Too Cool for This School (19 page)

The weekend was filled with silence, because I had little interest in talking to Mint or my parents. When I finally got back to school, there was only one person I wanted to see: Derek. I found him at his locker looking into a small, square magnetic mirror. He was fluffing his hair.

“Hi,” I said.

When he turned around, he seemed pretty excited to see me.

“What’s up, Lane?”

Derek lifted his hand in the air, expecting a high five. I wasn’t the kind of person who went around high-fiving guys in the hallway, but I did it anyway.

“I’m here for an update about Jagger and my cousin,” I said.

Derek shut his locker, looked over his shoulder, and then back at me. “It was really weird.”

“It was?” I asked. That was not the report I’d been expecting. Because while I knew Mint was weird, I had no idea Jagger was too.

“I don’t have time to cover everything before class,” he said.

“Then we’ll be late,” I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a tardy slip. “We’re class captains. We get certain privileges. Remember?” Three weeks ago, I never would have said such a thing to Derek or anybody else. But Mint was forcing me to reorder my priorities. I was also surprised by how serious my voice sounded.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s not do this in the hallway. Let’s go to the meeting room.”

“We can do that?” I asked.

“Sure,” Derek said. “Mrs. Archibald loves me. Most secretaries do. I’ll just tell her it’s an impromptu class-captain meeting.”

Suddenly, I was on a power trip. Of course I could go with Derek to the meeting room and claim I was taking part in an impromptu class-captain meeting and gossip about my cousin instead of going to class. As soon as Derek flashed his smile, Mrs. Archibald let us have the meeting room. We shut the door and sat down, and Derek spilled all he’d learned.

“They’re not doing what you think they’re doing,” Derek said.

I didn’t know if I was prepared to hear the truth. “So they’re not working on the wolves project?”

He shook his head.

“And they’re not playing the dwarf game?” I asked.

He stopped shaking his head and looked up. “They do that a little, but they do something else a lot more.”

Poor Ava. If Mint and Jagger were super serious, Ava would die. My stomach would not stop flipping. “Okay,” I said. “Tell me.”

“They’re roller-skating,” Derek said. “Like maniacs.”

“Huh?” Why would they be doing that? I didn’t even know Mint owned roller skates. What was going on?

“They’re pretty serious about it,” Derek said. “Other people join them. It looks like they have choreographed moves.”

“Are you sure you’re spying on the right people?” I asked. “You have witnessed Jagger Evenson group roller-skating with my cousin?”

“Yeah,” Derek said. “And this last weekend, they were at your friend Todd’s.”

My heart started beating so much faster. “You saw them at Todd’s?”

He nodded.

“And they were roller-skating there?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, they were playing that dwarf game. I think they won. There was a lot of celebrating.”

This was so much information to process, and I wasn’t sure how much of it was useful.

“Is that everything?” I asked.

“No,” Derek said. “I’ve got one more thing to tell you.”

I wasn’t sure I could handle one more thing. “What?”

After I asked that question, I noticed that Derek looked nervous. His eyes darted around the room and then finally settled on me. “Never mind.”

What was wrong with Derek? Why wouldn’t he just tell me?

Ring. Ring. Ring
.

When the bell rang, I jumped a little. “We should go,” he said.

“But what else do you need to tell me?” I asked.

Derek got up and didn’t answer me.

“Derek?” I said. “It’s rude to say that you’ve got something to tell a person and then not do it.”

He made his way to the door in silence and I followed behind him. What a perturbing turn of events. Guys were
so
frustrating. Derek opened the door to the hallway and looked back at me.

“You’re a lot cuter than your cousin,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

I froze. Even after Derek started to walk away, I just stood there. Did Derek
like
me? Did I want Derek to
like
me? I wasn’t totally sure. But I didn’t think so. This was nuts.
When did Derek start liking me? Should I say something? If I don’t, will the next time I see him be super awkward?

“Wait!” I said.

Derek turned back around. “What?” he asked. “Do you need me to get more inside information for you?”

This moment felt so bizarre. I didn’t know how I’d
missed the signs that Derek had liked me, and I also didn’t know how I’d turned a fellow class captain into my cousin-spy.

“Thanks,” I said.

“For trailing your cousin?” he asked.

“For that and for what you just said. It was nice.” I smiled at him. I figured that was what you did in situations like this.

“So do you want me to stop gathering information?” he asked.

Derek was so good at info gathering that it didn’t make sense for him to stop.

“Just be careful,” I said. “Don’t let them know what you’re doing.”

“Don’t worry,” Derek said. “I was born careful.”

And then the bell rang again and I raced down the hallway to Mr. Guzman’s classroom and my desk, which sat kitty-corner from Todd’s. Which was where I belonged.

18

Basically, I stopped talking to Mint at school and so did Ava. Lucia and Rachel were still polite, which made me feel a little bit betrayed. But I couldn’t control what they did. And I couldn’t control what they thought of Mint. All I could control was what
I
thought of Mint. And I thought she sucked.

It took days, but Ava finally figured out a punishment. She wouldn’t tell me the details. All I knew was that it was my job to get Mint to the mall without any adults around. It seemed like something I could manage. Ava assured me that Mint wouldn’t be physically harmed but that she would learn a very important lesson about loyalty and honesty and kindness. And she wanted the police to be involved. When she first told me this over the phone, I was pretty hesitant.

