Access Denied (and other eighth grade error messages) (37 page)

As I got nearer, Mark glanced up. Our eyes met briefly before he stepped closer to Carla to let me pass, even though there
was a good five to six feet between us.
Hello?

Mark turned his back. “So, do you think you can?” he asked Carla.

“I don’t know.” She glanced at me. “Hi, Erin.”

“Hey, Carla.”

Mark reached out and squeezed Carla’s arm. “Let me know, okay?”

Carla looked flustered. “Yeah, okay.”

He walked away without even a backward glance at me. Carla and I stood awkwardly for a few moments.

“So, good game,” Carla said.

“Thanks.” I could tell something was on her mind so I stayed where I was.

Finally she cleared her throat. “Look,” she said, “Mark just asked me to play basketball with him Friday after school. I know
you two aren’t going out or anything but I don’t know. I feel like I need to ask you if it’s okay.”

I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. Mark was shooting hoops with someone besides me? And someone who didn’t
even know how to play? He hated playing with newbies. Did he
like
Carla now? Or was he just trying to make me jealous? And why was I even asking these questions? Jeff Massey and I bonded
over a speeding ticket and he almost kissed me. I didn’t have time for this middle school drama.

“You don’t need my permission,” I said, the MES (Mature Erin Smile) coming easily. “Have fun.”

The Saturday of the ski train, I woke up with my throat so swollen I could barely swallow. My head and nose felt like someone
had stuffed them with cotton before shoving my head into a trash compactor.

“I’m sick,” I whispered hoarsely into the phone when I called Jilly. “I can’t go.” I was crying, too, which only made the
stuffiness worse. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t going to be on that train. I’d gotten online and researched Jeff’s car and was
all ready to talk to him about it. And I was seriously thinking about kissing him. I had planned to just ignore Mark and have
fun.

“But you have to go,” Jilly wailed. “Who’s going to sit with me?”

“Sit with Mark,” I said. “I’m sure he’ll be glad I’m not going.”

“Oh, Erin, I can’t believe it,” she said. “Do you think it had something to do with driving eighty miles an hour with the
top down in that convertible?”

“No,” I said. “But my mom sure thought so.” When she came to check on me this morning, she shook her head. “I can’t believe
he was so irresponsible. What was he thinking? It was freezing out.”

“Mom, three people in my homeroom were out sick last week with this same flu. I’m sure it wasn’t the car.”

“I’ll report in as soon as I can,” Jilly said before we hung up.

My mom got me some orange juice and vitamin C and put me back to bed. I was able to sleep most of the day, but fitfully. One
minute I was hot, tossing my covers off, the next I was shivering as if I sat in a tub of ice cubes.

Chris avoided me all day. “I don’t want to catch what you’ve got,” he said. “I’ve got too much going on.”

I slept, watched TV, read, and listened to Jilly’s messages, which didn’t say much except “having fun, but we miss you” because
she knew my mom might listen to them first.

I imagined Jeff on the train and on the slopes, heartbroken without me, barely able to have a good time knowing I was practically
on my deathbed because of course he knew about my illness with our amazing psychic connection. Maybe he had stayed in the
lodge all day worrying about me, ignoring any girls who might be around, waiting until he could check in on me because he
didn’t get cell service on the mountain and—

“Erin?” Chris knocked on the door later that night. “You alive?”

I burrowed deeper under my covers. “Barely.”

“Jeff’s on my cell,” Chris said, raising an eyebrow in. “He wants to talk to
you.
”

Omigod. He was really calling. But how was I going to talk to him? I sounded like I had beans up my nose.

“Erin? Do you want to talk to him or not?”

I held out my hand for the phone.

“Hello?”

“Erin? Jeff.” Oh, that voice. “Missed you on the train. Your cute little friend from the mall told me you were sick.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It stinks.” It came out more like “it thinks” which made me feel stupid. And how cute did he think Jilly
was? Cute enough to take for a ride in his Mustang? Now that she and Bus Boy had broken up, she was fair game.

“And,” Jeff said, interrupting my panic attack, “I thought you’d like to know that I was able to lower my fines and drop the
points for the tickets.”

Our secret. “So you charmed them,” I said. “I’m not surprised.”

“Yeah, well.”

He paused and I could sense he was going to hang up.
Quick, Erin. Come up with something.

“Um, so I meant to ask you if your Mustang is a GT? I can’t remember.”

“Yeah, it is.” His voice perked up. “That’s cool that you asked.” He started explaining some of the features under the hood.
I remembered a few from my research but others were a complete mystery. I listened to his voice, smiling contentedly. “… so
I went with the V-8.”

“That’s great, Jeff. Wow.”

“Well, I hope you feel better,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll hit the slopes together sometime.”

“That would be great.” It would be beyond great. It would be stupendifabulous.

“Okay, can you put your bro on now?” Jeff asked. “I’ll talk to you later.”