Freaked Out (3 page)

“Charlotte, are you listening to me?” asked an impatient Maeve. “I had to baby-sit Sam all weekend. And I hardly saw my parents.” Maeve pulled the wheelie that held her book bag and her laptop. “But at least they're talking to each other.”

“That's a good sign,” Charlotte said.

“Do you think?” Maeve hoped Charlotte was right.

 

The cafeteria was the usual beehive of activity. Anna and Joline were holding court with Kiki Underwood and
a few eighth-grade boys in the corner. The BSG made their way across the room. Lunch with Anna and Joline and Empress Kiki was not on their menu. They plopped down their backpacks to mark their seats and rushed to get in line before it got too crowded.

Back at the table Isabel asked, “Where's Avery? She's been talking to Ms. Rodriguez for a long time now.” She unwrapped the sandwich that was on the lunch menu and stared at it.

Maeve bit into her sandwich. “This sandwich needs serious help, Izzy. Better smother it with mustard, or it will feel like you're eating white cardboard.” Isabel looked askance at her soggy white bread. She had high standards for food. Her family, and particularly her sister Elena Maria, was a group of fabulous cooks.

Katani straightened her sweater, which just happened to be the color of Maeve's mustard. “If Avery has to write her report over again, you should help her, Charlotte. You're a good editor.”

“Maybe we should have some study sessions together to make sure we pull through all the mid-terms we have,” Isabel suggested. “Charlotte can help us with writing assignments, Katani can help us study math, and—”

“Do makeup and help us decorate a new blouse,” Maeve smiled. “We can each buy a plain T-shirt, bring paint that won't wash out, and make matching tops. I think that sounds like much more fun than studying.”

“I've been thinking about creating a modern art T-shirt.” Katani scribbled a design on her napkin.

“I know, we could put washable paint on Marty's paws,
then let him walk all over the shirts.” Charlotte laughed at her own absurd idea. “Then we could paint them over with fabric paint.” Charlotte loved brainstorming ideas with her friends.

“Avery will want to make lots of paw-print shirts and sell them to benefit the animal shelter,” Charlotte commented.

Isabel thought that over and then added, “You know, that is kind of a cool idea for a fundraiser.”

“Kind of a ‘going-to-the-dogs' sale!” Charlotte joked.

The girls got so caught up in plans for new clothes that didn't cost a ton of money that they almost missed the event of the day.

“Is that Julie Faber coming toward us?” Isabel asked, poking Maeve with her elbow. “What's she handing out?”

“I can't believe it. I am so excited. I think that she's going to give us invitations to her party,” gushed Maeve.

Charlotte and the BSG watched the skinny, dark-haired girl in the stylish jeans and pink velour zip-up head toward their table. Julie's party had been the talk in the halls for weeks. The BSG had figured that they weren't invited because they hadn't yet received invitations in the mail.

“A party!” Maeve clapped her hands. “Wonderful. Just what I need to get me out of math boot camp.”

Julie carefully handed each Beacon Street Girl a pink envelope. She smiled and made a big production of it all, as if they were invitations to the Oscars. “One for you, Charlotte. One for you, Maeve, and one for you, Katani.”

Maeve held the invitation to her nose. It smelled like fruit.

“Here's yours, Isabel. Love your T-shirt.”

Attention flew away from the boring lunch sandwiches and centered on the sound of ripping paper.

“Oh, yay, the invitation says no presents,” Isabel read. “That's a relief, since my allowance this week is stretched beyond belief.”

“Hey, this is so sweet.” Maeve shook the card. A Hawaiian girl wearing a grass skirt and a lei wiggled on the front of the invitation.

“Must be a Hawaiian birthday theme,” Katani said with a crooked smile.

“You think?” Maeve giggled. “It's a week from Saturday. Maybe I'll be over getting grounded by then.”

“You're grounded?” Isabel asked. “But we just got home from Lake Rescue—what have you done?”

“Nothing yet.” Maeve looked very glum despite the idea of a party.

“What are you planning to do to get grounded?” Charlotte grinned.

“Come on, Charlotte. It's no secret. I'm going to flunk Friday's math test.”

“How do you know?” Katani asked.

“Don't say that, Maeve,” Charlotte pleaded. “If you think you're going to fail, you might really flunk the test.”

