How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend (3 page)

 

This is what Dante's probable reaction would be if ever awakened in the middle of the night by a premonition:

Mystic Inner Voice: Dante, wake up, Giovanna needs you.

Dante (
grumbling
): What? (
He rolls over and tries to get back to dreaming about motorcycle engines or whatever it is that occupies the empty spaces in his brain.
)

Mystic Inner Voice: Get out of bed. Your sister is in trouble.

Dante: Yeah, she's always in trouble. Don't wake me up again unless you've got interesting news.

Mystic Inner Voice (
fading
): She needs your help . . .

Dante (
pulling the covers over his head
): It's probably some girl-trouble stuff, and I refuse to talk about clothes, guys, or anything that's found in the feminine hygiene aisle. Let Gabby deal with it.

Gabby is our stepmother, but she's so annoying I'm sure her inner voice has stopped speaking to her. Besides, if I were stuck down a well, Gabby would probably make me clean it before she pulled me to safety.

The only one in the family who would worry enough about me to get up in the middle of the night to check on me is the cat. Which might be the reason he occasionally jumps onto my bed and steps on my face. He's making sure I'm still breathing.

Anyway, Dante and I aren't psychic-bond close, but we're still there for each other. So when Dante brought up the election over breakfast the next morning, I very lovingly said, “Are you crazy?”

He sat back in his chair, leaving his bagel untouched. “You don't think I could win?”

“I don't know why you'd want to. Since when do you care what goes on in student council?”

Dante leaned forward again. “It's time we stopped letting Wilson and the rest of those . . . Aztecs run the school.”

Aztecs is code for another A word which we are not allowed to say in the house because Skipper, our five-year-old half sister, repeats everything we say. And yes, her name really is Skipper, like the Barbie doll and that fat guy on
Gilligan's Island.
I have no idea what Gabby was thinking of when she gave her daughter this name, and I just count my blessings Gabby didn't marry my dad until long after I came along. Otherwise I'd be walking around saddled with a name like Gidget or Buffy.

Anyway, Skipper sat at the kitchen table beside us, humming and shoveling Cheerios into her mouth.

With a glance in Skipper's direction, I said, “Yeah, but even if Wilson and the other Aztecs didn't win the election, they'd still run the school.”

Dante ripped off a piece of his bagel and tossed it in his mouth. “Maybe not. A lot of people at school are tired of all Wilson and his friends' . . .” His gaze slid over to Skipper. “Shellac. The students are ready for a change.”

Well, I was certainly tired of the shellac thrown in my direction, but I hadn't noticed that my opinion had a lot of company. I took a couple of bites of cereal, feeling the intensity of Dante's stare on me the entire time.

“You know you'd like to see Wilson and his pals eat some humble pie,” he told me. “So will you help me campaign?”

I shook my head. “Dante, don't do this. You'll just make everyone mad at you and me, and then you'll flake out halfway through the election and decide you don't want to run after all.”

He sat up straighter in his chair. “When have I ever flaked out about anything?”

“You flaked out about tennis. Remember how you were all fired up about learning how to play, so Gabby enrolled us both in lessons?”

“Yeah.”

“After two weeks you sneaked off with Lisa Jones during every lesson instead of playing. Meanwhile I got stuck playing Julie I'll-serve-it-down-your-throat Segner. I came home every afternoon covered in welts.”

Dante grinned, and his voice took on a reminiscing tone. “I didn't flake out. The reason I wanted to take tennis lessons was so I could sneak off with Lisa.”

I pointed my spoon at him. “How about swim team, then?”

“Cute lifeguards,” he said.

“I got up every morning at six and swam laps in a cold pool so you could flirt with the lifeguards?”

Dante shrugged.

“So why are you running for president? Have you decided girls like politicians?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “I don't need to find ways to meet girls.” True. Dante is six feet tall and has wavy brown hair and dark brooding eyes. Even some of the popular girls check him out when he walks by. Not that any of them would ever admit it. Jesse's friendship isn't enough to grant Dante full entrance into the world of the in crowd.

