Boys Are Dogs (18 page)

“Hi, Jenny. Sorry.” I didn’t tell her why I was late. I’d been busy wrapping Rachel’s present. I got her a silver charm bracelet with three charms I picked out myself—a purple flip-flop, a drum, and a birthday cake that said “Happy Birthday” across it in sparkly letters.

The problem was, I waited until this morning to wrap it, and couldn’t get the bow right. I’d had to redo it three times. Obviously wrapping comes off fast and gets thrown away, but it seemed important to get it right. Especially since this was my first pool party. None of my friends from North Hollywood had their own pool.

Jenny took me to the back patio, which was decorated with pink and silver balloons and purple crepe paper. Everyone was hanging around the picnic table, snacking on chips and dip.

“Hey, Annabelle,” they called.

“Hi, sorry I’m late.” I set Rachel’s present in the pile at the other end of the table.

“It’s okay. Only Emma showed up at twelve fourteen,” said Rachel.

“Actually, my dad dropped me off two minutes early but I waited outside until the exact moment,” she explained.

“Does anyone need to change into their bathing suits?” Rachel’s mom asked.

No one did. We’d all worn our swimsuits under our clothes, so we just got ready outside. Almost everyone had on one-piece suits like mine, which was a relief. Claire was the only one in a bikini and it was more of a tankini, anyway. Only about an inch of her stomach showed. We clumped together near the deep end and stared at the water.

When Rachel’s mom came over with a camera, Rachel yelled, “Mom, stop!”

“I can’t take pictures?” she asked.

“Not until we’re in the water,” Rachel said, turning away from her.

Her mom sat down at the picnic table, as the rest of us debated who should go in first.

“Rachel, I think you should because it’s your birthday,” said Claire.

“That’s exactly why I shouldn’t have to go.”

“Well, someone has to,” said Emma.

Since no one volunteered, we played princess, hunter, bear, which is like rock, paper, scissors, but more fun because you use your whole body, and not just your hands. To make a bear you throw your arms up over your head and growl. To be a princess, you put one hand on the back of your head, and one hand on your jutted-out hip. You can also pucker your lips and flutter your eyelids, if you really want to get into it. Being a hunter is easy. You just pretend you’re pointing a rifle at someone.

Here’s the ranking: bear eats the princess, princess conquers hunter, and hunter shoots the bear.

We played two people at a time until only Rachel and I were left.

In the final round, I was a hunter, and Rachel copped the princess pose, so she won.

I figured it was best to get the worst over with, so I took a running jump into the pool. The cold hit me fast. A chill zinged through my whole body.

“How is it?” Yumi asked.

My limbs felt numb, but I didn’t admit that. Standing in the shallow end, I wrapped my arms around my body to keep from shivering. “Um, refreshing?”

“Yeah, right.” Rachel dipped her toe in and said, “It’s pu-pu-pu-positively fu-fu-fu-freezing.”

When everyone else finally got in, Rachel’s mom snapped some pictures and then told us to line up for swim races.

“Can’t we just swim, for fun?” asked Rachel.

“Free swim will be in fifteen minutes,” said her mom, holding up her stopwatch.

“How about ten?”

Her mom ignored her. “Does everyone know the breaststroke?”

Everyone giggled.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” She raised a red whistle to her lips.

Turns out we only had to go from one end of the pool to the other and back again. Rachel refused to participate and hopped onto a yellow inflatable raft instead. Claire said she wasn’t into competitive sports, but she’d go along because she felt like swimming laps anyway, so that didn’t leave many people for the race.

Emma and I tied for first place, but there wasn’t any prize.

“Butterfly next,” Rachel’s mom announced. But then the doorbell rang, so she headed inside calling, “Be careful, girls. No roughhousing.”

Once she was gone, Rachel swam for the steps, calling, “Everyone out of the pool, fast. I’m sick of racing.”

We spread our towels out on the concrete and lay down.

Rachel passed around the sunblock. I was already slathered in my usual 45, but applied more anyway because the afternoon sun shined so bright. Everyone slipped on sunglasses. Since I’d forgotten mine, I closed my eyes.

“We need to figure out Halloween,” said Rachel. “It’s only four weeks away.”

“Let’s go as baseball players,” said Yumi.

“You wanted to do that last year,” said Claire.

