Too Cool for This School (16 page)

Having my best friend set out to destroy my cousin put a bunch of pressure on my home life. Because it made me feel conflicted. I didn’t necessarily want Mint to be destroyed, I just wanted her to go back to Alaska and stay there and never have contact with me or anybody I knew, ever again.

On Saturday, I sat across the table from Mint, waiting for Ava to arrive. It was pretty awful. Mint kept going on and on about what a great time she was having at Rio Chama Middle School. But listening to her ramble about my school was only part of what was so awful about the meal. I also had to watch her put food in her undersized mouth. The meal felt like torture.

“I love the chili verde sauce!” Mint said as she inhaled another bite of breakfast burrito.

“Me too. That’s why I make a whole bowl of it,” my mom said. “I’ll put it in our pork tacos tonight.”

“Yum,” Mint said as she smacked her lips in an annoying way.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz
.

“Phones aren’t allowed at the table,” I told Mint in a very judge-y way.

“Isn’t that your phone?” Mint asked.

Did she always have to be right?

As I pulled my phone from my pocket, I saw Todd’s name flash across my screen. I loved it when I saw his name!

“Who’s that?” Mint asked.

She was so snoopy. And tricky. I suspected that Mint knew it was Todd and wanted me to admit that I had a relationship with him right in front of my parents. But I wasn’t about to do that.

“Can you hand me another napkin?” I asked, ignoring her question.

Then I answered Todd’s call. But I was already thinking of ways to speak to him without using his actual name.

“Here’s your napkin,” Mint said.

My dad looked at me as if he expected me to take it. So I did, but when I took it, Mint tried to give it to my hand that was holding the phone, and I ended up dropping my phone. And it fell. And bounced. Into the chili verde!

“Augh!” I yelled.

Mint swooped in like a bird of prey and pulled my phone out of the sauce.

“I think it will be okay,” Mint said, shaking the bigger pieces of green chili off it.

“Can you hear me?” I said into my phone. “Does my phone still work? Are you there?”

But when I pressed it to my ear, I couldn’t hear Todd’s voice, I just got a bunch of chili verde on my face.

“Power it off!” my dad yelled. He snatched my phone from me and turned it off. “You can’t turn it on for a day. You need to make sure the circuit board is dry or you’ll fry it.”

“I think you caught it in time,” my mom said. “And it didn’t get totally submerged. Good job, Mint.”

Good job, Mint?
This whole thing was her fault. I felt so doomed. Not only had I hung up on Todd, but I couldn’t call him back. Or anybody else. For at least a day.

“You can use my phone to call Ava back,” Mint said. “Was it Ava?”

Man, I couldn’t believe how obnoxious she was. “Let’s not talk about this right now.”

“Let’s not overreact,” my mom said. “It was just a phone. It will be fine.”

“Mint was saying you were assigned a wolf exercise in school,” my dad said.

“I believe it’s called a transformational genre exercise,” my mom said. “This would be the perfect opportunity for Mint to wear her wolf T-shirt.”

Mint shot me an accusatory glance. But I shot her one right back. Then Mint took things one step further.

“I can’t wear that shirt,” Mint said. “I don’t have it anymore.”

“What?” my mom asked in a very concerned voice. “Did you leave it somewhere?”

I could not believe Mint was trying to get me into trouble. I thought back to the moment where I’d plunked that shirt in the trash can. It had felt so right. But now, with both of my parents staring at me, it felt so wrong.

“Where did you leave it?” my mom asked.

Did I really have to admit what I’d done? She ruined my shirt, so I threw hers away. We were even. Plus, her shirt was ugly.

“I left it at school and now it’s just gone,” Mint said, answering before me.

I didn’t know how to feel about any of this. I mean, we shouldn’t have even been talking about it.

“Well, we’ll get you a brand-new one,” my mom said.

“Absolutely,” my dad added.

What a mistake!

“You are so thoughtful,” Mint said sweetly. She was practically on the verge of tearing up.

“Forget about it,” my dad said. “Tell me more about your assignment.”

“Okay,” Mint said. And then explained the assignment in a way that made it sound way cooler than it actually was.

Apparently, when it came to my school life, I could
never be the first person to tell my parents anything anymore.

“Sounds neat,” my dad said.

It was hard not to stare at my phone on the counter. I missed it already.

“I find it incredibly well-timed that your class has been assigned a novel so appropriate for Mint,” my mom said.

Mint nodded. “It is so much fun being the expert.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Too bad Ava doesn’t like her part,” Mint said.

“Oh, Ava doesn’t like her part?” my mom asked.

I did not want to gossip about Ava with my parents. “Can’t we talk about something else?”

There was a little bit of silence while we ate and tried to think of something else to talk about. Then the doorbell rang and I was relieved, because it meant that Ava was early. I jumped out of my chair.

“I’ll get it!” I said.

I noticed that Mint got up too. Which was weird. She didn’t need to help me answer the door. It was my house. My life. My doorknob. I jerked open the front door and nearly died. It wasn’t Ava. It was Todd. Why was he ringing my doorbell? Maybe that was why he’d called me. To tell me he was stopping by. A flood of happiness tumbled through me.

“Hi,” Todd said, waving at me. “Is Mint here?”

“My study partner!” Mint exclaimed. “You’re early!”

“Huh?” I asked. And all that happiness disappeared. Todd’s coat brushed my arm as he entered my house.

Then my mom appeared and she was smiling, which I didn’t like at all. Because she didn’t even understand what was happening. One of the people I cared most about in the whole world had just entered my foyer and she didn’t even know his value to me.

“My mom let me bring an old shower curtain for our tundra,” Todd said.

