Ghost of a Chance (14 page)

I open up to a fresh page in my notebook, then pick up my pencil, but there's really nothing for me to write. Where are the kids, anyway? Shouldn't they be here already?

Micah sits down and keeps playing with his homemade ball.

Bounce.

Bounce.

Crinkle.

Bounce.

Micah keeps bouncing, until the paper bounces off his hand and hits me in the head.

“Ow!” I say automatically. It's not that it really hurt that much. It was just kind of annoying.

“Sorry.” Micah shrugs and gets up to retrieve the paper from the floor.

Madison laughs. “That was hilarious.”

“You should be more careful,” Brandon says to Micah. He turns to me. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I manage. “I'm fine.”

“You have a cut on your forehead,” Madison points out helpfully, then wrinkles her nose in distaste.

“I do?” My hand flies to my forehead, and I'm half expecting to come away with a handful of blood. But there's nothing.

“It's not a cut,” Brandon says, giving Madison a dirty look. He turns back to me. “It's just a scratch. You can't even really see it.”

“Thanks,” I say.

He looks at me and his face softens, like maybe he's going to say something else. But then he just nods and turns his attention back to Micah. “You need to stop doing
that,” he says. “We're supposed to be setting a good example for the kids.”

Micah gives him a cocky grin and then bounces the paper again. Brandon reaches out, grabs the ball out of the air, and then throws it into the garbage. Wow. Things are getting tense around here.

Micah stares at him, like he can't believe Brandon just did that.
I
can't really believe Brandon just did that. It was so . . .
manly
. Was Brandon sticking up for me? And if so, does that mean he might still like me?

And then, like some kind of sign from God, I spot Mrs. Dunham lurking over by a shelf of biographies.

“Oh my God!” I say giddily. I've never been so happy to see her in my life. Mrs. Dunham wouldn't be here if she didn't want to keep an eye on me. And the only reason she has ever wanted to keep an eye on me is so she can make sure I stay away from Brandon. Does that mean Brandon and I have a chance? Does that mean he still might like me a little? He wouldn't have yelled at Micah if he didn't still like me a little, right?

“What?” Madison asks.

“Nothing,” I say.

“God, you are so weird.” She shakes her head and rolls her eyes, then grabs a strand of her hair and starts looking for split ends.

“Give me back my paper ball,” Micah demands. He
reaches across the table, like he's waiting for Brandon to put it back in his hand. Which is ridiculous, since Brandon threw it into the garbage. He can't give it back.

“No,” Brandon says. He rolls his eyes, like Micah is acting crazy. Which he is.

“You better get me that paper back, or I'm going to—”

But the rest of Micah's threat is cut off by the sound of a million screaming voices entering the library. The children have arrived.

*  *  *

So it turns out it wasn't a million children. It was more like twenty-five of them. I had no idea twenty-five children could make that much noise, but they can. Anyway, twenty-five children seems like a lot to me, but apparently it's not what Mr. Jacobi was hoping for.

“This isn't what was supposed to happen,” he says, looking down at his paper in dismay. “We were supposed to have more children.”

He's all freaked out because now each group is going to have to share a single child, instead of each of us getting assigned our own.

Which is actually better. Because this way it will be a lot less work. “Hello,” our kid says as she sits down at our table. She has blond hair and cornflower-blue eyes, and her hair is pulled back into two beautiful pigtails that have the
perfect amount of curl at the bottom. Her skin is clean and shiny.

I look around at the rest of the library. Children are running around and causing all kinds of chaos. At the table next to us, a boy grabs a stuffed dog off one of the library shelves and starts to pretend it's peeing on chair legs. Yikes.

I turn back to the little girl sitting next to me. She crosses her legs and folds her hands on the table in front of her, all prim and proper. I breathe a sigh of relief that we got her and not one of those hooligans.

“What's your name, sweetie?” I ask.

“Vivienne.”

“What a beautiful name.”

