Bessica Lefter Bites Back (4 page)

“I told you. She wants all three of us to meet so we can sort through the situation,” my mom said.

“Am I going to have to show her my feet?” I asked. That worried me because I hadn’t trimmed my toenails for a while.

My mother wrinkled her forehead like she didn’t know the answer. “Let’s just wait and see what happens.”

“Okay,” I said. Even though I found waiting pretty painful.

“Do you want me to drive you?” my dad asked.

I didn’t need that. I might not have trimmed my toenails, but I wasn’t a child. I could carry a heavy backpack and get to school on a bus.

“Door-to-door service, and I might have a limited edition snack pack of Two-Taste Teton donuts in the car,” he said.

“Ooh,” I said. Maybe having Dad drive me was the way to go. Because the snack packs of Two-Taste Teton donuts had sold out at stores weeks ago, so I’d look very special eating them in front of everybody at lunch.

“Don’t give her junk food,” my mom said.

But I didn’t mind that idea. Because in addition to being hard to find, Two-Taste Teton donuts were also very interesting snacks. Using technology known as flavor flecking, the company that manufactured the donuts managed to put two flavors in each donut. Plus, the wrapper had a picture of the donuts that I could use for my nutrition collage.

“Let’s roll!” my dad said, getting out of his chair.

He picked up my backpack and carried it to the car. He gave me my donuts as soon as we sat down.

“These are so cool!” I said. I set my donuts on my armrest so they wouldn’t get smooshed. I wanted them to look perfect when I ate them in front of everybody.

The sun hadn’t risen yet. Nobody would ever send elementary school students to school in the dark. As we drove through the darkness, I listened to my dad complain about Yancey, who hadn’t been documenting and disposing of his day-old bread and snack cakes properly. And I didn’t really have anything to say about that.

I think my dad could tell I was bored. Because when he pulled into my school’s unloading zone he said, “I’m really proud of you.” He cleared his throat and sounded very serious. “I can’t wait to see you perform at your first game.”

I couldn’t wait for that either. “Thanks,” I said.

But I didn’t get out of the car, because it seemed like my dad wanted to keep telling me stuff.

“Maybe we should plan a trip to Bear Galaxy soon so you can get some firsthand bear information.”

“That sounds awesome!” We hadn’t been to Bear Galaxy in years because it cost almost thirty dollars per vehicle to enter. It was a place where they kept bears behind fences so you could drive around and look at them all day long.

“I can remember my dad driving me to this very building when I was your age,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” I said. I was starting to worry that I was going to be late.

“Life goes by so fast.
Bam!
You’re in middle school.
Bam!
You’re in high school.
Bam!
You’re in college.
Bam!
You have a job.”

My dad was starting to bum me out. Because his list left out a lot of the fun parts in life, like going on vacation and riding your bike around during your free time. Before I could say anything, the warning bell rang. Some kids started jogging toward the building.

“Thanks for the Two-Taste Teton donuts!” I said as I climbed out of the car.

“Bessica, I want you to walk through those doors and have the best day of your life.”

“Okay,” I said. But even with my donuts, I didn’t expect that to happen. I knew I’d have to wait until my
spot was perfectly secure before I would have that kind of day.

As I hurried into the building, I kept looking left and right for the psycho-bullies. There were three of them: Cola, Beacher, and Redge. They were easy to spot because they were terrible-looking, mean, and fairly tall.
Look left. Look right. Left again. Right again.

I made it to my locker and let out a breath of relief. But as I was turning my lock I saw something awful! Psycho-bully Cola’s disgusting sneakers on his big feet.

“Hey,” Cola said. “You’ve got Two-Taste Teton donuts.”

I opened my locker and didn’t say anything.

“Where did you get them?” Cola asked.

I didn’t answer him. It was none of his business. I felt him hovering next to me. Even though I really hated how awful these psycho-bullies treated me, I still tried to stand up for myself. Except I did give psycho-bully Redge a pen every morning in nutrition. And I didn’t do this out of generosity. I did it out of fear.

“I’ll pay you for them,” Cola said.

I shoved all my crud in my locker except my nutrition notebook, pencil box, and Two-Taste Teton donuts. Was I willing to part with my special snack? I liked the idea of earning some money. I slammed my locker and stood up.

“How much?” I asked.

But then Cola swiped my donuts right out of my hand.

“Sucker!” Cola said, and he turned around and ran off.

It was a very terrible feeling losing my Two-Taste Teton donuts. That was when I realized something that was a huge bummer. Becoming the school’s grizzly bear mascot hadn’t changed how psycho-bullies treated me. That wonderful dream I’d had of winning mascot and experiencing a complete social transformation, of finding my spot and landing a zillion cool friends, hadn’t happened. I took a deep breath and looked down the crowded hallway. The truth was tough to face. But I was going to have to cheer my butt off before I experienced any social change. Faces blurred past me. Bodies bumped against me. Even though the hall was crammed full of people hurrying to class, I felt lonely. Outside myself it was noise, noise, noise, but inside things felt very quiet.

T
he worst thing about school was that at times, it felt long and boring. Nutrition felt like that when our guest speaker, whose name was Ms. Leonard, discussed strategies for combating hypertension.

“Reduce dietary sodium. Limit your fried potato intake. Walk more.”

And things didn’t get any better when Mrs. Mounds reminded us of her expectations for our collages. “They must be thorough. A picture of everything that enters your mouth for two weeks.”

“Even gum?” asked somebody in the front.

Mrs. Mounds nodded. “Even gum.”

“Can we take pictures?” asked somebody in the middle.

“Yes,” Mrs. Mounds said. “But try to find photographs in magazines and off food labels too. I want us to pay attention to how companies display and sell food to uninformed consumers.”

