Taffy Sinclair 009 - The Truth About Taffy Sinclair

"C
ome on, Taffy. Get moving! It
'
s almost time to leave for school and you haven
'
t done your exercises yet. How do you ever expect to become a fashion model if you don
'
t keep your figure trim?
"

"
Coming, Mother.
"
I groaned as I hurried down the stairs from my bedroom. Can
'
t she ever let up? I thought. She was sitting at the kitchen table in her bathrobe with her blond hair still in rollers. It was hard to believe she still wore rollers. They went out with the hula hoop.

"
Don
'
t forget your ballet lesson after school,
"
she went on,
"
and that reminds me.
"
Her coffee cup stopped in midair, and her face brightened.
"
I just
heard about a wonderful diction coach in New Haven. I
'
m going to call her today and see if she can take you as a student over the summer. Then when we line up some television commercials for you, you
'
ll be able to do your own speaking parts instead of letting someone else do the voice-overs. In fact, I
'
ll bet we
'
ll be able to get you some jobs doing voice-overs for other girls. It
'
s going to be thrilling for you to be in show business, honey.
"
She paused and gazed off into the distance.
"
Just as it was for me when I was one of the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes.
"

My mother was still talking as I raced past her into the family room and hurried through my exercises. Fashion model. Television commercials. Voice-overs. Radio City Rockettes. That was all she ever thought about.

Not me. I had
plenty
of other things to think about, especially since this was the last week of classes before the summer. I finished my exercises, grabbed my books, and headed for school. I was finally leaving grade school behind and going into junior high, I thought with satisfaction. No more Mark Twain Elementary. No more Jana Morgan and her snobby friends and their big deal club, The Fabulous Five.

The thought of Jana made me bristle. Ever since I could remember she and her friends, Beth Barry, Melanie Edwards, Christie Winchell, and Katie Shannon, had caused me one problem after another, but Jana was definitely the worst. In fifth grade she started a club against me called The Against Taffy Sinclair Club, but this year in sixth grade it was the absolute pits. She
still
tried to turn everybody against me, including Randy Kirwan, the boy I like. Not only that, The Fabulous Five were all jealous of me because of my looks. Can I help it if I have naturally blond hair and blue eyes? They are also jealous because I had a part in a daytime drama called
Interns and Lovers
that was on network television last fall and was seen by millions of people all across America, and now I was going to get modeling jobs, first here in Bridgeport, Connecticut, but later on probably even in New York City. I guess I could understand why they were all jealous of me. But still, Jana was my number one enemy, with each of her friends tying for second place.

But what did they know, anyway? They certainly didn
'
t know as much about me as they thought they did. And they never would, either. I
'
d see to that.

"
Ha!
"
I said out loud.
"
They think they
'
re so smart when really they
'
re just a bunch of immature babies.
"
Thank goodness there would be lots of new kids at Wakeman Junior High this fall. I wouldn
'
t have to be bothered with Jana or the others anymore. I sighed. This was Tuesday, and school would be out on Friday. Just four more days to go.

Alexis Duvall ran up to me the instant I stepped onto the school ground.
"
Hi, Taffy. Did you hear the news? Clarence Marshall doesn
'
t think he
'
s going to pass. Wouldn
'
t that be gross? Being left behind in grade school while everyone else goes on to junior high?
"

"
It would serve him right for being such a jerk,
"
I said, remembering how he had tried to plaster one of his slobbery kisses on me at Kim Baxter
'
s pool party last summer.

"
I know, but wouldn
'
t it be
gross?
"
she insisted. Then she looked toward the school building and added under her breath,
"
Shark alert. Shark alert. Here comes Curtis Trowbridge and I think he
'
s heading for us.
"

"
Oh, no,
"
I groaned. Curtis Trowbridge was the nerdiest person alive and being seen talking to him was totally embarrassing. But here he came anyway, straight toward us. He was walking along with his glasses bouncing on his nose and a pencil stuck behind his left ear, and he was concentrating on the notepad he always carried when he did interviews for the
Mark Twain Sentinel.
Curtis was sixth-grade editor of the paper.

"
Hi, girls,
"
said Curtis in a crackling voice.
"
You
'
re two of the people I want to see.
"

"
Great,
"
Alexis muttered, but Curtis didn
'
t seem to hear.