“And we didn’t.”

“What if we dress like people from the eighties?” asked Emma.

“No, too many people are doing that,” said Yumi.

“We can be sixties hippies,” said Claire.

“But you dress like that every day,” said Yumi, which was true. “Anyway, I think we should be some kind of group.”

“What do you think, Annabelle?” asked Rachel.

I propped myself up on my elbows and squinted at her. “Last year, my friends and I went as the three musketeers.”

“But that won’t work because there are five of us,” Emma pointed out.

This, I was happy to hear. Everyone knows Halloween is one of the most important holidays of the year. If Rachel’s friends included me in their plans, it was like glue, cementing my place in their group. I thought so, anyway.

But then I realized that Sophia, Mia, and I had already planned our costumes over the summer. We were going to be the three blind mice. Of course, we never talked about Halloween at last weekend’s sleepover, so maybe Mia and Sophia didn’t want to dress up with me anymore. Maybe they’d changed their minds and were going as cowgirl twins instead. It made me a little sad to think about, but I felt more excited about trick-or-treating here with my new friends.

“How about school supplies?” asked Rachel.

We all looked at each other, waiting for someone to protest, but no one did.

“I like it,” said Claire. “I think I’ll go as a green highlighter. Or maybe one of those pens that writes in five different colors.”

“It was eraser day at the Dodger-Yankee game last weekend and I have this pink eraser that says Dodgers,” said Yumi. “I can make a life-size one. That counts, right?”

“Sure,” said Rachel.

“Yes!” Yumi pumped her fist.

“Whatever we do, we have to make sure our costumes are Jackson-proof,” said Claire.

“Yeah, I don’t want to repeat last year’s nightmare,” Emma said.

Just hearing his name made me feel queasy. I couldn’t even say it out loud, which meant that Jackson was my Voldemort, basically. I was almost afraid to ask but had to know. “What happened?”

Rachel explained. “Last year we went as fruit. I was a banana, Claire was a bunch of grapes, Yumi was an apple, and Emma—what were you, Emma?”

“A star fruit,” said Emma. “Except no one realized. They just thought I was dressed as some weird star-shaped thing.”

“We all met here before trick-or-treating, but Jackson was over with some of his friends. They didn’t even have real costumes but they said they were blenders, which meant they surrounded us and started pushing us around.”

“So they could make fruit shakes,” Claire explained. “I told them there’s no such thing as grapes in a fruit shake but they didn’t care. My costume was made out of purple balloons and a bunch of them popped.”

“They ripped the stem off my apple,” said Yumi. “Rachel’s mom taped it back on, but it wasn’t the same.”

I knew Rachel thought her brother was annoying, but I hadn’t realized Jackson was mean to her other friends, too. It didn’t make me feel better, exactly, but it did make me feel less freakish.

If it happened to everyone, I wondered if maybe I was making too big a deal out of his teasing. Claire and Yumi seemed annoyed, but they didn’t let Jackson ruin their lives. Maybe I could learn to ignore him. At least, that’s what I was thinking when I heard a yell as loud and as fierce as a war cry.

I opened my eyes in time to see Jackson running toward us, clad in green swim shorts. He took a flying leap, hugged his knees to his chest, and cannon-balled into the pool, soaking every single person around. Lucky me—I happened to be the closest, so I got more drenched than anyone. Well, except for Jackson, but he doesn’t count. Clearly he wanted to be wet.

“Jackson!” Rachel screamed.

But he ignored her. Popping back onto the surface, he started kicking and splashing—not because he wanted to get to the other end of the pool in any hurry—just because he was intent on soaking us.

My towel got drenched.

“MOM!” Rachel yelled, running inside.

“Crybaby,” Jackson called. He swam laps, kicking wildly—especially when he passed by us.

No one else at the party knew what to do. We all just sat there, blinking at one another in surprise-annoyance. But that didn’t make me feel any better. Or less wet.

Rachel came back outside, looking plenty mad. “Mom says you have to stop splashing.”

“I’m just swimming. It’s not my fault your friends are too close to the pool.”

“Why are you here, anyway?” she asked.

“I came home early because I didn’t want to miss your party.”

“But you weren’t even invited. That’s the whole point,” said Rachel.