“Thank you very much.” This girl is an angel! I am definitely going to be her favorite tutor, I can already tell. I'll be like the older sister she never had. No way she's going to be bonding with Madison. In fact, Madison already looks bored. She has pulled a magazine out of her backpack and is flipping through the pages. Talk about not wanting to make a lasting impression on the youth of today.

“So what is it you need help with, Vivienne?” Brandon asks her nicely.

Micah isn't even looking at Vivienne. He has taken another piece of paper and turned it into a new bouncing
ball. Every few seconds he takes his eye off his bouncing and looks over at Brandon, like he's waiting for a reaction from him. But Brandon's not biting.

“I don't really need any help,” Vivienne says.

How cute! She's, like, afraid we're going to be inconvenienced by helping her.

“It's okay, honey,” I tell her. “That's what we're here for.”

She sighs and sort of scrunches up her lips. Then her eyes fall on Madison's magazine. “Is that the new
SMOOCH
?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Madison says without looking up.

“My dad owns that magazine.”

Madison's eyes flick up and shine with the tiniest bit of interest. “I seriously doubt it.”

Vivienne shrugs.

“Um, so do you have your math book with you?” I ask. Mr. Jacobi is starting to wander through the library, stopping at each table to see how things are going. The last thing I need is for him to think I'm not doing anything.

“No.” Vivienne shrugs again. “I hate math.”

“Oh, I'm sure that's not true,” I say. “You probably just don't understand it. I used to not like math either, until . . .” I trail off. Because the truth is, I hated math until Brandon and I got together and he started helping me. And it's not as though I really like it all that much
now, either, but at least I don't dread it the way I used to. Of course, now that Brandon and I have broken up, there's nothing to look forward to when it comes to math. Just lots of long problems.

“I. HATE. MATH,” Vivienne says.

“So I know you don't have your book with you,” Brandon says, “but do you at least have your homework?”

Vivienne sighs like it's some kind of big imposition, then reaches into her bag and pulls out her worksheet. I guess you can't judge a book by its cover. This girl is crazy.

“Okay,” Brandon says, nodding as he looks it over. “Fractions. This should be pretty easy.”

Madison rolls her eyes. “Ew,” she says. “Fractions are so useless. It's, like, what are you going to use them for?” She flicks a page in her magazine and tilts her head to the side. “Of course, you can use it to estimate calories when you're only having half a serving of something.”

My mouth drops. Is Madison really telling our student that the only thing fractions are good for is making sure you're not eating too many calories? That's ridiculous, not to mention that she really should not be encouraging a nine-year-old to eat less than one serving of anything. That's how little kids end up with eating disorders. It really is a problem facing our country. It's like we're so evolved in some ways, and so not in others, you know?

But if Vivienne is upset by this, she doesn't show it. She
just nods her head. “I never eat a full serving of anything. Unless it's my protein bar after Pilates. Those are good for muscle repair.”

Madison nods, agreeing, and then turns another page.

Brandon and I look at each other across the table, and I can tell we're both thinking the same thing. Madison and Micah are going to be no help at all. I mean, Madison's totally tuned out, and Micah has moved on from bouncing his paper ball to playing soccer with it. Seriously, he's trying to kick it in between two stacks of books, like they're goalposts or something.

“So, why don't we start on the worksheet?” Brandon tries. “Since that's why you're here.”

“No, thanks,” Vivienne says sweetly, like that's the end of that.

“Come on,” he says, giving her a little grin. “Don't you want to get your homework done?”

“Homework is overrated,” she says. “My dad owns a huge media empire, and so I'm already going to be rich. I'm, like, an heiress. You know, like Paris Hilton? So I really don't need any skills.” She sighs and then reaches up to smooth her hair. And that's when I see she's wearing a Michael Kors watch. A Michael Kors watch! The same one Madison has, in fact. Do you know how much those things cost? Like two or three hundred dollars. And she's
nine
.

