Everybody Bugs Out (5 page)

Oliver sat down at a nearby table and we joined him. His mom had left us iced tea, lemonade, and a plate stacked high with three kinds of cookies: chocolate chip, ginger, and oatmeal raisin.

Good choices I thought, except for the oatmeal raisin. Fruit and cookies just don't belong together. I never understood Fig Newtons, either.

Oliver picked up an empty glass and asked, “Which would you like?”

Before I answered, Tobias blurted out, “Lemonade.” Oliver poured it for him.

“What about you, Annabelle?”

“Um, can I have both?”

“Two drinks?” asked Tobias.

“No, I mean half lemonade and half iced tea.”

“That sounds good,” said Oliver. After he made my drink he made himself an identical one.

Meanwhile, I grabbed a ginger cookie and bit into it. “Wow, that's amazing!” I said.

“My mum's specialty,” said Oliver.

“You mean she made this?” I asked, because few things impressed me more than skillful baking.

“Look out, dude!” Tobias yelled.

“What?” asked Oliver.

Tobias pointed to Oliver's arm, where a bug had landed. He raised his hand, about to smash it, when I cried out, “Wait, stop!”

Oliver jumped out of the way and shielded the bug with his free arm. “Back off, that's a ladybug.”

“So what?”

“You can't kill ladybugs,” said Oliver. “It's bad karma.”

“A bug is a bug,” said Tobias.

“Not true. There are a gazillion different types,” I said. “And ladybugs are too cute to smush.”

“Exactly,” said Oliver.

Not every guy would defend the life of a ladybug so zealously, and for that I was grateful. But still wary. I stood up and moved closer for two reasons. One, I wanted to check it out. And two, I felt like I needed to protect the bug from Tobias.

Its shell was more orange than red. Because it didn't move at all it looked dead, but I sensed it was still alive. Maybe it was injured or maybe it had frozen in fear, too scared to fly away. It sure had reason to be. Just moments ago it had almost been smashed. Not that its little bug brain could comprehend that fact. Or maybe it could. What did I know about bug brains? Nothing!

“Here,” I said, and rested my pointer finger on Oliver's arm. “Come on, little guy.”

“It's a ladybug. Not a guy,” said Tobias.

“Figure of speech,” I said, keeping my finger still.

“And I'm sure there are male ladybugs,” Oliver said. He kept his arm up and eventually the bug crawled onto my finger, tickling it ever so slightly.

I carefully raised my finger to Oliver's lips. “Ladybug elevator going up!” I said, then felt embarrassed for cracking such a silly joke.

Tobias rolled his eyes but Oliver actually giggled.

“Okay, make a wish,” I said.

He grinned, closed his eyes, and blew.

“What'd you wish for?” I asked, even though I know you're not supposed to share.

“A first prize idea,” said Oliver.

“You guys are too corny,” Tobias said with a grumble.

“That's it!” said Oliver, opening his eyes.

“Corn?” I asked.

“No, we should do something related to bugs. Unless you're allergic, Tobias.”

I stifled a laugh because I didn't want to upset Tobias. Not when we needed him to agree with us.

Because the more I thought about it, the more brilliant it sounded. No one else I knew had even considered studying bugs. And they were everywhere, so we'd have no trouble finding some to study.

Oliver's cheeks flushed with the pride of knowing he'd come up with it—the perfect science fair project. Or at least the beginning of one …

I took a deep breath and glanced at Tobias. Here's the crazy thing—he was smiling, too.

“That actually sounds cool,” he said. “As long as we find the right experiment.”

“Which won't involve dissecting,” Oliver said.

“Or harming bugs in any way, shape, or form,” I added.

“I know!” said Tobias. “You guys should give me a little more credit.” He picked up one of the books and began flipping through the pages. Oliver read over his shoulder, so I looked down at the second book.

“Are backyard bugs color blind?” Oliver said a few moments later. “And if not, what colors do they prefer?”

I held my breath. This wasn't just a great idea. It was our only idea.

“We could totally do this,” said Tobias. “And I like bugs.”