“Well, I’m here now.” Jackson shrugged. Looking around, he narrowed his eyes at me. Then he raised his nose and started sniffing around. “Hey, what’s that smell?” he asked.

Uh-oh.

Rachel seemed confused. “I don’t smell anything.”

I felt a familiar sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. This always happened when Jackson was near.

Be strong. Don’t show fear.

Yeah, right. This was hopeless. Jackson was the dominant dog, no question. And me? I didn’t even qualify to be a submissive dog. I was more like some flea buzzing around him: a small but completely harmless nuisance.

Jackson treaded water and looked around in disgust, like he was suddenly surrounded by sewage sludge. “Hey, it’s really warm in the pool. Did someone pee in here? Spazabelle?”

That’s not my name
, I thought.

Speak firmly
, I told myself, but couldn’t manage to open my mouth.

“The water is freezing and no one thinks you’re funny,” Rachel informed him.

Jackson climbed out of the pool and stood over me, blocking my sun and dripping more water on my already-soaked towel.

“Do you mind?” I finally managed.

“Do you mind not peeing in my pool?” he asked, and then cracked up, as if he’d said something funny, which he hadn’t. Not at all.

The other girls stood and moved away, wrapping their bodies up in towels. This must be why Rachel told us to bring beach towels. They were big enough to hide in, in case her brother came around. Except mine was so soaked it was too heavy to lift.

As I watched him, something occurred to me. If Jackson were my dog, it’d be time to send him back to the shelter. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option.

“You’re not funny,” I said, standing up.

Jackson smirked at me. “No kidding, but at least you’re admitting it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you didn’t deny it.”

“Yes I did.”

“Oh, so now you’re finally admitting that you peed in the pool. You’re a pisser and a liar. And you crank called our house last week.” He turned to Rachel. “You didn’t know that, huh?”

“No. I, no.” Tears pricked the corners of my eyes.

“Are you going to cry about it?” Jackson laughed meanly.

I took a deep, steady breath, but couldn’t calm down. Rage churned from deep within me. It was too much. These past few weeks had been horrible— the worst of my life, probably. But it wasn’t about Birchwood, or my lab partners, or the Corn Dog Boys, or Mr. Beller. No, most of that I could deal with.

There was more to it. A lot more. Jackson had made me miserable from day one. Jackson was out of control. Jackson was completely un-trainable. And now he was teasing me in front of all my new friends. But that didn’t mean I had to sit there silently and take it.

“Why don’t you just leave me alone. Leave us all alone. We were having a great time until you showed up and ruined everything, acting like some wild, outof-control DOG!”

I didn’t mean to scream that last bit, but once I did I had to admit, it felt pretty great.

Jackson narrowed his eyes at me. “What did you call me?” he asked.

“A dog!” I yelled. “You’re a dog, Jackson.”

I braced myself, in fear of retaliation. But Jackson seemed too stunned to say a word.

I heard laughter from behind me, which embarrassed me, until I realized Rachel’s friends weren’t laughing at me. No. That was the cool thing. They were laughing at Jackson.

It was weird, that moment. I felt stronger. Bigger, too. Like maybe things could be different around here.

Turning to face Jackson, I squared off my shoulders. I didn’t just look him in the eye. I stared him down. He seemed pretty surprised, and angry, too. For a few moments, he just stood there, blinking at me. Then rather than fight back, he stormed off, mumbling something about Rachel’s stupid friends, and how he just wanted to go for a swim.

Once he was gone, the laughter died down and everyone got really quiet.

Rachel met my gaze and I held my breath. Her face was impossible to read, with her lips slightly parted and her eyes kind of bugging.

Had I gone too far? Was she mad that I’d called her brother a dog?

“Um, sorry,” I whispered.

“Are you kidding?” she asked, finally cracking a smile. “That was awesome.”

We high-fived, and then everyone surrounded me, all talking at once.

“That was amazing.”

“So perfect.”

“How’d you get rid of him?”

“Yeah, how?”

“Annabelle is just good at stuff like that,” said Rachel.

The others nodded in agreement.

“Good at what?” I asked.

“Dealing with boys,” Emma said.

“You’re kidding, right? That was a fluke thing. Jackson makes me so nervous. Pretty much every boy at Birchwood does.” I’d been so embarrassed, all this time, but it felt good to finally admit it. “They’re like, a different species.”