Our tundra?
They were seriously going to replicate Alaskan tundra together. Then I saw a familiar head appear out of the corner of my eye. It was Jagger.

“Jagger?” I asked. “You came to work on the project too?” They still had weeks before they performed it. I mean, Mint wasn’t even going to be here. Didn’t she feel bad about that? Knowing that she was going to abandon her group?

“Mint wanted to practice with her group,” my mom said. “Didn’t she tell you? I was under the impression that was why Ava was coming over too.”

Something smelled fishy. Why would Mint invite my friends to my house and not tell me? Why wouldn’t Todd tell me? I shook my head very slowly from one side to the other, trying to figure things out. “Ava isn’t even in Mint’s group. She’s in a group with Paulette, Tuma, and Bobby.”

“Oh,” my mom said.

“You are going to nail that opening scene,” Todd said. “So Mint, Jagger told me that you have a codebook to help us get out of the slime caves.”

“It’s not really a codebook,” Mint said, twirling her hair
in a flirty way. “Just a notebook I kept of secret passageways and hidden potions.”

“We’ve only found, like, three potions,” Jagger said.

“And one of them melted our armor and turned us purple,” Todd said.

“Oh,” Mint said. “You found a bag of poison.”

“Is this a video game?” my mom asked.

“Yeah,” Jagger said. “It was basically my life all summer but now I’m stuck in a cave.”

The doorbell chimed again. It was Kimmie. “I brought instructions and ingredients to make papier-mâché ice blocks.”

Mint really, really should have told me this was happening.

“If you go with the no-bake papier-mâché paste recipe, we need to add salt to help prevent mold,” Kimmie said.

“Awesome!” Mint said, giving her a high five. “We’ve got plenty of salt!”

“And I brought
Dwarf Massacre
,” Jagger said. “If we want to take a break and play it.”

“Totally,” Mint said.

Then I watched Todd and Jagger and Kimmie and Mint all tromp into my kitchen. My house felt so invaded. Under normal circumstances, it would have felt awesome to have Todd in my kitchen. But under these circumstances, it did not feel awesome.

I kept standing by the door. Waiting for my life to feel normal.

“Is something wrong?”

I turned. Ava was standing on my front steps. Before I could answer her, laughter tumbled out of my kitchen.

“Who is that?” she asked.

Then Kimmie’s voice boomed out of the kitchen. “You are so funny, Jagger!”

Ava’s mouth dropped open. “Is Jagger in your kitchen?”

It wasn’t as if I could hide what was happening. So I just leveled with her. “Yes. With Kimmie, Todd, and Mint. They just got here.”

Ava looked like somebody had punched her in the gut.

“Why are they in your kitchen?” she asked.

“Good question. They claim they’re making ice blocks out of a no-bake paste,” I explained. “But I think their visit is
Dwarf Massacre Three–
related.”

She lowered her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me Jagger would be here? I would have worn a different outfit.”

“I didn’t know,” I said. “Mint didn’t even tell me.”

“This is one more reason to destroy her,” Ava said, her mouth settling into a hard line. “Let’s go to your room.”

“Don’t you want to go in the kitchen and say anything to Jagger?” I asked. “Like, hello?”

Ava’s eyes got big. “No way. I didn’t wear lip gloss and my shirt has a giraffe on it. I didn’t know I was supposed to look cute.”

So we raced past the kitchen and straight to my room.

“This is unbelievable,” Ava said.

“It’s not ideal,” I agreed.

Laughter floated down the hallway and into my room.

“Everything she’s doing is calculated,” Ava said.

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe she’s just trying to make a bunch of friends.”

“Ugh,” Ava said. “You don’t really believe that and neither do I. Let’s make our call.”

Ava whipped out her cell phone and dialed Rachel and Lucia. Then she put her phone on speaker.

(A bunch of silence while we thought about whether or not fake Diego might have looked like Jagger.)

(I didn’t know what was wrong with me or why I kept bringing up fake Diego. But the more I did it the easier it got.)

Knock. Knock. Knock
.

“We need to get some things,” Mint said as she entered my bedroom.

“Look. It’s Mint Chocolate Chip,” Ava said in a voice filled with disgust.

“Am I interrupting something?” Mint asked, glancing at our faces.

“Yes,” I said. “A phone call.”

“We’ll be quick,” Mint said.

And then something happened that I never thought would happen in a million years. Kimmie entered my bedroom. Followed by Jagger. And Todd Romero.

“What do you need exactly?” Ava asked.

She tried to smooth her hair and smile a lot, because she looked most cute with flat hair and a happy face.

“We need a notebook,” Jagger explained.

“And a pair of socks,” added Kimmie.

“Why do you need socks?” Rachel yelled through Ava’s phone.

“Because we’re making seal fur mitts!” Kimmie yelled in the direction of Ava’s phone.

“Hi, Mint!” Lucia’s voice said. “This is Lucia.”

“Hey, Lucia, what’s going on?” Mint said coolly.

Ava shot me a hostile look. Which bugged me a little bit. Because I wasn’t in charge of who Lucia said hey to when she was on speakerphone. Kimmie, Jagger, and Todd stood beside Mint as she pawed through her duffel bag.

“Is that your notebook?” Jagger asked, pointing to Mint’s diary on the floor next to my bed.

“No, my notebook with my game shortcuts is yellow and has a sticker of a mortally wounded dwarf on it,” Mint said. “That’s my journal.”

Ava glanced at Mint’s journal on the floor and smiled at me.

“Maybe I put the notebook in my drawer,” Mint said. “Can you look and see?”

“Me?” I asked. Mint shouldn’t think she could boss me around in front of my friends.