Maeve nodded. “I am going to flunk, I'm going to flunk seventh grade even. When you guys move on, I'll still be stuck with Ms. Rodriguez, writing about my worst fear or my most embarrassing moment, which I will be living out.”

Maeve put her arm across her forehead and swooned
like a character in a movie. She was so dramatic, her friends broke into a hysterical frenzy.

“Oh, Maeve, we're not laughing because you're worried about the test,” Isabel said. “I'm worried about it, too. But what makes you think that they will keep you back?”

“My mind just keeps going there, and I can't seem to stop it. It kind of goes like this…”

Maeve's math rap produced a burst of hilarity from all the BSG. Maeve's brain on math might be “whack,” but everyone agreed with Charlotte when she said, “Maeve, forget math, your other talents are prodigious!”

Maeve grinned at her friends and then made her Hawaiian dancer wiggle. “Are we supposed to wear costumes? Like maybe, grass skirts?”

“How about our matching pajamas?” Isabel's eyes twinkled, reminding everyone how the BSG's prison pajamas had won Henry Yurt's Pajama Day contest's most creative award. “They'd look good with leis. I'm going to get a hula hoop and start practicing.”

“I bet I can find my old one,” Maeve said. “My mother read once that wiggling inside a hula hoop might improve my reading. Some weird brain thing. So I became a whiz at hula hooping, but I still couldn't read. That was before we discovered that I couldn't process what I was reading and I wrote a bunch of letters backward.”

“You could write all your sentences using palindromes,” Charlotte said, giving up on her sandwich and nibbling pickle slices and carrots.

“What's a palinmacallit?” Maeve asked.

“You know, a word that is the same spelled backward or forward. The classic example is
Madam, I'm Adam
.”

“How about,
a Toyota
.” Isabel laughed. “That's fun.”

“Like Anna.” Katani nodded toward where Anna and Joline were cackling with the table of boys next to them. “Don't you think Anna and Joline sound like a pair of hens at feeding time?”

“A real pair of quacks if you ask me,” offered Charlotte.

“Charlotte Ramsey,” scolded Maeve. “That's so unlike you, and really, really funny.”

“I wonder what boys Julie invited to the party,” Charlotte said, wanting to get off the subject of Anna and Joline. The Queens of Mean made her uncomfortable. Charlotte never wanted to be a target of their meanness, but neither did she want to duck and hide.

“Don't you mean you hope she invited Nick Montoya?” Isabel teased.

“I didn't exactly mean Nick,” Charlotte laughed. “I just meant, well, you know—”

“We know. Nick. Who else would you mean?” Maeve teased. “Personally, I hope she invited Dillon. He is such a good dancer.”

“Don't look now, but isn't that Nick and Dillon
heading right for our table? Should Katani and I leave?” Isabel stood up. But the big smile on her face said she was teasing, and that no way was she leaving. She liked Nick, too, even though she knew he was Charlotte's not-so-secret main crush.

Maeve pulled her down. “Don't even consider it, Izzy.”

“Yeah, sit down, Isabel,” Charlotte said.

I just gotta pass that math test
, Maeve thought as she crossed her fingers behind her back.
I can't miss the “party of the year.”

Both boys had gotten a wiggling hula girl invitation too. They waved them in the air, then sat down at the BSG table to make plans.

“I heard we all have to wear grass skirts,” Dillon said.

“Boys, too?” Charlotte asked.

Maeve shook her head. “I've seen every movie ever made in a place where they wear grass skirts. I think you should wear Hawaiian shirts. You can get them at a secondhand store.”

“No way am I wearing a grass skirt.” Nick smiled at Charlotte. Charlotte thought Nick would look very handsome in a Hawaiian shirt.

“Me either.” Isabel high-fived Nick.

“Maybe Julie's parents will hire a Hawaiian band. Is there any Hawaiian hip hop music, Maeve?” Katani asked.

“Don't think I've heard of any Hawaiian hip hop groups.”

Dillon asked Maeve if she would dance with him at the party. Maeve nodded. Dillon was a really good dancer. Not as good as Tim Cole, her hip hop partner, of course, but very respectable. At that moment the music from
South Pacific
popped into her head. She stared dreamily at Dillon, imagining the two of them dancing under a waterfall with Hawaiian drums pounding in the background.