I said, “No police.”

She said, “Some police.”

I said, “Absolutely no police.”

“One police officer. Maybe not on duty.”

I yelled, “Ava, involving the police is taking things too far!”

She yelled back, “We at least need mall security!”

I tried to calm down and consider this.

“Fine,” I finally agreed.

“Cool,” Ava said in a happy voice. “But keep in mind that I can’t control whether mall security calls the police for backup.”

I felt like such a sucker.

Before we had a chance to implement our mall attack, my parents made the tragic and foolish decision that Mint and I should end our feud. And in a show of complete cluelessness about how this should happen, they took us to play miniature golf at a super family fun center. My parents didn’t understand how sixth graders operated at all.

“My ball is never going to make it through that windmill,” I said. The blades kept knocking my golf ball at the exact wrong moment, sending it into a pile of woodchips.

“Aim for the blade,” my dad said.

That seemed like a terrible strategy.

“I can’t believe you go back to Alaska in less than a week,” my mom said to Mint.

But I could totally believe that. I was thrilled.

“We’ll all miss you so much,” my dad said.

This was so lame I inadvertently made a gagging sound. Luckily, that was the putt that sent my ball through the windmill.

“I’ll miss you a lot too,” Mint said. “My life back in Alaska is going to be so different.”

That idea made me happy. Because my life was going to be so different too. It was going to be Mint-less. And I couldn’t wait.

“I’m not even going to live in the same house,” Mint said.

“Really?” my mother asked. “I didn’t realize you were moving in with Clark.”

“Yeah,” Mint said. “At first, the plan was that he’d move in with us. But somewhere between Rome and Tuscany, they decided it made more sense to move in with him. My mom told me the other day.”

“That’s a big change,” my dad said. “But maybe it will turn into a fun adventure.”

That seemed like a cheesy thing to tell a twelve-year-old being forced to relocate to a new home.

Mint shrugged as if she didn’t care much. “He lives a lot closer to town, which will be good because I’ll be around stuff to do.”

I watched as Mint’s ball sailed between the windmill blades on her first try. Stupid family fun center. I scowled at the hole as Mint’s ball approached.

My mother stood next to me and tapped my shoe with her club. “Stop being so dour,” she whispered.

I knocked her club with my club and it made a loud clinking sound. “I don’t even know what ‘dour’ means,” I whispered back.

“Lane and I will meet you at the Abominable Snowman,” my mom said.

That was the next hole, so I took my ball and followed her to the tee.

“This is one of the last family times we’ll have with your cousin,” my mother said.

“I know,” I said, and gave her a huge grin. Didn’t she understand that I hated every second of being with her?

“You’re being mean, Lane Cisco,” my mother said. “I realize that she disrupted your life a little bit, but you should still be nice to her.”

Disrupted my life a little bit? She ruined it! And Ava’s! Because she stole Jagger. But I had a feeling that if I told my mom this, she wouldn’t even care. Instead of siding with Ava and me, she’d probably side with Mint.

“I’m being as nice as I can,” I said, shrugging.

My mother dropped her yellow ball on the tee and set it in place with her shoe. “In a lot of ways, your cousin was given an unfair shake. I’m surprised you can’t be more sympathetic.”

I thought about Ava and our plan to destroy Mint. Maybe getting mall security involved was a tiny bit too severe.

“I’ve shared all my friends and introduced her to a ton of people,” I said. Which was basically true. Except my best friend and I had both decided to hate her openly.

My dad came walking up with Mint. “So we have to get our shot through the Himalayas and the Snowman’s legs?” he asked, sounding way too enthusiastic.

“Can I skip this hole?” Mint asked.

That was so unfair. Just because you encountered a tough hole didn’t mean you could skip it. “Sure,” I said. “But you have to take the six-stroke maximum.”

“That seems high,” my mom said.

But right next to us was a sign with the rules painted on it, so I pointed to that. “It’s rule number two.”

Mint nodded. “I’ll take the six-stroke maximum.”

This made me feel slightly better, because it meant her score wouldn’t totally clobber mine.

“Are you getting tired?” my mom asked. “We can get a snack.”

It was so frustrating to watch my parents cater to Mint’s every need.

“I’m not tired. I just really do not like Abominable Snowmen.”

What a lame excuse. This was the toughest hole we’d encountered.

“Why not?” my dad asked. “Is he seen as a dangerous character in Alaska?”

Mint shook her head. “Not really. But when I was a kid, I used to have the worst nightmares about the Abominable Snowman. I’d be walking along a snowy mountain path, and I’d see him. He’d be tall and furry like an ape and I’d just know he was the Abominable Snowman.”

“He’d be walking? How was this a nightmare?” I asked.
If Mint was going to suck all the attention, she at least needed to tell an interesting story.

“He was so big and he’d walk in this really exaggerated way,” Mint said. I watched as Mint tried to imitate the walk of the Abominable Snowman. She looked exceptionally weird and other people started watching our golf group.

“Sounds pretty scary,” my mom said.

I shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

“What made it a nightmare was that the way he walked would trigger an avalanche. And the snow would just be drowning me. I’d try to swim to stay on top, but eventually I’d be covered. The whole world would be dark. And I’d be all alone.”