I blinked at that. Was she calling our class a bunch of uninformed consumers? Maybe that was true of psycho-bully Redge. But not me. Except my mom did buy all the groceries and I rarely read the labels.

After nutrition, English felt long and boring when we took a comprehension exam about our permanent homework and I couldn’t remember if the poem’s fish was old or young. And math felt long and boring when we graded our homework in class and then continued to do mathy things. The one good thing about math class was that I sat next to an interesting person with dimples. Raya Papas. She also happened to be rude.

But I liked her anyway. In fact, I liked rude Raya Papas so much that right before the bell rang, I thought about asking her to Sylvie’s birthday party. I doodled a roller skate on my notebook paper. Maybe deep, deep down, Raya wasn’t that rude. Maybe math was such a cruddy experience for her that it turned her into a jerk for fifty-two minutes every day. Maybe if we met outside of math we’d get along really well. She looked over at me and saw me looking at her.

I sketched the date and time for Sylvie’s party in big block letters. I also wrote the words DISCO/JUNGLE PARTY! Then I printed the name RAYA PAPAS on it. Then I tried to start a conversation.

“Hi,” I said.

Then the bell rang for lunch.

“Bye,” I said.

“Bye,” Raya said, rolling her eyes at me. She sounded a little bored.

I gathered my things in my arms and walked down the hallway toward my locker. And then I got a good idea and I did something very brave. I stalked Raya all the way to her locker. And after she left, I slid the doodled invitation through a ventilation slot. I couldn’t believe it. I’d invited Raya to Sylvie’s disco/jungle party.

Then I hurried to my own locker to meet up with my lunch friends. I felt a little bit bad that I hadn’t invited one of them to Sylvie’s party. But it would have been hard to pick which one. I was lucky. I had a nice group of people to eat lunch with. Annabelle Deeter and her network of friends: Macy Wecker, Dee Hsu, and Lola Rodriguez.

Before I closed my locker, even though I didn’t mean to, I thought of Sylvie. I unzipped my backpack’s front compartment and pulled out my phone. I was excited to see that she’d left me another voice message and texted
me again, but I was worried that I’d get caught listening to my voice mail in the hallway on a banned cell phone. So I just read my text very quickly.

Status check. Are you okay?

But since my principal problems were all her fault, I decided to leave Sylvie in the dark so she could worry more. I turned off my phone, then slammed my locker shut and drifted down the halls looking for Annabelle, Macy, Dee, and Lola. I usually found them near their lockers.

“Hi, Bessica!” Annabelle said. Then she ran up and hugged me, because that was how Annabelle liked to greet people. “You’ll never guess what we learned about in social sciences.”

She said this a lot when I saw her before lunch. I didn’t take social sciences until next semester, so I was never able to guess what she’d learned about.

“We learned that during prehistoric times, dance was used as a form of communication and courtship!” Her eyes were very huge.

“Wow,” I said.

“Isn’t that wild? Next week we’re going to watch a video about Neanderthals. Cool news! What if we learn their dance moves? I’ll teach them to you and you can use them when you’re the mascot!”

Then Annabelle started dancing in the hallway a little bit, which I did not enjoy. Plus, I didn’t really need to learn Neanderthal dance moves, because my unique mascot talent was jumping rope. And if I needed to add some dance moves, Sylvie could teach them to me when I stopped being mad at her.

“Hi, Bessica!” Lola said. She flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder and it made her silver earrings shake. Lola didn’t give me a hug when she saw me. Ever. And that was okay. She was a very thin and serious girl who liked to wear a thick coat of lip gloss, which smeared easily.

“Did Annabelle tell you what we learned about in social sciences?” Lola asked.

I nodded. Sometimes it felt like I was taking an extra class. Because in addition to the six I took for grades, I also learned quite a bit about social sciences. Bleh. Macy and Dee walked up together looking cuter than usual. Macy had her curly red hair pulled back into a jumbo ponytail and was wearing a green shirt that made her green eyes look very bright. And Dee was wearing a puffy shirt that looked like something a pirate would wear, but somehow it also looked cool.

When they joined us they were both so happy that they bounced up and down a little and then we all walked to the cafeteria in a clump. I sort of dreaded our lunch conversations. Because unlike my conversations with Sylvie,
which always involved stuff I wanted to talk about, Annabelle, Macy, Lola, and Dee liked chatting about fashion, and movies, and tap dance. And I didn’t understand fashion. And I forgot movies after I watched them. And I’d only taken one summer session of tap dance with Sylvie and I tried not to think too much about that time in my life. Because back then Sylvie and I were so close we were like sisters. And there was a big part of me that wanted things to go back to that.

After we went through the lunch line we sat down and started eating what they’d put on our trays: boring ham and cheese sandwiches. This was unexpected, because we’d all chosen the hot lunch option. And everything on my tray felt pretty cold.

“What part of this is hot?” I asked.

“The cheese on the inside?” Lola said.

I took my top bread off and touched the cheese with my finger. It felt melted and room temperature. “Maybe at one time.”

Everybody laughed at that. My lunch friends thought I had a pretty good sense of humor.

“Look! Look!” Annabelle whispered as she used her thumbnail to peel open her milk carton. Her voice was urgent and excited, which was normal for Annabelle. “Over by the napkins.”

We all craned our necks to look at the napkins.

“Don’t all look at once!” Annabelle gushed. But she should have told us that first.

“It’s Jasper!”

We all watched as Jasper Finch pulled out a giant wad of napkins.

“He must be a messy eater,” I said. He took thirty times as many napkins as a normal person.

“He wraps his retainer in them,” Annabelle said dreamily.

“Gross,” I said. I was pretty thrilled that all my teeth were basically straight and I didn’t have a biting disorder that required orthodontic intervention.

“We should probably stop staring at Jasper,” Lola said.