Too Cool for This School (8 page)

I was very lucky that Todd Romero and Jagger Evenson were so sneaky. Under the cover of darkness, late in the night, they crawled beneath the trampoline and lay in the grass. Todd reached up with his finger and poked the mesh near my face.

“I’m here,” Todd whispered.

“Hey,” Jagger said.

I couldn’t believe I’d fallen asleep. I’d been so excited that they were going to sneak over that I’d tried to stay up as long as I could. But at some point I’d surrendered to sleep while staring at the dark sky filled with sparkling stars, and conked out.

“Hi,” Angelina whispered. “I’m Lane’s cousin, Angelina. My mom is her mom’s sister. We were born five days apart. But I’m an Aquarius, and Lane’s a Virgo.”

I wanted to die. Why was Angelina telling Todd and Jagger that I was a Virgo? And why did it matter that she was an Aquarius? And why was she talking about our family tree? Couldn’t she have just introduced herself as my cousin? Wasn’t that what normal sixth graders did? And why wasn’t she as groggy as I was?

“You’re from Alaska, right?” Todd asked.

“Yeah,” Angelina said. “I’m from a town called Eagle River near Anchorage.”

I wanted to interrupt this conversation, but I wasn’t sure how to do it.

“Cool,” Todd said. “How many eagles have you seen?”

By now, Lucia and Rachel and Ava were up and we were all staring down through the mesh at Todd and Jagger.

“Eagles are so common in Alaska that I see at least three or four every day,” Angelina explained.

“Wow,” Jagger said. “You mean, like, bald eagles?”

“Yes,” Angelina said. “I mean bald eagles.”

“Have you ever seen a bear?” Todd asked.

“I have,” Angelina said. “In the forest near my house there are fifty-two tagged brown bears and so many black bears that they don’t even bother to tag them. And there are wolves too.”

“Awesome,” Jagger said.

“Hi, Jagger,” Ava said. “I like your jacket.”

I squinted to get a better look at Jagger’s jacket. In the darkness, all that I could tell was that it looked blue.

“Thanks,” Jagger said.

“What time is it?” Rachel asked, sounding groggy.

“Time for donuts?” Todd asked.

I watched as Todd pulled a bright white box from a paper bag and gently shook it.

“You are so sweet,” Ava cooed.

“Ooh,” Rachel said. “Do any of them have jelly centers?”

Todd opened the box and peeked inside. “You’ll have to look for yourself.”

“Hand it over,” Rachel said.

I think I heard her stomach growl. In addition to drawing squids, Rachel’s other favorite pastime was eating anything with sugar in it.

“You have to come and get it,” Todd said.

“But the grass is covered in dew,” Lucia said.

She was so practical.

Todd shook the box again. “I’m going to count to ten. You better get them.”

Jagger laughed. “If you don’t, I’ll eat ’em.”

“No!” Rachel said.

“Shhh,” I said. The last thing I needed was to get caught with my almost boyfriend bringing donuts to my pj party.

“Can’t you just hand them to us?” Lucia asked.

And then, before I could figure out a way to flirt with Todd and persuade him to give us the donuts, something terrible happened. Angelina ruined my moment.

“I’ll risk the dew,” she said.

With the speed of a wild dog and the flexibility of a monkey, Angelina hooked her legs on the metal frame of
the trampoline and lowered herself to the grass. “Hand them over.” She reached her arms toward my almost boyfriend. And he surrendered the box right away.

“You’re quick,” Jagger said.

“Alarmingly quick,” Ava said.

Angelina swung herself back onto the trampoline and handed Rachel the box. “There is a jelly-filled donut!” she squealed.

I watched in horror as the kitchen light flicked on.

“You better scram,” Lucia said.

“Thanks for the donuts,” Angelina said.

My big, exciting moment with Todd had suddenly turned to trash. We should have been able to hang out and talk to each other for hours. Maybe he would have even climbed on the trampoline with me. But before I could even come up with a good place for them to hide, Todd Romero and Jagger Evenson were absolutely gone. I watched my mother wave to us from the kitchen window. What a bummer. I waved back to her. And so did my friends. Angelina waved so much that it looked like she was trying to fend off a vicious mosquito.

“That was so lame,” Ava said.

“Why?” Angelina asked. “Don’t you like donuts?”

It was tragic how clueless Angelina could be. Mostly tragic for me and Todd. But also tragic for her. How would she make friends and survive for a month at Rio Chama Middle School? It was going to be tough.

“Getting the donuts was lame,” Ava said. “You stole
Lane’s thunder. And it’s weird to talk about your zodiac sign with guys until you’re much older. Like when you’re in college.”

“Yeah,” Rachel said as she bit into a donut that released a small stream of red jelly down her finger. “That did feel a little weird.”

“Oh,” Angelina said.

“You really hijacked the guys,” Ava said.

“Hijack?” Angelina said. “Did I hijack somebody?” She turned toward me when she asked the question.

“Yeah,” Ava said. “They were here to see Lane. And me. And we barely got to talk to them.”

“Sorry,” Angelina said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Let’s call it an honest mistake and go to bed,” Lucia said. “It’s late.”

But I didn’t feel like going to bed. I felt like being mad at Angelina. And so did Ava.

“Sixth grade isn’t a joke at Rio Chama Middle School,” Ava said. “There are important rules to follow.”

Angelina looked scared.

“Don’t freak her out,” Rachel said. “You’ll be fine. Probably.”

“Don’t lie to her,” Ava said. “She’s poised for geekdom!”

