The Misfits (12 page)

I start humming “Someday My Prince Will Come,” to which Skeezie and Joe pitch in their vocal contributions.

“I
knew you'd
laugh at me!” Addie cries. She stands up and, I swear on a stack of pancakes, stamps her foot. This really gets us to cracking up, and Addie yells, “Morons!”

“Morons!” goes the Skeeze. “That's one we forgot!”

“Cretins!” says Joe. “Numbskulls!”

“Idiots!” I yell. “Jerks!”

Addie can't help herself. She forgets her anger and joins in. “Birdbrains!” she hollers. “Turkeys! Chickens!”

“Now those are
really
foul names!” Skeezie says, and before you know it we're all whooping it up and running to the computer to add these names to all the others.

COVERING THE school with our handiwork takes planning, since we don't want anybody catching us at it. We don't even try putting the signs up before classes start, on account of Addie and me getting stopped the day before. Instead, we each stick a bunch of them in our binders, along with a roll of tape. Then we all find a reason to be excused from one class or another, sneak the papers and tape out from under our shirts, and get those signs up faster than Ms. Wyman changes moods. By some kind of miracle, not one of us gets caught. We think. By lunchtime, there are over sixty No-Name signs running along the corridors of Paintbrush Falls Middle School. It's all everybody's talking about.

Everybody, that is, but us.

This is because the minute the Skeeze opens his
mouth to say something, Addie shushes him so hard he practically tosses the dessert he's just stolen from her back on her tray.

“We can't talk about this here!” Addie admonishes the three of us. “We have to keep a low profile!”

Her words make me think she is maybe going into her business exec mode, but it turns out she's got more on her mind than the No-Name Party.

“So?” she asks Skeezie, leaning across the table and taking back the chocolate-chip cookie he is trying to hide from her.

“I took care of it,” says the Skeeze. He squeezes the words out of the corner of his mouth like a hit man.

“Took care of what?” I ask.

Skeezie eyes Addie with a should-l-spill-the-beans look.

“Go ahead,” Addie tells him. “They know anyway.”

“Gee, trying to figure out what you two are talking about is as much fun as picking scabs,” Joe gives, all sarcastic-like. “Tomorrow let's all bring decoder rings and we can send each other secret messages.”

“Hardy, har,” goes the Skeeze. Turning to Addie,
he says, “I put a note in his locker that says, 'The person who likes you will be waiting by the flagpole at three-fifteen.'”

Addie gets all bug-eyed and says, “Does this mean I actually have to show up? What am I going to say? What if there are other kids around? How will he know it's me?”

“Nobody hangs out by the flagpole, that's why I picked it. What you say is your business.”

“I never knew you to be at a loss for words,” I point out to Addie.

I'm expecting Joe to chime something in, too, but he's looking down at his lunch like he's not even in the room with us anymore. Then all of a sudden he comes back to life and says, “Oh, guess what? I found a note in
my
locker.”

“I didn't put it there, I swear,” says Skeezie.

“I wasn't worried,” says Joe. “I
know
who it's from.”

“Who?” asks Addie.

“Kelsey. Who else would it be?”

“Kelsey likes you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh.”

“What did the note say?” i ask, not really sure I want to hear all the lovey-dovey stuff Kelsey is writing to Joe.

Joe pulls a neatly folded piece of paper out of his pocket and reads in his best going-for-an-Oscar movie-star voice, “‘I wish I could be like you. If I were, I would tell you how I feel.'” He refolds the paper and goes, “Barf.”

“That's it?” Addie asks.

Joe nods. “She's a girl of few words. What am I going to do, you guys? I don't want to hurt her feelings, but... Bobby, you like her, why don't you ask her to go out with you?”

“Oh, thanks,” I say. “Just like that, I'm going to go up to her and say, 'Hi, I know you like my friend Joe and all, but will you go out with me? Let me remind you that you
did
smile at me one time for one-millionth of a second, and, oh, here's a major selling point: Joe doesn't like girls and I do.'”

Addie gets this serious look on her face. “You know, it's just possible that Kelsey
does
like you, Bobby. She could easily have mixed up your locker with Joe's. They're right next to each other.”

“Forget it,” I say.

“Yeah, you're probably right,” says Addie. “She strikes me as the cautious type. She wouldn't make a mistake about something like that.”