When the bell signaled the end of lunch hour, the BSG began to disperse. As Maeve searched in her “backpack of shame” for her science notebook, her spirits lifted. She remembered that she was going to hip hop class after school. Just thinking about dancing made her feel better about life. After all, Snoopy said it best: “To dance is to live.” Or was it, “To live is to dance”? Maeve shook her head. She always did that—got confused about the order of things. Maybe that was her problem with math, she mused.

Hip Hop Class

T
hanks, Dad, for picking me up.” Maeve jumped into her dad's car after school and reached across to give him a hug. It was too far to walk to class, and if she took the bus, she might be late. She didn't want to miss one minute of the highlight of her week. And, she didn't get to see her dad every day since her parents separated, and she missed him.

“No problem,” he said. “I'll swing back in an hour. My new assistant at the theater is great, so I don't have to worry about being there every second of the day.”

Maeve was so excited to get to class, she burst into the classroom, tossed her jacket onto a chair near the CD player, then looked around to see if Tim Cole, the best dancer in the class, was there. He wasn't, so she busied herself looking through Ms. Bennet's vintage hip hop collection. The teacher said she liked the older music better than today's artists.

Ms. Bennet had CDs all the way back to Ice-T and
Salt n Pepa, the first major female hip hop group. Maeve, who didn't much like the gangsta rap, either, preferred some of these older artists, too.

“Hi, Maeve. Workin' on some requests?”

Maeve swung around to find herself standing way too close to Tim. She couldn't believe he'd sought her out to talk to. Tim Cole was in eighth grade and had even danced professionally for a music video. Everyone thought he was the coolest thing ever. He looked like a rock star in training with his gorgeous blonde hair and big blue eyes.

“Yeah, sort of. I like looking at the old CD covers, too.”

Just as things were about to get awkward between them, Ms. Bennet walked in. Maeve knew that Tim was just being friendly. But he was so totally adorable, he made her nervous.

Nikki Bennet's class was awesome. Ms. Bennet had danced a lot of places professionally, but unfortunately, a series of ankle injuries had sidelined her indefinitely. Maeve thought about Isabel, who had wanted to be a dancer. It must be hard to get hurt and not know if you'll ever dance again. Maeve didn't know how old Ms. Bennet was, but she knew her town was lucky to have her teaching a hip hop class at the rec center.

“Okay, dancers. Take your places. Warm up by yourself.” Ms. Bennet clapped her hands. “Get those legs moving and grooving.” She waved everybody into place.

Maeve had no trouble getting her legs moving. Who could stand still? She ignored everyone around her, forgot school, and gave herself over to the beat.

“Okay. Great energy. Let's go!” Ms. Bennet turned to face the mirror.

Before she could move to her box of music, Maeve called out her own suggestion.

“Okay.” Ms. Bennet smiled. “Southern hip hop it is. And, Maeve, since you suggested this piece, why don't you and Tim give us a demonstration to start off the class?”

She couldn't say no. She didn't want to say no. The truth was, she was thrilled. She loved to perform.

Tim reached for her hand, led her into the center of the room, then, just for fun, bowed clear to the floor. But as soon as the music started, the competition was on. The two of them moved in tandem. Maeve was able to follow Tim's lead out of the corner of her eye. She had been watching him for weeks and had been practicing a lot of his moves in the mirror at home. Ready to give it her all, Maeve danced until the sweat was pouring down her face and her heart was pounding a zillion beats per minute.

When the duo had finished, everyone cheered, including Ms. Bennet. “Music video auditions, here they come,” she acknowledged proudly. “Okay.” She motioned to the rest of the class. “Everybody up.” The teacher stood at the front of the class, executed a five-step combo, then encouraged the class to repeat it with her.

When Maeve caught her breath, she joined in with the rest of her class, and the remaining forty minutes whizzed by.

She didn't speak to Tim again until class was over and she was getting her jacket and purse.

“Great moves, Maeve. Hope she teams us up again.”

“I do, too, Tim. I thought we looked really together out there.” Then she took a deep breath and stuck her neck out. “Do you think I could audition for a video with you?”

Tim didn't answer her, but he did smile.

Back to the Real World

The Beacon Street Girls met at Montoya's Bakery before school on Tuesday morning.

“Hello, girls,” Mrs. Montoya greeted them warmly. “Good to see all of you survived your week of camping. You are braver than me. I don't like bears or bugs, and I like clean sheets.”