I suddenly realize the library has gotten a lot less
loud. Instead of the boisterous sounds of children running around and chattering excitedly, all I hear now is the soft murmur of voices as the kids work on their homework. Even the boy who was pretending the stuffed dog was peeing on everything has settled down and is working happily.

Mr. Jacobi is just a couple of tables away now. He's beaming down at everyone, like he's personally responsible for everything being a success. Which it isn't, really. I mean, he completely overestimated how many tutors he was going to need. But whatever.

“If you work on your worksheet now,” I say sweetly, “then tonight, when you get home from school, you won't have to do it.”

“I won't have to do it anyway,” Vivienne says, her fingers flying over her phone as she texts. I look around wildly for a teacher. Shouldn't someone take her phone away from her? I find it very hard to believe that this is how kids are allowed to act in elementary school.

“Of course you will,” Brandon says, still keeping his patience. “It's your homework.”

“So what? No one cool does their homework. Like, at all.”

Unfortunately, this is kind of true. A lot of the popular kids at my school either don't hand in their homework or just have someone else do it for them. I wonder if I
should start lecturing Vivienne about the importance of getting your work done and behaving in a manner that has integrity.

“I'm cool, and I do my homework,” I say.

Across the table Madison snorts and then flips a page of her magazine.

“If you do your homework, you'll be able to get good grades,” Brandon points out to Vivienne. “And if you get good grades, you'll be able to go to college and be whatever you want. Maybe you'll be a famous mathematician.”

Vivienne's eyes are starting to glaze over. She looks away and begins to study her nails. Wow. I can't believe a nine-year-old has a gel manicure. I've always wanted a gel manicure, but they're way more expensive than the regular ones. Plus Micah's mom's salon doesn't offer them. I wonder if I should bring that up to her. I don't think their business is doing too well. And even though Micah is a big pain in the butt, I do like his mom, Sharon. She's always been really nice to me.

I sigh. This day is a huge disaster.

I don't know what to do. Brandon shrugs, like he's out of ideas.

“Or you could become a famous publicist or something,” I say. “And you could, like, tour with boy bands. Doing all their publicity. And you'd get super-rich and get to meet them all.”

Vivienne perks up for a minute, but then she shakes her head. “I told you, I don't have to go to college,” she says. “I have a trust fund. And if I want to meet famous people, all I have to do is ask my dad. He's probably going to get One Direction to play at my thirteenth birthday party.”

I want to tell her that by the time she's thirteen, One Direction will be completely over, and
anyone
will be able to get them to play at their party, so she shouldn't feel all special. But then I notice Mr. Jacobi leaving the table next to us and moving toward ours.

Vivienne's paper is completely blank. Great. I rack my brains, trying to come up with something,
anything
, that might get Vivienne to do her work.

“Listen,” Madison says, snapping her magazine shut. She leans forward across the table toward Vivienne, so close that their noses are almost touching. Vivienne looks taken aback. I'm taken aback too. I mean, it's pretty aggressive. “I am not going to fail math just because you're too lazy to do some dumb fractions worksheet with”—her eyes flutter down to the paper—“ten stupid problems. Suck it up and do it.”

Vivienne narrows her eyes back at Madison. She's obviously not used to being talked to like this. “No,” she says. And then, just in case we forgot she's only nine and still a child, she adds, “And you can't make me.”

Madison's lips scrunch up into a little smile. It's actually pretty scary. And then I realize there's no way that Vivienne is a match for Madison. I mean, think about it. Madison has had
years
of practicing her brattiness. No way she's going to be taken down by a nine-year-old.

“Do your homework,” Madison says, “and I'll let you read my magazine.”

Vivienne's eyes widen. That magazine is like some kind of forbidden fruit to her. It's so weird how parents are always telling their kids not to do things, when if they were smart, they'd realize that keeping their kid away from something just makes the kid want it more.

“You'll let me read it?” Vivienne asks, considering.

“No, I'll let you
have
it,” Madison says. She leans back and crosses her hands on top of the magazine. “Then you can show all your little friends.”