Keep It Real (From the Files of Madison Finn, 19) (6 page)

BOOK: Keep It Real (From the Files of Madison Finn, 19)
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Everyone’s notebooks looked very much the same. Each student had added a personal touch. The front of Madison’s was colored in parts where she’d doodled with an orange marker over white spaces. Ivy’s had the princess sticker. Fiona had wrapped a blue rubber band around hers to keep the pages pressed tight.

Fiona plucked the blue band and read her assignment aloud.

Journaling #3

Topic: List twenty details about someone you know. Try to include details that are about more than just physical appearance.

“Yeah, I have the same one. I think we all have the same assignment this time,” Drew said.

Chet, Egg, and Hart nodded knowingly.

“So, who wants to read first?” Aimee asked.

“Maddie’s the best writer,” Egg said. “Let’s hear what she wrote first.”

“Me? Why me?” Madison wheezed. She felt her stomach flip-flop. “I d—d—don’t know what I wrote…”

Of course, Madison
did
remember what she had written down. She just couldn’t say it out loud.

Hart.

“Come on, Maddie,” Fiona insisted. “Read us your entry first, and then we’ll all read ours afterward.”

Madison gritted her teeth. How could she possibly read hers aloud when Hart was sitting right there? They would guess right away whom she was referring to. Even worse,
he
would guess.

A crackle came up over the school announcement system. Madison breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone became distracted by a two-minute speech about school organization and discipline.

“In closing, please be sure to keep your locker combinations and your computer passwords in a safe place,” Principal Bernard said at the end. Unwittingly he’d saved Madison’s skin—or at least saved her from tumbling into a deep, dark hole of embarrassment.

“Someone tell me. What was that speech about?” Hart asked when Principal Bernard had finished.

“Yeah. What
was
that about?” Chet added.

“Am I crazy, or does our principal make no sense most of the time?” Aimee asked.

“Okay, here’s what I wrote,” Egg said, cutting the others off. He had pulled his black-and-white notebook out of his bag and opened to the assignment in question. “Who can guess who I’m writing about?” he asked. He showed them a list he’d written.

1. Blue hair

2. Nose pierced

3. Bent ears

4. Ripped jeans

5. Takes pictures

“That’s Mariah!” Fiona piped up. Mariah Diaz was Egg’s older sister and a ninth grader at their school.

“Of course Fiona knew that,” Chet whined.

Egg smiled. Obviously, Fiona knew a lot about him and his family. She’d learned all the important stuff since they had started going out.

Madison could tell that Egg liked that. Lately, the pair didn’t seem to mind showing a little bit of affection in public, either.

“What did you mean, Mariah has bent ears?” Madison asked.

“I don’t know,” Egg replied. “She has this one ear that looks bent. It’s dented or something from this time when we went hiking and she fell over…”

Chet laughed hard. Drew joined in. Soon all the boys were laughing and snorting about bent ears.

Fiona waved her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Let me read mine next,” she said.

Twenty Details

1. Likes to go online

2. Good with computers

3. Funny

4. Bad at keeping secrets

As she listened to Fiona’s list, Madison’s mind drifted to thoughts of her keypal. Fiona’s list sounded like Bigwheels! Madison’s keypal also liked to go online, was good with computers, and was funny. As far as keeping secrets, however, Bigwheels was great, not bad.

Madison thought about the e-mail she’d sent the night before asking Bigwheels to talk about the blog. She needed to know how Bigwheels could have left Madison out of such an important secret. How long would Madison have to wait before Bigwheels wrote back to tell her what was going on?

“Don’t look now, but here comes Poison Ivy,” Chet said.

Ivy Daly strolled up to the orange table with her drones, Rose and Joanie, who just stood there, staring. Ivy did all the talking, as usual.

“Excuse me,” Ivy said with a snort.

No one wanted to respond at first. Then Aimee spoke up.

“May we help you?” Aimee asked.

Ivy flipped her red hair. “Not you. I wanted to talk to Madison,” Ivy said.

“Well, I’m right here,” Madison said gruffly. “So, talk.”

“I need to talk to you about science class—alone.” Ivy said. She clutched her books to her chest, but Madison could still see the word
SUPER
on Ivy’s long-sleeved T-shirt.

