Cloudy with a Chance of Boys (13 page)

“At least Alex Reel takes it seriously. At least she knows her lines. Look. Just forget her, okay?” Scott.

“I will if you will.”

“What a snot,” said Alex. “Go back to
The Princess Diaries,
” she called.

“Who says —” Scott Towel.

“Oh, come on. Don’t even try to lie. You wish Alex got the part, don’t you? Just say it.” Jayden.

Silence. Static.

“Say yes, say yes,” said Alex, crossing her fingers.

“Well, I’m sick of her! ‘Ooh, I’m so pretty with my big green eyes’ and ‘Ooh, I’m so into Shakespeare’ and ‘Ooh, I’ve known all the lines since I was, like, four.’ Well, guess what? Mr. Cannon didn’t pick her. He picked me. Deal with it.” Jayden.

Alex leaned back on her feet. “I so do not sound like that,” she said.

Crackle, crackle. Static. White noise.

Alex shook the monitor. “Hey, what’s happening to this thing? Don’t break on me now.”

“Yeah,
crackle,
well,
crackle,
that was in a lake.” Scott.

“And guess what else? You’re going to be kissing me, Romeo,
not
Alex Reel.” Jayden.

The monitor crackled again.

“We’ll cheese a snack.” Scott.

Joey looked at me. I looked at Joey. We both looked at Alex. “Did he just say ‘that was in a lake’?” I asked.

“And ‘we’ll cheese a snack’?” Joey asked. Joey and I busted up laughing. I snorted, and Joey held her sides like they hurt.

“I hope he said, ‘That was a mistake.’ You know, like he thinks picking Jayden was a mistake. And the second part was, maybe, ‘I’ll be right back.’ No wait, I think it was, ‘We’ll see about that.’”

“Wow,” Joey said. “You’re like a master spy who cracked the code.”

“Yeah,” I said to Alex. “Who knew? You speak Scott Towel!”

On Saturday, I came downstairs from reading in bed till almost noon, my favorite weekend thing. It’s rare in our house to have a quiet Saturday morning, and usually Joey jumps on my bed, waking me up by eight o’clock. (Unless Sir Croaks-a-Lot beats her to it.) Today, I hated to leave the warmth of the covers.

I thought I smelled something cooking . . . or was it burning? Maybe it was just the wintry smell of wood smoke from neighboring chimneys. Whatever it was, it did not smell like breakfast.

In the kitchen, Mom had zucchini littered all over the table and countertops and she was talking out loud to herself.

“What’s with the zucchini factory, Mom?”

“Stevie, honey, I’m so glad you’re here. I need your help.”

“Where is everybody?”

“They’re all next door at the theater. Something about a trap door in the floor? Dad wanted to show Joey, and Alex went too.”

“So you started talking to zucchini?”

“Of course not. Just thinking aloud. I’m trying to come up with a recipe for next week’s show. They want me to do a show on healthy foods for kids. So I’m working on a way to get kids to eat zucchini.”

“You’re going to need a magician to get kids to eat zucchini, Mom. The Nutrition Magician!” I couldn’t help cracking up at my own joke.

“The Nutrition Magician?”

“Don’t ask. He came to our school to give an assembly. It’s a long story.”

“Well, I’m no magician, but I thought I’d try out a recipe for zucchini-crust pizza. But as you can see, this one came out with a lake in the middle — see how soggy it is? And this one fell apart completely.”

Mom exhaled loudly, wiping her hands down the sides of her jeans and plopping into a chair. “I just have to sit for a minute. Would you mind grating the rest of this zucchini?”

My mom is an actress turned chef. A.k.a. Fondue Sue. She has a cooking show (even though she’s the world’s worst cook). She recently graduated from Hamburger Helper to Tuna Helper, but it still tasted like tofu. And her chicken Kiev, well, let’s just say it should go back to Ukraine.

I started grating.

“So, what’s new, kiddo?” Mom asked.

I paused. “Is this about detention?” I asked.

“Did I say detention?” Mom asked, holding up her hands defensively.

“Mom, don’t worry. It was no big deal. Honest. Olivia and I were just trying to be nice to some new kid, but we weren’t supposed to be talking during an assembly.”
Grr.
Grate, grate, grate.

“Well, that’s good of you two. What’s her name?”

“Um . . . well . . . actually, it’s a him.”

“A him, huh?” Mom said teasingly.