“Here's what you should do, Jo
Dan
,” goes the Skeeze, picking chocolate chips out of a cookie. I look down at my tray. My dessert is missing. “You should cool it with her. Y'know? You've been real chummy with her lately. You don't mean nothin' by it, but she's getting the wrong message, know what I mean? You gotta not encourage her.”

“Gee,” I say, “you should write an advice column for
The Easel.”
That's the name of our school paper. Do not ask.

“Dear Skeezie,” Joe goes as the bell rings and we start picking up our trays whilst I snatch what's left of my cookie out of the Skeeze's mitt, “I am in love with this dynamite girl who sits next to me in social studies but I don't dare tell her because I've got this real bad zit on the tip of my nose and besides which I have b.o. and halitoshus...”

“Halitosis,” Addie butts in.

“Whatever,” goes Joe, scowling at her. “Anyway, I
cry myself to sleep every night because I am already twelve years old and have never known love. I do not want to die an old maid, or whatever it's called if you're a guy. Please help me, O great wise one of the seventh grade. Sincerely yours, Zit-Face Zach.”

Skeezie clears his throat. “Dear Zit-Face, Find yourself a nice girl with zits and b.o. and bad breath. Believe me, they're out there. Good luck!”

From here the conversation plummets as we start heaving truly gross made-up letters at Skeezie and he tosses back replies that are in such bad taste we have no choice but to make barf noises, when all of a sudden we stop talking altogether and get to listening with all our ears because there is this sort of buzz going on around us. Everybody's saying, “Who put these signs up?” And some of the kids are quoting the words and laughing, but others are quoting them and saying stuff like, “I was called that in fourth grade and I really hated it.”

We listen to hear if anybody's figured out who put them on the walls, and to our surprise most of what we hear is conjecture that it's the school itself that's
behind it. Nobody figures it has anything to do with the student council elections or the group formerly know as the Freedom Party.

“This is so cool,” Joe says, and Addie shushes him and Joe calls her Wendy and she swats him and he swats back and Skeezie goes, “Girls!” and they both turn and swat him, and Mrs. DePaolo, who happens to be walking by just then with a sweater draped over her shoulders, says, “None of that now.” And we all go, “It's okay, Mrs. DePaolo.”

By the end of the day, we are all agreeing that what's happening is pretty cool. The plan is that we will let the signs stay up one more day and then on Thursday we'll hit the walls with posters for the No-Name Party.

Right now, though, it's time for me to get to Awkworth & Ames, and I'm at my locker stuffing my backpack while Addie is chittering away behind me like a nervous bird, asking the time every five seconds because she's worried about timing her appearance at the flagpole just right, when all of a sudden DuShawn and Tonni are in our faces and DuShawn is going, “Addie, I got to talk with you.”

And at the same moment, Ms. Wyman pops her head out of the door and calls out, “Ms. Carle, a word with you, please.”

Panic takes over Addie's features like a rash.

“Addie,” says DuShawn, “I've been thinking—”

“DuShawn is
out,”
Tonni goes, finishing the sentence for him.

“Let
me
tell it!” DuShawn says, to which Tonni rolls her eyeballs.

“You're dropping out?” says Addie. “You can't drop out.”

“Who says I can't?” DuShawn gives back, looking like he's just been waiting for something to get angry about. “Tonni's right about you. She says you're just—”

“What's Tonni got to do with this?” says Addie. “Can't you think for yourself, DuShawn?”

“I
am
thinking for myself. And I don't want to run on your fool ticket, okay? That's the bottom line, okay?”

“Tell it,” Tonni mutters, and she takes hold of DuShawn's elbow. “Let's go, DuShawn. Come on, we're outta here.”

Addie clicks her tongue and is about to say something else when Ms. Wyman gives her a holler again, and Addie asks me the time again and I tell her to get a watch, but give her the time, anyway, which is five minutes past three, and she says, “Please, please go to the flagpole and tell Colin to wait.” But I cannot do this on account of my job, and fortunately she does not ask Joe or Skeezie on account of Ms. Wyman is out in the hall now, advancing, and Addie is saying, “I'm coming, Ms. Wyman. I'm coming.”

With one last look at us, she mouths, “Forum. Five-thirty.”

To which we all nod as she disappears into the ogre's lair.

Skeezie turns to Joe and says, “Sorry.”

“About what?”

“Fixing Addie up with Colin and ail.”

“I told you it was okay,” Joe goes.

“Hey,” says the Skeeze, “I've got an idea. Maybe
you
should go meet Colin at the flagpole.”

To which Joe says, “So funny I forgot to laugh.”