“What about class?” Madison asked.

“Oooh!” Chet hissed. “Here comes a catfight.”

“Be quiet, Chet!” Fiona said as she whacked him on the head with her notebook. He winced.

“Madison, you have to help me with those problems for Mr. Danehy’s class,” Ivy said. “After all, we’re partners.”

Aimee snickered. “Yeah, right.”

“What is
your
problem?” Ivy said. “Are you always this…rude?”

Egg laughed out loud at that comment. “
We’re
rude?” he said.

“Ivy,” Madison said, ignoring Egg’s comment. “Let’s just say that I’ll see you in science. Maybe we can figure something out there and not here, in the middle of lunch, okay?”

“Whatever,” Ivy said abruptly. She turned on her one-inch, stacked heels and walked out of the cafeteria, with her drones following.

“You know, Ivy looks kind of sick,” Fiona said in a whisper.

“I think she looks hot,” Chet said.

Egg and Drew laughed.

Madison didn’t want to say anything out loud, although she wondered if Fiona was right. For someone who had written
My life is so perfect
in her journal, Ivy appeared to be anything but perfect today.

“You should have asked her about the Dunn Manor dude,” Aimee said to Madison. “What better person to confirm the gossip than Poison Ivy herself?”

“Totally!” Lindsay chimed in.

“I think you guys have completely lost it,” Madison said. She stood, picked up her lunch tray, and headed back toward the school kitchen to drop off her dishes and trash.

Madison knew there really was something different about Ivy, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Was it that boy from Dunn Manor? Had something happened between them at the high school? After all, Ivy had been crying in the bathroom. Was there a connection?

As Hart, Chet, and Madison walked off toward Mr. Danehy’s classroom together, a bell echoed in the hallway.

It was like an alarm clock going off.

Aimee was right.

Madison would resolve all of the rumors about Ivy herself.

And science class was the ideal place to do it.

Chapter 6

H
ART AND CHET GAVE
each other a way-up high five when they saw a note tacked on the door of Mr. Danehy’s science classroom.

“What’s the big deal?” Madison asked. Then she read the note.

Attention, Students in Science Classes 7 and 8:

Mr. Danehy will not be in school today. Please meet at the regular time in the library. Mr. Books, the librarian, will pass out all assignments. Thank you.

“Let’s just skip it,” Chet said.

Hart laughed. “Yeah, and let’s skip town while we’re at it.”

The boys laughed.

Madison frowned. “Wait. This isn’t a free period. Mr. Books will be taking attendance. We’ll get in trouble.”

“So?” Chet laughed. “Since when did you turn into the science-class police?”

“Good one!” Hart said and laughed again. But at the same time he gave Madison a light nudge that said,
Hey, lighten up, we’re just kidding around
.

Of course, no one was serious about skipping. The three friends—along with the rest of the students in class, including Ivy and Rose—walked directly upstairs to the library and media center to report in to Mr. Books.

The Far Hills Junior High library was a sprawling room packed with shelves, books, computers, and desks, with rows of windows along some walls. Up here, everyone knew they had to obey the not-too-much-talking rule that Mr. Books enforced. Up here, students actually did work. It was a perfect spot to which to relocate classes.

Once everyone had congregated upstairs, Mr. Books directed the students as to where to sit. Madison had already scoped out her usual table in the back, near the computer monitors. Usually she sat there alone or with her BFFs, but today, she thought she and Chet and Hart might hang out there together. Maybe they’d get some homework done—or just write notes the whole time.

Unfortunately, Mr. Books wasn’t in an agreeable mood. And he wasn’t into the idea of free seating, either. Instead, he passed out a stack of copies that Mr. Danehy had prepared. They were sheets of new vocabulary words and multiple-choice questions.

Madison couldn’t believe it.

“I know this is a little unusual, but Mr. Danehy made up a special quiz for you kids to do in his absence,” Mr. Books said. “There are about thirty questions here, including definitions. Some answers can be found in your books. Some need to be researched a little. That’s why you’re here in the library. Mr. Danehy wanted you to team up and sit with lab partners, just as you would sit with them downstairs in his classroom.”