“It’s
not
like that! Why does everybody — never mind.” I pushed down on the zucchini and grated my knuckle instead. A little bubble of blood appeared.

“Youch. That hurt,” I said, sucking on my thumb to stop the bleeding.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to tease. I didn’t realize this was a sensitive topic. I know this is a tough age, honey, but —”

“Mom. Spare me. Not the ‘tough age’ speech. Can we just
please
not talk about this!” Sheesh. What was wrong with me? I was beginning to sound like Alex. And I was supposed to be the normal one. Middle child. Peacemaker.

“So. Any ideas for my zucchini pizza?” Mom asked, changing the subject.

“Maybe press all of the water out of the zucchini before you mix it up into the crust? And I would bake the crust by itself first, so it hardens, before you put the sauce and cheese and stuff on it.”

“Good idea. I’ll try that.”

“Maybe turn the oven up, too. To four fifty?”

“Okay. Got it. Thanks.”

Done grating, I set the grater down. There was an awkward pause, where the room felt too quiet.

“Well, I better go get a Band-Aid for my thumb.”

“Are you sure everything’s okay, honey?” Mom asked.

“I’m sure,” I said, even though inside I felt a little shaky.

Upstairs, the house was quiet. It was rare to have the house (almost) to myself. I walked past Alex’s room on my way to the medicine cabinet. I paused, listened. Just familiar kitchen sounds, of Mom opening cupboards, running water, clinking dishes.

Without thinking, I ducked into Alex’s room and hurried over to her dresser. Before I even realized what I was doing, I yanked open the third drawer, rifled through her pile of T-shirts, and dug out the black shirt. The one. The one Joey and I had discovered the other day.

Grabbing the shirt, I peered out the doorway of her room, looking both ways down the hallway to make sure the coast was clear. Then I quickly rushed into my room and shut the door.

I yanked off the
LIFE’S A BEACH
shirt I wear to sleep in, unfolded the other, and pulled it over my head. What was I doing?

I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see it in the bathroom mirror. But what if Alex came back and found me out? I pulled my fuzzy robe off the hook and put it on over the shirt, dashed down the hall into the bathroom, and locked the door.

I took off the robe. Turned on the light. Stared at myself in the mirror.

The Girl in Black.

A basket of tub toys from when we were little still sat on the corner shelf over the radiator. Purple hippo. Toy boat. Mostly Joey’s old rubber ducky collection. It seemed like forever ago since Joey and I had taken baths, drawing with crayons on the tub walls.

An army of blue, green, and red devil duckies with horns stared at me accusingly.

“What are you looking at?” I said aloud. “I should have burned you in the fire,” I told the red one. So there.

I tugged at my hair, brushed my bangs down almost over my eyes. I turned to the left, turned to the right, looking at myself from every angle — front, side, other side. I made pouty-lips. I made a tough-girl face.

I hardly recognized myself.

Who was this girl who stared back at me in the bluish bright light of the bathroom?

Is this what it felt like to try out for a role in a play, to get to be somebody else? To imagine yourself as other than what you were?

Is this what it felt like to be Alex?

To be grown up? A teenager? Someone who liked boys?

My pulse quickened. I felt secret and alone. I felt a little bit daring, like the kind of girl you’d find in Bad-Girl Detention.

A knock on the bathroom door made me jump out of my skin.

“Stevie? Are you in there? Can you come out so I can ask you a question?”

Holy tamale! Mom!

I cast around, looking for my robe, threw it back on over the shirt, tied the belt, and opened the door.

“What’s up?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Stevie? What are you wearing?” Mom asked pointedly.

I clasped the collar of the bathrobe together with one hand. What . . . how . . . Had she seen?

“Honey, are you sure everything’s okay? What are you doing in your bathrobe in the middle of the day? It’s almost one o’clock. Don’t you want to go over to the theater with the others? What’s Olivia doing today?”

“Mom — you had a question?”

“How many eggs do you think I should use to hold the crust together?”

“How about if I come down and help you?” I suggested sweetly. “Just give me two minutes.”

One minute to put the shirt back where it belonged. Hidden. Safe.

And one minute to come back to being Stevie again.

Sunlight streamed through the windows of Mr. Petry’s classroom, casting the whole room in a curious yellow. It had been sunshiny now for three days in a row, but I still felt myself squinting in the bright light after so many days of gloom. Mom said this morning it was like breaking free of a Dickens novel.