“You know why I want to run,” he said. “Wilson is a jerk, and Norman needs a memorial. Simple as that. Are you going to help me, or will I have to explain to everyone why I don't have the support of my twin sister?”

I took a bite, glaring at Dante over my cereal bowl. “Sure, I'll help you. Even though it will make all of the popular kids hate me forever, and I know I'll regret it before the election is over, I'll help you.”

He smiled at me. “Great. I'm going to ask Jesse to be my campaign manager today. If you see him before I do, hint that you'll only keep dating him if he agrees, okay?”

“Oh, see—I regret it already.”

Dante held up a hand and laughed at me. “All right, I'm just kidding, you can date whoever you want.”

I looked at Dante, pleading. “Don't drag Jesse into this. You know he's one of Wilson's friends.”

“Yeah, but everybody at school likes Jesse. He's not stuck-up like the rest of the popularity posse. If he's on my side, I can win this thing.”

Dante was right. If Jesse helped him, he might have a shot. I still didn't like the idea, but I knew I'd have to try and persuade Jesse to help Dante. And I already had a date set up with him. We were meeting for lunch at Country Burger that day.

 

All that morning while I mopped floors and cleaned toilets, I worried about how to convince Jesse to be Dante's campaign manager.

I had a lot of time to worry about it, because on this Saturday morning, like most Saturdays for the last three months, I cleaned Bickham's Parks and Rec Center—chipping away at sixty hours of a community service sentence. It was a verdict Judge Rossmar had given me without really listening to my side of story.

You know that saying “Innocent until proven guilty”? Well, it turns out they don't need a lot of evidence to prove you guilty, especially if you do stupid things to incriminate yourself along the way.

But really, none of it was my fault.

Well, okay, maybe some of it was my fault.

The school counselor, who I am still required to check in with on a monthly basis, keeps telling me I need to take responsibility for my actions. She says a bunch of other stuff I mostly ignore because I'm not really a juvenile delinquent. I'm just a person with convictions. Unfortunately I'm now a person with convictions in both senses of the word.

See, last semester in biology class—for some reason I never fully understood—the teacher required us to dissect frogs. Mr. Clement told me it was so I could learn about internal organs. But here is my question: Don't we already know what frog organs look like? They dissected frogs last year, and the year before. Didn't someone already sketch out this vital information?

Mr. Clement refused to see the logic behind my argument. He also refused to see my point that I was absolutely certain I would never in my life need to know what a frog spleen looked like. Very few people do. He gave me an F for the unit and sent me to in-school detention for the period.

Normal parents would have called up the bio teacher and protested, or pled my case or something. After all, it was my father who gave Dante and me a tadpole habitat when we turned eight years old. So he at least should have understood that a girl who had pet frogs named Bert and Ernie was not about to slice one open.

But he had completely forgotten the No-you-can't-have-a-puppy-but-here's-a-tadpole-habitat pets. Instead he told me, “Start worrying about your grades and stop worrying that the world might have to do without one more frog.” Gabby, of course, said more than that.

I listened to her go on for a week about how I'd never get into a good college because I'd skipped out on my biology dissection unit, and what was the big deal about dead frogs anyway? Dead frogs weren't scary. They didn't bite. Never once had there been a case of a dead frog who'd reached out his slimy little amphibious hand and grabbed a bio student by the throat.

The actual school detention wasn't that bad. I met many interesting people there, including a guy named Tim Murphy that I suspected to be an escaped convict who was just hiding out in high school to throw off the police. He showed me all of his body piercings, most of his tattoos, and sent me several notes suggesting we run off to Aruba together.

I declined on the Aruba thing, but when he offered to get back at Mr. Clements by breaking into the biology room and stealing the frog corpses, well, I laughed and told him it was a sweet gesture.

As it turns out, you shouldn't joke around with escaped convicts. The next day after school, a ziplock bag of dead frogs showed up in my locker.