“I do, too,” I whispered.

Oliver grinned at me. “So it's settled.”

“Awesome! See you nerds later!” Tobias slapped Oliver five and then me, and then he was gone. It was all I could do not to sigh in relief.

“I guess I should get going, too,” I said, looking toward the house.

“If you have to,” said Oliver. “Or we can play some Nerf basketball—'cause you sure could use the practice!”

chapter six

dates

W
hy are you smiling so much when Yumi is perpetually late?” Rachel asked me the next morning.

“Per-what?” I asked.

“
Perpetual
is today's word. It's a fancier way of saying indefinitely, which is a fancier way of saying for a long, long time.”

“Maybe we're perpetually early,” I said. “And you're perpetually stressed out for no good reason.”

“Okay, fine, but that still doesn't explain your chipper mood.”

“Whenever someone says
chipper
I think of chipmunks, which is funny because chipmunks aren't exactly chipper animals, you know?”

I didn't answer Rachel directly because I didn't want her to know that I was thinking about yesterday afternoon at Oliver's. How after Tobias left, we'd played three rounds of Nerf basketball. Then he tried to explain the rules of cricket. Apparently it's just like baseball but totally different. The game has two innings, not nine. Players hit with a paddle rather than a bat. And the ball is smaller and harder than a regular baseball. Also? It's red with white stitching instead of white with red stitching.

I had so much fun, I didn't even mind that Tobias was on our team. Okay, we didn't have Emma's brainpower, which meant we'd have to work extra hard and get super-lucky to win first place, but there was always a chance—and at least we'd have fun.

Rachel looked off in the distance and stomped her foot. “I can't believe she's not here yet!”

“Are you that excited about getting to school?” I asked.

“No,” said Rachel. “I mean yes. Kind of. The thing is—I have big news. It's dance related and I need to wait for Yumi so I don't have to explain twice.”

Just then I wondered if I'd forgotten my math homework. I remembered doing it but not packing it, so I opened up my backpack and pulled out my notebook. Phew! It was all there.

Rachel stared at me. “Don't you want to hear the news?”

“You mean now?” I zipped my backpack closed once more but left it at my feet, since it was heavy and who knew when Yumi would show. “Sure.”

“I'm going to go with Caleb O'Conner.”

“Who?”

Rachel retied her ponytail. “I keep forgetting that you're new and don't know everyone. But you must've seen Caleb. He dresses like one of the surfer dudes and he's got shaggy dark hair that always hangs in his eyes and he's kind of short.”

“You just described half the boys in our grade,” I pointed out.

“I know, but Caleb is the only one who wears tan Ugg boots every single day—even with shorts.”

“You mean Jean-Claude?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“He's in my French class and we only use French names.”

“That must be him,” said Rachel. “He definitely takes French.”

“He's cute!” I said.

“His ears stick out too much,” said Rachel. “But yeah, he's cute.”

“And his accent is very authentic-sounding. That's what our teacher says, anyway. But I thought you were holding out for Erik.”

“I was but the dance is less than four weeks away and I can't wait forever. Anyway, I heard that Erik and Hannah were holding hands at the mall last weekend.”

“Whoa.”

“Exactly,” said Rachel. “So I needed a new plan. And luckily, Caleb saw Claire after school yesterday and he asked her if I had a date yet and she said no. And then he asked her to ask me if I'd be interested in going with him and I told her yes. So now she just has to relay the message.” Rachel checked her watch. “Something that should happen this morning. Which means that if all goes well, I'll have a date by lunchtime.”

“Amazing!” I felt excited for Rachel, but a little worried, too. What if everyone lined up dates before I even figured out whom I wanted to go with? There'd be no guys left.

“Do you think there are more boys or girls in our grade?” I wondered.

“Why do you ask?” Yumi said, sneaking up behind us.

Rachel spun around and yelled, “Finally!”

Yumi scrunched her eyebrows together. “What do you mean? I'm totally early today.”

“She's got news,” I explained.

“You mean about Caleb?” asked Yumi.

“You already know?” Rachel cried.