Madison’s shoulders drooped.
Sit with lab partners?
She glanced at Ivy, who wasn’t looking very pleased with the arrangement herself. Of course she wanted to sit with her friend Rose, not with Madison.

Ivy’s hand popped up in the air.

Mr. Books scarcely acknowledged it. “Don’t bother asking for seating exceptions,” he grumbled, looking at Ivy and a few others who had also raised their hands. “There will be none.”

Madison and Ivy walked toward each other reluctantly.

“Should we just find a place to sit and get this over with?” Madison asked her enemy.

Ivy looked up at the ceiling. “If we have to,” she said.

“There’s a table over there,” Madison said, pointing to the darkened area of the library, where she wanted to sit.

They shuffled over to a small green wooden table very close to the science section and sat down in two white chairs that looked like swiveling spaceship seats from a bad science fiction movie. Madison loved how the parts of the library had different moods. Some areas were light, some were dark. Some were old-fashioned, and some were more modern. Over the years, various pieces of furniture had been inherited by the library. The spaceship-chair area was one of Madison’s favorites. It was secluded and cozy—a perfect place to pull out her laptop.

If only she didn’t have to share the space with
her
, meaning Ivy, of course.

Hart and Chet and the other boys who were paired together sat clear across the room from Madison and the other girls. They made their way for the “mod” section of the media lab. There, they piled their book bags on the floor next to a metal table with shiny metal chairs beneath a wide, sunny window, through which light poured into the room.

Although Hart’s being so far away meant there would be no obvious flirting during the period, Madison wasn’t discouraged. No distractions meant action—as far as schoolwork was concerned. Up here she wouldn’t get bogged down with pretend work—for example, sitting through an entire period pretending to take notes and pretending to look things up when, in reality, nothing she wrote in her notebook would make any sense later.

“So,” Ivy said loudly.

“Shhh,” Madison scolded her. “We have to keep our voices down.”

“What are you, the librarian’s pet?” Ivy sneered. “I don’t have to be quiet, and I definitely don’t have to do what you tell me to do…”

“Well, we
have
to do the assignment together,” Madison said. “Maybe we should try to cooperate.”

Ivy laughed. “You’re not the boss of me.”

“What are you talking about?” Madison said. Ivy sounded as if she were back in third grade.

“Is there a problem here?” Mr. Books asked. He appeared from nowhere, staring over the top of his glasses, which were perched on the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, no problem here,” Ivy said with a flick of her wrist. “We were just getting ready to sit down. We have loads of work to do, and we want to get right to it. Don’t we, Maddie?”

Madison wanted to wipe Ivy’s smile right off her face.
She
was the real librarian’s pet. And it was grosser than gross watching her in action.

They finally sat down and took out their science books. The quiz, as it turned out, was super easy. Normally, Mr. Danehy’s assignments (and pop quizzes) were marathon study adventures. But, working together, Madison and Ivy actually got the thirty questions completed in almost no time.

That left half a period with nothing to do—and nowhere to go. Mr. Books had said that anyone who finished early had to remain seated. His exact words had been:
“Use your time wisely, students, and don’t fritter.”

Madison wasn’t sure she knew what
fritter
even meant.

Without consulting Madison on what to do next, Ivy pulled out her princess composition book and a red pen. Madison could see the initials
I.R.D.
on the side of the pen.
I
was for Ivy, of course.
D
was for Daly. But for some reason, Madison couldn’t remember what the
R
stood for. It felt weird not to remember something important about someone who had been a friend once. Then again, becoming sworn enemies had caused Madison to forget as much as possible about Ivy.

“What’s the
R
stand for again?” Madison asked.

“Huh?” Ivy snorted. “Oh, wow. Are you staring again?”

“I only asked a question,” Madison said. “I wasn’t staring at you. I just saw your pen…”

“The
R
stands for
Renee
,” Ivy snarled. “After my grandmother. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” Madison said, nodding.

She did remember. Ivy’s grandmother, Renee Daly, had been a teen beauty queen back in the 1950s. Ivy had inherited all of her trophies and one tarnished tiara that she kept in a box in her room. Ivy probably thought winning pageants was genetic. That explained the fixation on wardrobe and hair and being the starlet of seventh grade.

BOOK: Keep It Real (From the Files of Madison Finn, 19)
3.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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