Cheryl had bought a new pair of skinny jeans, but Gracie and Shawna were more interested in chili-cheese fries and chocolate malts. The three girls staked out a table where they could watch people walk by and dug in.

"Did you hear about Serene?" Cheryl asked.

"What about her?" Shawna said, obviously not terribly interested.

"Her desk fell apart in 4th hour," Cheryl said. "The top just came right off and whacked her legs."

"Was she hurt?" Gracie asked, only mildly interested.

"She had a little cut on her ankle, and she limped when she left to take care of it. But I doubt she was really hurt."

"How could a desk fall apart?" Shawna asked, curious now.

Cheryl shrugged. "I don't know, but it did. The whole top just came off when she dropped her backpack on it."

"But they're bolted on, or something," Shawna protested.

"The nuts must've worked loose, maybe some guy was playing with them the hour before lunch," Gracie suggested.

Cheryl shrugged. "The teacher did mention there'd been several accidents lately."

"Like what?" Shawna wanted to know.

"Well, she mentioned Maggie and something about Travis," Cheryl replied. "Travis Stephenson? Did something happen to him?"

"Travis Nichols," Gracie replied.

"Oh, the nerd," Cheryl said.

"Cheryl! That's not very nice," Shawna said.

"Well, he
is
a nerd, a geek, a four-eyes; what'd he do anyway, break his glasses?"

"Travis is
smart
," Gracie insisted. "Just because he dresses a little weird and doesn't socialize much doesn't mean he's not a nice guy. He slipped at the bottom of the stairs the other day, fell and broke his arm."

"Owww!" Shawna put in.

"Good thing it wasn't Emily! We'd still be hearing about how bad it hurt," Cheryl said.

"But we
are
still hearing how bad that poison ivy itches!" Gracie said, laughing. "You know, come to think about it, there
have
been several accidents lately. You don't think Emily went out and
deliberately
got poison ivy, do you?"

"There's Madison's fall yesterday, too," Shawna reminded them. "That happened because of the broken tail light."

"Yeah, but they're just
accidents
," Gracie insisted. "You couldn't
plan
things like that. I mean, you could deliberately break Madison's taillight but even though you know she's usually skating around on the heelies you couldn't be sure she'd trip over the pieces and fall."