"
I
'
m having a graduation party at my house Friday night, and you
'
re both invited.
"

Alexis and I exchanged wide-eyed looks of horror. A graduation party? At Curtis Trowbridge
'
s house? I couldn
'
t think of anything worse.

"
I don
'
t know if I can make it,
"
I said, feeling suddenly grateful to my mother.
"
I may have to audition for a part in a television commercial.
"

"
Gee, Taffy. That
'
s too bad,
"
said Curtis. He looked genuinely sorry.
"
Everybody else who I
'
ve talked to is coming. How about you, Alexis?
"

Alexis shrugged.
"
Well . .
."
she stammered.
"
If everybody else is coming
. . ."

"
Great!
"
cried Curtis.
"
I
'
ll put you down as a
'
yes
'
.
"
He made some marks in his notepad, pushed up his glasses with a finger, and then turned around and went zipping off in the direction of Lisa Snow and Kim Baxter, who were standing by the swings.

"
Do you really think everyone will be there?
"
I asked Alexis.

"
They had better be,
"
she said with a frown.

I tried to act casual as I sauntered up the sidewalk with Alexis, but secretly I was looking around for Randy Kirwan. He would be easy to spot since he was the handsomest boy in Mark Twain Elementary, with dark, wavy hair and big blue eyes. I had to find out if he was going to Curtis
'
s party. There was no way to know how often I would see him over the summer, if I would even see him at all. So if he was going to the party, I had to go, too. It might be my last chance for a long time to take him away from Jana Morgan.

Before I could spot Randy anywhere on the playground, the first bell rang.
"
Rats!
"
I mumbled under my breath and headed for my locker. Maybe I would get the chance to talk to him at recess.

There was absolute pandemonium in the hall where the sixth-grade lockers stood. Kids were jerking their locker doors open and shrieking to each other. I tried to ignore the chaos as I headed for my own locker. It
'
s just end of the year hysteria, I thought with disgust. You wouldn
'
t catch me acting so juvenile.

Yesterday Miss Wiggins, our sixth-grade teacher, had collected all the locks and instructed us to bring paper bags to school today. We were supposed to clean out our lockers and take home everything we wouldn
'
t need for the last few days of class. I sighed as I pulled my locker door open. I had forgotten my bag, and I had a ton of things to take home. Things I didn
'
t especially want anyone else to see. I certainly didn
'
t want to stack them on my desk and take the chance of somebody
'
s poking through them when I wasn
'
t looking. Maybe I would call Mother and ask her to drop off a grocery bag for me.

Slowly I focused on the inside of my locker. Something was wrong. It was a mess. A total mess! I never left my things like that. I always kept my locker neat. I bent down, grabbing books and papers from out of the jumble.
"
These aren
'
t mine,
"
I whispered incredulously.

There were drawings of tanks and airplanes. A math book with Matt Zeboski
'
s name in it. Marcie Bee
'
s spelling paper with the one and only A she had ever gotten in spelling on it. It was the paper she kept taped inside
her
locker door.

I looked around helplessly at all the other kids scrambling through the things in their lockers and pitching them onto the floor. Suddenly I understood what was going on. It wasn
'
t end of the year hysteria, after all. Nobody had their own things! Somebody must have sneaked in after the locks were turned in to Miss Wiggins and switched everything around. And in the center of the hall Keith Masterson, Richie Corrierro, and Joel Murphy were doubled over with fits of laughter.

"
OH, NO!
"
I
shrieked as I remembered what I had left in my locker the day before.
"
Who has it?
"
I cried, but nobody could hear me over the noise. I stomped up the hall, jerking my head first to the right and then to the left. I had to find it. I had to get it back if it was the last thing I ever did.

Suddenly I saw something straight ahead of me that made my heart stop, and then the rest of me stopped, too. Jana Morgan and her friends were standing in a tight little cluster looking at something that Jana was holding in her hand. They were giggling and talking excitedly. I couldn
'
t see what it was that Jana had because the others were standing too close to her for me to get a good view. But I knew. I knew without looking. They had found the last thing in the world I wanted them to see
—
my secret, personal diary.