“It was really fun, Mrs. Montoya,” Isabel enthused. “I was like you before I left, but the woods were beautiful, and I loved hiking up the mountain. I felt like I could do anything by the time I got to the top.” She gave the older woman a thumbs-up.

Mrs. Montoya gave Isabel a big smile. “What would you all like to eat?” Isabel could see where Nick Montoya got his good looks. Mrs. Montoya was lovely. She had big brown eyes and her smile revealed lovely, straight white teeth. Isabel thought she could have been a model when she was younger.

“You are a rainbow of color today, Isabel. Muy bonita. A feast for the eyes.” Isabel was so pleased with the compliment because she had worn a light green T-shirt decorated with her own drawings of flowers. That morning, Katani said it was magnificent, and now Mrs. Montoya was complimenting her as well.

While she chatted, Mrs. Montoya had been gathering
a bag of muffins fresh from the oven. She poured five cups of hot chocolate. “If you will take the muffins, Isabel, I'll carry this tray to your table.” She turned and greeted Charlotte with a warm smile, and asked how she had enjoyed Lake Rescue.

The girls paid for their food, thanked Mrs. Montoya, and when they were seated, Isabel handed out the muffins. All of them breathed in the heavenly smell of homemade cocoa with real milk and the aroma of warm cinnamon muffins.

“You're blushing, Charlotte!” Katani said when Mrs. Montoya went back to the counter. “I'll bet Nick talked about you when he was sharing his adventures at Lake Rescue with his mom.”

“I am not, Katani. It's the heat from the cocoa,” Charlotte insisted. When she looked up and saw Katani's smirky smile, she realized her friend was teasing. Charlotte threw a napkin at her. Meanwhile, Maeve licked away the foam spilling over the top of her drink. “So, what are we wearing to the party? It's a Hawaiian theme.”

“The invitation didn't say costumes,” Isabel pointed out. “I don't know what I'm wearing yet.”

“What party?” Avery said with a puzzled look on her face.

A moment of dead silence came over the other four girls. You could have heard a hot chocolate bubble pop.

“Didn't you get…um…your invitation from Julie Faber?” Charlotte stammered, looking desperately around the table for help. But the other BSG just stared at Charlotte.

“Julie gave them out at lunch yesterday. Didn't she give you one?” Charlotte continued, wishing that the room would swallow her up. “Maybe she couldn't find you after school.” Charlotte felt Avery had to be invited. She just had to be.

“I saw Julie after school yesterday at the basketball tryouts meeting. She didn't mention anything about a party or an invitation.” Avery looked around blankly at her friends.

Maeve looked at Charlotte, then Katani and Isabel. “Maybe we could ask Julie…. She might have forgotten about it. Maybe…Maybe…”

“Yeah, well, maybe I'm not invited,” Avery said. “Whatever. I'm really busy anyway. Plus, you know me; I'm not really the ‘party girl' type.” Avery chugged her cocoa and stood up. “I've got to go check my math homework over and hand in my revised book report to Ms. Rodriguez before school starts.”

The other girls fell silent as Avery gathered her things. No one knew what to say. Avery gave a tiny wave as she left the table.

Isabel's heart went out to Avery. “What are we going to do?”

“We're not going to the party,” Katani announced. “That's an easy decision.”

“Right,” agreed Isabel, Charlotte, and Maeve.

“I didn't want to go that bad anyway,” Katani huffed, putting her nose in the air. “Julie Faber is a snob not to have invited Avery. Besides, remember our rule: Beacon Street Girls forever!”

The BSG clicked their hot chocolate mugs in solidarity. The sound seemed loud in the silence that had surrounded them. Each took a big sip of the sweet liquid and studied their cups.

“Do we really have to skip it?” Maeve asked in a meek voice. “It's going to be the party of the year. You know how Julie's parents always go all out. Hey, they're probably bringing in sand from Hawaii to make a huge beach in the rec room.”

“Maeve!” all the BSG shouted.

“You know the BSG have to stick together,” Charlotte scolded Maeve, but her expression softened when she saw the disappointment on Maeve's face. Her romantic friend just loved parties. For some reason, in that moment, Charlotte realized that it wasn't just about the fun. Friendly and energetic Maeve could shine at a party where she couldn't shine in school.