“I doubt she’ll get branded as a geek,” Lucia said. “Her hair is very nongeek.”

I thought about how her choppy bangs looked pasted to her sweaty forehead. She better not let her forehead get sweaty at school.

Angelina stared at her donut but didn’t take another bite. “Thanks.”

“Her hair needs to have a style. It can’t be loose like a wild animal. And she needs to wear clothes that help her blend. Blending will be critical to your social success,” Ava told her.

“I don’t care if I blend,” Angelina said.

Ava stared at her. “You better.”

And even though Ava was speaking to Angelina in a harsh way, I didn’t interrupt her, because I thought that everything Ava was saying was basically true.

“Don’t you want to make friends? Don’t you want to avoid the geeks and mingle with cool kids? Why come here and have a nightmare experience?” Ava asked.

Angelina blinked. Four times. She looked as if she wasn’t totally sure if she cared or not.

“Is our school
that
bad?” Rachel asked.

“When it comes to being the new girl, any school can be
that
bad,” Ava said.

“Right,” Angelina said as she nervously twirled her ribbon belt around her finger.

None of us said anything. We just stared at Angelina while she thought and thought. I didn’t understand what was so hard about blending. If I were as weird as Angelina, I would have been thrilled to try to show up at a new place and blend.

“This problem is easy to solve,” Lucia said. “Just borrow some of Lane’s clothes and don’t talk too much about bald eagles and you’ll be fine.”

“You can probably talk a little bit about grizzly bears,” Rachel said.

Lucia and Ava and I shot Rachel some disapproving looks. She was not helping.

“I need a glass of water,” Angelina said. “My donut is sticking to my throat.”

I gave her my flashlight and we watched as she walked barefoot through the grass toward the house.

“She’s different,” Rachel said. “Maybe people will like that.”

We all looked at Rachel again. Had her jelly donut made her crazy?

“She’s
too
different,” Ava said. “Plus, she’s weird. She’ll sink Lane’s popularity faster than a harpoon takes down a whale.”

“No way,” Rachel said. “Lane is class captain.”

“That’s right,” Ava said. “She’ll be planning the most amazing parties our school has ever seen. People are expecting a lot out of her now.”

That statement felt heavy and made me hold my breath. While I’d thought about the parties, I hadn’t really thought about other people’s expectations.

“I’m sure everything will be fine,” I said in a very shaky voice.

“I’m sure a whale thinks that right before it gets harpooned,” Ava snapped.

“Stop!” Lucia said. “I actually saw a show about whaling ships, and it takes a long time for a harpoon to tire a whale.”

“Whatever,” Ava said. “Eventually the whale sinks. And Lane shouldn’t be a harpooned whale. She deserves so much more than that.”

I really agreed with Ava’s position on this.

“But the whale doesn’t sink,” Lucia said. “It’s cut up into useful parts. For lamp oil and stuff.”

“That’s an even worse fate than sinking!” Ava said. “Listen, here’s the plan. On Monday, if Angelina shows up at school looking decent and acting normal, we’ll befriend her and do what we can to help her survive. But if she doesn’t listen to us and she shows up refusing to blend, we need to cut her loose and let her swim those waters alone.”

There was a bunch of silence. I think we were all thinking about the cut-up whale.

“That’s so harsh,” Rachel said finally. “I feel bad for her.”

“Her? Feel bad for
us
. We can’t hang out with a weirdo. People will think we’re weird too.”

“So we’re just going to ditch my cousin?” I asked.

Ava clicked her tongue. “If you want a happy future that includes Todd Romero, yeah. We ditch her.”

It took Angelina a long time to come back to the trampoline. And when she did, I tried not to look at her too much. I knew what I had to do. I just hoped I’d be able to do it.

9

I made my two dozen cookies on Sunday night. I settled on a raw vegan chocolate chip recipe. My mom voiced some concern over the fact that we didn’t have to bake them, but I thought that was a time-saving bonus. With my raw cookies, all I had to do was leave them out and dehydrate them for the night.

“What are these for, again?” Angelina asked as she watched me scoop the last mound of dough onto a piece of parchment paper.

“A cookie basket,” I said. Angelina needed to start accepting the fact that I didn’t have to exhaustively answer every single one of her questions.

“And you’re not concerned that they look a little bit like dog poop?” she asked.

I stared at my undehydrated cookies. “They taste
awesome,” I said, acting as if her dog poop comparison hadn’t offended me. Because I didn’t think they looked like that at all. I thought they looked vegan-y.

“Are you going to bed right now?” Angelina asked, trailing behind me to the bathroom.

It was starting to feel like I had a stalker. “Yeah.”

“My mom might call me tonight. It depends on what time her ship makes port,” she said. “So I’m going to stay up.”

“Okay,” I said. I tried to imagine what it would feel like if my mom had boarded a ship and sailed off for a month. But I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. No matter how bad my mom wanted to visit a foreign country or take a vacation, she would never do that.

I entered my bedroom and noticed that Angelina still hadn’t laid out her outfit for school like I’d suggested. It drove me nuts that I didn’t know what she was going to wear tomorrow. And I couldn’t tell if she was intentionally trying to drive me nuts or if it was an accidental thing. Maybe I should mention that I was willing to help her pick out an outfit one more time?

Rather than reach out to her, I shut the door instead. It wasn’t my job to dress my cousin.

“Night!” Angelina called to me. “I’ll make sure nobody eats your cookies.”

Who did she think was going to eat my cookies? “Okay,” I said. And I pulled out my pink bohemian tunic top and my favorite pair of jeans so they’d be ready for me to wear tomorrow.