My first reaction, of course, was to fling them on the floor and scream. My second reaction was to find Tim, grab him by his eyebrow studs, and explain to him that, yes, women like to be surprised with flowers, but not dead frogs.

I didn't do either of these things, however, because I was too busy being grossed out to the point of nearly hyperventilating.

When I could finally breathe normally again, I decided the best thing to do with the frogs was to put them someplace where everyone could see the results of the senseless frog slaughter. The trophy case in the front lobby would work, and Dante could unlock it. I knew this because he and two of his friends broke into it once. They put one of Skipper's Barbie swimsuits on a little man that stood on one of the football trophies.

I would take the frogs home, write an unidentifiable essay on the value of life, then put them all in the trophy case the next day.

That was my plan, anyway.

When I got home, Gabby yelled at me half the evening. It started out as a lecture on leaving my stuff in the living room, but quickly progressed into a treatise about how I didn't take my responsibilities seriously. From there she slid into the You've-ruined-your-chances-to-get-into-a-good-college-over-frogs routine.

So I slipped the ziplock bag into Gabby's briefcase. I wasn't trying to be awful. I just wanted her to understand how sickening it feels to see dead animals that have been killed for no reason.

The next day Principal Nelson called me into the office as soon as I got to school. It turned out the frogs weren't the only thing stolen from the biology room. Nearly two thousand dollars' worth of computers and biology equipment was also missing.

With hands folded firmly on his desk, Principal Nelson stared at me. “Did you break into the biology room yesterday?”

“No,” I said, but he must have seen the panic on my face. He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in on mine.

“I'll ask you again, young lady, and I want you to think very hard about your answer. Did you break into the biology room?”

“No,” I said.

He shook his head with disbelief. “Who else would have stolen dead frogs so that none of the students could complete the dissection assignment?”

“I don't know.” Which wasn't entirely a lie since suddenly I wasn't sure it had been Tim. He wouldn't have put the frogs in my locker if he had also stolen computer equipment, would he? That would be like admitting he'd done it. No one would be that stupid.

Maybe it was someone who was trying to frame him. Or me.

I clutched my hands together in my lap. Thank heavens I hadn't put the frogs in the trophy case where they could dust the whole thing for fingerprints. The school had no evidence on me. All I had to do was sit still and keep professing my innocence.

The principal's secretary popped her head into the office. “Mrs. Petrizzo is here.”

The next moment Gabby strode in, her heels clicking across the tile and the briefcase grasped in one hand.

“What are you doing here?” I choked out.

She shot the principal a sharp look, then sat stiffly in a chair. “That's what I'd like to know. I have a busy work schedule and don't have time to come to school every time there's a problem in biology.”

The principal turned his stern gaze toward Gabby. He summarized the situation to her, then added, “We thought it best to involve a parent in this discussion. This isn't a prank. Stealing school property is a serious legal offense.”

I didn't have time to answer, because Gabby jumped in. “You don't really believe Giovanna broke into the biology room and made off with a bunch of equipment? How would she have carried it home? Wouldn't someone have noticed a computer sticking out of her backpack as she walked out of school?” Somewhere from inside Gabby's briefcase, her cell phone rang.

“Don't get that,” I said, but Gabby didn't even acknowledge I'd spoken.

“Besides,” she said as she reached her hand in to her briefcase, “we couldn't even get Giovanna to touch a dead frog to save her GPA, so there's no way on earth she broke into the bio room and stole any—”

Gabby didn't finish her sentence.

Apparently in the jostle of coming to school, the ziplock bag had opened and spilled dead frogs inside her briefcase.

And okay, I'm sure it was a shock, but you'd think after all those Never-has-a-dead-frog-reached-out-his-slimy-little-amphibious-hand-and-grabbed-a-bio-student-by- the-throat speeches she gave me that she would be the last person to shriek uncontrollably and fling her briefcase so hard that several frog cadavers went flying into the air and onto the principal's desk.