Alexis Gets Frosted (4 page)

“No, no fever,” she said, returning to her seat, visibly relaxed. She picked her fork back up and began eating again. “What is it? Your allergies?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“‘Yeah'?” my mom repeated, and raised her eyebrows a little at me. She hates when we use that word. “There's an
s
on the end of that word, correct?”

“Yessss,” I corrected myself. “Just itchy eyes and a runny nose and stuff.” I was thrilled for the excuse she'd thrown me, even though it wasn't nice of me to fib to my parents.

“It's going to be a bad year for allergies. All this dryness. No snow this year to fill up the ground-water,” said my dad.

“I know. It was the worst skiing year on record,” agreed my mom. “Those poor ski-resort owners. You know the Campbells canceled their trip. . . . ”

I tuned out what she was saying as something in my mind began buzzing. Snow. Skiing. Ski resorts . . . OMG!

“Oh no!” I moaned out loud without meaning to.

“Sweetheart!” cried my mother. “What is it?” She looked at me all wide-eyed and scared.

“Oh, nothing. Sorry.” I felt sheepish. “Just something I forgot to bring home for homework. I have to call Emma.”

Everyone looked at me suspiciously. Not only am I a bad liar but I'd thought up a bad lie. I'd never
forgotten something I needed in all of my life. I am the most organized person I know!

“Oookay,” my mom said skeptically.

I started to stand up to call Emma, and my father said, “Not right now, young lady. It's dinnertime.” And he pointed back to my chair.

“Sorry,” I said. Then I wolfed down the rest of my dinner, and asked to clear my plate and be excused.

“Wait!” said my mom. “One thing I forgot to tell you before you go! Granny said we could come out Saturday morning to see the dollhouse and all the photos. She's thrilled to get things organized and lay them all out for you.” My mom smiled.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said. I tried to muster up some excitement as I scraped my plate into the disposal, but all I could feel right now was dread.

“Wait, what's all this about Granny?” asked Dylan, and I left my mother to explain. Dylan would hate to miss out on anything with our grandmother because she gives us great old things all the time, like clothes and records and stuff, which Dylan loves.

I took the stairs up two at a time and grabbed the cordless phone from the hall table as I sprinted by. Inside my room I frantically dialed Emma's number
without even stopping to think what I usually think, which is that my crush—her brother Matt—might answer the phone. Which he didn't, luckily.

“Alexis?”

I love caller ID.

“Thank goodness you answered. I figured it all out.”

“Wait, the gingerbread house?”

I could hear the confusion in Emma's voice.

“No! Olivia Allen!”

“Oh. What?”

“I know why she's after me. Remember when we were in the hall talking the day we got out for break about my ski trip? And Maggie and Bella were there? And Maggie was asking where we were going and everything, and she said something about how Olivia used to be, like, a professional skier in the Alps or something?”

“Yeah . . . ”

(
Yessss!
I thought, channeling my mom, but I didn't say it!) “Well, remember how Maggie said something that wasn't really nice about Olivia, and we were kind of surprised because we thought they were BFFs?”

“Oh yeah! Something about how it always has to be the best with Olivia or whatever?”

“Right!” I agreed, feeling relief she remembered too. “So then I said some joke about, ‘Well, she probably thinks she's an Olympic skier, but she's really one of those people who just wears the outfits and sits in the lodge all day.' Remember that?”

“Uh-huh,” agreed Emma, giggling. “It's true!”

“Well, I was just trying to make Maggie feel better, because she was obviously annoyed at Olivia for some reason, and I thought I'd just chime in. But then I said something like, ‘I can't stand those kind of posers!' or something.”

“Oh,” said Emma, now not giggling.

“Uh-huh. And I think Maggie told her.”

“That traitor! You were just trying to make her feel better.”

“Well, all I did was make myself feel worse!”

“What can we do?” asked Emma.

I loved that she said “we”! “I don't know. But you're the best,” I said.

“Yeah, but you're still number one on Olivia's hit list.”

“Yessss,” I agreed sadly. “Yessss.”

I
resolved to confront Maggie first and to find out why she had ratted me out to Olivia. My nerves wavered, though, when I saw her walking in the hall with Callie. They were all dressed up, looking stylish and chatting intently, and I was too scared to interrupt them as they sailed by, oblivious to my existence.

My luck was with me, though, because I ran into Maggie in the bathroom just before homeroom.

“Uh, Maggie?” I started, approaching her at the sink. My voice was kind of shaky. So not the image I wanted to project! I cleared my throat and then tried to establish some presence and poise, as if I were delivering a business presentation.

“Hi,” she said in kind of an oh-it's-just-you tone of voice. She peered at herself in the mirror and took out her makeup case.

“Listen, I just . . . I'm wondering . . . Why did you tell Olivia that dumb joke I made about her and skiing?”