“I know, I know.” Maeve hung her head. “But given last year's extravaganza it's going to be such a great party.”

“They'll probably fly in real orchid leis for all the girls,” Katani said wistfully. “You know, like that crazy TV show about the sweet sixteen parties.”

“I wasn't here for last year's party,” Charlotte reminded them. “Would they really do something like that?”

“They would. Last year Mrs. Faber took about twenty girls to Boston to shop. She gave each of us some money to spend. Afterward, we went to that fancy French restaurant for lunch. I didn't like the food that much, but the shopping was really fun,” Katani said, remembering the pretty pair of earrings she had purchased.

“Maybe we could talk Julie into inviting Avery,” suggested Maeve, a twinge of hope in her voice.

“Julie could still have Avery's invitation,” Charlotte said. “Maybe she just forgot to give it to her.”

“You really believe that?” Katani asked.

No one answered. They sat quietly for another minute, fearing the truth.

“We have to be loyal to Avery,” Charlotte said. “She'd stick up for any of us.”

“You are so right about that.” Katani finished off her muffin and stood up. “But I lied. I do want to go to Julie's party as much as all of you want to go. But I won't go unless she includes Avery. And even if she invites Avery after we put pressure on her, she's already hurt her feelings. Did you see Avery's face when she left? She was really upset, even if she pretended she wasn't.”

“Oh, wow.” Isabel looked at her watch. “It's getting late. We have to get to school.” The Beacon Street Girls packed up their things and hurried out of the bakery. They were going to be really late if they didn't run. Nobody wanted to get after-school detention.

Who's Invited?

Tuesday morning lasted forever. Maeve survived math by copying equations out of her textbook onto index cards. The Crow had actually complimented her and suggested the rest of the class follow her lead. Under her breath Joline whispered that Maeve probably didn't understand what the equations meant. Maeve made a face at Joline, but at the same time felt horrible inside because she knew Joline
was right. The equations looked like gobbledygook to her. Math felt like a giant pit of mud. Could she survive without it? That was the question she had asked Matt, her tutor. He told her that you had to understand math or you could end up in serious trouble with taxes and stuff like that.

At lunch, the BSG were quiet. Avery was missing again. Was this on purpose, or was she studying? They'd also found out that there was a whole “not invited” group: Riley Lee, Betsy Fitzgerald, Chelsea Briggs, and Robert Worley.

Of course, Julie couldn't invite the entire seventh grade, but the fact that she invited only part of a group that were obviously friends and left one out felt really mean to the BSG. It was like inviting Joline Kaminsky and not Anna McMasters. Katani wondered if Julie had excluded Avery on purpose…just to divide up the BSG.

Of course, Henry Yurt was invited. Julie wouldn't dare leave the class president out. Actually, Henry was becoming quite popular, proving that a zebra can change his stripes. The Yurtmeister was a big joke when he ran for class president, but when he won, people took another look at him. And then to the surprise of everyone, Henry Yurt, father of Pajama Day, started acting like a leader instead of a clown. Except, of course, in math, where Henry had taken it upon himself to liven things up and improve the Crow's sense of humor.

“But, Mrs. Fields,” Henry had protested when the Crow had sent him to the principal. “Mr. Sherman is in need of some lightness of spirit. His facial expressions alone can cause a massive attack of negativity.”

Katani overheard her grandmother telling her mom the story, and Mrs. Fields said that she had to bite her cheeks to keep from laughing. Katani wished that she could tell the story to her friends, but it was a rule that she couldn't repeat anything Mrs. Fields said at home to people at school. “It would compromise my integrity at school, dear,” her grandmother had explained.

“Henry Yurt is going, but not Avery. I just think that is impossibly unfair. But we're not going to solve this problem by sitting around moping,” Katani said in her serious executive voice. “Something has to be done!”

“Do you know what to do, besides what we've already decided?” Isabel asked.

“No, but we have to figure something out. This isn't a school problem.” Maybe Katani would talk to her older sister, who was in college. Candice was a really good advice giver.

“We don't have long to decide,” Maeve said. “I have to plan what to wear. Oops!” Maeve knew the minute she'd mentioned clothes, it wasn't the right thing to say. Sure enough, she got the “how insensitive are you?” look from her friends. “I'm sorry. I know clothes aren't important right now. I just can't help myself. It's where my mind goes.”