“Yup. I was at Claire's yesterday. You know, for the science fair thing, and she told me. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” said Rachel.

“Did you guys find a good topic?” I asked.

“Yeah. We're growing plants under—”

Just then Yumi's phone pinged with a new text message. She looked down at it and smiled.

“Who's that?” I asked.

“No one,” said Yumi.

“No one?” asked Rachel.

“Um, just my mom.” Yumi pocketed her phone. “We should get going, right?”

“Sure.” Rachel looked at me with raised eyebrows.

She didn't have to say anything else because we were obviously thinking the very same thing. Yumi texted all the time these days. And something told us it wasn't with her mother.

chapter seven

bugs r us

O
liver's mom picked up me and Tobias and Oliver from school on Friday and took us to Target so we could stock up on supplies for our experiment. Then as soon as we got back to his house we started setting everything up in the backyard.

“Something about getting brand-new stuff for a brand-new project is pretty cool,” said Oliver, tearing open a fresh pack of multicolored construction paper.

“I was just thinking that,” I said. “It's like anything is possible. We might win first prize and we might even turn in the best science fair project in the entire history of Birchwood Middle School.”

“Yeah.” Oliver smiled. “Or maybe we'll make an important discovery in the field of entomology. That's the fancy way of saying ‘the study of bugs.' I looked it up last night.”

“Or we might fail miserably,” said Tobias.

Oliver and I both glared at him.

“What?” He threw up his hands. “It's possible. I mean, I don't really think that'll happen, but it had to be said.”

“It didn't
have
to be said,” I replied.

“Anyway, I thought I could design a cool cover for the report, like with bugs crawling out of the word
entomology
,” said Oliver.

“You could do that?” I asked.

Oliver nodded. “My art teacher said we could focus on the anatomy of the ant during our next couple of sessions.”

“I thought you took stained glass,” I said.

“I do,” said Oliver. “I mean my private art teacher. I've been taking lessons for a couple of years.”

“That's so cool,” I said.

“Know what else would be cool?” said Tobias. “If you two quit jibber jabbering so we could get to work.”

“Jibber jabbering?” I asked. “Really?”

“Let's just start,” said Oliver. “According to the instructions, we're supposed to place six pieces of construction paper on the lawn—each one a different color. And then we just sit back and watch where bugs land.”

“Watch and record so we can compare the data later,” said Tobias. “I think we should do that for two hours at a time. That way we'll get a good sample.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

After some debate over colors, we chose red, blue, yellow, white, black, and green. Then we set them out on the grass. Tobias drew a diagram of the lawn and measured the space between each page so we could reproduce the same conditions every time.

Once he finished, we all sat down in the grass and stared at the paper.

We were searching for patterns. Did certain types of bugs prefer certain colors? If so, which bugs and which colors? Inquiring minds wanted to know—at least at first.

Nothing happened for a while. Then nothing happened some more. Finally a fly landed on the red sheet.

“There's a fly!” said Oliver.

“Duh,” said Tobias, making a mark on the first page of our brand-new notebook.

A few seconds later it flew off and then a roly-poly bug crawled onto the yellow sheet. Next a bee buzzed over to the blue sheet, stopped for a moment, and then moved on.

After about fifteen minutes and a bunch more bug activity, I realized something. “Know what?” I asked.

“Watching bugs is kinda boring,” said Oliver.

“Um, yeah!” I laughed. “Maybe we should just observe for half an hour at a time. I mean, no one said we had to do this for two hours, right?”

“That's the best idea I've heard all day,” said Oliver.

“You two are so cute,” Tobias said in this weird tone of voice, like he was making fun of us except I didn't get the joke. Not exactly, anyway.

“Shut up, dude,” said Oliver.

“Defending your girlfriend?” asked Tobias. “You're too much.”

Just then Oliver tackled Tobias.

Tobias laughed as the two of them wrestled—their bodies tumbling across the lawn, right over our experiment.

“Hey, cut it out! Be careful!” I yelled. But they ignored me. “You're gonna crush the bugs!”