Maggie turned and looked at me blankly. “What?” she asked.

“You know, the note you passed me yesterday. About being careful about what I say about people?”

“Yes, but it wasn't me who told her. It was Bella.” Her face darkened, and she turned back to the mirror. “She said it was both of us—you and I—talking about Olivia. She's a total tattletale, just trying to suck up to Olivia.”

Isn't that what you do?
I wanted to ask, but I didn't think the timing was quite right.

“So, wait . . . Why isn't Olivia mad at you too?”

“She was,” said Maggie, kissing her lips together to spread her clear lip gloss. She studied herself critically, took out a brush, and began to run it through her hair.

This was like pulling teeth! Now exasperated rather than intimidated, I said, “So why isn't she mad at
you
anymore?”

Maggie put her brush away, zipped her case shut, and stowed it into her bag. “Because I apologized,” she said briskly. And she turned on her heel and left me there, gaping.

Great,
I thought.
Now I have to apologize to Olivia?
I couldn't even picture it. And since she'd been so mean to me, part of me didn't even want to. Like, why should I be nice and kiss up to her, after all the mean stuff she's said this week? She should apologize to me!

I felt that horrible dread in my stomach that I'd been feeling the past two days, ever since Olivia started being mean to me. I looked in the mirror Maggie had just vacated and saw my pale face, worried eyes, and set jaw. I looked scared and unhappy.

I took a deep breath and rearranged my features. Then, looking over my shoulder to make sure no one was around to see, I smiled at myself. I read in some self-improvement manual of Dylan's that if you smile, it tricks your body into thinking you're happy. But it wasn't working. I smiled harder. Still nothing.

Sighing, I frowned and felt better.

Well, at least I had a game face. Maybe that would scare Olivia away.

And I had math right after homeroom. That would be fun.

Except that it wasn't.

In math class, Mr. Donnelly announced we'd be merging with the other two sections to form teams for the school's math rally. He said we've move around classrooms for the next couple of days, and then he read the list of who was on which team.

See if you can guess who was on mine.

The good news was I got to stay in my classroom. The bad news was that Olivia came in and sat one row away from me. When Mr. Donnelly handed out the sheets of practice problems for us to work on, he broke us into groups of four or five kids and had us all move our desks into little circles, so we could talk. That left me staring right at Olivia Allen. Ugh.

Kids were chatting about their weekend plans when Olivia asked loudly, “Alexis, do you do anything besides math homework and baking on the weekends?”

All the other kids turned to listen, because they could tell by her tone of voice that something was brewing. Kids love a good drama. But I didn't want to be the star of it.

I took a deep breath and then I looked her in the eyes and replied, “It depends on what my boyfriend is doing. He's in high school.” I had no idea how I came up with that! I felt my face turn red with the lie, but I also had to hide my grin. It was the first time I'd had any sort of comeback for her, and I was thrilled, even if it was a fib.
Maybe if you practice enough, you can get kind of good at comebacks,
I thought.

I looked down at Mr. Donnelly's practice sheet as if to say,
This conversation is finished.
I could feel the other kids watching Olivia to see what she would come up with next, but seconds passed, and she didn't say anything. I was so proud of myself, I wanted to burst!

Finally, she said, “Good luck with that. I think it's illegal.”

I shrugged without looking up, like,
Who cares what you think?
I turned to this kid, Aubrey Peterson, next to me and asked if he wanted to quiz me. I felt light-headed, like I was floating. It must've been the adrenaline from my fear, but I was pleased with myself. By the end of class she hadn't said another word to me and I had come back down to Earth.

Maybe I'd made things worse in the long run
by winning the battle but not the war. I mean, how was I going to come up with a boyfriend in high school? But it didn't matter. It had felt great. And even if she threw worse stuff at me now, thinking I was tougher than I looked, it didn't matter. I'd always savor my first victory.

At home in bed that night, I mentally replayed the whole scene in math class. I was proud of myself for my bravery and my cleverness. But as the minutes ticked by in the dark, my pride shrank and my fear grew. I was ashamed of myself for lying and being mean, and I knew my fighting back had only fanned the flames of Olivia's anger. I dreaded the wildfire I was sure to face from her soon.

On Thursday I snuck around school like a hunted animal, peering around corners and slinking down halls. I skipped lunch with my friends again and ate alone, then at dismissal, I raced out of there and literally ran home. I was relieved I'd avoided Olivia again, but it was no way to live.

By dinner I was exhausted. I guess I didn't say much, or maybe it was obvious I was tired and stressed, because my mom came into my room after she did the dishes and sat on my bed.

“What's up?” she asked.

I wasn't sure I wanted to get into it with her. As I said, she can get a little too intense about problem-solving sometimes. I sighed.