When they finally broke it up, all of our construction paper was wrinkled, and the yellow and green pieces were ripped.

“Aaargh! Now we have to start over!” I said.

“No biggie,” Oliver said with a shrug. “There's plenty of paper.”

Tobias straightened his glasses. “He started it.”

“I don't care,” I said. “Let's just do this.”

We set out the paper again and sat down, and this time we were all business. No one said a word that wasn't related to bug activity. After thirty minutes we picked up the paper, shook off the bugs, and put it away.

Then we had some more ginger cookies and compared our notes.

“I think we need to mention the few bugs that landed on our paper before you guys got into a fight, because Ms. Roberts says we have to keep track of everything—even when things go wrong. That's the only way to get accurate results.”

“But Tobias's lameness has nothing to do with our project,” said Oliver. “And we started over.”

“I think your girlfriend is right,” said Tobias. “We can't start over every time we don't like what happened.”

“I'm choosing to ignore you,” said Oliver.

“About the project or your girlfriend?” asked Tobias.

Omigosh—this was so embarrassing.

“No comment,” said Oliver.

Tobias grinned. “But you're talking to me, and if you're talking to me you're acknowledging me, which means you're not ignoring me. Nor are you denying what I just said.”

“Shut up!” said Oliver.

“Don't fight!” I said. “You guys are wasting time.”

“Okay, but I really think it's okay to start from scratch,” said Oliver.

“Let me look it up,” said Tobias, reaching for Oliver's laptop.

I took another ginger cookie and stole a glance at Oliver. He rolled his eyes as if to say, “Tobias is ridiculous.”

I smiled at him with one side of my mouth.

“Hey, check this out,” Tobias said, spinning the laptop around so we could read the screen. “Remember how Ms. Roberts talked about those websites where you could buy projects?”

“Yup.” I nodded.

“Here's one of the sites.”

We looked at the screen, which read S
CIENCE
F
AIR
P
ROJECT
S
AMPLES
, $49.99. E
VERYTHING
Y
OU
N
EED FOR A
W
INNING
P
ROJECT
.

“That's just some site selling supplies,” I said.

Tobias shook his head. “No, that's what they advertise, but they're really about selling entire projects. Check it out. There's stuff on light, on the solar system, on—this one's cool. It's on animals' sense of smell, and they send you models of different animal noses carved out of soapstone.”

“Are you sure they sell whole projects?” asked Oliver. “That's crazy!”

Tobias nodded. “Apparently some girl at Birchwood bought one of them last year and totally got busted.”

“Who?” asked Oliver.

“Someone my brother knows. He said she got suspended for two weeks.”

“Whoa,” said Oliver.

“Yeah—but I didn't even tell you the worst part. She actually never came back to school.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean she just disappeared. Rumor has it her parents sent her to reform school, but nobody knows for sure.”

Suddenly I got the shivers. Even just looking at the website made me feel guilty, although I hadn't done anything wrong.

Oliver reached over and closed the laptop. “Know what—we shouldn't even be looking at this. What if someone accuses us and they, like, confiscate my laptop and find out we've been on these sites?”

“You watch too many crime shows,” said Tobias.

“Maybe,” said Oliver. “But I don't want to accidentally plagiarize or anything. Let's just agree not to go to that site ever again.”

“Fine with me,” said Tobias.

“Me, too,” I said. I had the same fear—that I'd accidentally copy something illegally. It's just that I was too shy to admit it out loud. That Oliver had, well, it impressed me.

I looked at Oliver. He was going over our notes intently, not noticing me at all, and I couldn't help but stare.

Then suddenly he looked up and grinned. If Tobias saw he would've made fun of us, but luckily he didn't.

I couldn't believe Tobias called me Oliver's girlfriend. It was so totally annoying. I mean, no way could Oliver like me. We were just friends. And yes, he was cute and sweet and, yes, we had a great time together. And okay, fine, I totally looked forward to seeing him and sometimes got shy around him and I spent an hour last night reading about his favorite cricket team, but that didn't mean I liked him. It couldn't.

Unless maybe it did.